Review:
More than 1,300 saints are profiled in this most readable, extensive, and enlightening of references. Curious about the saint you're named after? Attending a feast day for a saint you never heard of? Want an obscure saint to include in your historical novel? Or merely desirous of the kind of feet-up-by-the-fire perusal that only a well-written reference text can provide? David Farmer's compilation of saints includes all English saints; all saints of whom there is or was a notable cult; important saints from Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and the rest of Europe; and recently canonized saints. Arranged alphabetically, the dictionary starts with Abbo of Fleury, ends with Zosimus of Syracuse, and includes Pelagia of Antioch, Crispina of Tagora, Cunegund the empress, and a wide assortment of other martyrs, popes, spiritual seers, and those, such as Crispin of Viterbo, who were canonized simply for their humble lives and Christian faith. There's also a wonderful appendix of the principal patronages of saints--telling, for example, who's the patron saint of healthy dogs (Hubert) and mad dogs (Sithney), plus an index of the main iconographical emblems of saints, another of places, and a calendar of feast days. --Stephanie Gold
About the Author:
David Hugh Farmer, formerly Reader in History at Reading University, is the author or editor of nine books. One of these was Magna Vita Sancti Hugonis: The Life of St Hugh of Lincoln by Adam of Eynsham, which he edited with Decima L. Douie for the Oxford Medieval Texts series. Others have been in the related fields of monasticism, Bede and his age, and medieval spirituality.
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