At 12:09 AM 6/26/00 -0400, you wrote re: beatus/sanctus:
>Yes, in my experience they are virtually interchangeable (remembering that
until the 13th century, that "canonization" was a very localized and often
informal sort of process, so to use either term might have meaning only in
a rather local context).
>jw
>
It is a common perception that in the thirteenth century, more precisely
at Lateran IV, the process of canonization was changed from local to papal.
And, indeed, it was so legislated.
Yet Andre Vauchez's study of _La saintete en occident aux derniers siecles
du moyen age_ (1981) is able to identify around 70 saints whose causes
actually made it to Rome in some form. If one compares that number to the
hundreds of acclaimed saints who lived in the final medieval centuries, it
becomes clear that "canonization" generally remained local. Roman approval
was prestigious but expensive, sought for candidates who had persistent and
powerful devotees (papal patrons were particularly helpful). On the basis
of the evidence, Innocent III's canon claiming a papal monopoly on
canonization does not appear to have been much more successful than
Charlemagne's capitulary which required imperial approval for all
translations of relics.
Only in the (Counter)Reformation did Rome gain effective control over the
making of saints, refining legal definitions and procedures until they
reached their definitive pre-Vatican II form in the early 18th century.
--John Howe, Texas Tech
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