Miracle Collections Research Articles

Miracles in Medieval Canonization Processes: Structures, Functions, and Methodologies ed. by Christian Krötzl and Sari Katajala-Peltomaa

Reviewed by: Miracles in Medieval Canonization Processes: Structures, Functions, and Methodologies ed. by Christian Krötzl and Sari Katajala-Peltomaa Keagan Brewer Krötzl, Christian, and Sari Katajala-Peltomaa, eds, Miracles in Medieval Canonization Processes: Structures, Functions, and Methodologies (International Medieval Research, 23), Turnhout, Brepols, 2018; hardcover; pp. x, 290; no illustrations; R.R.P. €80.00; ISBN 9782503573137. Much ink has been spilled on medieval hagiography, and rightly so given that the cults of the saints were so important to European culture and spirituality. However, too little research exists regarding the large and complex problem of the process of medieval canonization and its documentary heritage. This book offers first steps in redressing that gap. Building upon the work of Michael Goodich, André Vauchez, Gábor Klaniczay (who is also one of the contributors), and others, the volume asks such questions as: On what evidence were saints canonized? To what extent was there a formalized process, or was it idiosyncratic? What changes took place over the period? On what grounds did assessors distinguish ‘true’ saints’ miracles from ‘false’ ones? The book begins with an administrative, but necessary, introduction that traverses the relevant terminology and broad changes that took place as the canonization process became more and more formalized, particularly between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries. From there, the book dives into a series of exciting papers that will be of varying interest to varied readers. Without wishing to detail each paper (since the contents page should be available online), [End Page 223] broadly speaking they are concerned with the idiosyncrasies of miracle collecting, recording, and proof. There was a swirling maelstrom of factors that influenced a pope’s decision as to whether or not to canonize a saint: politics, the miracles’ nature and epistemological foundations, distance, cultural affinity, international relations, and the personalities of the different popes and cardinals involved. In addition, the vast majority of the miracles pertain to the healing of ailments, so the collection may be of interest to scholars of medieval medicine and the body. Canonization in the Middle Ages was a serious business. It involved the intersection of lay and ecclesiastical cultures, which included layers of epistemology and issues around the oral and the written. Sometimes there were processions into the lands from which the alleged saints came (processus in partibus) and these functioned like a sort of happy inquisition. The process of canonization is also important for legal history, since, as Fröjmark observes (pp. 139–40), the articles of interrogation ‘were carried out in a manner that resembles the examination of witnesses at a trial’. Overall, the proofs used to justify miracles include wide reporting, the probity of informants, and the provision of post-factum physical evidence, with a preference for interviewees who had witnessed the events. Even then, as Didier Lett observes, there was much scepticism about saints’ miracles, for various reasons. Overall, the book offers a welcome contribution to a difficult, sometimes dry topic that is nevertheless of much importance to medieval European society. But I would like to raise a few minor quibbles that do not overshadow the important contribution this book makes. The vast majority of personalities and situations under discussion pertain to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, so the book could more correctly have been titled Miracles in Late Medieval Canonization Processes. There are, of course, logistical reasons for this late focus, given that the documentary inheritance is much stronger for later centuries, though there is certainly enough from earlier centuries to build discussions on. I felt that more of the papers could have dived deeper into manuscript study, given that the documentary heritage of canonization processes is one of the book’s primary focuses. The highlight in this regard was Fröjmark’s chapter on Swedish miracle collections. Finally, more comparison between earlier and later canonization processes could have been useful to establish the extent to which medieval norms were unique, though admittedly the logistics of this are difficult. These issues do not override the strength of this work in broad terms. Perhaps the largest contribution of the book is to bring to the study of the saints a new focus on the important and multifaceted issues...

МОТИВЫ «ЧУДЕС БОГОМАТЕРИ» В СТИХОТВОРЕНИИ А. С. ПУШКИНА «ЛЕГЕНДА»

This study is devoted to the identification of sources of Pushkin’s original poem “There Lived a Poor Knight ...” (“The Legend”). Through revealing the “traces” of a literary source in the drafts of “The Legend,” the details of the narrative “Will Taken for Deed,” going back to a Middle French transcription of the poetic collection “The Miracles of Our Lady” by Gautier de Coinci, have been found. Perhaps, while working on “The Legend,” the poet used a motif of the Virgin Mary’s mystical names in the collection of Marian miracles by Caesar of Heisterbach. Both “The Legend” and Franz’s song in “Scenes from Knightly Times” consistently moved away from the Marian narrative. This substantiates the interpretation of both versions as an evolution in the same direction originally chosen by the poet.

Rebellion and Miracles on the Welsh March: Accounts in the Miracle Collection of St Thomas de Cantilupe

It has recently been argued that some of the miracles performed between 1287 and 1312 by St Thomas de Cantilupe, bishop of Hereford (1275–82, canonized 1320), can be seen as an imprinting of 'cultural imperialism' on the recently conquered Welsh. What this argument has not considered, however, are the miracles recorded for other English and Welsh recipients involved in various Anglo-Welsh conflicts from 1287 onwards. This article offers a revision of this assessment by considering the wider setting of the Cantilupe cult, examining the other Welsh miracle recipients and placing them in the context of Anglo-Welsh conflict in the March.

“A Desora Desperto y vio una Grand Claridat”: The Role of Dreams and Light in the Construction of a Multi-Confessional Audience of the Miracles of the Virgin of Guadalupe

This paper examines the religious proselytizing agenda of the order of Saint Jerome that ruled the Extremaduran sanctuary of the Virgin of Guadalupe since 1389. To this end, I analyze how the Hieronymite’s used literary motifs such as dreams and light in the codex of the Miracles of the Virgin of Guadalupe to create a multi-confessional audience for their collection of miracles. I contend that these motifs were chosen because they were key elements in the construction of a particular image of the Virgin that could appeal to pilgrims of different faiths. Through them, the Hieronymites evoked in the minds of Muslim pilgrims and Christian captives beyond the sea the imagery and rhetoric of Sufi devotional literature and Islamic hagiography, in order to create a vision of the Virgin that was able to compete with the more important Islamic devotional figures: the Prophet, Sufi masters and charismatic saints. Finally, I explore how the possible influence of North African devotional models, such as the Shadhiliyya order or the hagiography of the Tunisian saint, Aisha al-Manubiyya, suggests that the aims of the monastic authors of this Marian miracles collection went far beyond the conversion of Castilian Muslims, aiming at the transformation of the Extremaduran Marian sanctuary of Guadalupe into a Mediterranean devotional center.

La Vierge dans les arts et les littératures du Moyen Âge: actes du colloque de Perpignan, du 17 au 19 octobre 2013. Sous la direction de Paul Bretel, Michel Adroher et Aymat Catafau

While the volume’s editors state their desire to take a pluridisciplinary approach, in this they only partially succeed: the essays presented investigate Marian devotion in history, art history, and literature, but only one of the volume’s four parts includes non-literary approaches. Moreover, while the volume covers several disciplines, the individual contributions remain locked in their disciplinary silos. Part One contains four studies of English and Anglo-Norman literary traditions. Jean-Paul Débax studies Mary’s place in English theatre, but because he devotes so much of his chapter to background his textual analyses remain somewhat cursory. Claire Vial’s excellent chapter on Middle English lyrics demonstrates how these songs to the Virgin indulge in the contemplation of mysteries akin to lectio divina, rather than scriptural exegesis. Olivier Simonin examines Mary in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and Françoise Laurent’s richly documented study of the miracle of Helsin in Wace’s Conception Nostre Dame and two Marian miracle collections finish out the first part. In the opening essay of Part Two, Lola Badia surveys images of the Virgin in the works of Ramon Llull. Miriam Cabré’s article on Mary in the poetry of Ceverí de Girona then posits that this troubadour’s religious production, while seemingly apart from his secular production, relies on the same aesthetic principles of registral variation and thematic adaptation. Michel Adroher examines texts in the Passion Dido to illustrate how much the author surprisingly glorifies Mary Magdalene while putatively praising the Virgin. Finally Sadurní Martí argues convincingly, in his study of the fourteenth-century Franciscan Francesc Eiximenis, how this writer deserves more scholarly attention. The third and longest part on French literature gathers ten essays on: Gautier de Coinci (Jean-René Valette and Gérard Gros); collections such as the Miracles de Notre Dame par personnages (Élisabeth Gauchier-Rémond); and institutions such as Marian poetic puys (Denis Hüe). Articles on less-studied texts — L’Advocacie Notre Dame (Jean-Marie Carbasse), the sermons of Arnoul de Lisieux (Audry Bettant), and Cistercian legends (Céline Pérol) — flesh out the literary and socio-cultural landscape. Karin Ueltschi studies the Mesnagier de Paris to show how virtues traditionally associated with Mary are closely aligned to the ideal bourgeoise prudefemme. Finally, Paul Bretel’s ambitious study of images of Virgin in twelve (!) miracle collections marks the culmination of Part Three. The final part is composed of four studies: Alessia Trivellone’s study of a manuscript miniature of a scribe offering his codex to the Virgin in a copy of Jerome’s Commentary on Jeremiah (Dijon, BM 130, folio 104r); Jordi Camps i Sòria’s richly illustrated contribution on the Virgin and Child in Romanesque statues in Catalonia; Jean-René Gaborit’s study of Marian reliquaries; and Jean-Louis Olive’s study of a statuette called Nostra Senyora de la Salvetat in the church of Nostre-Dame de la Salvetat in Roussillon. Several indexes round out the volume; however, a final bibliography would have been equally helpful. The volume will find an appreciative audience among specialists in medieval literature and art.

"It All Depends on the Dose": Poison and Medicines in European History ed. by Ole Peter Grell, Andrew Cunningham, and Jon Arrizabalaga

Reviewed by: "It All Depends on the Dose": Poison and Medicines in European History ed. by Ole Peter Grell, Andrew Cunningham, and Jon Arrizabalaga Frederick W. Gibbs Ole Peter Grell, Andrew Cunningham, and Jon Arrizabalaga, eds. "It All Depends on the Dose": Poison and Medicines in European History. The History of Medicine in Context. London: Routledge, 2018. xiv + 244 pp. Ill. $150.00 (978-1-138-69761-4). "It All Depends on the Dose" presents a dozen workshop papers to illustrate the complex relationship between medicine and poison in the Western medical tradition from classical Rome through the twentieth century. The first chapter, from Toine Pieters, canvases a handful of strong and dangerous drugs including arsenic, opium, morphine, warfarin, and even chemotherapy, to "pinpoint a remarkable continuity in the blurred boundaries between medicine and poison" (p. 22). This sweeping overview, with its abundant anecdotal evidence, perfectly sets the stage for the collection and its stated purpose. In the lone pre-thirteenth-century chapter Helen King provides a clear and concise summary—perhaps the best anywhere—of Galen's various comments about poison and antidotes across his corpus. She pays particular attention to the number and diversity of sources of Galen's knowledge about poisons and remedies and how they worked their way into so many of Galen's texts. Montserrat Cabré and Fernando Salmón present a surprisingly unique tale from a thirteenth-century collection of miracles from Castile, the Cantigas de Santa María. One of these (cantiga 188) suggests that a young woman's death was caused by an internal poison and describes an unusually early postmortem dissection of her heart (to which she continually pointed as her health waned). The chapter demonstrates the intriguing potential for examining religious and medical discussions about poisoning in conjunction with each other. Moving on to the mid-fourteenth century, Jon Arrizabalaga details numerous examples manufactured poisons reputedly used to spread pestilential disease. By considering accusations of poisoning water, food, and air alongside accusations of deliberately spreading plague, the chapter nicely shows how prominent medical theories about the nature of poison convincingly explained the possible mechanisms of poison and plague spreading, both accidental and intentional. Georgiana D. Hedesan provides a spectacularly clear and systematic overview of Paracelsus's many comments throughout his works on the relationship between poison, medicine, and disease. Her chapter will be essential reading for a long time, not least because it shows how Paracelsus's contribution to toxicology was far more sophisticated than a slogan about the importance of dose. Particularly useful is Hedesan's attention to Paracelsus's dual approach to poison both as a spiritual essence and as a discrete physical substance. Ole Peter Grell outlines how Martin Luther's views on sexual abstinence and prostitution—both to be avoided—may have been anchored in both classical and [End Page 451] contemporary medical theory. Celibacy could encourage a kind of self-poisoning according to Galenic ideas about the poisonous nature of retained semen or menses; prostitution could help spread the poison that acted as cause of pox (later known as syphilis). The chapter also raises important questions about how religious reformers and doctrine could be informed by medical authority, even without direct attribution. No book on the history of poison could be complete without attention to political assassination in Italian Renaissance courts, and Alexander Pastore's chapter provides a fine specimen. While readers will hardly be surprised by its conclusion that we can "verify the strong presence . . . of poison in Renaissance Italy" (p. 128), its dense collection of anecdotes from a wide array of sources provides an intriguing starting point. Taking up a different social lens in the early modern world, Alisha Rankin surveys the relationship between gender, poison, and antidotes in terms of authorial attribution. She shows how, on one hand, exotic or complex poison remedies intended for courtly use were usually ascribed to highly elite men rather than women; yet on the other hand, such strong gender differences seem to dissolve in the context of medicinal recipes for antidotes generally, to which women were clearly important contributors. José Ramón Bertomeu-Sánchez argues that the pioneering toxicological work of Mateu Orfila in the...

L’ordre du miracle : temps et espace dans les Miracula sancti Vedasti (BHL 8510), sancti Huberti (BHL 3996) et sancti Remacli (BHL 7120-7125)

This paper explores the narrative structure of time and space in three miracle collections written in Benedictine monasteries around the middle of the ninth century : the Miracula sancti Vedasti (bhl 8510), sancti Huberti (bhl 3996) and sancti Remacli (bhl 7120-7125). These collections, which seem to be structured by the living memory of their authors, combine a precise circular temporality and a less precise linear temporality which does not exceed one generation in depth. The Miracula sancti Vedasti and Huberti present a spatial structure which is centered on the monastery : the saint heals those who come and solicit him. He also occasionally extends his protection beyond the monastery, over property and goods. While Remaclus also heals at his tomb, he very often acts at a distance, within a multipolar space where he surveils, punishes, or rewards the familia the tenants, small landowners, craftsmen, and donators evolving around the monastery, its churches, and estates.

Le dossier hagiographique de saint Godehard, évêque de Hildesheim au XIesiècle

The aim of this article is to reexamine the hagiographic dossier of Bishop Godehard of Hildesheim (1022-1038). From this, it appears that Vita Ia (BHL 3581) must be considered to be a “preparatory work” compiled during the life of the saint, which enabled its author, Wolfhere, to compile a veritable saint’s Life (BHL 3582) in about 1054. This Life was complemented in the 1070s by a collection of miracles (also BHL 3582). As far as the other texts of the dossier are concerned, only two hagiographical undertakings are notable: the composition in about 1132 of the Translatio (BHL 3584), which was later complemented by some individual miracles, and in the 14th century the composition of Vita IIIa (BHL 3590), the main component of which is the Miracula in vita patrata (BHL 3583), which until now had never been dated and which have generally but erroneously been considered to be individual work.

Staropolskie piśmiennictwo sanktuaryjne jako źródło do badań nad kultem maryjnym na ziemiach Rzeczypospolitej

The article features the wealth of forms and contents of prints conventionally called “sanctuary prints”. These include compendia which are the guides to sacred places of the Polish Republic, peregrination literature, occasional prints (e.g. published on the occasion of the coronation of a miraculous image), homiletic forms (texts of sermons preached during the Marian holidays, image translation or coronation), the stories of sacred places and legends related to them, collections of miracles and graces, prayer books and texts of songs intended for the pilgrims. Interpretation possibilities of this type of texts were indicated. The presence of the Virgin Mary in a notional sphere of elites and masses identified clearly and permanently her place in Polish religiosity and the Marian cult has found particular expression in growing from the half of the 16th century, the adoration of the Marian images. Important from this perspective studies tend to portray multiple cultural phenomena available through the external manifestations of worship presented in the source material.

Literary Territories: Cartographical Thinking in Late Antiquity by Scott Fitzgerald Johnson

Reviewed by: Literary Territories: Cartographical Thinking in Late Antiquity by Scott Fitzgerald Johnson Frank Georgia Literary Territories: Cartographical Thinking in Late Antiquity Scott Fitzgerald Johnson Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. Pp. xiv + 195. 978-0-19-022123-2 In Literary Territories, Scott Johnson explores the intertwined metaphors of map and library as they shaped the production of literature in late antiquity. Much of the book focuses on the fourth [End Page 289] through the sixth century, a time when increased travel expanded notions of the oikoumenē, or the "inhabited world." Efforts to accumulate and organize all knowledge, Johnson argues, fueled an "aesthetic of encyclopedism" or "archivalism" in many late antique genres. Cartographical thinking—the impulse to compile, archive, and epitomize—is a by-product of this interest, appearing in travel descriptions, letters, pilgrims' guides, and miracle collections, as well as in non-narrative works such as Roman lists of overland staging posts (itineraria) and topographical catalogs (notitiae). Casting his net widely, Johnson cleverly pairs and compares secular and religious works: Pliny's (d. 79 ce) Natural History with the sixth-century Cosmas Indicopleustes's Christian Topography; Pausanias's (c. 115–c. 180) Description of Greece with the travel diary by the Christian pilgrim Egeria (ca. 484); Synesius of Cyrene's (ca. 370–ca. 414) description of a harrowing sea voyage (Ep. 5) and Jerome's account of his journey to the Holy Land with Paula (Ep. 108, 404 ce); or astronomical works such as Macrobius's Commentary on the Dream of Scipio (ca. 430) and Gregory of Tours' late-sixth-century handbook, The Course of the Stars, written for monks regulating prayer times. For each work, Johnson exposes the underlying "archival aesthetic" and makes a persuasive case for how accumulation is put to the service of argument. Collecting would be instrumental for asserting imperial control, marking out a holy land, or revealing cosmic order. In addition to attuning the reader to these cartographical habits of thought, Johnson tracks how geographical thinking and frameworks underlie Christian travelers' descriptions, miracle collections, and legends related to the apostles and saints. All these genres share a focus on "locatedness," whereby the saint is rooted in a particular place. For instance, the Miracles of Thekla celebrate her local, even chthonic, powers. Yet, the Miracles also cast Thekla's influence beyond the region by inserting her into the legendary account of the apostles casting lots to missionize all the cities and lands of the world. The sortes apostolorum, as this legend is called, recurs in several collective hagiographies and miracle collections. The sortes, Johnson argues, also found expression in imperial monuments, such as Constantine's final resting place. According to Constantine's biographer, Eusebius, the mausoleum at the Church of the Holy Apostles complex featured the imperial coffin flanked by "coffins" for each of the twelve apostles, effecting an "archive of the apostles" and fixing the emperor in a universalizing apostolic geography. The persistence of this legend is evident in a seventh-century collection of tales about monastic wonderworking, the Spiritual Meadow by John Moschus. Although the collection lacks an explicit geographical itinerary, Johnson detects resonances between monastic and apostolic spaces. In the final chapter Johnson explores the geographical frameworks of two ninth-century East Syriac works. He analyzes Thomas of Marga's Historia Monastica and Isho'dnah of Basra's Liber Castitatis to show how a cartographic reading of these texts reveals their orientation toward Jerusalem and Egypt, suggesting the "westwardness" that informs their self-understanding. Johnson is also to be commended for providing an appended chronological bibliography of critical editions and English translations of Greek, Latin, and Syriac works from the first seven centuries ce. [End Page 290] Through his individual examples Johnson exposes the frameworks by which Christians and non-Christians mapped their own field of dreams, so to speak. Rather than view all this "commentary, compilation, and repackaging" as unoriginal or parasitic, Johnson claims it is profoundly creative and innovative. He suggests that, as with the codex, a technology that increasingly displaced the scroll in the later third and fourth centuries, readers could enter these narratives at random and easily compare, quote, and recombine portions. Like musical sampling today...

The Culture of Food in England 1200–1500 by C. M. Woolgar

Reviewed by: The Culture of Food in England 1200–1500 by C. M. Woolgar Mihaela L. Florescu C. M. Woolgar, The Culture of Food in England 1200–1500 (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press 2016) 341 pp. If you lived 600 years ago in England, your life centered around food cultivation, preparation and consumption. Food played an overarching role in people's lives. In The Culture of Food in England 1200-1500, C.M. Woolgar explores the meaning of food and drink and what it can reveal about a culture. Food products were a lot more than mere sustenance in medieval times. Assuredly, the actual diet of medieval England is discussed, but not only that. Also up for discussion are the contexts of acquiring food, cooking, and eating in social groups. Food customs are examined across a wide array of institutions. [End Page 291] The role of food is analyzed in such diverse settings as the countryside, civic society, elite groups, monasteries and ecclesiastical organizations. The Culture of Food in England includes an analysis of the institutional culture of food, the distinctiveness of food and special food products, the cooking process, links between health and eating virtuously, and food in popular mentalities. Great insight into everyday life is gained as a byway of examining food so closely. How foods were prepared, how they were brought to the table, the way service was conducted, and the choice of tableware all mattered. Examination of the food of medieval times is usually limited to looking at issues of food production, but C.M. Woolgar chooses to focus on a different aspect of food, namely the culture surrounding food consumption. Woolgar looks at what was considered food, the relationship of food to moral and religious questions, what meals are eaten, when and where, and the relationship between men, women and children and their food. Fortunately for the food historian, medieval England was a literate society and written records regarding food can be found by the clever cultural sleuth. There are tens of thousands of financial records from medieval manors and estates and a small portion of these records have to do with food, the preparation of food as well as the ways it was eaten. Especially good record keeping is found in the form of some fifteenth-century feast provisions of the guild of the Holy Cross at Stratford-upon-Avon. However, the written record is sparse in regard to the lower tiers of society. No records relating to food were found from peasant farms and gardens. Other types of less intuitive records are of great aid in forming a more complete view of medieval English food mores. The book examines a diverse group of records. Records of coroners can be quite revealing. If someone was to die suddenly in the kitchen, patterns of medieval life can emerge. We can find out the time of day the water might be drawn. Another even less intuitive record can be found in collections of miracles. People could be found working in kitchens or otherwise engaged in other food related activities when a miracle occurs. The record obligingly contains incidental mentions of everyday chores, which become centrally important clues to the food historian. Aside from record keeping, legal regulations are of help in discerning food customs. In towns, laws are passed to regulate the retail commerce of food as well as the wholesale distribution of food. In ecclesiastical institutions, laws are also passed to regulate monastic food consumption. An important aspect surrounding food was how to eat it, or what is also known as etiquette. The customs of the wealthy trickled down to those of more meager means that insisted on the importance of ceremony in their cultural life. Thousands of recipes from the dining tables of the wealthy are available to us today through cookbooks. We also have access to a number of menus. More marginally, yet still making a contribution to the information bank of medieval English food culture, are mentions of food in literature and in sermons. The medieval vocabulary itself also provides clues into the meaning and importance of food. The words for food and drinks and how they are used...

William of Malmesbury: The Miracles of the Blessed Virgin Mary trans. and ed. by R. M. Thomson and M. Winterbottom

William of Malmesbury: The Miracles of Blessed Virgin Mary. Edited and translated by R. M. Thomson and M. Winterbottom. [Boydell Medieval Texts.] (Rochester, NY: The Press, imprint of & Brewer. 2015. Pp. lxvii, 154. $115.00. ISBN 978-1-78327-016-3.)In 1120s and 1130s, English Benedictine monks produced an influential and remarkable set of collections of miracles of Virgin Mary. Unlike earlier Marian miracle collections produced on Continent and more usual type of miracle collection being compiled at English shrines in period, stories in these English Marian collections were cosmopolitan, ranging widely in time and place, with stories of Virgin's miracles in Italy, Spain, and eastern Mediterranean as well as in northern Europe. William of Malmesbury's lengthy text of some fifty-three chapters holds an important place within this flowering of Marian collections: it represents, as editors of this text put it, the culmination of this first creative impulse, before its spread to Continent and incorporation in much larger collections, from late twelfth century onward (p. xviii).William's collection has been edited twice before, once in 1959 in an unpublished Ph.D. thesis and again in 1968. This edition, including a facing-page translation, is first title in Boydell Medieval Texts series. It was undertaken by two scholars, Rodney Thomson and Michael Winterbottom, who have edited and translated nearly all of William of Malmesbury's other works. Their combined efforts have given William's Marian collection edition it deserves, and will make this important text far more widely available and accessible.Much of edition's introduction is taken up by a discussion of how editors decided to order chapters of collection, necessary because there are only two manuscripts that preserve William's text, and both have problems. The first manuscript is a preliminary version of collection which appears to include a pending file of stories that William planned to integrate into a text at a later date. The second manuscript, though it is clearly William's later, revised version of text, is missing quires and badly fragmented. In addition to their painstaking comparative analysis of these two manuscripts, editors draw on a number of other manuscripts that contain selections and abbreviations of William's stories to aid them in their reconstruction of text as a whole. …

Christianity and Culture in the Middle Ages. Essays to Honor John Van Engen ed. by David C. Mengel and Lisa Wolverton

Reviewed by: Christianity and Culture in the Middle Ages. Essays to Honor John Van Engen ed. by David C. Mengel and Lisa Wolverton Miri Rubin Christianity and Culture in the Middle Ages. Essays to Honor John Van Engen. Edited by David C. Mengel and Lisa Wolverton. (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. 2014. Pp. xiv, 522. $68.00. ISBN 978-0-268-03533-4) The chapters assembled in Christianity and Culture in the Middle Ages explore European history across centuries and regions. The volume’s coherence and charm arise from the hommage offered by each contribution to an inspiring historian and teacher—John Van Engen. Van Engen’s work has treated diverse areas of medieval religious life, as the list of his publications offered on pages 501-506 shows. He has impressively studied twelfth-century monastic life and thought, as well as religious initiatives developed by and for lay people—often women—in the cities of north west Europe in the later Middle Ages. He also wrote an influential article „The Christian Middle Ages as an Historiographical Problem”1 which forms the volume’s leitmotif. Part I, “Christianization,” includes four ‘think pieces’ which cut across the centuries: R I Moore offers a masterly historiographical survey of the term ‘cathar’ since 1849; Lisa Wolverton combines historiographical reflection with analysis of written and material sources to support a new reading of the Christianization of Bohemia, highlighting regional influences on religious culture; Catherine Caldwell Ames reflects historiographically on the emergence of a diverse “medieval religion,” especially through attention to what used to be called “popular religion,” in the later twentieth century. Part II, “Twelfth Century Culture,” opens with three nicely honed lessons in reading texts and images. Maureen Miller calls for the discipline of context to be applied in the treatment of twelfth-century art, as against the search for “art of reform”; Jonathan Lyon observes the use by Otto of Freising of classical language—especially the term “tyranny”—to describe new institutional and political dilemmas in the twelfth-century Empire; Rachel Koopmans nicely identifies networks of influence and patronage in the testimonial letters incorporated into collections of Becket miracles. The section ends with two chapters based on broad themes: Dyan Elliott explores how bold intellects imagined counter-factually in fruitful ways, while Giles Constable shows-often in similar communities—the continuing centrality of the Cross in devotional and liturgical lives. Part III, “Jews and Christian Society,” is made of three chapters each demonstrating a fruitful approach to the study of Europe’s Jews. Susan Einbinder juxtaposes a Hebrew lament and a cantiga to compare their treatments of the fall of a court Jew in 1279; William Jordan reminds us how much work is yet to be done in the interpretation of images contained in private books like the [End Page 107] Christina Psalter; and David Mengel develops a detailed analysis of Charles IV’s attitude to Jews through a comparative study of urban communities. Particularly strong is the fourth and longest section, “Late Religious Medieval Life.” Here authors are inspired by Van Engen’s article “Multiple Options: the World of the Fifteenth Century,” published in 2008.2 Close studies of interesting texts show institutions in constant flux and change: Walter Simons introduces the Count of Flanders’ petition to John XXII on behalf of “his” beguines, long-established and orthodox; William Courtenay extracts from the register of bishops evidence on the uptake of university study by parish priests and its possible effect on religious instruction; James Mixson evaluates the Observant Giovanni Dominci’s polemic against classical learning, the elegant The Firefly, penned in response to Salutati; Marcela Perett introduces the vernacular polemics developed by John Pribram against Hussites. The apocalyptic mood of the fifteenth century is discussed in a text introduced—and edited—by Daniel Hobbins, while Roy Hammerling concludes the volume with a tale by Luther for his Augustinian brothers, in which he encouraged them to become “spiritual beggars.” This rich and well-written volume offers something of interest for every medievalist. It also reminds us how often good medievalists are at creating graceful and learned “emotional communities.” Miri Rubin Queen Mary University of London Footnotes 1. American Historical Review...

The Byzantine Legacy in the Manuscripts Les Miracles de Nostre Dame by Gautier De Coinci

This article is an attempt to analyze the Byzantine legacy in the text and miniatures in one of the most important collections of miracles in the 13th century, Les Miracles de Nostre Dame by Gautier de Coinci. It isn’t intended to be in agreement with medieval images, but the ideas that are deduced from his argument are visually interpreted, soon after, in a context highlighting scholastic theories, which systematized the inherited ideology of the Second Council of Nicaea. Thus, in the manuscripts written before 1300, we found the use of various iconographic resources, which aim to express the link between the prototype and its image. Of all the copies, the manuscript kept in Besancon (MS 551) shows more forcefully these changes that occurred throughout the 13th century; its illustrators most likely used double representations and excessive realism, such as the size and the attitudes that appear as an animated object, and become a surrogate of the Virgin herself.

The Chancellor’s Chains: Ex-Votos and Marian Devotion in the «Rimado de Palacio»

The purpose of this article is to analyse poems in the Pero Lopez de Ayala’s Rimado de Palacio that refer to the Chancellor’s imprisonment in Portugal, and include pleas for deliverance as well as vows in which the poet promises to visit Marian shrines to venerate the Virgin. In this part of the book, Lopez de Ayala employs the image of chains, not only as a traditional symbol of imprisonment in a sinful world, but also in the context of the poet’s real imprisonment and the intention to present this material object as a votive offering. Aspects of the Marian section of the Rimado de Palacio can therefore be compared to texts found in collections of miracles and sermons which recorded the Virgin’s intervention in the deliverance of prisoners, the fulfilment of pilgrimage vows, and the presentation of ex-votos. The Chancellor on the one hand expresses his personal devotion, from an autobiographic perspective; and on the other he evokes the collective experience of past and present pilgrims at the shrines of Montserrat, Guadalupe and other holy places. At the same time, the poet associates his chains with those of St. Peter, and appeals for the unity of the papacy and the Church.

The Carolingian World through Hagiography

AbstractHagiographic texts – including the lives of saints, accounts of relic translations, miracle collections, and deeds of abbots and bishops – are plentiful and rich sources for investigating the Carolingian world. The recognition that hagiography offers a great deal of information about the author's time has led scholars to use these texts to shed light on a variety of topics. Hagiography's similarity to history as well as literature means that scholarship on history and literature can contribute to our understanding of hagiography and the world that produced it. Works comparing earlier versions of saints' lives with their Carolingian‐era revisions and investigating hagiography alongside works of other genres have contributed to some of the biggest debates in Carolingian history: the reform of the church, monasticism, and society; the renaissance of learning, the impact of doctrinal controversies, and views of kingship and reactions to political change.

Cult and Codex: Hagiographical Writing and Carthusian Reading in Royal Library of Belgium MS 8060-64

MS 8060-64 is a hagiographic manuscript originally produced as a Marian miracle collection in the late fourteenth century by the Carthusians of St. Alban’s monastery in Trier. The manuscript was supplemented at the beginning of the next century with additional Marian miracles and explanatory treatises, as well as numerous exempla and vitae of local charismatic women and male monastic reformers. I situate the production of this manuscript in a larger network of reform and Observant movements taking place in the fifteenth-century Low Countries and German Rhineland, emphasizing that books such as this one played an important catalytic role in efforts to revive and intensify monastic devotion. By comparing MS 8060-64 briefly with other similar compositions produced in the region, I show that reforming monks strove to gather together and collect examples of local female saints and their visions and miracles. I argue that these fifteenth-century monastic collections contributed to the creation of a hagiographic taxonomy of late medieval affective, feminine sanctity.

Robyn Malo Relics and Writing in Late Medieval EnglandRelics and Writing in Late Medieval England. Robyn Malo. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013. Pp. vii+298.

<i>Robyn Malo</i> Relics and Writing in Late Medieval England<i>Relics and Writing in Late Medieval England</i>. Robyn Malo. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013. Pp. vii+298.

Visions, Reliquaries, and the Image of “Becket’s Shrine” in the Miracle Windows of Canterbury Cathedral

This essay argues that early thirteenth-century stained-glass panels in the chapel ambulatory of Canterbury Cathedral, long read as picturing the shrine of Thomas Becket that stood in the chapel from 1220 to 1538, actually depict scenes from stories in the miracle collection that Benedict of Peterborough wrote about 1171–73. One of the panels shows a fictive shrine seen in the vision of a clerk of Alnwick, while two others display a personal reliquary owned by the wife of the earl of Hertford that held relics of Becket’s clothing and was stored in a local church. These new readings of the shrine panels are supported and contextualized by comparison to other panels in the Trinity Chapel glass, reliquaries and pilgrims’ ampullae from the period, and images of shrines and reliquaries in contemporary stained glass, book illumination, and wall painting. The last section of the article examines overlooked references to clothing relics and personally owned reliquaries in the Becket miracle collections. Such relics and reliquaries seem to have been widely disseminated and stored in local churches in the late twelfth century. Overall, this study of the shrine panels suggests that the Canterbury glaziers worked carefully to create images recognizable to medieval viewers and that Becket’s early cult was more decentralized than we usually assume.

The Vita Sancti Arnulfi (BHL 689-692): Its Place in the Liturgical Veneration of a Local Saint

This study examines the Vita Sancti Arnulfi (BHL 689-692), an anonymous hagiographical life of Saint Arnulf of Metz who was a seventh century bishop of that city. The approach taken emphasizes the religious context of the work in an attempt to make known how contemporaries would have understood the narrative. The analysis begins with an examination of the manuscript evidence. The early manuscripts dating before the twelfth century are categorized on the basis of contents and function into three groups: (i) monastic legendary or miracle collections, (ii) collections of a local interest focused upon Metz, and (iii) liturgical collections. The discussion then turns to an examination of the text of the Vita dealing with such questions as the intended audience and the hagiographer’s purpose in writing. Finally, the way in which the Vita was used is summarized and its influence on the hagiographical tradition assessed. Some conclusions reached are the dating of the composition of the work to the last half of the seventh century and identifying the place of composition within a monastic community in the Vosges and Messin region that was influenced by the Irish monastic tradition. The Abbey of Remiremont is suggested as a possible site. An argument is made that the Vita was the focal point of the liturgical veneration of Saint Arnulf serving in a similar manner as do relics within the cult of relics.