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medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture On 06/30/13, John Shinners wrote: > Though it could only be impressionistic, I wonder if anyone had ever seen an estimate of the total number of saints venerated in the Middle Ages? If not, where would be a good place to start counting? > Of the suggestions made thus far, Paul Chandler's seems the best: ask the Bollandists for an estimate. One would have to define for them what is meant by the query's formulation "venerated in the Middle Ages", i.e. state an inclusive range of dates of veneration and specify whether the saints' public cults (I'm excluding as probably statistically insignificant purely private venerations of persons whose sanctity seems not to have been recognized more broadly) must have been recognized by local ecclesiastical authority. Although the query carries no confessional limitation, it would probably also be helpful to specify whether only saints venerated by medieval Christians are intended (granted it's unlikely that the Bollandists pay much attention to Sufi saints) and, if so, whether one is interested only in veneration by Christians whose church at the time of the veneration in question was in communion with Rome (this latter specification would exclude not only numerous non-Chalcedonians but also later medieval saints of various Orthodox churches). If instead one starts with the _Acta Sanctorum_ then one has to figure out how to arrive at an estimate for the saints either excluded from that repertory (e.g. Roman-recognized saints whose principal feast falls in December; many saints whose venerated in churches not ecclesiastically Latin) or at least not findable through its indexes (in searching the Chadwyck-Healey version one sometimes gets via Keyword searching mentions of saints not findable though searching under Saint [e.g. Waltheof, an uncanonized English saint of the later eleventh century]). All the supplementary measures that come to mind (including using the indexes of the _Analecta Bollandiana_ and the sanctoral calendars of churches not in communion with Rome) would require an additional de-duplication process to take care of mentions of universal or otherwise widely celebrated saints. Best, John Dillon ********************************************************************** To join the list, send the message: subscribe 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: unsubscribe 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/medieval-religion