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IMC 2024: Sessions

Session 1303: Perspectives on Sanctity, IV: Transmission and Performance

Wednesday 3 July 2024, 16:30-18:00

Organisers:Marisa Michaud, Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York
Edmund van der Molen, Department of History, University of Nottingham
Moderator/Chair:Simon Yarrow, Department of History, University of Birmingham
Paper 1303-aSt Cecilia and Pious Women's Practice in Chaucer's England: Teaching Pious Virtue in 'The Second Nun's Tale'
(Language: English)
Shauna Roach, Department of English, University of Bristol
Index terms: Hagiography, Language and Literature - Middle English and Social History
Paper 1303-bA Disappointed Saint?: Perspectives on the Lack of Martyrdom in the Life of Anskar
(Language: English)
Nikolas O. Hoel, Department of History, Northeastern Illinois University
Index terms: Hagiography, Mentalities and Religious Life
Paper 1303-cEucharistic Imagery and Garlanded Priests: The festa dell'Inghirlandata in Medieval Naples
(Language: English)
Clare Whitton, Blackfriars College, University of Oxford
Index terms: Hagiography and Lay Piety
Abstract

This session explores the various ways of transmitting and communication ideas about sanctity and sainthood to a wide variety of audiences. It asks how these ideas were communicated, and what effect the communicative act had on the understandings and available uses of the saintly figure, as well as the self-construction of the audience. Shauna Roach reads Chaucer's ‘Second Nun’s Tale’ against fourteenth century English historical practice and looks at how this story of sanctity is informed by contemporary ideas about virtue for women. Clare Whitton examines the Festa dell’Inghirlandata of fourteenth-century Naples, and asks how this feast

functioned as story-telling, presenting a sanctity that fluctuates between legend and historical fact, and how Neapolitans understood the function of the relics that formed the centre of the celebrations. Nikolas Hoel considers the theme of disappointment in the Life of Anskar, asking how saints can be seen to make promises they do not keep, and what message the hagiographer was trying to send to his audience regarding sanctity, the religious life, and their own ambitions for salvation.