Thomas of Cantimpré: The Collected Saints Lives—Abbot John of Cantimpré, Christina the Astonishing, Margaret of Ypres, and Lutgard of Aywières (review)

In Thomas of Cantimpré Barbara Newman builds on Margot King’s early work—polishing translations, supplementing the apparatus, and bringing it up-to-date and in line with the scholarly norms for this type of production. In addition, Newman adds a finely wrought general introduction to the world and hagiographical writing of the Dominican Thomas of Cantimpré (c, 1200–c. 1270) as well as a new and accomplished translation of Thomas’s earliest hagiographical effort, the Life of John of Cantimpré.

The Life of John of Cantimpré, along with the three improved translations reprinted in the volume, allows the reader to compare and contrast his treatment of his early male spiritual hero with that of three women: the fiercely adolescent Dominican devotee Margaret of Ypres, the madly spectacular mulier religiosa Christine of St. Trond, and the magisterial Cistercian nun Lutgard of Aywières. The Life of John’s literary swashbuckle also raises questions about Simone Roisin’s still authoritative account of Thomas’s gradual, linear development as a hagiographical writer.

These Lives make it clear that Thomas of Cantimpré was a truly talented storyteller. His narrative gift, wedded as it was to an insatiable taste for religious spectacle, endows his hagiographical efforts with a delightful, sometimes Felliniesque, charm. The fact that these works also are surreptitiously sophisticated in their theological construction, while seemingly unbothered by theological loose ends, only adds to the fun.

Newman is to be congratulated both on the delicate ways in which she has raised the quality of King’s earlier efforts and her strong translations. This work should help raise the profile of Thomas of Cantimpré among medieval scholars and undergraduate students—a welcome development.