The Chaste Erotics of Marie d’Oignies and Jacques de Vitry
The Chaste Erotics of Marie d’Oignies and Jacques de Vitry Jennifer Brown (Marymount Manhattan College) Journal of the History of Sexuality, Vol. 19,…
The Miracles of Saints Cosmas and Damian: Characteristics of Dream Healing
Cosmas and Damian were trained physicians, already famous during their lives, but their great career as healers started after they suffered martyrdom in 287 or 297.
To Take Care of the Monks, Take Care of Christina: Christina of Markyate and the Medieval Spiritual/Material Market
In this essay I will delineate two of these emphases: (1) Christina’s powerful interaction with boundaries and the spaces they demarcate, and (2) the material/spiritual economy that develops between Christina and Geoffrey, the Abbot of the St. Albans Monastery. I will then argue that these emphases together form a message that might have been aimed at The Life’s monastic (and to some extent aristocratic) audience, perhaps even the abbots who succeeded Geoffrey.
Impregnable friendship : locating desire in the middle English ‘Amis and Amiloun’
Scholarship on Amis and Amiloun has generally been divided into two critical schools. The majority of critics have read the work as an exemplar of perfect friendship, overlooking (or ignoring) any trace of homoeroticism, citing the possibility itself as anachronistic, or explaining away its presence by offering historical or theoretical justification for intimacy among medieval men.
Nessie: Stories of the Scottish Highlands from the Vita Columbae
The first story that influenced my decision to use this manuscript was Columba’s encounter with the Loch Ness Monster. It caught my attention that a common folk tale that everyone knows of today was already in existence in the 690s AD.
Women and Englishness: Anglo-Saxon Female Saints in the South English Legendary
\This article attempts to redress this balance, by focusing on one of the early collections of saints’ lives found in Middle English, the South English Legendary.
Representations of English Women and their Pilgrimages in Twelfth-Century Miracle Collections
Drawing on a survey of sixteen miracle collections compiled in twelfth-century England, the study examines the representation of women as pilgrims, and demonstrates that many modern assumptions about female travel in the Middle Ages are not consistent with the miracle accounts.
Miraculous Healings of Paralysis: A Preliminary Study on Sources
The aim of the present paper has been to explore the medieval evidence on miraculous healings of paralysis and to confront it with modern medical knowledge.
The Privileging of Visio over Vox in the Mystical Experiences of Hildegard of Bingen and Joan of Arc
Even though medieval women mystics have enjoyed increased attention in recent scholarly discussion, a topic that still has not been tackled is the possible difference between seeing a vision and hearing a voice during a mystical experience
The Still Lives of Medieval Objects
Discussions of the relationship between time and medieval artworks often hinge on examinations of use and reception: how has the meaning of this object changed over time?
Magic in English Thirteenth-Century Miracle Collections
This contribution focuses on miracle collections as a source for medieval magic for three reasons. The first is the very closeness of magic and miracles, for both seek to procure results which transcend nature, and to do this through the medium of a human practitioner.
“Becoming Mary of the Gael”
This paper focused on the comparison of St. Brigit and the Virgin Mary in early Irish texts.
Saint Margaret, Queen of Scotland
By all accounts, Margaret was a beautiful, blond Saxon princess in her twenties who was educated and had learned the art of being a royal wife from Edward’s Queen Edith.
Relics and Reliquaries in the Vita Germani Auctore Constantio : the Capsula
It is the sporadic presence of the term capsula in the Vita Germani, and in other texts contemporary to it, which indicates its importance in the history of Christian costume as described by Constantius. In what follows, I shall demonstrate through literary comparisons and historical linguistics how such an affirmation is not, in fact, a contradiction at all.
Project on the medieval saints in Wales receives £775 000 in funding
A project to better understand the history of medieval saints in Wales and created new online resources has been award more than three-quarters of a million points by The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).
The History of Saint Patrick – a Short Story
St. Patrick was born, not in Ireland, but in Britian around AD 387. Well, actually, he wasn’t called St. Patrick at the time, or even Patrick, but was referred to as Maewyn Succat.
Abelard’s Legacy: Why Theology is not Faith Seeking Understanding
In this paper I will challenge the common definition of the theological task as faith seeking understanding, where the faith of a tradition commandeers the critical enquiry of the theologian.
The Legend of the Purgatory of Saint Patrick: From Ireland to Dante and Beyond
“Yes by Saint Patrick …. Touching this vision here It is an honest ghost, that let me tell you” (Hamlet, Act I, Scene 5)
Reconsidering the Health Care Provider: Lessons from Medieval Miracle Accounts
Using medieval canonization inquests, Archambeau will try to answer the seemingly simple question: What did people do when they were sick?
Narratives of the saintly body in Anglo-Saxon England
This dissertation investigates narratives of the saintly body in Anglo-Saxon England. Specifically, it examines the ways in which the bodies of holy men and women were constructed through such narratives and read in local appropriations of emblematic vitae and passiones.
The Vínland sagas as propaganda for the Christian Church
Over the last two centuries, the Vínland Sagas have become some of the most discussed of Medieval Nordic documents. There are arguments about every aspect of the sagas: What the name Vínland means, if Vínland existed, where it would have been geographically, and how much of their content is historically accurate.
The Welsh Female Saint: Patterns within a Social Framework
Historia Divae Monacellae, the Latin Life of Melangell is also comparatively late in composition, with the earliest manuscript being from the 16th century, but possibly drawing on earlier written sources.3 When we look at the availability of written texts relating to male saints the difference in source material is immediately evident.
The ‘Prehistory’ of Gregory of Tours: An Analysis of Books I-IV of Gregory’s Histories
In northern Gaul in the second half of the sixth century, a bishop of Tours, Georgius Florentius Gregorius, known to posterity as Gregory of Tours, composed eight books of hagiography and ten books of history. These testaments survive as evidence of the politics, society and theology of this post-imperial world.
From Anglorum basileus to Norman Saint: The Transformation of Edward the Confessor
In the following pages I explore the transformation of the visual and textual expression of Edward’s rule (1043-66) through the reign of Henry II (1154-89).