Comparative Hagiology and/as Manuscript Studies: Method and Materiality

Abstract

Although the academic study of hagiography continues to flourish, the role of comparative methods within the study of sanctity and the saints remains underutilized. Similarly, while much valuable work on saints and sanctity relies on materialist methodologies, issues of critical bibliography particular to the study of hagiography have not received the theoretical attention they deserve. This essay takes up these two underattended approaches to argue for a comparative materialist approach to hagiography. Through a short case study of the Latin Vita of Lutgard of Aywières (1182–1246) written by the Dominican friar Thomas of Cantimpré (c. 1200–1270), I suggest that comparative material research into the textual history of hagiographic literature can provide us with a more comprehensive and nuanced picture of the production of any specific holy figure, as well as the evolving discourses of sanctity and holiness in general. While this suggestion emerges from my own work on medieval hagiography from the Christian Latin West, it resonates with recent arguments by Sara Ritchey and David DiValerio to call for a materially comparative approach to narratives of holy lives in any religious tradition in any time period. Furthermore, I suggest that medieval studies, and in particular medieval manuscript studies, may have much to offer to scholars of sanctity working in later periods and other settings. Offering a view of material textual scholarship as intrinsically comparative, we may expand our theoretical definitions of the comparative and its possibilities within the study of sanctity.

Comparison as a Provisional Activity

“…David DiValerio notes the concern in the core essays with arriving at a precise definition of "hagiography" and argues that the lack of a shared vocabulary to describe the formal features of hagiographic texts is hindering our ability to study them (DiValerio 2019). Barbara Zimbalist, in her response here, notes that the authors of the core essays do not in all cases even agree on what constitutes the genre of "hagiography" or if it is a "genre" at all (Zimbalist 2019). The issue is complicated by Kevin Guilfoy who examines whether any of the terms we use and the concepts they represent can be translated from tradition to tradition or across time and space (Guilfoy forthcoming).…”

Thomas of Cantimpré’s Hagiographies: Working with a Scientific-Historical Comparative Methodology in the Classroom

“…2 Christina Mirabilis, on the other hand, narrates the death, miraculous resurrection, as well as prophetic ministries of a pious woman in Sint Truiden, Belgium. John and Christina's readership likely included Dominican communities as well as lay people between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries in the Sint-Truiden regions (contemporary Flemish Belgium), as well as religious elites such as nuns in Dutch speaking Low Countries (Zimbalist 2019). The full extent of the readers and hearers of the work cannot be known exhaustively, yet it was clearly intended to develop the beliefs and practices of their hearers.…”