Sacred Biography : Saints and Their Biographers in the Middle Ages : Saints and Their Biographers in the Middle Ages

Though medieval "saints' lives" are among the oldest literary texts of Western vernacular culture, they are routinely patronized as "pious fiction" by modern historiography. This book demonstrates that to characterize the genre as fiction is to misunderstand the intentions of medieval authors, who were neither credulous fools nor men blinded by piety. Concentrating on English texts, Heffernan reconstructs the medieval perspective and considers sacred biography in relation to the community for which it was written; identifies the genre's rhetorical practices and purposes; and demonstrates the syncretistic way in which the life of the medieval saint was transformed from oral tales to sacred text. In the process, Heffernan not only achieves a more contextually accurate understanding of the medieval saints' lives, but details a new critical method that has important implications for the practice of textual criticism. Annotation Though medieval saints' lives are among the oldest literary texts of Western vernacular culture, they are routinely patronized as pious fiction by modern historiography. This book demonstrates that to characterize the genre as fiction is to misunderstand the intentions of medievalauthors, who were neither credulous fools nor men blinded by piety. Concentrating on English texts, Heffernan reconstructs the medieval perspective and considers sacred biography in relation to the community for which it was written; identifies the genre's rhetorical practices and purposes; anddemonstrates the syncretistic way in which the life of the medieval saint was transformed from oral tales to sacred text. In the process, Heffernan not only achieves a more contextually accurate understanding of the medieval saints' lives, but details a new critical method that has importantimplications for the practice of textual criticism Frontmatter (page N/A) 1 From Logos to Canon: The Making of a Saint's Life (page 3) 2 Sacred Biography as Historical Narrative: Testing the Tradition, Gibbon to Gadamer (page 38) 3 Sanctity in the Cloister: Walter Daniel's Vita Sancti Aelredi and Rhetoric (page 72) 4 A Theology of Behavior: Communio Sanctorum and the Use of Sources (page 123) 5 The Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicitas and the Imitatio Christi (page 185) 6 Virgin Mothers (page 231) Select Bibliography (page 300) Index (page 319) 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