Saints and Society in the Medieval West

Medieval Studies 80500 / History 70400

Saints and Society in the Medieval West

Spring 2002

Professor Thomas Head

Office hours (Graduate Center 5104): Tuesdays, 2:30-4:00

Office hours (Hunter West 1507): Monday and Thursday, 2:00-3:30

E-mail (preferred): thead@hunter.cuny.edu

Phone (Hunter): 212-772-5484 Fax (Hunter): 212-772-5545

Course requirements.

Keeping up with the readings and regular participation in seminar discussion
Periodic short presentations in seminar on articles and primary source readings. All students will be expected to make a somewhat more formal presentation on March 4.
Five short (2-3 pages) reflection on the readings. You should try to pace doing them through the course of the semester. They must be handed in at the class in which the readings in question are being discussed.
A prospectus for a research paper on some subject of hagiography of approximately three pages. The work should include a brief discussion of both the available primary sources on at least one saint, with reference to the Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina. It should also include a bibliography of relevant primary and secondary works. It will be due at the last class.
Please note that this means all written work must be handed in by the last class of the semester.

The readings for the course are available as follows:

Books noted below as "at bookstore" have been ordered though Barnes and Noble.
On reserve at the Mina Rees Library of the Graduate Center.
Copies of some books and articles will be kept in the Medieval Carrel on the fifth floor of the Graduate Center as an informal reserve shelf. Please treat these copies well and observe the rules of usage so that all members of the seminar may have access to them.
The "Electronic Reader" is a CD-Rom which will be distributed to all members of the seminar.
Students should remember that many books are available for purchase through such on-line resources as Amazon.com and ABE.com.

The following websites will be useful for the course:

Professor Head's personal website: http://urban.hunter.cuny.edu/~thead/index.htm
Professor Head's hagiography section in the On-Line Resource Book for Medieval Studies (ORB) including important bibliographies: http://orb.rhodes.edu/encyclop/religion/hagiography/hagindex.html
The "Saints' Lives" section of Paul Halsall's Internet Medieval Sourcebook: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook3.html

Syllabus of Readings

Primary sources are taken in large part from the following readers:

Thomas Head (ed.), Medieval Hagiography: An Anthology (New York, 2000). Available at the bookstore and on reserve.
Mary-Ann Stouck (ed.), Medieval Saints: A Reader (Peterborough, 1999). Available at the bookstore and on reserve.
Thomas Noble and Thomas Head (eds.), Soldiers of Christ: Saints and Saints' Lives from Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (University Park, PA, 1994), Available at the bookstore and on reserve.
A Course Reader will be made available on CD-Rom.

Note: some of the primary sources will be read in common in each and some for reports.

January 28: Introduction.

February 4: Martyrdom and Sanctity.

Core reading:

Glen Bowersock, Martyrdom and Rome (Cambridge, 1995). Available at bookstore and on reserve.

Thomas Head, "Introduction," in Medieval Hagiography.

Primary sources:

The Martyrdom of Polycarp of Smyrna in Course Reader and [Medieval Saints].

The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity in Course Reader [and Medieval Saints].

The Acts of Cyprian of Carthage in Medieval Saints, chap. 6.

The Martyrdom of St. Maximilian of Tebessa in Course Reader.

The Fourth Book of Maccabees in Course Reader.

The Acts of Paul and Thecla in Course Reader.

Tertullian, Address to the Martyrs in Medieval Saints, chap. 4.

For reports:

Tessa Rajak, "Dying for the Law: The Martyr’s Portrait in Jewish-Greek Literature," in Portraits: Biographical Representation in the Greek and Latin Literature of the Roman Empire, eds. M. J. Edwards and Simon Swain (Oxford, 1997), pp. 39-67. Xerox to be distributed.

Daniel Boyarin, "Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity and Judaism," Journal of Early Christian Studies, 5 (1998): 577-627. Available in Course Reader.

Brent Shaw, "Body/Power/Identity: Passions of the Martyrs," Journal of Early Christian Studies, 4 (1996): 269-312. Available in Course Reader.

Thomas Heffernan, Sacred Biography: Saints and Their Biographers in the Middle Ages (Oxford: Oxford University Press, reprint, 1992), chaps. 1 and 2. Available on reserve.

February 11: The Cult of Martyrs.

Core reading:

Peter Brown, The Cult of the Saints. Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity (Chicago, 1981). Available at bookstore and on reserve.

Peter Brown, "Enjoying the Saints in Late Antiquity," Early Medieval Europe, 9 (2000): 1-24. Available in Course Reader.

Cynthia Hahn, "The Sight of the Saint in the Early Middle Ages: The Construction of Sanctity in Shrines East and West," Speculum 72 (1997), pp. 1079-1106. Available in periodicals at Mina Rees Library. Xeroxes also in Medieval Carrel.

Primary sources:

Victricius of Rouen, In Praise of the Saints in Medieval Hagiography. Alternate translation in Course Reader, chap. 2.

E. Gordon Whatley, "Constantine the Great, the Empress Helena, and the Relics of the Holy Cross" in Medieval Hagiography, chap. 4

Martyrology of Bede in Medieval Hagiography, chap. 8.

Ambrose, Letter 22 on Gervasius and Protasius in Course Reader.

Augustine of Hippo, selections from The City of God in Medieval Saints, nos. 22 and 23.

Augustine of Hippo, On the Care to be Taken for the Dead in Course Reader.

Augustine of Hippo, sermons on various saints in Course Reader.

John Chrysostom, sermons Igatius and Babylas in Course Reader.

John Chryssotom, Homily on Babylas against Julian and the Pagans in xerox.

Jerome, Against Vigilantius in Course Reader.

For reports:

Maureen Tilley, "Sustaining Donatist Self-Identity: From the Church of the Martyrs to the Collecta of the Desert," Journal of Early Christian Studies, 5 (1997): 21-35. Available in Course Reader.

Patricia Cox Miller, "’Differential Networks’: Relics and Other Fragments in Late Antiquity," Journal of Early Christian Studies, 6 (1998): 113-38. Available in Course Reader.

David Hunter, "Vigilantius of Calagurris and Victricius of Rouen: Ascetics, Relics, and Clerics in Late Roman Gaul, "Journal of Early Christian Studies," 7 (1999): 401-30. Available in Course Reader.

David Frankfurter, "’Things Unbefitting Christians’: Violence and Christianization in Fifth-Century Panopolis," Journal of Early Christian Studies, 8 (2000): 273-95. Available in Course Reader.

February 18: The Transformation of Christian Sanctity. Core reading:

Peter Brown, "The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity," in Society and the Holy in Late Antiquity (Chicago, 1982), pp. 103-52. Xeroxes in Medieval Carrel. Also to be distributed for a $3 charge.

Peter Brown, "The Saint as Exemplar in Late Antiquity," Representations (1983), pp. 1-25. Available in Course Reader.

Peter Brown, "The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity, 1971-1997," Journal of Early Christian Studies 6.3 (1998) 353-376. Available in Course Reader.

Susan Harvey, "Sacred Bonding: Mothers and Daughters in Early Syriac Hagiography," Journal of Early Christian Studies, 4 (1996), pp. 27-56. Available in Course Reader.

Primary sources:

Athanasius, Life of Antony of Egypt in Medieval Hagiography, chap. 1.

Mark the Deacon, Life of Porphyry of Gaza in Medieval Hagiography, chap. 3.

Sulpicius Severus, Life of St. Martin of Tours in Soldiers of Christ, chap 1.

Constantius of Lyon, The Life of St. Germanus of Auxerre in Soldiers of Christ, chap. 3.

Life of Daniel the Stylite in Course Reader.

Gregory of Nyssa, Life of St. Macrina in Course Reader.

February 25: Approaching Hagiography (class meeting cancelled).

Core reading:

Hippolyte Delehaye, The Legends of the Saints: An Introduction to Hagiography, trans. V. M. Crawford (London, 1907 and reprints), particularly pp. 1-168. Available in Course Reader. Multiple copies also in Medieval Carrel.

Felice Lifshitz, "Beyond Positivism and Genre: ‘Hagiographical’ Texts as Historical Narrative," Viator, 25 (1994), pp. 95-113. Xeroxes in Medieval Carrel.

David Knowles, Great Historical Enterprises and Problems in Monastic History (Edinburgh and London, 1962), pp. 1-62. Copy in Medieval Carrel. Also available in several CUNY libraries.

John Howe, "Revisiting the Holy Man," Catholic Historical Review in Course Reader.

For reports: Charisma and Society: The 25th Anniversary of Peter Brown's Analysis of the Late Antique Holy Man. Conference Held at the University of California at Berkeley, March 13-16, 1997, eds. Susanna Elm and Naomi Janowitz (published in Journal of Early Christian Studies, 6 [1998]: 343-539.) Available on-line in Mina Rees Library. Also most is available in various forms in Course Reader.

The Cult of the Saints in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages: Essays on the Contribution of Peter Brown, eds. James Howard-Johnston and Paul Antony Hayward (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999). Available on reserve.

March 4: The Development of Sanctity in the Early Middle Ages. Core reading:

Ian Wood, The Missionary Life: Saints and the Evangelisation of Europe, 400-1050 (Harlow, Essex, 2001). Available at the bookstore and on reserve.

Julia Smith, "The Problem of Female Sanctity in Carolingian Europe c.780-920," Past and Present, 146 (1995), pp. 3-37. Available in periodicals in Mina Rees Library. Xeroxes in Medieval Carrel.

E. Gordon Whatley, "An Introduction to the Study of Old English Prose Hagiography," in Paul Szarmach (ed.), Holy Men and Holy Women: Old English Prose Saints' Lives and Their Contexts (Albany, NY, 1996), pp. 3-32. Available on reserve. Xeroxes in Medieval Carrel.

Primary sources:

Willibald, The Life of St. Boniface in Soldiers of Christ, chap. 4.

Alcuin, The Life of St. Willibrord in Soldiers of Christ, chap. 7.

Rudolf, The Life of St. Leoba in Soldiers of Christ, chap. 8.

Life of the Holy Virgin Samthann in Medieval Hagiography, chap. 5.

Jonas of Bobbio, "The Abbots of Bobbio" from The Life of St. Columbanus in Medieval Hagiography, chap. 6.

Dado of Rouen, Life of St. Eligius of Noyon in Medieval Hagiography, chap. 7.

Einhard, Translation of the Relics of Sts. Marcellinus and Peter in Medieval Hagiography, chap. 9.

Raguel, Martyrdom of St. Pelagius in Medieval Hagiography, chap. 10.

For reports: Katleen Mitchell and Ian Woods (eds.), The World of Gregory of Tours (Cultures, Beliefs and Traditions: Medieval and Early Modern Peoples 8; Leiden: Brill, 2002).

Patrick Geary, Furta Sacra. Thefts of Relics in the Central Middle Ages (Princeton, 1978; second edition 1990). Available on reserve.

Lisa Bitel, "St. Brigit of Ireland: From Virgin Saint to Fertility Goddess," talk delivered at Fordham University. Available in Course Reader.

March 11: Illuminating Sanctity. Core reading:

Cynthia Hahn, Portrayed on the Heart: Narrative Effect in Pictorial Lives of Saints from the Tenth through the Thirteenth Century (Berkeley, 2001). Available at the bookstore and on reserve.

Primary sources:

Abbo of Fleury, Passion of St. Edmund of East Anglia in Course Reader.

Aelfric, Passion of St. Edmund of East Anglia in Medieval Saints, chap. 20.

For reports: Thomas Head, "Art and Artifice in Ottonian Trier," Gesta, 36 (1997), pp. 65-82. Xeroxes in Medieval Carrel.

Magdalena Carrasco, "Sanctity and Experience in Pictorial Hagiography," in Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski and Timea Szell (eds.), Images of Sainthood in Medieval Europe (Ithaca, NY, 1991), pp. 33-66. Available on reserve and in Medieval Carrel.

March 18: The Shrines of the Saints (1).

Core reading:

John Crook, The Architectural Setting of the Cult of the saints in the Early Christian West, c. 300-c. 1200 (Oxford, 2000). Available on reserve and by special order.

Primary sources:

Hrotsvit of Gandersheim, The Establishment of the Monastery of Gandersheim in Medieval Hagiography, chap. 11.

Excerpts from the Book of Ely in Medieval Hagiography, chap. 22.

Liturgical Offices for the Feast of Thomas Becket in Medieval Hagiography, chap. 26.

Texts on shrines in Medieval Saints, chaps. 25, 34, and 25.

For reports: Ben Nilson, "The Medieval Experience at the Shrine," in Pilgrimage Explored, ed. J. Stoppard (York, 2000), pp. 95-122. Xerox to be distributed.

Jane Tibbetts Schulenburg, "Gender, Celibacy, and Proscriptions of Sacred Space: Symbol and Practice," in Medieval Purity and Piety: Essays on Medieval Clerical Celibacy and Religious Reform, ed. Michael Frassetto (New York, 1998), pp. 353-76. Xerox to be distributed.

Werner Jacobsen, "Saints’ Tombs in Frankish Church Architecture," Speculum, 72 (1997): 1107-43. Available in periodicals in Mina Rees Library.

March 25: The Shrines of the Saints (2). Core reading:

Thomas Head, Hagiography and the Cult of Saints. The Diocese of Orléans, 800-1200 (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, fourth series, number 14; Cambridge, 1990), particularly pp. 1-20, 135-201, and 235-95. Available in Medieval Carrel (Xeroxes and book).

Julia Smith, "Oral and Written: Saints, Miracles, and Relics in Brittany, c. 850-1250," Speculum 65 (1990), pp. 309-43. Available in Course Reader.

Primary sources:

Pamela Scheingorn (trans.), The Book of Sainte Foy (Philadelphia, 1994), Introduction and books I and II. Available at bookstore and on reserve.

Texts on the cult of relics in the eleventh century in Medieval Hagiography, chap. 13.

The Miracles of St. Ursmer on His Journey Through Flanders in Medieval Hagiography, chap. 16.

Claudius of Turin’s critique of the cult of relics in Medieval Saints, chap. 31.

Guibert of Nogent, On Saints and their Relics in Medieval Hagiography, chap. 19.

For reports: Barbara Rosenwein, Thomas Head, and Sharon Farmer, "Monk and Their Enemies: A Comparative Approach," Speculum, 66 (1991), pp. 764-796. Available in periodicals in Mina Rees Library and in Course Reader.

Barbara Abou-el-Haj, "Bury St Edmunds Abbey Between 1070 and 1124: A History of Property, Privilege, and Monastic Art Production," Art History, 6 (1983), pp. 1-29. Available in Periodicals in Mina Rees Library. Xeroxes also in Medieval Carrel.

Kathleen Ashley and Pamela Sheingorn, Writing Faith: Text, Sign, and History in the Miracles of Sainte Foy (Chicago, 1999).

April 1: Translating Sanctity in the High Middle Ages. Core reading:

Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, Virgin Saints’ Lives and Women’s Literary Culture: Virginity and its Authorization (Oxford, 2001). Available in the bookstore and by special order.

Primary sources:

The Life of St. Alexis in Medieval Hagiography, chap. 15.

The Life of the Dear Friends Amicus and Amelius in Medieval Hagiography, chap. 21.

Texts on Margaret of Antioch in Medieval Hagiography, chap. 30.

The Old Czech Life of St. Catherine of Alexandria in Medieval Hagiography, chap. 34.

Jocelyn Wogan-Browne and Glyn Burgess (trans. and eds.), Virgin Lives and Holy Deaths: Two Exemplary Biographies for Anglo-Norman Women (London 1996). Available on reserve.

For reports:

Evelyn Vitz, "From the Oral to the Written in Medieval and Renaissance Saints’ Lives," in Blumenfeld-Kosinski and Szell, Images of Sainthood in Medieval Europe, pp. 97-114. Available on reserve and in Medieval Carrel.

Karl Uitii, "Women Saints, the Vernacular, and History in Early Medieval France," in Blumenfeld-Kosinski and Szell, Images of Sainthood in Medieval Europe, pp. 247-67. Available on reserve and in Medieval Carrel.

April 8: Jewish Martyrology. Core reading:

Susan Einbinder, Beautiful Death: Jewish Poetry and Martyrdom in Medieval France (Princeton, 2002). Available at bookstore and on reserve.

I strongly recommend going to Professor Einbinder’s lecture to the New York Medieval Club on April 4.

Primary sources:

Thomas of Monmouth, Life and Passion of William of Norwich in Medieval Hagiography, chap. 24.

Texts on the Jewish Martyrs of Blois in Medieval Hagiography, chap. 25.

For reports:

Gavin Langmuir, "Thomas of Monmouth: Detector of Ritual Murder," Speculum, 59 (1984): 820-46. Available in periodicals in Mina Rees Library.

David Berger, "Mission to the Jews and Jewish Christian Contacts in the Polemical History of the High Middle Ages," American Historical Review, 91 (1986): 576-91. Available in Course Reader.

John McCulloh, "Jewish Ritual Murder: William of Norwich, Thomas of Monmouth, and the Early Dissemination of the Myth," Speculum, 72 (1997): 698-740. Available in periodicals in Mina Rees Library.

April 15: no class (university observes Wednesday class schedule).

April 22: no class (spring break).

April 29: Canonization and the Redefinition of Christian Sanctity.

Core reading:

André Vauchez, Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages, trans. Jean Birrell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). Available on reserve and by special order.

Aviad Kleinberg, Prophets in Their Own Country: Living Saints and the Making of Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages (Chicago, 1992), introduction and chap. 1. Available on reserve.

Primary sources:

The Saga of Bishop Jon of Holar in Medieval Hagiography.

The Autobiography of Peter of the Morrone in Medieval Hagiography.

The Canonization Process for St. Vincent Ferrer in Medieval Hagiography.

Texts on the life of Francis of Assisi in Medieval Saints, chaps. 39-42. Texts on the canonization of Francis of Assisi in Medieval Saints, chap. 43.

For reports:

Aviad Kleinberg, Prophets in Their Own Country: Living Saints and the Making of Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages (Chicago, 1992), any of the case studies. Available on reserve.

Michael Goodich, Violence and Miracle in the Fourteenth Century: Private Grief and Public Salvation (Chicago, 1995). Available on reserve.

May 6: Gendering Sanctity in the Late Middle Ages. Core reading:

Caroline Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast. The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women (Berkeley: University of California, 1987). Available at the bookstore and on reserve.

Primary sources:

Texts on the Life of St. Margaret of Antioch in Medieval Hagiography, chap. 30.

The Middle-English version of Jacques de Vitry's Life of St. Marie d'Oignies in Medieval Hagiography, chap. 31.

Thomas of Cantimpré, The Life of Christina the Astonishing in Medieval Saints, chap. 37.

The Life of Umilta of Faenza in Medieval Saints, chap. 38.

For reports:

John Coakley, "Friars as Confidants of Holy Women in Medieval Dominican Hagiography," in Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski and Timea Szell (eds.), Images of Sainthood in Medieval Europe (Ithaca, NY, 1991), pp. 222-246. Available on reserve and in Medieval Carrel.

Elizabeth Robertson, "The Corporeality of Female Sanctity in the Life of Saint Margaret," in Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski and Timea Szell (eds.), Images of Sainthood in Medieval Europe (Ithaca, NY, 1991), pp,. 268-87. Available on reserve and in Medieval Carrel.

May 13: The Culture of Devotion. Core reading:

Jeffrey Hamburger, The Visual and the Visionary: Art and Spirituality in Late Medieval Germany (Boston, 1998), articles to be assigned. Available at bookstore and on reserve.

Virginia Reinburg, "Liturgy and the Laity," Sixteenth-Century Journal, 23 (1992), pp. 526-47. Available in Course Reader.

Primary sources:

Brigitte Cazelles, The Lady as Saint: A Collection of French Hagiographic Romances of the Thirteenth Century (Philadelphia, 1991). Available on reserve and in Medieval Carrel.

Gautier de Coincy, excerpts from The Miracles of the Virgin Mary in Medieval hagiography, chap. 28.

Text on the cult of Mary Magdalen in Medieval Hagiography, chap. 29.

R. N. Swanson, Catholic England: Faith, Religion and Observance Before the Reformation (Manchester, 1993), chaps. 6 (on private religion) and 7 (on saints and shrines). Available in Course Reader.

Texts on reformers views of the cult of the saints in Medieval Saints, epilogue.

For reports:

David Postles, "Lamps, Lights and Layfolk: ‘Popular’ Devotion before the Black Death," Journal of Medieval History, 25 (1999): 97-114. Available in Course Reader.

Sarah Beckwith, Christ's Body : Identity, Culture and Society in Late Medieval Writings (London, 1994), chaps. 1 and 2. Multiple copies available in Medieval Carrel.

Elizabeth Robertson, Early English Devotional Prose and the Female Audience (University of Tennessee Press, 1990), chaps. 1-3. Multiple copies available in Medieval Carrel.