medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
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Received: Mon, 30 Jul 2007 11:29:50 AM EDT
From: The Medieval Review <[log in to unmask]>
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Subject: TMR 07.07.20 Lifshitz, The Name of the Saint (Berman)
Lifshitz, Felice. <i>The Name of the Saint: The Martyrology of Jerome
and Access to the Sacred in Francia, 627-827</i>. Notre-Dame,
Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006.
Reviewed by Constance H. Berman
University of Iowa
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Felice Lifshitz provides an insightful view of seventh through ninth
century religious practices surrounding the names of saints which
provided alternatives to the much more well-known cult of saints'
relics. Those practices associated with and explaining the interest in
the <i>Martyrology</i> of the Pseudo-Jerome centered on the use of
lists of saints' names to add sanctity and protection to the recently
dead, whose names would be inscribed next to or in the proximity of
those of saints on the parchment pages where, just as in the cult of
relics, proximity to the saint was a promise of protection and
participation in saintly virtue. As she says:
The <i>Martyrology</i> of Jerome is perhaps best understood as a
devotional instrument most suitable for, and most clearly of
interest to, those persons who like Willibrod-Clement or
Witiza-Benedict accepted the notion that a saint's postmortem
power could inhere within, and be transferred through their
names. (6)
Lifshitz continues:
The names of saints and not just their relics, were also believed
by some Latin Christians to enable them to gain access to the
benefits of sacred <i>virtus</i>. At least this was the opinion
of a group of eighth and ninth-century people associated with the
<i>Martyrology</i> of Jerome. (8)
In a detective-like approach to the manuscript tradition of the
<i>Martyrology</i> of Jerome, or rather the Pseudo-Jerome, Lifshitz
shows not only how valuable it is to our understanding of the
religious history of the era, but also establishes its dating and
origins, and traces its developing use. Arguing against any possible
<i>recensio italica</i> or association with the Jerome who died in AD
430, she shows that a <i>recensio gallica</i> must have been written
sometime around 600, although all extant manuscripts come from after
the death of Columbanus in 615. She shows that the prefatory letter
to the text post-dates the Council of Macon in winter 627/8, and must
be seen in the context of The Three Chapters Schism and that Council's
preoccupation with how to commemorate Columbanus. Was he to be
remembered as a fearless monastic critic of worldly leaders, or a
cultivator of papal, episcopal, royal, and aristocratic favor? The
<i>Martyrology</i> supported monasticism's more critical stance
towards worldly power, praising Columbanus for such criticism. Such
emphasis on Columbanus as critic places the prefatory letter at least
in the context of Luxeuil, where relics were relatively unimportant
and access to saints' names stressed. She suggests a parallel with
the renaming of Anglo-Saxon missionaries in the eight century--
Willibrod/Clement, Winfred/Boniface, and nuns at Barking abbey in
England, who had similarly taken the names of early martyrs: Justina,
Scholastica, Eulalia, and Thecla.
In treating the <i>Martyrology</i>, Lifshitz provides evidence of the
Carolingians employing the names of Saints (whether taking their
names, as Willibrod, Winfrid and Witiza did, or simply placing their
own names next to the saint's name in a Book of the Saints) as an
alternative route of access to the holy. Lifshitz opens our eyes to
the fact that the names of saints were placed in competition with
relics as another dimension of the piety of the early middle ages.
Names did not replace relics, but influenced later practices such as
the use of monastic necrologies as necessary elements (along with
relics) in the connection between this world and the next, as well as
the widespread eleventh and twelfth-century practice of naming
children after saints associated with the day of birth or baptism.
Thus, circa AD 700, name recitation and inscription of names along
with those of saints as a means of proximity "ad nomina sanctorum,"
reflected:
Faith in a mysterious cosmic efficacy applied not only to relics
but also to names. Inscription itself was considered sufficient
to place a deceased person in the company of the saints through
nominal proximity. (35-6)
For Lifshitz, the <i>Martyrology</i>'s widespread use by the
Carolingians after 772 marks a new phase in the Saxon mission (convert
or die), allowing missionaries in the field who wanted to encourage
proximity to the Saints to have a new type of "contact relic," the
"textualization" as she calls it, of the saint's name itself.
Ironically, from the viewpoint presented, the use of it enjoined by
Louis the Pious and Benedict of Aniane in 817, which should have
marked its widespread application, actually marks the faltering of the
practice of use of saints' names.
In an atmosphere suddenly charged with condemnations for heresy,
the exotic practices of recitation and inscription of holy names
would not be able to become standard features of Frankish
liturgical practice without undergoing some significant
modifications. (101)
Recitation of names was moved from the mass to the daily monastic
chapter and much more limited saints' biographies, written as extended
narratives, such as those of the Venerable Bede, would replace the
repetition of saints' names found in the <i>Martyrology</i>.
Lifshitz throughout the book shows her versatility as a historian of
religion and ideas, forcible conversion, political narratives,
liturgical and monastic life, complexities of Carolingian family and
women's history, and the study of books and manuscripts. Flexing
intellectual muscle and skill throughout, she shows why manuscripts
must be checked in person (as well as by film and photograph), to
uncover: "overlaps in layers of ink giving order of entries,"
"squiggles and erasures," and "dry-point glosses" all indicating
"active engagement with manuscripts," that can be used to determine
the possible uses to which such a texts could be put in the eighth and
ninth centuries.
For those interested in any aspect of medieval religious practice,
manuscript study or development of the Frankish state, this is a fine
and convincing book. It is well-written, well-produced, lays out its
argument like the plot line of a detective story, and thus provides a
real scholarly satisfaction for the reader. It convincingly
disentangles some of the knotted earlier scholarship by taking us
along step by step towards a conclusion. It is most impressive.
Finally there are two minor points to note. I have verified with the
author that on page 83 the description of a Corbie manuscript from
771-83, Paris, BN Latin 12,260 has a typo; the <i>Martyrology</i> is
found on folios one through eleven (not one through two), meaning that
this is probably the text in full, not an abbreviation, and that it
acted as a preface to the <i>Regula Pastoralis</i> or <i>Pastoralis
Cura</i> of Gregory the Great, found on folios twelve through 159. I
also verified that the word "sanctarum--of female saints" on page 98
is indeed correct, coming as it does in a list of "categories of
names" dated 788-94 found in the Psalter of Mondsee held by Notre-
Dame-de-Soissons, an abbey of nuns housing some of Charlemagne's
closest relatives.
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