1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910821562603321

Autore

Heffernan Thomas J. <1944->

Titolo

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

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New York ; , : Oxford University Press, , 2023

ISBN

0-19-774099-5

0-19-536001-X

0-19-802195-X

Edizione

[New ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (348 p.)

Collana

Oxford scholarship online

Disciplina

820/.9/382

Soggetti

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

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Previously issued in print: 1992.

Nota di bibliografia

Bibliography: p300-318. - Includes index.

Nota di contenuto

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

Sommario/riassunto

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.