Sanctity in the North
Saints, Lives, and Cults in Medieval Scandinavia
Sanctity in the North
Saints, Lives, and Cults in Medieval Scandinavia
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Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 9780802094100
Number of Pages: 416
Published: 23/02/2008
Width: 15 cm
Height: 22.6 cm
With original translations of primary texts and articles by leading researchers in the field, Sanctity in the North gives an introduction to the literary production associated with the cult of the saints in medieval Scandinavia.
For more than five hundred years, Nordic clerics and laity venerated a host of saints through liturgical celebrations, written manuscripts, visual arts, and oral traditions. Textual evidence of this widespread and important aspect of medieval spirituality abounds. Written biographies (or vitae), compendia of witnessed miracles, mass propers, homilies, sagas and chronicles, dramatic scripts, hymns, and ballads are among the region's surviving medieval manuscripts and early published books.
Sanctity in the North features English translations of texts from Latin or vernacular Nordic languages, in many cases for the first time. The accompanying essays concerning the texts, saints, cults, and history of the period complement the translations and reflect the contributors' own disciplinary groundings in folklore, philology, medieval, and religious studies.
Preface Introduction THOMAS A. DUBOIS Part I. Missionary Saints St Ansgar: His Swedish Mission and Its Larger Context SCOTT A. MELLOR Sts Sunniva and Henrik: Scandinavian Martyr Saints in Their Hagiographic and National Contexts THOMAS A. DUBOIS Part II. Royal Saints St Olaf and the Skalds JOHN LINDOW Sacred Non-Violence, Cowardice Profaned: St Magnus of Orkney in Nordic Hagiography and Historiography MARIA-CLAUDIA TOMANY St Knud Lavard: A Saint for Denmark THOMAS A. DUBOIS AND NIELS INGWERSEN The Cult of St Eric, King and Martyr, in Medieval Sweden TRACEY R. SANDSPart III. Holy Bishops and Nuns Pride and Politics in Late-Twelfth-Century Iceland: The Sanctity of Bishop Torlakr Torhallsson KIRSTEN WOLF St Katarina in Her Own Light THOMAS A. DUBOIS Part IV. Saints' Lives in Lived Context Hendreks saga og Kunegundis: Marital Consent in the Legend of Henry and Cunegund MARIANNE E. KALINKE Better Off Dead: Approaches to Medieval Miracles MARGARET CORMACK Bibliography Contributors Index
'The book is rich and well written. One of its main merits is that is explores an understudied topic deserving of more attention inside as well as outside the field of Scandinavian Studies.' -- Federico Zuliani Canadian Journal of History: vol 45: Autumn 2010
