Paper -a:
Saints' cults are dynamic – coloured by an enlivening combination of tradition and innovation in the details of the representations of the saint across time. The cult of St Chad, which has received only scant scholarly attention in the last fifty years, evinces intriguing examples of such variation. Analysis of the variations introduced into the corpus of materials for Chad elucidates their relationship to new cultural practices in the era, enables us to trace the 'trajectory' of his cult over time, and offers fuller understanding of Anglo-Saxon conceptualizations of sainthood and the evolution of those concepts over the course of the Middle Ages.
Paper -b:
The topic will examine the relationship between the historical experience of stained glass images of hagiographically important spaces, and their corresponding physical locations. It will take into consideration issues of visuality and spatiality and of the historical construction of meaning within fully sensory environments.The central questions it asks are as follows:
How does a devotionally significant space, and an image of this space, come to carry power/meaning?
How far can we reconstruct the nature of sensory environments in the selected locations?
What role did these sensory environments play in the creation of the historical agent's experience?
Paper -c:
This paper will examine the perceptions of bodily transformation in saints' otherworldly posthumous journeys in medieval Russia. The ways in which the transformation of the body during the passage from this world to the next was perceived, will be examined using the Slavic versions of such texts as the Life of Basil the Younger, and Mary's Descent to Hell, among others. In an attempt to contradict widely held notions of Russian sainthood as a direct product of Russia's pagan past, I will try to demonstrate possible theological influences of the Orthodox belief system on Russian notions of man's faith after death.
Paper -d:
Art historians believe that the iconographical theme of Christ appearing to Gregory the Great originated in Rome about 1400 and was spread all over Europe by pilgrims during the 15th century. Since the hagiographical sources never speak about this appearance, the precise origins of the so-called Mass of St Gregory are subject to debate. Since 1450 sequence of prayers were combined with these images and also found their way through Europe by pilgrims. A similar sequence has been known since the 9th century, to be recited in front of a cross or as a part of the Good Friday liturgy. I will argue that these prayers hold the key to the origins of the Mass of St Gregory.
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