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IMC 2015: Sessions

Session 336: Pilgrimage, II: Sanctity and Hagiography

Monday 6 July 2015, 16.30-18.00

Sponsor:Lancaster University
Organisers:Philip Booth, Department of History, Lancaster University
Adrian Cornell du Houx, Department of History, Lancaster University
Moderator/Chair:David Defries, Department of History, Kansas State University
Paper 336-aPilgrimage, Apocalypse, and the Hagiographer, c. 1000
(Language: English)
Adrian Cornell du Houx, Department of History, Lancaster University
Index terms: Ecclesiastical History, Hagiography, Monasticism, Religious Life
Paper 336-bThe Search for Sanctity: Orthodox Hagiography and the Holy Land in the 12th Century
(Language: English)
Andrew T. Jotischky, Department of History, Lancaster University
Index terms: Byzantine Studies, Ecclesiastical History, Monasticism, Religious Life
Paper 336-cThe Pilgrimages of Angela da Foligno: The Road to Assisi
(Language: English)
Ella Kilgallon, School of History, Queen Mary, University of London
Index terms: Ecclesiastical History, Hagiography, Lay Piety, Religious Life
Abstract

This panel investigates how pilgrimage and voluntary exile manifested as priorities in different saintly careers and associated biographical texts in the central Middle Ages. Adrian Cornell du Houx shows that the millennial period in France coincided with a renewed desire for exilic penance not only in written portraits of saints but also in the careers of their biographers, in particular Adso of Montier-en-Der and Ademar of Chabannes, and compares the ideal pilgrimage with the actual, along with the contrasting images of Jerusalem and Rome. Andrew Jotischky explores the revival of Greek Orthodox monasticism in Syria and Cyprus through the career of Neophytos the Recluse. Exemplified by the foundation of the Enkleistra in Cyprus (1157), it reveals the search for a particular kind of sanctity generated by Neophytos's understanding of the monastic traditions of the Holy Land, and will be examined particularly through his hagiographical encomia of 'heroes' of the Judaean desert. Finally, Ella Kilgallon discusses the frequent but often overlooked pilgrimages of the mystic and Franciscan tertiary Angela da Foligno, whose journeys to Assisi shine light on the pilgrim experience of key sites and especially the public, open space of the road, which acted as an important platform for criticism and scrutiny.