IMC 2011: Sessions
Session 1108: Hagiography and the Cult of the Martyrs, I: The Usefulness of Martyrdom
Wednesday 13 July 2011, 11.15-12.45
| Organiser: | Anne-Marie Helvétius, amhelvetius@univ-paris8.fr |
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| Moderator/Chair: | Michèle Gaillard, Département d'Histoire / Institut de Recherches Historiques du Septentrion (IRHiS - UMR 8529), Université Charles-de-Gaulle Lille III |
| Paper 1108-a | The Representation of Martyrdom in Frankish Monastic Hagiography (Language: English) Index terms: Hagiography, Religious Life |
| Paper 1108-b | Martyrs and Would-Be Martyrs in the Southern Baltic, 800-1050 (Language: English) Index terms: Hagiography, Religious Life |
| Paper 1108-c | Why Are Some Martyrs and Others Not?: Two Cases from Late 9th-Century Southern Italy (Language: English) Index terms: Hagiography, Religious Life |
| Abstract | In many hagiographical texts, the saint is told to seek martyrdom. Sometimes he really died as a martyr; sometimes, at the very moment the martyrdom is going to happen, a miracle prevented it. In such cases, hagiographers explain that God himself prefered to keep the saint alive. Such stories appear mainly in the Lives of missionary saints written from the 7th to the 9th century. It can however also be found in women's Lives and other kind of hagiography. It would be interesting to compare selected hagiographical sources written in this period, and to widen this comparison by taking into account sources produced in other places and times, in order to measure the evolution of this hagiographical controversy. |