Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures and maps
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviation
- INTRODUCTION
- 1 THE CAROLINGIAN PERIOD
- 2 THE CAPETIAN PERIOD
- 3 THE IDEAL OF SANCTITY: FORMATION, IMITATION, AND DISSEMINATION
- 4 THE POSTHUMOUS PATRONAGE OF THE SAINTS
- 5 SAINTLY PATRONAGE AND EPISCOPAL AUTHORITY AT THE ABBEY OF MICY
- 6 SAINTS, ABBOTS, AND ECCLESIASTICAL POLITICS AT FLEURY AND PITHIVIERS
- CONCLUSION
- Bibliography and references
- Index
2 - THE CAPETIAN PERIOD
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures and maps
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviation
- INTRODUCTION
- 1 THE CAROLINGIAN PERIOD
- 2 THE CAPETIAN PERIOD
- 3 THE IDEAL OF SANCTITY: FORMATION, IMITATION, AND DISSEMINATION
- 4 THE POSTHUMOUS PATRONAGE OF THE SAINTS
- 5 SAINTLY PATRONAGE AND EPISCOPAL AUTHORITY AT THE ABBEY OF MICY
- 6 SAINTS, ABBOTS, AND ECCLESIASTICAL POLITICS AT FLEURY AND PITHIVIERS
- CONCLUSION
- Bibliography and references
- Index
Summary
In the 980s, after a century of near silence, the monks and clerics of the Orléanais began to compose hagiographic works once again. Sometime after 982 Letaldus of Micy wrote the Miracula s. Maximini (BHL 5820), a history of Micy, its founder, and that saint's patronage. This work inaugurated the reuse of Carolingian traditions concerning the ‘fathers’ of the diocese. About the same time (985–7) Abbo of Fleury went to the abbey of Ramsey in England as schoolmaster and representative of monastic reform; while there he was asked to write an account of the life and martyrdom of King Edmund (BHL 2392). This work began a new tradition among writers at Fleury of composing works about contemporary and near-contemporary figures – some explicitly regarded as saints, others more simply as models of Christian living. These works in essence presented ideals of abbatial and royal authority.
The next century and a quarter became the second great age of hagiographic composition in the region. Between the 980s and the middle of the eleventh century, local authors composed over thirty works related to the cult of the saints. A new vitality can be sensed as well in schools, libraries, and chanceries during these decades, most noticeably at Fleury. The following seventy years witnessed a decrease in the composition of hagiography. Between 1050 and 1120 fewer than ten hagiographic works were composed. The decline of hagiographic composition continued even more dramatically over the course of the twelfth century.
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- Information
- Hagiography and the Cult of SaintsThe Diocese of Orléans, 800–1200, pp. 58 - 101Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1990