Kenneth Baxter Wolf
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195158083
- eISBN:
- 9780199834877
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195158083.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, History of Christianity
The unusually high regard with which Saint Francis of Assisi is held has served to insulate him from any real criticism of the kind of sanctity that he embodied: a sanctity based, first and foremost, ...
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The unusually high regard with which Saint Francis of Assisi is held has served to insulate him from any real criticism of the kind of sanctity that he embodied: a sanctity based, first and foremost, on his deliberate pursuit of poverty. This book offers a critique of Francis's “holy poverty” by considering its ironic relationship to the ordinary poverty of the poor. While Francis's emphasis on voluntary poverty as the first step toward spiritual regeneration may have opened the door to salvation for wealthy Christians like himself, it effectively precluded the idea that the poor could use their own involuntary poverty as a path to heaven. In marked contrast to Francis's poverty, theirs was more likely to be seen by contemporaries as a symptom of moral turpitude. Moreover, Francis's experiment in poverty had a potentially negative effect on the level of almsgiving directed toward the involuntary poor. Not only did the Franciscan abhorrence of money prevent the friars from assuming any significant role in alleviating urban poverty but their own mendicant lifestyle also put them in direct competition with the other kind of beggars for the charitable donations of the urban elite. Though this work focuses on the idea of “holy poverty” as it appears in the earliest hagiographical accounts of the saint as well as Francis's own writings, its implications for the relationship between poverty as a spiritual discipline and poverty as a socioeconomic affliction extend to Christianity as a whole.Less
The unusually high regard with which Saint Francis of Assisi is held has served to insulate him from any real criticism of the kind of sanctity that he embodied: a sanctity based, first and foremost, on his deliberate pursuit of poverty. This book offers a critique of Francis's “holy poverty” by considering its ironic relationship to the ordinary poverty of the poor. While Francis's emphasis on voluntary poverty as the first step toward spiritual regeneration may have opened the door to salvation for wealthy Christians like himself, it effectively precluded the idea that the poor could use their own involuntary poverty as a path to heaven. In marked contrast to Francis's poverty, theirs was more likely to be seen by contemporaries as a symptom of moral turpitude. Moreover, Francis's experiment in poverty had a potentially negative effect on the level of almsgiving directed toward the involuntary poor. Not only did the Franciscan abhorrence of money prevent the friars from assuming any significant role in alleviating urban poverty but their own mendicant lifestyle also put them in direct competition with the other kind of beggars for the charitable donations of the urban elite. Though this work focuses on the idea of “holy poverty” as it appears in the earliest hagiographical accounts of the saint as well as Francis's own writings, its implications for the relationship between poverty as a spiritual discipline and poverty as a socioeconomic affliction extend to Christianity as a whole.
Philip Wood
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199588497
- eISBN:
- 9780191595424
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199588497.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Asian and Middle Eastern History: BCE to 500CE
This book examines the effects of Christianization upon regional identity and political thought in the eastern Mediterranean in the fifth and sixth centuries. Itfocuses on the centrifugal effects of ...
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This book examines the effects of Christianization upon regional identity and political thought in the eastern Mediterranean in the fifth and sixth centuries. Itfocuses on the centrifugal effects of foundation myths, especially within the Syriac‐speaking world. These myths produced a sense of cultural independence, peculiar to Syria and Mesopotamia, and this in turn provided the basis for a more radical challenge to the Roman emperor, during the turbulent Christological controversies of the sixth century. The book begins by examining how bishops and emperors could use Christianity to manage and control local religious behaviour, before turning to the rich evidence from the city of Edessa, and its Syriac legends of early kings and missionaries, to investigate how the connection between religion and cultural independence worked within the Christian Roman empire. At a time when Jews in the Roman world were increasingly differentiated by religion and custom, this book investigates how far Edessenes and other Syriac‐speakers were consciously members of a distinctive group. The argument continues by discussing the transformation of this cultural legacy in the sixth century, when the hagiographies of bishops such as John of Ephesus began to invoke local belief and culture in Mesopotamia as an ancient orthodoxy, that made Edessa or Mesopotamia a chosen land, preserving true belief at a time when the rest of the empire had gone astray. For these authors, the emperor's ruler was conditional on his obedience to Christ, the true ruler of all.Less
This book examines the effects of Christianization upon regional identity and political thought in the eastern Mediterranean in the fifth and sixth centuries. Itfocuses on the centrifugal effects of foundation myths, especially within the Syriac‐speaking world. These myths produced a sense of cultural independence, peculiar to Syria and Mesopotamia, and this in turn provided the basis for a more radical challenge to the Roman emperor, during the turbulent Christological controversies of the sixth century. The book begins by examining how bishops and emperors could use Christianity to manage and control local religious behaviour, before turning to the rich evidence from the city of Edessa, and its Syriac legends of early kings and missionaries, to investigate how the connection between religion and cultural independence worked within the Christian Roman empire. At a time when Jews in the Roman world were increasingly differentiated by religion and custom, this book investigates how far Edessenes and other Syriac‐speakers were consciously members of a distinctive group. The argument continues by discussing the transformation of this cultural legacy in the sixth century, when the hagiographies of bishops such as John of Ephesus began to invoke local belief and culture in Mesopotamia as an ancient orthodoxy, that made Edessa or Mesopotamia a chosen land, preserving true belief at a time when the rest of the empire had gone astray. For these authors, the emperor's ruler was conditional on his obedience to Christ, the true ruler of all.
Vasiliki M. Limberis
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199730889
- eISBN:
- 9780199895229
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199730889.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Early Christian Studies
This book examines the cult of the martyrs in the writings of the Cappadocian Fathers: Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus. Chapter 1 analyzes the complex rituals of the ...
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This book examines the cult of the martyrs in the writings of the Cappadocian Fathers: Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus. Chapter 1 analyzes the complex rituals of the panegyris, the martyr festival, as a transformative event by which the faithful experience the martyr’s holiness. How they employ the martyrs in preaching, in organizational protocols, in Scriptural exegesis, and in their call to Christian morality all show their own profound devotion to martyr piety and their evangelical zeal in promoting the cult of the martyrs. Chapter 2 examines the Cappadocians’ deployment of rhetorical description, ekphrasis, to advance the cult of the martyrs ritually, spiritually, and materially. Gregory of Nyssa’s ekphrasis for St. Theodore incited the faithful to participate in ritual transformation. Such materiality is brought to bear in Nyssen’s other ekphrasis describing difficulties in building a martyrium. The chapter compares Nyssen’s martyrium to the extant ruins of the martyrium of St. Philip in Hierapolis, giving an imaginative glimpse at the spectacular structures the Cappadocians funded. Chapter 3 introduces the Cappadocians and their families through a discussion of the ways kinship occurred in fourth-century Cappadocia: marriage and birth, monasticism, and martyr piety. Kinship obligations provided the means for the Cappadocians to successfully claim certain martyrs as their ancestral kin and to turn some of their family members into martyrs within a few years of their deaths. Chapter 4 deals with the Cappadocians’ utilization, manipulation, and preaching about both genders in their martyr panegyrics that contrasts sharply with their articulation of gender in their family panegyrics.Less
This book examines the cult of the martyrs in the writings of the Cappadocian Fathers: Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus. Chapter 1 analyzes the complex rituals of the panegyris, the martyr festival, as a transformative event by which the faithful experience the martyr’s holiness. How they employ the martyrs in preaching, in organizational protocols, in Scriptural exegesis, and in their call to Christian morality all show their own profound devotion to martyr piety and their evangelical zeal in promoting the cult of the martyrs. Chapter 2 examines the Cappadocians’ deployment of rhetorical description, ekphrasis, to advance the cult of the martyrs ritually, spiritually, and materially. Gregory of Nyssa’s ekphrasis for St. Theodore incited the faithful to participate in ritual transformation. Such materiality is brought to bear in Nyssen’s other ekphrasis describing difficulties in building a martyrium. The chapter compares Nyssen’s martyrium to the extant ruins of the martyrium of St. Philip in Hierapolis, giving an imaginative glimpse at the spectacular structures the Cappadocians funded. Chapter 3 introduces the Cappadocians and their families through a discussion of the ways kinship occurred in fourth-century Cappadocia: marriage and birth, monasticism, and martyr piety. Kinship obligations provided the means for the Cappadocians to successfully claim certain martyrs as their ancestral kin and to turn some of their family members into martyrs within a few years of their deaths. Chapter 4 deals with the Cappadocians’ utilization, manipulation, and preaching about both genders in their martyr panegyrics that contrasts sharply with their articulation of gender in their family panegyrics.
Sylvia Huot
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199252121
- eISBN:
- 9780191719110
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199252121.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Early and Medieval Literature
This book examines the literary representation of madness in a series of medieval French texts, including both romance and hagiography. The study covers both ‘genuine’ madmen and ‘holy fools’, for ...
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This book examines the literary representation of madness in a series of medieval French texts, including both romance and hagiography. The study covers both ‘genuine’ madmen and ‘holy fools’, for whom madness is actually a veil for penance or sanctity. Madness afflicts the greatest heroes of the Arthurian world — Lancelot and Tristan — as well as numerous other chivalric figures. Overall, medieval French texts depict a wide range of attitudes towards madness: it may reflect nobility and refinement, heroic or spiritual transcendence, tragic impairment, comic ineptitude, or sinful degradation. The examination of these texts allows for the study of how and why madness is used as a literary motif; how the concept of madness interacts with other categories of difference, such as class and gender, in producing or problematising personal identity; and how different treatments of madness may be associated with different literary genres. The motif of madness is also compared to forms of bodily deviance, such as lycanthropy and somnambulism, in an analysis of the ways that identity is crafted in medieval texts through the joint crafting of mind and body. Texts examined include the Prose Lancelot, the Prose Tristan, Amadas et Ydoine, Robert le Diable, the Miracles de St. Louis, and assorted other devotional and courtly texts.Less
This book examines the literary representation of madness in a series of medieval French texts, including both romance and hagiography. The study covers both ‘genuine’ madmen and ‘holy fools’, for whom madness is actually a veil for penance or sanctity. Madness afflicts the greatest heroes of the Arthurian world — Lancelot and Tristan — as well as numerous other chivalric figures. Overall, medieval French texts depict a wide range of attitudes towards madness: it may reflect nobility and refinement, heroic or spiritual transcendence, tragic impairment, comic ineptitude, or sinful degradation. The examination of these texts allows for the study of how and why madness is used as a literary motif; how the concept of madness interacts with other categories of difference, such as class and gender, in producing or problematising personal identity; and how different treatments of madness may be associated with different literary genres. The motif of madness is also compared to forms of bodily deviance, such as lycanthropy and somnambulism, in an analysis of the ways that identity is crafted in medieval texts through the joint crafting of mind and body. Texts examined include the Prose Lancelot, the Prose Tristan, Amadas et Ydoine, Robert le Diable, the Miracles de St. Louis, and assorted other devotional and courtly texts.
Richard Sharpe
- Published in print:
- 1991
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198215820
- eISBN:
- 9780191678219
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198215820.003.0011
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Medieval History, History of Religion
The body of texts under examination is so large that it is not possible to attempt an item-by-item analysis of the textual evidence for the whole of the three collections. As each Life is studied, ...
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The body of texts under examination is so large that it is not possible to attempt an item-by-item analysis of the textual evidence for the whole of the three collections. As each Life is studied, new points will perhaps emerge about the textual relationships between the different recensions for particular texts. Although Revd Charles Plummer discussed his comparisons of the several versions, Life by Life, it is not possible to learn from that discussion to what extent the different compilers copied their sources verbatim. For a large number of Lives, a comparison of the various versions shows only how a source text was manipulated in the hands of the redactors of D and O. While each individual vita has still to be fitted into its place in the history of hagiography in Ireland, the study of the compilers will allow us to improve on the previous very sketchy outline of Latin hagiography in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.Less
The body of texts under examination is so large that it is not possible to attempt an item-by-item analysis of the textual evidence for the whole of the three collections. As each Life is studied, new points will perhaps emerge about the textual relationships between the different recensions for particular texts. Although Revd Charles Plummer discussed his comparisons of the several versions, Life by Life, it is not possible to learn from that discussion to what extent the different compilers copied their sources verbatim. For a large number of Lives, a comparison of the various versions shows only how a source text was manipulated in the hands of the redactors of D and O. While each individual vita has still to be fitted into its place in the history of hagiography in Ireland, the study of the compilers will allow us to improve on the previous very sketchy outline of Latin hagiography in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
Tony K. Stewart
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195392722
- eISBN:
- 9780199777327
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195392722.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Hinduism
In the early 16th c., Bengali brahmin Kṛṣṇa Caitanya (1476–1533) inspired a community of Kṛṣṇa worshipers in Bengal, Orissa, and Vraja. This study examines the ways those devotees came to be unified ...
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In the early 16th c., Bengali brahmin Kṛṣṇa Caitanya (1476–1533) inspired a community of Kṛṣṇa worshipers in Bengal, Orissa, and Vraja. This study examines the ways those devotees came to be unified through the intervention of a Sanskrit and Bengali hagiography, the Caitanya caritāmṛta of Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja. Devotees thought Caitanya to be god, Kṛṣṇa, and eventually saw in him an unusual form of divine androgyny, Kṛṣṇa fused with his consort Rādhā. His many Sanskrit and Bengali hagiographies depict scattered independent groups, each proposing a different theology and practice. Kṛṣṇadāsa’s hagiography sought to synthesize these disparate positions into a unified tradition by deploying a sophisticated rhetoric that would hierarchize theology, standardize ritual, and fix literary canon. This is a study of how Kṛṣṇadāsa, in the absence of any institutional authority, synthesized a uniquely Bengali Vaiṣṇava tradition. In the early 17th c., three devotees, led by brahmin Śrīnivāsa, carried the Caitanya caritāmṛta back to Bengal from Vraja. Within a decade of losing and then recovering the text, this trio placed copies in the hands of every Vaiṣṇava in Bengal and Orissa. The literary practices surrounding the circulation established the text as the final word by fixing a grammar of tradition, by which communities could continually replicate the original experience of Caitanya’s presence, by interpreting their own as a fractal history. So persuasive was this single document that today it has assumed iconic status, even taking its place on the altar alongside images of Kṛṣṇa and Caitanya.Less
In the early 16th c., Bengali brahmin Kṛṣṇa Caitanya (1476–1533) inspired a community of Kṛṣṇa worshipers in Bengal, Orissa, and Vraja. This study examines the ways those devotees came to be unified through the intervention of a Sanskrit and Bengali hagiography, the Caitanya caritāmṛta of Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja. Devotees thought Caitanya to be god, Kṛṣṇa, and eventually saw in him an unusual form of divine androgyny, Kṛṣṇa fused with his consort Rādhā. His many Sanskrit and Bengali hagiographies depict scattered independent groups, each proposing a different theology and practice. Kṛṣṇadāsa’s hagiography sought to synthesize these disparate positions into a unified tradition by deploying a sophisticated rhetoric that would hierarchize theology, standardize ritual, and fix literary canon. This is a study of how Kṛṣṇadāsa, in the absence of any institutional authority, synthesized a uniquely Bengali Vaiṣṇava tradition. In the early 17th c., three devotees, led by brahmin Śrīnivāsa, carried the Caitanya caritāmṛta back to Bengal from Vraja. Within a decade of losing and then recovering the text, this trio placed copies in the hands of every Vaiṣṇava in Bengal and Orissa. The literary practices surrounding the circulation established the text as the final word by fixing a grammar of tradition, by which communities could continually replicate the original experience of Caitanya’s presence, by interpreting their own as a fractal history. So persuasive was this single document that today it has assumed iconic status, even taking its place on the altar alongside images of Kṛṣṇa and Caitanya.
David J. Collins
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195329537
- eISBN:
- 9780199870134
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195329537.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, History of Christianity
Reforming Saints explains how and why Renaissance humanists composed Latin hagiography in Germany in the decades leading up to the Reformation. Reforming Saints shows that, contrary to ...
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Reforming Saints explains how and why Renaissance humanists composed Latin hagiography in Germany in the decades leading up to the Reformation. Reforming Saints shows that, contrary to scholarly presumptions, there was a resurgence in the composition of saints’ lives in the half centuries on either side of 1500 and that German humanists were among the most active authors and editors of these texts. A goal of Reforming Saints is therefore to shed light on the intersection of a kind of writer (the humanist) and a kind of literature (hagiography) at a defining moment for both. Reforming Saints argues for evaluating this abundant, if overlooked and misunderstood literature on its own terms and against an approach that would denigrate it for not meeting standards drawn from Erasmus or Luther. By exploring salient themes in the humanists’ hagiographical writings and relating them to the general religious culture of the era, Reforming Saints discovers the unexpected yet coherent extent of humanist engagement in the cult of the saints and exposes the strategic ways that these authors made writings about the saints into a literature for religious and cultural reforms that German humanists promoted through much else of their activity. Writing saints’ lives provided these Renaissance scholars a way to investigate Germany's medieval past, to reconstruct and exalt its greatness, and to advocate programs of religious and cultural reform. Reforming Saints proposes that these German humanists thus showed themselves to be much like their Italian contemporaries, many of whom were engaged in similar projects. Moreover, these compositions provided later authors, polemicists, and philologists in Catholic Europe – from Counter‐Reformation preachers in Switzerland to seventeenth‐century Bollandists in Brussels – a legacy to draw from and use for different purposes by the end of the sixteenth century.Less
Reforming Saints explains how and why Renaissance humanists composed Latin hagiography in Germany in the decades leading up to the Reformation. Reforming Saints shows that, contrary to scholarly presumptions, there was a resurgence in the composition of saints’ lives in the half centuries on either side of 1500 and that German humanists were among the most active authors and editors of these texts. A goal of Reforming Saints is therefore to shed light on the intersection of a kind of writer (the humanist) and a kind of literature (hagiography) at a defining moment for both. Reforming Saints argues for evaluating this abundant, if overlooked and misunderstood literature on its own terms and against an approach that would denigrate it for not meeting standards drawn from Erasmus or Luther. By exploring salient themes in the humanists’ hagiographical writings and relating them to the general religious culture of the era, Reforming Saints discovers the unexpected yet coherent extent of humanist engagement in the cult of the saints and exposes the strategic ways that these authors made writings about the saints into a literature for religious and cultural reforms that German humanists promoted through much else of their activity. Writing saints’ lives provided these Renaissance scholars a way to investigate Germany's medieval past, to reconstruct and exalt its greatness, and to advocate programs of religious and cultural reform. Reforming Saints proposes that these German humanists thus showed themselves to be much like their Italian contemporaries, many of whom were engaged in similar projects. Moreover, these compositions provided later authors, polemicists, and philologists in Catholic Europe – from Counter‐Reformation preachers in Switzerland to seventeenth‐century Bollandists in Brussels – a legacy to draw from and use for different purposes by the end of the sixteenth century.
David J. Collins
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195329537
- eISBN:
- 9780199870134
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195329537.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, History of Christianity
This chapter draws attention to the type of saints which appeared most frequently in the humanist hagiography, the holy bishop. These holy bishops, drawn from all eras of Germany's ancient and ...
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This chapter draws attention to the type of saints which appeared most frequently in the humanist hagiography, the holy bishop. These holy bishops, drawn from all eras of Germany's ancient and medieval past, consistently modelled a way of achieving church reform that was predicated on a sense of Christianity's lamentable state and the bishops' proper role as the agent of reform. Humanist authors embedded their perceptions of contemporary problems and their proposed solutions in the vitae of the ancient and medieval holy bishops: The German peoples needed a re‐evangelization in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries analogous to the evangelization of pagan tribes by missionary bishops centuries before. The confidence in the holy bishop was decidedly more emphatic in this period than it had been in previous centuries; lives of holy bishops had been much neglected in the later Middle Ages. The attractiveness of this plan for reform was not limited to humanists but drew the authors into alliances with like‐minded patrons and devotees beyond narrow humanist circles.Less
This chapter draws attention to the type of saints which appeared most frequently in the humanist hagiography, the holy bishop. These holy bishops, drawn from all eras of Germany's ancient and medieval past, consistently modelled a way of achieving church reform that was predicated on a sense of Christianity's lamentable state and the bishops' proper role as the agent of reform. Humanist authors embedded their perceptions of contemporary problems and their proposed solutions in the vitae of the ancient and medieval holy bishops: The German peoples needed a re‐evangelization in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries analogous to the evangelization of pagan tribes by missionary bishops centuries before. The confidence in the holy bishop was decidedly more emphatic in this period than it had been in previous centuries; lives of holy bishops had been much neglected in the later Middle Ages. The attractiveness of this plan for reform was not limited to humanists but drew the authors into alliances with like‐minded patrons and devotees beyond narrow humanist circles.
David J. Collins
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195329537
- eISBN:
- 9780199870134
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195329537.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, History of Christianity
Chapter four examines how the Swiss began to transform the fifteenth‐century peasant‐turned‐recluse Nicholas of Flue into a patron saint for their slowly forming Swiss homeland. Nicholas became an ...
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Chapter four examines how the Swiss began to transform the fifteenth‐century peasant‐turned‐recluse Nicholas of Flue into a patron saint for their slowly forming Swiss homeland. Nicholas became an exemplar of Swiss character that retained its appeal even as confessional divisions between Catholic and Reformed Christians hardened through the sixteenth century. This chapter reads the humanist compositions about Nicholas of Flue as an indicator of how the cities and regions making up the Swiss Confederation increasingly thought of themselves as a unified community and of how Nicholas posthumously could attenuate the religious, political, and social tensions across the Confederation that threatened its unity. In short, the case of Nicholas shows how saints could be turned into civic patrons in a new humanist mode.Less
Chapter four examines how the Swiss began to transform the fifteenth‐century peasant‐turned‐recluse Nicholas of Flue into a patron saint for their slowly forming Swiss homeland. Nicholas became an exemplar of Swiss character that retained its appeal even as confessional divisions between Catholic and Reformed Christians hardened through the sixteenth century. This chapter reads the humanist compositions about Nicholas of Flue as an indicator of how the cities and regions making up the Swiss Confederation increasingly thought of themselves as a unified community and of how Nicholas posthumously could attenuate the religious, political, and social tensions across the Confederation that threatened its unity. In short, the case of Nicholas shows how saints could be turned into civic patrons in a new humanist mode.
David J. Collins
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195329537
- eISBN:
- 9780199870134
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195329537.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, History of Christianity
The Conclusion investigates lines of continuity between the humanist hagiography and what precedes and follows it, especially in light of the Protestant Reformation. The chapter identifies two ways – ...
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The Conclusion investigates lines of continuity between the humanist hagiography and what precedes and follows it, especially in light of the Protestant Reformation. The chapter identifies two ways – the polemical and the critical – that later Catholic authors used and transformed the hagiographical legacy to which the early German humanists had made a substantial contribution. Counter‐Reformation authors such as George Witzel and Peter Canisius mastered a polemical use of hagiography to persuade readers away from the Protestant Reformers and instead towards renewed Catholicism. “Critical hagiographers,” in contrast, developed philological rules with which to evaluate the written traces of ancient and medieval Christianity's saints. These include Laurentius Surius and the Bollandists. This chapter illuminates the variety of ways that these later figures relied on and transformed the work of the early German humanists.Less
The Conclusion investigates lines of continuity between the humanist hagiography and what precedes and follows it, especially in light of the Protestant Reformation. The chapter identifies two ways – the polemical and the critical – that later Catholic authors used and transformed the hagiographical legacy to which the early German humanists had made a substantial contribution. Counter‐Reformation authors such as George Witzel and Peter Canisius mastered a polemical use of hagiography to persuade readers away from the Protestant Reformers and instead towards renewed Catholicism. “Critical hagiographers,” in contrast, developed philological rules with which to evaluate the written traces of ancient and medieval Christianity's saints. These include Laurentius Surius and the Bollandists. This chapter illuminates the variety of ways that these later figures relied on and transformed the work of the early German humanists.
Stephen J. Davis
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199258628
- eISBN:
- 9780191718052
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199258628.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, Early Christian Studies
Christian pilgrimage can be described as a set of practices oriented towards the Incarnation as an accessible event that — when imaginatively and physically claimed by imitation or re-enactment — ...
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Christian pilgrimage can be described as a set of practices oriented towards the Incarnation as an accessible event that — when imaginatively and physically claimed by imitation or re-enactment — helps facilitate for the participant a proleptic transformation in status from the earthly to the heavenly. In this way, pilgrimage, as a form of ritual, reaffirms the differences or boundaries between the sacred and the profane (the divine and the human), while at the same time allowing these boundaries ‘for a few careful minutes’ to break down. Re-enactments of the Incarnation took place in various locales, and in the process, not only the participants, but also the places themselves became sacralized; bodies and territory transformed into ritual sites where the earthly and heavenly came into creative contact. This chapter highlights how the late antique and early medieval landscape of Upper Egypt served as a setting for ritual re-enactment in Christian pilgrimage practice.Less
Christian pilgrimage can be described as a set of practices oriented towards the Incarnation as an accessible event that — when imaginatively and physically claimed by imitation or re-enactment — helps facilitate for the participant a proleptic transformation in status from the earthly to the heavenly. In this way, pilgrimage, as a form of ritual, reaffirms the differences or boundaries between the sacred and the profane (the divine and the human), while at the same time allowing these boundaries ‘for a few careful minutes’ to break down. Re-enactments of the Incarnation took place in various locales, and in the process, not only the participants, but also the places themselves became sacralized; bodies and territory transformed into ritual sites where the earthly and heavenly came into creative contact. This chapter highlights how the late antique and early medieval landscape of Upper Egypt served as a setting for ritual re-enactment in Christian pilgrimage practice.
Sergei S. Averintsev
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197263181
- eISBN:
- 9780191734595
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197263181.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Biography and hagiography are both Greek words, coined at different periods. Biographica was created in the sixth century AD, while hagiographos or hagiographhia was of frequent use in the early ...
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Biography and hagiography are both Greek words, coined at different periods. Biographica was created in the sixth century AD, while hagiographos or hagiographhia was of frequent use in the early Christian literature, although it has nothing to do with the Lives of the Saints. Rather, it denotes theological assessment. Different as they are, in Greek-speaking and Latin-speaking people, the designation of the two terms pertain to bios or vita or life. This chapter discusses biography and hagiography. It focuses on the implications of the word bios in the oldest biographical and hagiographical literature.Less
Biography and hagiography are both Greek words, coined at different periods. Biographica was created in the sixth century AD, while hagiographos or hagiographhia was of frequent use in the early Christian literature, although it has nothing to do with the Lives of the Saints. Rather, it denotes theological assessment. Different as they are, in Greek-speaking and Latin-speaking people, the designation of the two terms pertain to bios or vita or life. This chapter discusses biography and hagiography. It focuses on the implications of the word bios in the oldest biographical and hagiographical literature.
Peter France
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197263181
- eISBN:
- 9780191734595
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197263181.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter focuses on academic eulogy, a component of biography that urges to celebrate. It also examines how biography developed in the eulogies of the various French academies. Epideictic ...
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This chapter focuses on academic eulogy, a component of biography that urges to celebrate. It also examines how biography developed in the eulogies of the various French academies. Epideictic speeches, such as funeral oration or hagiography, are close relatives of written biography. In this type of biography, the biographer is tasked to provide moral lessons through a narrative that offers examples to be followed or avoided. Funeral orations are governed by praise or blame in the writing of lives; however, most of the eulogies are overshadowed by praises. In this form of biography, the focus is on celebration and the praise of a Carlylean hero. In addition to the celebration of life, eulogy has other important functions as well. One of these is to pay a debt of gratitude, whether on the part of humanity, nation, or some limited group. To praise the dead also means to empower the living; during this period, eulogies paved the way for laudatory biographies of various groups such as writers, artists, and scientists. They also helped form an edifice of corporate self-representation.Less
This chapter focuses on academic eulogy, a component of biography that urges to celebrate. It also examines how biography developed in the eulogies of the various French academies. Epideictic speeches, such as funeral oration or hagiography, are close relatives of written biography. In this type of biography, the biographer is tasked to provide moral lessons through a narrative that offers examples to be followed or avoided. Funeral orations are governed by praise or blame in the writing of lives; however, most of the eulogies are overshadowed by praises. In this form of biography, the focus is on celebration and the praise of a Carlylean hero. In addition to the celebration of life, eulogy has other important functions as well. One of these is to pay a debt of gratitude, whether on the part of humanity, nation, or some limited group. To praise the dead also means to empower the living; during this period, eulogies paved the way for laudatory biographies of various groups such as writers, artists, and scientists. They also helped form an edifice of corporate self-representation.
Juliana Dresvina
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780197265963
- eISBN:
- 9780191772061
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197265963.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Early Modern History
This is the first comprehensive interdisciplinary study of the cult of St Margaret of Antioch in medieval England. Margaret was one of the most famous female saints of both the Catholic world and of ...
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This is the first comprehensive interdisciplinary study of the cult of St Margaret of Antioch in medieval England. Margaret was one of the most famous female saints of both the Catholic world and of Eastern Christianity (as St Marina). Her legend is remembered by her confrontation with a dragon-shaped devil, who allegedly swallowed Margaret and then burst asunder. This episode became firmly established in iconography, making her one of the most frequently represented saints. Margaret was supposedly martyred in the late third century, but apart from the historically problematic legend there is no evidence concerning her in other contemporary sources. The sudden appearance of her name in liturgical manuscripts in the late eighth century is connected with the coeval dispersal of her relics. The cult grew in England from Anglo-Saxon times, with over 200 churches dedicated to Margaret (second only to Mary among female saints), with hundreds of her images and copies of her life known within the country. This monograph examines Greek, Latin, Old English, Middle English, and Anglo-Norman versions of Margaret’s life, their mouvance and cultural context, providing editions of the hitherto unpublished texts. In considering these versions, the iconographic evidence, their patronage, and audience, the monograph traces the changes in St Margaret’s story through the eight centuries before the Reformation. It also considers the further trajectory of the legend as reflected in popular fairy tales and contemporary cultural stereotypes. Special attention is given to the interpretation of St Margaret’s demonic encounter, central to the legend’s iconography and theology.Less
This is the first comprehensive interdisciplinary study of the cult of St Margaret of Antioch in medieval England. Margaret was one of the most famous female saints of both the Catholic world and of Eastern Christianity (as St Marina). Her legend is remembered by her confrontation with a dragon-shaped devil, who allegedly swallowed Margaret and then burst asunder. This episode became firmly established in iconography, making her one of the most frequently represented saints. Margaret was supposedly martyred in the late third century, but apart from the historically problematic legend there is no evidence concerning her in other contemporary sources. The sudden appearance of her name in liturgical manuscripts in the late eighth century is connected with the coeval dispersal of her relics. The cult grew in England from Anglo-Saxon times, with over 200 churches dedicated to Margaret (second only to Mary among female saints), with hundreds of her images and copies of her life known within the country. This monograph examines Greek, Latin, Old English, Middle English, and Anglo-Norman versions of Margaret’s life, their mouvance and cultural context, providing editions of the hitherto unpublished texts. In considering these versions, the iconographic evidence, their patronage, and audience, the monograph traces the changes in St Margaret’s story through the eight centuries before the Reformation. It also considers the further trajectory of the legend as reflected in popular fairy tales and contemporary cultural stereotypes. Special attention is given to the interpretation of St Margaret’s demonic encounter, central to the legend’s iconography and theology.
Isabel Moreira
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199736041
- eISBN:
- 9780199894628
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199736041.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, Early Christian Studies
This chapter examines writers on purgatory in the sixth and seventh centuries, including Julianus Pomerius, Caesarius of Arles, and Gregory the Great. It also examines ideas about postmortem ...
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This chapter examines writers on purgatory in the sixth and seventh centuries, including Julianus Pomerius, Caesarius of Arles, and Gregory the Great. It also examines ideas about postmortem purgation as expressed in minor works of the seventh century including De ordine creaturarum and in visions of the afterlife and in hagiography. It concludes by looking at rituals of sacramental purification, especially baptism and penance, and discusses purgation in funeral liturgies, burial practices, and prayers for the dead.Less
This chapter examines writers on purgatory in the sixth and seventh centuries, including Julianus Pomerius, Caesarius of Arles, and Gregory the Great. It also examines ideas about postmortem purgation as expressed in minor works of the seventh century including De ordine creaturarum and in visions of the afterlife and in hagiography. It concludes by looking at rituals of sacramental purification, especially baptism and penance, and discusses purgation in funeral liturgies, burial practices, and prayers for the dead.
Catherine Homes
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199279685
- eISBN:
- 9780191707353
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199279685.003.0006
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Asian and Middle Eastern History: BCE to 500CE
This chapter broadens the book's discussion of the relevant medieval historiography of Basil II's reign by comparing the testimonies of historians writing in Greek with the Arabic historiographical ...
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This chapter broadens the book's discussion of the relevant medieval historiography of Basil II's reign by comparing the testimonies of historians writing in Greek with the Arabic historiographical tradition and an important Georgian hagiographical text. It focuses on the different ways in which this multiplicity of voices reports on the first thirteen years of the reign: that period which was dominated by the revolts of the generals Bardas Skleros and Bardas Phokas. It is argued that the Greek testimonies of John Skylitzes (the Synopsis Historion) and Michael Psellos make use of an apologetic manifesto produced by the general Bardas Skleros at the time of his capture by Basil II in 989. This source has never previously been identified.Less
This chapter broadens the book's discussion of the relevant medieval historiography of Basil II's reign by comparing the testimonies of historians writing in Greek with the Arabic historiographical tradition and an important Georgian hagiographical text. It focuses on the different ways in which this multiplicity of voices reports on the first thirteen years of the reign: that period which was dominated by the revolts of the generals Bardas Skleros and Bardas Phokas. It is argued that the Greek testimonies of John Skylitzes (the Synopsis Historion) and Michael Psellos make use of an apologetic manifesto produced by the general Bardas Skleros at the time of his capture by Basil II in 989. This source has never previously been identified.
Corinne G. Dempsey
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195130287
- eISBN:
- 9780199834136
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195130286.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
Kerala Christian Sainthood is an ethnography‐based study that celebrates the multivocal function of saints. Drawing on pilgrim anecdotes, shrine practices, official hagiographies, and regional ...
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Kerala Christian Sainthood is an ethnography‐based study that celebrates the multivocal function of saints. Drawing on pilgrim anecdotes, shrine practices, official hagiographies, and regional folklore, it shows how the business of saints routinely extends beyond their capacity as earthly conduits of miraculous power. Saintly characters described in this book, hailing from the religiously pluralistic South Indian state of Kerala, not only tend to the health and happiness of individual devotees but also help craft and express the multiple identities and complex power relations of their devotional communities as well.Highlighted throughout the study are the traditions of Sr. Alphonsa of Bharananganam (1910–46) and St. George the martyr, figures who richly reflect the many preoccupations of Kerala sainthood. Sr. Alphonsa, native to Kerala and famous for her life of suffering and posthumous power, stands in line to be canonized by the Vatican. St. George, the caped dragon slayer imported to Kerala by Syrian merchants and later by Portuguese and British colonizers, is today partially debunked by Rome. These two figures, while differing dramatically in temperament, nationality, age of cult, and Vatican standing, boast a vast popular appeal in Kerala's Kottayam district. By examining practices and stories surrounding Sr. Alphonsa and St. George, Dempsey shows how their traditions help express devotees’ hybrid identities in both colonial and postcolonial times. This ethnography of Christian sainthood within a Hindu cultural context, of “foreign” traditions adapted to native practice and of female sanctity negotiated through patriarchal expectation, is poised at a number of intersections. The book provides not only a comparative study of cultures, religions, and worldviews but also a unique grounding for contemporary ethnographic, postcolonial, and feminist concerns.Less
Kerala Christian Sainthood is an ethnography‐based study that celebrates the multivocal function of saints. Drawing on pilgrim anecdotes, shrine practices, official hagiographies, and regional folklore, it shows how the business of saints routinely extends beyond their capacity as earthly conduits of miraculous power. Saintly characters described in this book, hailing from the religiously pluralistic South Indian state of Kerala, not only tend to the health and happiness of individual devotees but also help craft and express the multiple identities and complex power relations of their devotional communities as well.
Highlighted throughout the study are the traditions of Sr. Alphonsa of Bharananganam (1910–46) and St. George the martyr, figures who richly reflect the many preoccupations of Kerala sainthood. Sr. Alphonsa, native to Kerala and famous for her life of suffering and posthumous power, stands in line to be canonized by the Vatican. St. George, the caped dragon slayer imported to Kerala by Syrian merchants and later by Portuguese and British colonizers, is today partially debunked by Rome. These two figures, while differing dramatically in temperament, nationality, age of cult, and Vatican standing, boast a vast popular appeal in Kerala's Kottayam district. By examining practices and stories surrounding Sr. Alphonsa and St. George, Dempsey shows how their traditions help express devotees’ hybrid identities in both colonial and postcolonial times. This ethnography of Christian sainthood within a Hindu cultural context, of “foreign” traditions adapted to native practice and of female sanctity negotiated through patriarchal expectation, is poised at a number of intersections. The book provides not only a comparative study of cultures, religions, and worldviews but also a unique grounding for contemporary ethnographic, postcolonial, and feminist concerns.
Rebecca Krawiec
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195129434
- eISBN:
- 9780199834396
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195129431.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion in the Ancient World
Women's power in the White Monastery lay in their ability to accept, resist, or even manipulate Shenoute's authority. A model of complete acceptance occurs in Shenoute's hagiography, written by his ...
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Women's power in the White Monastery lay in their ability to accept, resist, or even manipulate Shenoute's authority. A model of complete acceptance occurs in Shenoute's hagiography, written by his follower and successor, Besa, where Shenoute appears in almost the exact language and imagery he used to present himself. So too there are moments when female monks, who seem to mostly have been those high up in the hierarchy of the female community, accepted and at times manipulated Shenoute's authority over their community, which was exercised either in person or through male envoys sent in Shenoute's place. The nature of the evidence, however, is geared more towards moments of resistance and indeed outright rebellion against Shenoute. The female monks, especially the leaders, could use the space from Shenoute and secrecy among their community to guard their own authority, both of which Shenoute worked actively against. At least one letter attests to both female and male monks joining in rebellion against Shenoute and his excessive leadership.Less
Women's power in the White Monastery lay in their ability to accept, resist, or even manipulate Shenoute's authority. A model of complete acceptance occurs in Shenoute's hagiography, written by his follower and successor, Besa, where Shenoute appears in almost the exact language and imagery he used to present himself. So too there are moments when female monks, who seem to mostly have been those high up in the hierarchy of the female community, accepted and at times manipulated Shenoute's authority over their community, which was exercised either in person or through male envoys sent in Shenoute's place. The nature of the evidence, however, is geared more towards moments of resistance and indeed outright rebellion against Shenoute. The female monks, especially the leaders, could use the space from Shenoute and secrecy among their community to guard their own authority, both of which Shenoute worked actively against. At least one letter attests to both female and male monks joining in rebellion against Shenoute and his excessive leadership.
Wendi Adamek
Steven Heine and Dale S. Wright (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- February 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195150674
- eISBN:
- 9780199784615
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195150678.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, Buddhism
This chapter examines the Chan or Zen text, the Lidai fabao ji, an important early text that was discovered in the Mogao caves of Dunhuang in 1900, and which had been lost for many years. Adamak ...
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This chapter examines the Chan or Zen text, the Lidai fabao ji, an important early text that was discovered in the Mogao caves of Dunhuang in 1900, and which had been lost for many years. Adamak finds that this text provides an important prototype of two genres, the “discourse records” (yulu) and the “transmission of the lamp records” (chuangdeng lu). This important early Zen text sheds light on the development of characteristically Zen genres in the Sung dynasty, and on the hagiographical styles that became central to the Chan tradition in that era.Less
This chapter examines the Chan or Zen text, the Lidai fabao ji, an important early text that was discovered in the Mogao caves of Dunhuang in 1900, and which had been lost for many years. Adamak finds that this text provides an important prototype of two genres, the “discourse records” (yulu) and the “transmission of the lamp records” (chuangdeng lu). This important early Zen text sheds light on the development of characteristically Zen genres in the Sung dynasty, and on the hagiographical styles that became central to the Chan tradition in that era.
Lisa M. Bitel
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195336528
- eISBN:
- 9780199868599
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195336528.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Church History, Early Christian Studies
This chapter recounts the life of Saint Brigit (ca. 452–524) as told by her 7th-century hagiographer, Cogitosus of Kildare. Cogitosus interpreted Brigit as a traveling holy woman whose authority ...
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This chapter recounts the life of Saint Brigit (ca. 452–524) as told by her 7th-century hagiographer, Cogitosus of Kildare. Cogitosus interpreted Brigit as a traveling holy woman whose authority equaled that of missionaries and bishops, and whose legacy was a Roman-style basilica set in a major ecclesiastical center and political landscape that she had organized. Cogitosus’s text was read by later generations of Irish Christians as a pilgrimage guide to Brigit’s city and church at Kildare.Less
This chapter recounts the life of Saint Brigit (ca. 452–524) as told by her 7th-century hagiographer, Cogitosus of Kildare. Cogitosus interpreted Brigit as a traveling holy woman whose authority equaled that of missionaries and bishops, and whose legacy was a Roman-style basilica set in a major ecclesiastical center and political landscape that she had organized. Cogitosus’s text was read by later generations of Irish Christians as a pilgrimage guide to Brigit’s city and church at Kildare.
