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IMC 2009: Sessions

Session 1528: How to Make Saints and Influence People: The Construction of Sanctity and its Relationship to Intercession and Pilgrimage in British Hagiography

Thursday 16 July 2009, 09.00-10.30

Organiser:Helen Birkett, Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York
Moderator/Chair:Joanna Huntington, School of Historical Studies, Newcastle University
Paper 1528-aThe Use of Flagellation in the Life of Robert of Bethune
(Language: English)
Matthew Mesley, Department of History, University of Exeter
Index terms: Ecclesiastical History, Hagiography, Language and Literature - Latin, Religious Life
Paper 1528-bMonks, Laybrothers, and Laymen: Testimony and Status in the Vita S. Waldevi
(Language: English)
Helen Birkett, Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York
Index terms: Hagiography, Language and Literature - Latin, Monasticism
Paper 1528-cSaxon Saints and Murdered Kings: Pilgrimage to St Edmund of East Anglia
(Language: English)
Rebecca Pinner, School of Literature & Creative Writing, University of East Anglia
Index terms: Architecture - Religious, Art History - General, Hagiography
Abstract

This session explores the construction of sanctity and its relationship to intercession and pilgrimage in British saintly cults. Beginning with the mid 12th-century vita of Robert Bethune, the first paper examines the ways in which flagellation was used to highlight and delineate aspects of Robert's sanctity. The second paper analyses the social and religious status of those attesting to miraculous activity at the Cistercian house of Melrose in the late 12th and early 13th centuries. The third paper investigates the versions of sanctity offered to pilgrims at Bury St Edmunds through the architectural and art historical context of the cult.