A Brief Guide to
Scholarship on Western Hagiography
Compiled by Thomas Head
Hunter College and the Graduate Center, CUNY
In the decades
around 1900, a Bollandist named Hippolyte Delehaye laid the foundations
for modern hagiographic scholarship. Although Delehaye wrote in French,
his seminal essay on hagiographic method has appeared in two separate English
translations, see Legends of the Saints, trans. V.M. Crawford (from
the first French edition; London, 1907; reprint, Notre Dame, IN, 1961)
and trans. Donald Attwater (from the fourth French edition; New York, 1962).
Also available in English is Delehaye's history of the Bollandist enterprise,
see The Work of the Bollandists Through Three Centuries, 1615-1915
(Princeton, 1922). Approaches to the history of medieval Christianity have
changed greatly since the time of Delehaye, who was concerned to provide
a Catholic response to positivist historicism. One of the most influential
works in the development of medieval religious history has recently been
translated into English; see Herbert Grundmann, Religious Movements
in the Middle Ages, trans. Steven Rowan (German original, 1935; Notre
Dame, IN, 1995). For an interesting, but controversial, study of these
historiographical developments, see John Van Engen, "The Christian
Middle Ages as an Historiographical Problem," American Historical
Review 91 (1986): 519-52.
The formative work in applying these new methodologies in religious
history to the subject matter of medieval hagiography was written, ironically
enough, by a Czech Marxist. František Graus, Volk, Herrscher und Heiliger
im Reich der Merowinger. Studeien zur Hagiographie der Merowingerzeit
[People, lords, and saints in the kingdom of the Franks: studies on the
hagiography of the Merovingian period] (Prague, 1965) remains one of the
most innovative and important studies of medieval history written in the
second half of the twentieth century, although it has lamentably never
been translated into English. In essence Graus challenged historians to
use the then relatively neglected genres of hagiography to serve as sources
for the social history of Western Christianity. That challenge has been
taken up explicitly or implicitly by a wide variety of scholars of medieval
religion, society, literature, and art over the course of the last three
decades.
Recent studies of medieval hagiography, however, would be almost literally
inconceivable were it not for the pioneering work of three magisterial
scholars--Peter Brown, André Vauchez, and Caroline Bynum--published
initially over the course of the 1970s and 1980s. Peter Brown investigated
the function of sanctity as a form of social or political power in the
later Roman Empire. He first explored the role of living ascetic saints
in the villages of fifth- and sixth-century Syria in "The Rise and
Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity," Journal of Roman Studies
61 (1971): 80-101, which is more easily available as reprinted in a collection
of his articles entitled Society and the Holy in Late Antiquity (Chicago,
1982), pp. 103-52. He thus coined an important scholarly concept which
has influenced virtually all later Anglophone scholarship on hagiography--that
is "holy man"--through the brilliantly simple expedient of taking
his sources literally. Since the original publication of that article,
he has regularly reevaluated his findings in the light of newer scholarship:
"The Saint as Exemplar in Late Antiquity," in Saints and Virtues,
ed. John Hawley (Berkeley, 1987), pp. 3-14; "Arbiters of the Holy:
The Christian Holy Man in Late Antiquity," in Peter Brown, Authority
and the Sacred (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 55-78; "The Rise and Function
of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity, 1971-1997," Journal of Early
Christian Studies 6 (1998): 353-76. (The autumn number of the Journal
of Early Christian Studies for 1998, in which the latter essay appeared,
is a special issue, edited by Susanna Elm, devoted to analyses and reconsiderations
of the scholarly heritage of Brown's original article.) Brown also analyzed
the posthumous role of saints in The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and
Function in Latin Christianity (Chicago, 1981), a pathbreaking work
on the beginnings of the cult of relics in Western Christendom. Secondly,
André Vauchez interrogated the ways in which hagiographic sources
themselves were produced and how this process in turn formed ideas of sanctity
in La sainteté en occident aux derniers siècles du moyen
âge d'après les procès de canonisation et les documents
hagiographiques, Bibliothèque des Ecoles françaises d'Athènes
et de Rome 241 (Rome, 1981; second edition, 1987), which has been translated
as Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages, trans. Jean Birrell (Cambridge,
1997). In it Vauchez examined the records of the formal processes initiated
for the canonization of saints between 1198 and 1431 in the hope of illuminating
the practices of Western Christianity-and the attempted control of those
practices by the papacy-during those centuries. Anglophone readers may
garner a sense of his extensive work on related topics from the essays
collected in The Laity in the Middle Ages: Religious Beliefs and Devotional
Practices (Notre Dame, IN, 1993). Finally, Caroline Bynum highlighted
gender as a crucial category in the analysis of hagiography and sanctity
in Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval
Women (Berkeley, 1987). She has further explored and deepened her analysis
in the articles collected in Fragmentation and Redemption: Essays on
Gender and the Human Body in Medieval Religion (Boston, 1991).
Much innovative scholarship has appeared on saints and their cults since
the 1980s. the following paragraphs survey some of the more important works
by working chronologically through the subject matter of medieval hagiography.
(Please note that the early middle ages is better treated than the later
middle ages.) For more detailed guides to studies, see the bibliographies
available through the main
page of the "Hagiography" section of ORB.
Clare Stancliffe provides a thorough examination of the work of Sulpicius
Severus in Saint Martin and His Hagiographer: History and Miracle in
Sulpicius Severus (Oxford, 1983). Aline Rousselle, Croire et guérir.
La foi en Gaule dans l'Antiquité tardive (Paris, 1990) presents
a sensitive and provocative reading of the transition from Roman to Christian
culture in Gaul, and of the role of Martin and his cult in that transition.
A summary of her argument may be found in "From Sanctuary to Miracle-Worker:
Healing in Fourth-Century Gaul," in Ritual, Religion, and the Sacred,
ed. Robert Forster and Orest Ranum (Baltimore, 1982), pp. 95-127. Sharon
Farmer's exemplary study of twelfth-century social history, Communities
of St. Martin: Legend and Ritual in Medieval Tours (Ithaca, 1991),
studies the function of Martin's cult in a later period. The chief hagiographer
of early medieval Italy was Gregory the Great. A fine introduction to his
work may be found in Carole Straw, Gregory the Great: Perfection in
Imperfection (Berkeley, 1988). More specifically on his hagiography,
see Joan Petersen, The Dialogues of Gregory the Great in Their Late
Antique Cultural Background (Toronto, 1984).
It was the Franks who adopted orthodox Christianity and its notions
of sanctity most quickly among the Germanic peoples. The essential foundation
to all other treatments of hagiography in the early Frankish kingdom remains
Frantisek Graus, Volk, Herrscher und Heiliger im Reich der Merowinger.
Studeien zur Hagiographie der Merowingerzeit (Prague, 1965). In English,
see J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, The Frankish Church (Oxford, 1983); Raymond
Van Dam, Leadership and Community in Late Antique Gaul (Berkeley,
1985) and Saints and Their Miracles in Late Antique Gaul (Princeton,
1993); Paul Fouracre, "Merovingian History and Merovingian Historiography,"
Past and Present 127 (1990), pp. 3-38. On the role of the cult of
the saints in that society, see Peter Brown, "Relics and Social Status
in the Age of Gregory of Tours," in Society and the Holy in Late
Antiquity (Chicago, 1982), pp. 222-50 and Ian Wood, "Early Merovingian
Devotion in Town and Country," Studies in Church History, 16
(1979), pp. 61-76. Relatively little exists in English on hagiography in
Visigothic Spain, but see Jacques Fontaine, "King Sisebut's Vita Desiderii
and the Political Function of Visigothic Hagiography," in Edward James
(ed.), Visigothic Spain: New Approaches (Oxford, 1980), pp. 93-129.
For a guide to the extensive literature in Spanish, see Roger Collins,
Early Medieval Spain: Unity in Diversity, 400-1000 (London, 1983),
pp. 280-2.
The literature on hagiography and sanctity in Anglo-Saxon England is
enormous. Fortunately David Rollason has provided a comprehensive overview,
with full bibliography, in Saints and Relics in Anglo-Saxon England
(Oxford, 1989). Further guidance to the sources may be found in Michael
Lapidge, "The Saintly Life in Anglo-Saxon England," in Malcolm
Godden and Michael Lapidge (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Old English
Literature (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 243-63. Henry Mayr-Harting, The
Coming of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England, third edition (University
Park, 1991) provides a useful introduction to the conversion of England,
as well as many interesting observations on Anglo-Saxon saints both in
England and on the continent. For a wide-ranging introduction to the most
famous of all Anglo-Saxon hagiographers, see Peter Hunter Blair, The
World of Bede, second edition (Cambridge, 1990). Gerald Bonner, David
Rollason, and Clare Stancliffe (eds.), Saint Cuthbert, His Cult and
His Community to AD 1200 (Woodbridge, 1989) treats one important Anglo-Saxon
saint and his cult. On the development of the cults of Anglo-Saxon royalty,
see Susan Ridyard, The Royal Saints of Anglo-Saxon England (Cambridge,
1988), although it primarily treats texts composed after the Conquest.
Walter Levison, England and the Continent in the Eighth Century
(Oxford, 1946) remains esssential on Boniface and other missionaries.
Nora Chadwick, The Age of the Saints in the Early Celtic Church
(London, 1961) and Kathleen Hughes, Early Christian Ireland (Ithaca,
1972) provide good introductions to the piety and hagiography of the Celtic
lands. For more scholarly detail, one can consult Richard Sharpe, Medieval
Irish Saints' Lives (Oxford, 1991) on Ireland, Elissa Henken, The
Welsh Saints: A Study in Patterned Lives (Woodbridge, 1991) on Wales,
and Julia Smith, Province and Empire: Brittany and the Carolingians
(Cambridge, 1992), chapter 6 on Brittany. For a comprehensive guide to
the sources, see Michael Lapidge and Richard Sharpe, A Bibliography
of Celtic-Latin Literature, 400-1200 (Dublin, 1985). Lisa Bitel, Isle
of the Saints (Ithaca, 1991) makes innovative use of hagiographic sources
to consider the wider religious history of early Ireland. Julia Smith,
"Oral and Written: Saints, Miracles, and Relics in Brittany, c. 850-1250,"
Speculum 65 (1990), pp. 309-43 contrasts Celtic ideas of sanctity
with those prevalent in Carolingian Europe.
A number of good introductions to Carolingian history and culture exist,
among them two works by Pierre Riché, Daily Life in the World
of Charlemagne, trans. Jo Ann McNamara (Philadelphia, 1978) and The
Carolingians: A Family Who Forged Europe, trans. Michael Allen (Philadelphia,
1993). Wallace-Hadrill, The Frankish Church, pp. 258-390 has much
of interest to say about the role of the church and of the saints in the
Carolingian empire. Patrick Geary has provided an entertaining and absorbing
study of one aspect of the cult of saints in this period in Furta Sacra.
Thefts of Relics in the Central Middle Ages (Princeton, 1978; second
edition 1990). The most wide-ranging study of Carolingian hagiography,
however, remains Joseph-Claude Poulin, L'ideal de sainteté dans
l'Aquitaine carolingienne d'après les sources hagiographiques (750-950)
(Quebec City, 1975). Suzanne Wemple has also used hagiography to study
the history of women in Women in Frankish Society (Philadelphia,
1981). On the importance of the papacy and the institutional church in
the formation of the Carolingian order, see Thomas Noble, The Republic
of St. Peter: The Birth of the Papal State, 680-825 (Philadelphia,
1984). For an exemplary study of the iconography of a hagiographic text
from this period, see Cynthia Hahn, Passio Kiliani . . . Passiio Margaretae:
Faksimile-Ausgabe des Codex. . . Ms. I 189 . . . aus dem Besitz der Niedersächsichen
Landesbibliothek Hannover (Graz, 1988). On the conversion of Scandinvia,
see Dag Strömbäck, The Conversion of Iceland (London,
1975) and Birgit Sawyer, Peter Sawyer, and Ian Wood (eds.), The Christianization
of Scandinavia (Alingsaas, 1987). On the conversion of the Slavs, see
Francis Dvornik, The Making of Central and Eastern Europe (London,
1949) and A. P. Vlasto, The Entry of the Slavs into Christendom
(Cambridge, 1970).
On Europe after the collapse of the Carolingian empire, see Jean-Pierre
Poly and Eric Bournazel, The Feudal Transformation, 900-1200, trans.
Caroline Higgitt (New York, 1991) and Heinrich Fichtenau, Living in
the Tenth Century: Mentalities and Social Orders, trans. Patrick Geary
(Chicago, 1991). Both have perceptive comments about saints and their cults;
the former also has an excellent bibliography. A study of the cult of saints
which spans the Carolingian and post-Carolingian periods in one important
region may be found in Thomas Head, Hagiography and the Cult of Saints.
The Diocese of Orléans, 800-1200 (Cambridge, 1990). Little is
available in English on Ottonian hagiography, but see Patrick Corbet, Les
saints ottoniens. Sainteté dynastique, sainteté royale et
sainteté féminine autour de l'an mil (Sigmaringen, 1986).
This essay will be continued for the thirteenth, fourteenth, and
fifteenth centuries in the near future.
No adequate general guide to the history, study, and use of hagiography
exists in English. See instead René Aigrain, L'hagiographie:
ses sources, ses méthodes, son histoire (Paris, 1953); Réginald
Grégoire, Manuale di Agiologia. Introduzione alla Letteratura
Agiografica (Fabriano, 1987); and Jacques Dubois and Jean-Loup Lemaitre,
Sources et méthodes de l'hagiographie médiévale
(Paris, 1993). For further introduction to hagiographic sources, see An
Introductory Guide to Research in the Medieval Hagiography.
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