Catacomb saints

In response, the Vatican ordered that thousands of skeletons be exhumed from the catacombs beneath the city and installed in towns throughout Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Few, if any, of the corpses belonged to people of any religious significance; though, given their burial, some may have been early Christian martyrs.

[3] Though selling the relics would have been considered simony, enterprising church officials still managed to raise funds while countering the iconoclasm by charging for transportation, decoration, induction and blessing.

[citation needed] In 1803, the secular magistrate of Rottenbuch in Bavaria auctioned the town's two saints.

[2] Paul Koudounaris revived interest in the catacomb saints with his 2013 book Heavenly Bodies.