Rome had, from the earliest times, an inexhaustible stock of relics in the Catacombs, which served for the use of the whole Christian world. By one of the canons issued by the fifth Council of Carthage, it was decreed that no church should be consecrated until some well-authenticated relics had been placed beneath the altar. In after-days, it was further required that there should be relics visible at each entrance to the church, on the diptychs fastened to the chapel walls, in the sacraria, in a number of the private oratories, and even on the cover of the books of the mass. This continual removal of relics from one country to another gave rise to many imposing and touching ceremonies. St. Chrysostom has related, in one of his homilies, all the details concerning the translation of the relics of St. Ignatius, who suffered martyrdom at Rome, to his episcopal residence at Antioch, amidst a vast assemblage of the faithful. From the seventh century the removal of relics became more and more frequent, and the number of pilgrimages increased accordingly. Sometimes the relics were those of unknown saints. When Pope Boniface IV. (606) was about to dedicate to the Holy Virgin, and to all the martyrs or confessors, the Pantheon of Agrippa, by transforming it into a church, to be called Sancta Maria Rotunda, he caused to be conveyed thither thirty-two chariot loads of bones, taken from the Catacombs. Pope Pascal I. (817) also deposited a vast quantity of saints’ bones in the Church of St. Praxeas at Rome, previous to consecrating it. The names of these saints were not known, but the authenticity of their remains and of their claims to veneration were verified before the ceremony, by a committee appointed for that purpose. Illustration: Fig. 282.--Henry I., Emperor of Germany, and one of his Generals, Gautier Von der Hoye.--Equestrian statues in bronze, cast in 948 by order of the Emperor, and placed in the Church of Our Lady at Maurkirchen (Austria), in commemoration of his victory over the Huns. These statues, destroyed in a fire, were re-cast in plaster and placed on the same spot, where they were visible until June 27th, 1865, when the church was burnt to the ground.--After a Woodcut from a work called “Thurnier-Buch,” in gothic folio: printed at Siemern in 1530.]