Phyllis Jestice writes:
>Perhaps someone on the list can answer: when would a good cross-section of
>the populace have had access to a good variety of saints' lives?
Never, I would suspect. A "good cross section of the populace", if taken
of the whole populace, would have been mostly illiterate. If literacy
rates in the middle ages were never above 5%, then most people had no
access whatsoever to any saints' lives. What they did have was preaching
about the saints--a complex subject way beyond my ken. Even the Golden
Legend was accessible only to those who could read it. Again, the GL
presumably had some degree of influence on preaching about the saints.
__________________________________
Patrick J. Nugent
Earlham College
Richmond, Indiana 47374 USA
(765) 983-1413
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