Clare Downham considers how a set of saints’ lives written by a13th century monk in Cumbria help us understand how national allegiances were understood in medieval Britain.
Daily Life in the Spanish Reconquest: Scenes from Tenth-Century León
October 26, 2012 By
Built by the Romans to garrison to Seventh Legion, León may also have been the base of the legion’s military commander, who was sometimes fully empowered by the emperor to govern Asturias and Galicia.
Holy Body, Wholly Other: Sanctity and Society in the Lives of Irish Saints
October 24, 2012 By
The core of hagiography, whatever else may accrete around it, is therefore the depiction of what defines a saint as a saint in the eyes of the hagiographer and his intended audience. Ireland’s hagiography must then encompass the Irish author’s understanding of an Irish saint.
A Peripheral Matter? Oceans in the East in Late Medieval Thought, Report and Cartography
October 21, 2012 By
Focusing in particular on the southern and eastern parts of the Ocean Sea, this article traces the broad contours of a representational and conceptual shift brought about, I argue, by the interplay between geographical thought and social (navigational, mercantile) practice.
The Bones of Saint Peter
September 10, 2012 By
Sometime in AD 48, Peter had a tense meeting in Jerusalem with an enthusiastic missionary called Paul, who had been travelling among the peoples of the Near East, spreading news of Jesus’ teachings. Peter and his Jewish friends in Jerusalem were anxious that male converts to the new sect should be circumcised, as a sign that their commitment was genuine.
Comparing Pilgrim Souvenirs and Trinity Chapel Windows at Canterbury Cathedral
August 5, 2012 By
The story begins with two tin pilgrim ampullae2 made before 1220 in Canterbury, England, that were found centuries later, one in France (now in the Cluny Museum) and one in Norway (now in the Historical Museum in Bergen, Norway).
Martyrs on the Move: The Spread of the Cults of Thomas of Canterbury and Peter of Verona
July 22, 2012 By
No matter how one viewed Peter‟s and Thomas‟s personalities, the glaring fact of their instant and enduring cults forces the conclusion that their contemporaries all over Europe saw in them, and especially in their martyrdoms, desirable and compelling prototypes for Christian perfection. The spread and extent of these cults is the subject of this study.
Sacred Things and Holy Bodies: Collecting Relics from Late Antiquity to the Early Renaissance
July 15, 2012 By
Intimately tied to concepts of wholeness, corporeal integrity, and the resurrection of the body, the collecting of bones and body parts of holy martyrs was an important aspect of the Christian cult of relics already during Antiquity
The Pseudo-Amphilochian Vita Basilii: An Apocryphal Life of Saint Basil the Great
July 15, 2012 By
There is yet another aspect of Basil’s greatness which is none of his making: of Basil it is possible to know more and to know it more surely, than it is of any other person, with the possible exception of Julian
the Apostate, who lived in the first millennium A.D. The physical relics may have disappeared, but the literary remains constitute a remarkable dossier of high historical value.
Eve and Her Daughters: Eve, Mary, the Virgin, and the Lintel Fragment at Autun
June 28, 2012 By
The lintel fragment of Eve from the Cathedral of St. Lazaire at Autun (Figure 1) has been praised by art historians as one of the greatest monumental figural works of the Romanesque period.
Pilgrimage to Chartres: The Visual Evidence
June 24, 2012 By
References to Chartres Cathedral as the most important Marian shrine in Europe during the Middle Ages still abound. The historiography of this interpretation leads back to local chartrain histori- ans of the nineteenth century, among whom Lépinois was one of the most respected.
Saint Patrick and the Druids: A Window into Seventh-Century Irish Church Politics
May 31, 2012 By
Through an analysis of selected portions of Muirchú’s Life of Saint Patrick, this thesis will attempt to search out the hagiographer’s goals in writing as he did under the direction of Aed, Bishop of Sletty, during a critical time of debate in the Irish church. The primary method of accomplishing this will be through consideration of Patrick as a character in the hagiography.
VAGANTES: Between Tradition and Change: Monastic Reform in Three fifteenth-century German Redactions of the Life of Saint Mary of Egypt
March 30, 2012 By
Using the life of St. Mary of Egypt, this paper will consider three different Middle High German versions produced by reform communities and will analyze how the reform ideologies and goals manifest in the texts.
VAGANTES: Necessary Imperfection: The Body of Sainte Marie l’Egyptienne
March 30, 2012 By
This paper seeks to examine the role of the body and its relationship to the world around it in the “vie de sainte” of Marie l’Egyptienne, who is an excellent example of a female saint who begins life as a sinner and transforms her body into something holy. This presentation will focus on the version of Marie l’Egyptienne’s life written by Rutebeuf in the 13th century, but will also bring in elements of other versions and of the stories of other female saints who transform their bodies for comparison.
VAGANTES: What the Body Said: The Corpse-as-Text in St. Erkenwald
March 30, 2012 By
This paper will consider how the speaking corpse of the pagan judge should be read, especially in light of the hagiographic context and medieval theological writings on the resurrection of the body.
The Thread of Life in the Hand of the Virgin
March 22, 2012 By
The motif of the Virgin at the loom occurred with frequency in Western art only after the Feast of the Presentation of the Virgin (celebrated by the Byzantine Church on November 21 from the seventh or eighth century onward) was introduced into the West in 1372.
HAPPY ST.PATRICK’S DAY: Books on all things Irish! Sláinte!
March 17, 2012 By
Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with these great reads and some green beer!
Tradition and Transformation in the Cult of St. Guthlac in Early Medieval England
March 6, 2012 By
Do the variations reflect changes in purpose, patronage, doctrine, liturgy, or intended audience? Are they due to differences in authorship, geographical origin, or regional preferences? Analysis of the variations introduced into the corpus of materials, both narrative and visual, for a given saint over the course of the Middle Ages in England can elucidate the social, cultural, and historical significance of these changes.
Boniface’s Booklife: How the Ragyndrudis Codex Came to be a Vita Bonifatii
March 6, 2012 By
The most recent addition to the family of literary genres may be the booklife. Finding its origin in Roland Barthes’s Roland Barthes and now taught in English departments, the booklife proposes a union of sorts of writing and living. Whether the genre will be long-lived is an open question, that it can be fruitful is not in doubt. But medievalists already knew that the dividing line between book and life is always thin, especially if that life has been lived in and among books.
Miracle Stories and the Primary Purpose of Adomnán’s Vita Columbae
March 6, 2012 By
Adomnán, the author of the VC, was Columba’s ninth successor to the abbacy at Iona. 1 A great deal about his career, concerns and life can be found in contemporary literary evidence.
Relics, Religious Authority, and the Sanctification of Domestic Space in the Home Gregory of Tours: An Analysis of the Glory of the Confessors 20
March 6, 2012 By
With the rival clerics out of the way, Gregory still needed to solidify his new and publicly contested position with local elites and other powerful members of his new congregation. Thus, much of what Gregory did early in his episcopacy was intended to convince the community at Tours that he was their right man.
The Saints of Epilepsy
February 5, 2012 By
It will be seen below that many of the legendary happenings on which belief in the curative powers of saints was based were ridiculously improbable or impossible.
Homo Sacer: Power, Life and the Sexual Body in Old French Saints’ Lives
November 13, 2011 By
It might of course be argued that the comfort for this torture that Christine receives by God’s grace draws attention away from the cruelty of her punishments…
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