![This is what the Marian shrine in Oberbüren may have looked like: led by altar boys with cross and banners, and clergymen in surplices, the faithful move forward in procession. Diebold Schilling, Eidgenössische Chronik.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/prozession-titel-300x225.jpg)
Risen from the dead
At the Marian shrine of Oberbüren (Canton of Bern), the medieval Catholic Church offered some very special services: children who were stillborn or had died at birth were briefly brought back to life so that they could be baptised and then properly buried.
![Büren an der Aare, Oberbüren: Detail of the map by Conrad Türst, around 1496.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/karte-bueren-300x166.png)
![Reconstruction of the Marian shrine in Oberbüren.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/rekonstruktion-buren-300x200.jpg)
![Pilgrim badge made from cast lead](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/brosche-maria-buren-221x300.jpg)
![Remains of walls of the ‘priest’s house’ with children’s skeletons, discovered during excavations.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/grabung-mauer-bueren-249x300.jpg)
![Infant skeletons at the site.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/graeber-bueren-249x300.jpg)
coveted. cared for. martyred. Bodies in the Middle Ages
There were conflicting perspectives of the human body during the Middle Ages: it was glorified, suppressed, cared for and chastised. The exhibition features many loaned exhibits from within and outside Switzerland to explore how the human body was viewed during the Middle Ages from a cultural history perspective, thereby also raising some questions about how we perceive the human body today.