medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
St Leonard was favoured by a number of aristocratic and hence French
origin patrons, mainly in the mid to later C12. There's no obvious
Templar connection. My understanding is that the patronage of the sick
generally, and lepers more specifically, is to be seen allegorically.
One of Leonard's more famous posthumous miracles was freeing one of his
servants who had been imprisoned. Leonard enabled him to walk through
the wall, and the servant then took his chains and dedicated them at
Leonard's shrine. Leonard thus frees from the chains of illness. He did
not only look after leprosaria, St Leonard's York was a major hospital
but did not have lepers (though it does seem to have had some
responsibility for feeding lepers in the York leperhouses by the C14).
My own feeling is that dedications to St Leonard reflect the interests
of patrons at a fairly specific point in time and that this did
correspond with a number of hospital and particularly leperhospital
foundations. You might find Peter Richards, Medieval Leper and his
Northern Heirs useful. I can also give references to my own work on St
Leonard's York, if you are interested.
Dr Pat Cullum
Head of History
School of Music, Humanities and Media
University of Huddersfield
HUDDERSFIELD HD1 3DH
West Yorkshire UK
Tel: + 44 (0)1484 472315
Fax: + 44 (0) 1484 472655
Email: [log in to unmask]
Leaders in student-centred academic excellence www.hud.ac.uk/mh/
This transmission is confidential and may be legally privileged. If you receive it in error, please notify us immediately by e-mail and remove it from your system. If the content of this e-mail does not relate to the business of the University of Huddersfield, then we do not endorse it and will accept no liability.
**********************************************************************
To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME
to: [log in to unmask]
To send a message to the list, address it to:
[log in to unmask]
To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion
to: [log in to unmask]
In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to:
[log in to unmask]
For further information, visit our web site:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html
|