Sacred biography : Saints and their biographers in the Middle Ages / Thomas J. Heffernan.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Heffernan, Thomas J., 1944- author.

Series:

Oxford scholarship online.

Oxford scholarship online

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Christian literature, English (Middle)--History and criticism.

Christian literature, Latin (Medieval and modern)--History and criticism.

Christian saints--Legends--History and criticism.

Christianity and literature--History--To 1500.

Christian hagiography--History--To 1500.

Literary form--History--To 1500.

Christian saints in literature.

Biography as a literary form.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (348 p.)

Edition:

New ed.

Place of Publication:

New York ; Oxford University Press, 2023

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Modern historiography dismisses the medieval lives of saints about whom little was really known as "pious fiction". This study demonstrates that to characterize the genre as fiction is to misunderstand the intentions of medieval authors, who were neither credulous nor blinded by piety.

Contents:

Contents; 1 From Logos to Canon: The Making of a Saint's Life; 2 Sacred Biography as Historical Narrative: Testing the Tradition, Gibbon to Gadamer; 3 Sanctity in the Cloister: Walter Daniel's Vita Sancti Aelredi and Rhetoric; 4 A Theology of Behavior: Communio Sanctorum and the Use of Sources; 5 The Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicitas and the Imitatio Christi; 6 Virgin Mothers; Select Bibliography; Index; A; B; C; D; E; F; G; H; I; J; K; L; M; N; O; P; Q; R; S; T; U; V; W; X; Y; Z

Notes:

Previously issued in print: 1992.

Bibliography: p300-318. - Includes index.

Derived record based on print version record and publisher information.

ISBN:

9780197740996

0197740995

9780195360011

019536001X

9780198021957

019802195X

OCLC:

476011816

Publisher Number:

2027/heb01200 hdl