Miracles in Medieval Canonization Processes: Structures, Functions, and Methodologies (International Medieval Research) (English and French Edition) - Hardcover

Christian Krötzl

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 2503573134 ISBN 13: 9782503573137

Publisher: Brepols Publishers, 2018

Synopsis

When a beneficiary or an eye-witness to a miracle met a scribe at a saint's shrine or a notary at a canonization hearing, it was necessary to establish that the experience was miraculous. Later, the same incident may have been re-told by the clergy; this time the narration needed to entertain the audience yet also to contain a didactic message of divine grace. If the case was eventually scrutinized at the papal curia, the narration and deposition had to fulfil the requirements of both theology and canon law in order to be successful. Miracle narrations had many functions, and they intersected various levels of medieval society and culture; this affected the structure of a collection and individual narration as well as the chosen rhetoric. This book offers a comprehensive methodological analysis of the structure and functions of medieval miracle collections and canonization processes as well as working-tools for reading these sources. By analysing typologies of miracles, stages of composition, as well as rhetorical elements of narrations and depositions, the entertaining, didactic, and judicial aspects of miracle narrations are elucidated while the communal and individual elements are also scrutinized.

Edition details

• Publisher: Brepols Publishers
• Publication date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 2503573134
• ISBN 13: 9782503573137
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 292
• Editor: Christian Krötzl, Sari Katajala-Peltomaa