Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Sacred Biography: Saints and Their Biographers in the Middle Ages

Sacred Biography: Saints and Their Biographers in the Middle Ages

Heffernan, Thomas J.

Paperback

Religious BiographiesChristian LivingGeneral Christianity

ISBN10: 0195079078
ISBN13: 9780195079074
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: Oct 1 1992
Pages: 352
Weight: 0.91
Height: 0.94 Width: 5.56 Depth: 8.27
Language: English
Though medieval saints' lives are among the oldest literary texts of Western vernacular culture, they are routinely patronized as pious fiction by modern historiography. This book demonstrates that to characterize the genre as fiction is to misunderstand the intentions of medieval authors, who were neither credulous fools nor men blinded by piety. Concentrating on English texts, Heffernan reconstructs the medieval perspective and considers sacred biography in relation to the community for which it was written; identifies the genre's rhetorical practices and purposes; and demonstrates the syncretistic way in which the life of the medieval saint was transformed from oral tales to sacred text. In the process, Heffernan not only achieves a more contextually accurate understanding of the medieval saints' lives, but details a new critical method that has important implications for the practice of textual criticism.

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