The international and cooperative research group RELICS studies historical literatures and the dynamics that shape a common, European literary identity. We see this literary identity as particularly negotiated through languages that reached a cosmopolitan status due to fixed schooling systems (Latin, Greek and Arabic), and in their interaction with vernacular literatures. From a diachronic perspective, we aim to seek unity within the ever more diverse, literary Europe, from the first to the eighteenth century, i.e. from the beginning of (institutionally organized) education in the cosmopolitan language to the rise of more national oriented education. Within this context, relics are elements from a literary past, as preserved in the canons, to which different periods and literatures ascribed varying values and interpretations. The metaphor, hereby, reflects the researchers’ aim to transgress national boundaries and search for a European literary identity.