Research Catalog

Title

Excessive saints : gender, narrative, and theological invention in Thomas of Cantimpré's mystical hagiographies / Rachel J.D. Smith.

Author

Smith, Rachel J.

Publication

• New York : Columbia University Press, [2019]
• ©2019

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

x, 303 pages; 24 cm.

Summary

"For thirteenth-century preacher, exorcist, and hagiographer Thomas of Cantimpré, the Southern Low Countries were a harbinger of the New Jerusalem. The Holy Spirit, he believed, was manifesting itself in the lives of lay and religious people alike. Thomas avidly sought out these new kinds of saints, writing accounts of their lives so that these models of sanctity might astound, teach, and trouble the convictions of his day. In Excessive Saints, Rachel J. D. Smith combines historical, literary, and theological approaches to offer a new interpretation of Thomas's hagiographies, showing how they employ vivid narrative portrayals of typically female bodies to perform theological work in a rhetorically specific way. Written in an era of great religious experimentation, Thomas's texts think with and through the bodies of particular figures: the narrative of the holy person's life becomes a site of theological invention in a variety of registers, particularly the devotional, the mystical, and the dogmatic. Smith examines how these texts represent the lives and bodies of holy women to render them desirable objects of devotion for readers and how particular representations are crafted by Thomas in the service of the church even as he works through his uncertainties about the opportunities and dangers that these emerging forms of holiness present. Excessive Saints is the first book to consider Thomas's narrative craft in relation to his theological projects, offering new visions for the study of theology, medieval Christianity, and medieval women's history"--

Series Statement

Gender, theory, and religion

Uniform Title

Gender, theory, and religion.

Subjects

• Hagiographers
• Hagiographers > Belgium > Biography
• Criticism, interpretation, etc
• Biography
• Hagiographies
• Christian women saints > Biography
• Belgium
• Thomas, de Cantimpré, approximately 1200-approximately 1270
• Christian hagiography > History and criticism

Genre/Form

• Hagiographies.
• Biography.
• Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages [273]-289) and index.

Contents

Introduction: Hagiographical theology : making holy bodies from the word -- Thomas of Cantimpré : his life and literary activity -- "With wondrous horror she fled" : dissimilarity and sanctity in The life of Christina the Astonishing -- Gendering particularity : a comparison of The life of Christina the Astonishing and The life of Abbot John of Cantimpré -- A question of proof : Augustine and the reading of hagiography -- Language, literacy, and the saintly body -- The uses of astonishment : apophasis and the writing of mystical hagiography -- Producing the body of God : exemplary teaching, Jewish carnality, and Christian doubt in the Bonum universale de apibus.

Call Number

JFE 19-4369

ISBN

• 9780231188609
• 0231188609
• 9780231547932 (canceled/invalid)

LCCN

2018025466

OCLC

1035461107

Author

Smith, Rachel J., author.

Title

Excessive saints : gender, narrative, and theological invention in Thomas of Cantimpré's mystical hagiographies / Rachel J.D. Smith.

Publisher

New York : Columbia University Press, [2019]

Copyright Date

©2019

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Series

Gender, theory, and religion

Gender, theory, and religion.

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages [273]-289) and index.

Research Call Number

JFE 19-4369