The most frequently venerated relic of Beckett was the water in which his brains and blood had been washed, which was endlessly diluted.

Hello, I'm Neil McGregor, and in this series of podcasts, I'm looking at objects to see how shared beliefs have helped shape societies.

Now we're focusing on the theatre of faith,

exploring the public ceremonies

where whole communities come together

to sacrifice and to celebrate.

In this episode, we're on the move.

We've become pilgrims.

This is the BBC.

Bold was her face and fair and red of hue.

She was a worthy woman all her life.

Husbands at the church door had she five.

Of all the pilgrims in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales,

the wife of Bath is surely the liveliest,

and she would certainly have been the best company.

Most of the pilgrims have a fund of bawdy stories, but the wife of Bath is by far the raunchiest,

a figure out of a 14th century sex and the city. She is also by far the most widely travelled

to the company. The list of places that she has visited offers us a spiritual

map of late 14th century Europe, her geography determined almost entirely by relics and by pilgrimage.

Thrice had she been at Jerusalem. She had passed many a strange stream. At Rome she had been

and at Boulogne, in Gal Galise at St James and at Cologne.

These were the great sights of the known world, the sacred spaces par excellence.

...