medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

From: John Dillon <[log in to unmask]>

[quoting me]

>> i presume that you don't find such "struggles" to be all that common, among
the works of middlevil hagiographers?

>> i wonder why?

> > what does that tell us about *their* point of view --rather than our own?
 
> But one does find such struggles at least occasionally, 

i assumed so, and was only going by Phyllis' apparently finding it
exceptional.

as i said, i am as hagiographically challenged as anyone here, more so than
most.



> Medieval saint's lives were written for varying purposes 

obviously.

>and are always selective in their portrayals. 

certainly.

> It's probably not safe to infer points of view from their silences.

no.

except to the exstent that their silences are indicative of their priorities
--what was important enough to mention and what was not.

to take an analogy from art history again, detailed accounts of *any* sort of
art work are very rare birds, indeed, within the sum total of medieval written
texts, even history texts.  

(Suger's extensive account of his building activities at St. Denis in his "De
Administratione" is an extraordinary and nearly unique example of the genre
(Gervais of Canterbury's is the only other one i can think of, offhand) --and
the reasons for its very existence can, i assume, be found, at least partly,
in the interior politics of the abbey, within which he felt it necessary to
justify his expenditure of large sums of money to the chapter at large.  this
motive becomes more obvious when one looks at the "art" chapters within the
context of full work, including most significantly the first 20 or so chapters
which are devoted to *non* "artistic" "building",  namely, the "restoration"
of the _fisc_ of the abbey through the reconstruction/restoration of old --and
the aquisition of new--  rural _villas_.   significantly, these chapters were
left out of art historian Panofsky's edition of the work.)


and within this already restricted universe we find virtually none of the
things which we might find in a modern account beyond attempts at iconographic
description --stylistic distinctions are, to my knowledge, *never* made, for
example.

even within iconographic expositions we sometimes find quite curious
interpretations --see the very interesting explanation of the iconography of
the pastiche of sculptures on the transept facade of the cathedral of Santiago
by the author of the "Pilgrim's Guide", for example.    the poor guy is trying
his very, very best to make programatic sense out of an ensemble which has
been put together from the spolia of several previous campaigns.

i feel justified in concluding from these "silences" on matters artistic in
general and stylistic in particular that the middlevils simply weren't
interested in writing about these things or, if they did, did not share the
same points of view or criteria about them which we do.

something of a no-Brainer, that last observation, but, hey, Any Port in a
Storm.

> [quoting Phyllis]:
>>> and of course, as in Bruno's acquaintance, actual acquaintance with
the saints being described is a real plus

[me]
>> would you discard the lives of all of these "mythical" saints which you
kindly regale us with day after day (and, thank you very much for that), then
?

> A valid point.  Distance from the saint can also be a plus.  

it all depends upon what sort of use the account is to be put to.

getting to an understanding of the "real" life of a saint via his various
Vitae is only one such use --and, in many instances, perhaps the most
difficult one to pull off.

Best to all from here,

christopher

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