Hagiographies: Histoire internationale de la littérature hagiographique latine et vernaculaire en Occident des origines à 1550 (review)

This book is the fifth and final volume of a formidable enterprise begun more than thirty years ago, a definitive set of essays on the state of the field of the study of medieval hagiography. The volume begins with a "Table générale des matières" that sets forth a very logical order of essays, beginning with "Antiquity" (essays on Latin Africa, Europe, and St. Jerome); Italy (seven chronological periods from 300-1550, each with geographically-based essays on South, Central and North Italy); and similarly divided sections on Spain, the Latin East, Hungary, Croatia and Slovenia, Bohemia and Moravia, Poland, Gaul, Germany, France, the Netherlands, and the British Isles (pp. 5-7).

However admirable this plan, however, the order of publication turned out to be very different. For example, volume I starts with Latin Africa and Jerome, but then skips to North Italy 1130-1220; Spain 1450-1550; the Latin East; Latin German hagiography 1220-1450; Vernacular German texts 1350-1550; Southwest France 750-950; Central France in the same period; and Anglo Norman, Middle English, and Scots hagiography. Volume V is just as varied, containing essays on Italian saints' lives and passions 300-550, Central Italy 950-1130, and 1130-1220. In the introduction to volume I, published in 1994, Philippart explains that he originally had hoped to bring them out as a group in the order listed in volume V, but soon found this idea "utopian." Once several essays had been submitted and had languished for two years, it was decided that the volumes would be issued as the essays were submitted to the editor, with the assurance that scholars would be able to find what they wanted easily enough (I:23). Perhaps this is true, but it does make for a somewhat disjointed volume and puts a rather heavy burden on the reader.

In spite of this oddity of organization, however, there are some very fine contributions to the study of medieval hagiography in volume V. Cécile Lanéry's monumental essay on the hagiographical passions written in Italy between 300-550 (pp. 15-369) gives ample social contextualization for these often grisly accounts; and the analysis of Central Italian hagiography from 1130 to 1220 by Antonella Degl'Innocenti (pp. 731-98) makes careful distinctions between ecclesiastical categories (episcopal, monastic, eremitic, and lay saints) and the varied historical and cultural contexts of the lives (Translatio Apostoli, Anglo-Irish saints, and ancient martyrs). These essays are models of erudition and clarity that would be very useful to students.

It is a joy to see this massive project finished at long last. The essays in these five volumes will certainly be important references for scholars of the medieval hagiographical tradition for at least the next generation of scholars.