- Title Pages
- Dedication
- Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 The legend is born: early Greek, Latin, and insular versions
- 2 Thirteenth-century anonymous Margaret poems and their later redactions
- 3 <i>Sanctae Margaretae, virginis et martyris</i>: Latin texts of the later Middle Ages and their derivatives
- 4 The St Margaret of the preachers
- 5 St Margaret on the stage
- 6 East Anglian Margarets: Lydgate, Bokenham, and the Harley 4012 compiler
- 7 A prose life of St Margaret in Bodleian MS Eng. th. e. 18
- 8 Evidence for the cult of St Margaret in late medieval England
- 9 Virginity, sexuality, and temptation
- 10 Done to death: the torture of St Margaret in historical perspective
- 11 The significance of the demonic episode in the legend of St Margaret
- 12 Iconography of St Margaret
- Epilogue St Margaret’s afterlife
- Appendix 1 Medieval lives of St Margaret
- Appendix 2 Examples of the images of St Margaret in different media
- Appendix 3 Descriptions of the dragon and demon in different versions of the life of St Margaret, and the appearance of the dragon in artistic representations
- Appendix 4 Pictorial cycles of the life of St Margaret, English and Continental
- Bibliography
- Index
- Plates
Introduction
Introduction
- Chapter:
- (p.1) Introduction
- Source:
- A Maid with a Dragon
- Author(s):
Juliana Dresvina
- Publisher:
- British Academy
The introduction outlines the subject, sources, methodology, and the scope of the monograph. It then provides the synopsis of St Margaret’s legend – her noble origins, Christian education by the nurse, encounter with the pagan prefect Olibrius, arrest, torture, imprisonment, assault by a demonic dragon, interrogation of the black demon, heavenly apparitions, beheading by Malchus, burial, and posthumous miracles. It then discusses the structure and the content of the legend, highlighting its dichotomies: private–public, country–city, enclosure–spectacle, Christian–pagan, wholeness–fragmentation, and, of course, divine–demonic, action–reaction.
Keywords: source, methodology, scope, synopsis, structure, content, contrast, dichotomy
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- Title Pages
- Dedication
- Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 The legend is born: early Greek, Latin, and insular versions
- 2 Thirteenth-century anonymous Margaret poems and their later redactions
- 3 <i>Sanctae Margaretae, virginis et martyris</i>: Latin texts of the later Middle Ages and their derivatives
- 4 The St Margaret of the preachers
- 5 St Margaret on the stage
- 6 East Anglian Margarets: Lydgate, Bokenham, and the Harley 4012 compiler
- 7 A prose life of St Margaret in Bodleian MS Eng. th. e. 18
- 8 Evidence for the cult of St Margaret in late medieval England
- 9 Virginity, sexuality, and temptation
- 10 Done to death: the torture of St Margaret in historical perspective
- 11 The significance of the demonic episode in the legend of St Margaret
- 12 Iconography of St Margaret
- Epilogue St Margaret’s afterlife
- Appendix 1 Medieval lives of St Margaret
- Appendix 2 Examples of the images of St Margaret in different media
- Appendix 3 Descriptions of the dragon and demon in different versions of the life of St Margaret, and the appearance of the dragon in artistic representations
- Appendix 4 Pictorial cycles of the life of St Margaret, English and Continental
- Bibliography
- Index
- Plates
