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>From [log in to unmask] Fri Sep 24 16:13:34 1999
From: "Dr G.R. Jones" <[log in to unmask]>
Message-Id: <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: St Albert & the problem of sources... take St Leonard for example
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1999 16:13:33 +0100 (BST)
Cc: [log in to unmask]
In-Reply-To: <00fa01bf0740$783f9f00$43fff7c2@johnlock> from "john lock" at Sep 25, 99 11:24:08 am
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Dear John
Did you consider asking for a vitae overview on the Hagiomail list?
My Leicestershire map is not as convincing as those for the Worcester and
Bath-and-Wells dioceses; I'll try and get those on the web, too, in due course.
But I'm glad the non-randomness was apparent.
At the same time, we agree that patterns are very often palimpsests, and that
mantras are to be treated with suspicion - e.g. Michael and hilltops. So while
Leonard appears to sit very well as patron of the chapel at Charlecote in
Warwickshire in relation to
its deer park,
and peripheral location and status
within an estate attached to a royal hall,
the emphasis changes when one notes that Charlecote also contained a Trinitarian
priory whose patron was Radegund. Radegund and Leonard were both held to be
intercessories on behalf of prisoners, of course.
Whoever first said that medieval religion was about meaning may have been guilty
of yet another sweeping statement... but it's bang on the nail. Frank and others
are rightly urging us to take account of meanings derived from and mediated by,
agricultural experience. Since another important chunk of medieval mentality
appears to have been concerned with spatial relationships, I'm greatly tempted
to associate gateway hospitals with a perceived contrast between the security of
the walled town and the risks attendant outside it. Metaphorically the
wilderness began outside the walls, and Leonard's legend placed him in the
wilderness. That St Leonard's, York, had a reputation for treating child-bed
orphans only reinforces my temptation. Leonard gets his land for delivering the
queen's child during the hunt. Similarly, the preponderance of lazar houses
among the English hospitals of St Leonard provokes images of exclusion.
I would argue that such shared meanings are a greater help in understanding the
medieval European world than the adoption of saints by individual communities,
whether towns or aristocracies. But you're absolutely right, John, to insist
that we attend to those communities, and what their adoptions tell us,
since we're also agreed that neither approach can successfully ignore the other.
Thanks again - and good luck with your appeal for an overview of the vitae.
Graham Jones
Leicester
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