Hagiography in Anglo-Saxon England: Adopting and Adapting Saints’ Lives into Old English Prose (Textes et Études du Moyen Âge, 73)

Abstract

This volume gathers fourteen new essays devoted to Old English prose saints’ lives from the late Anglo-Saxon period. Moving from diverse methodological approaches and building on the most recent developments in primary and secondary scholarship, the contributions comprehensively consider the texts and contexts of the vernacular hagiographic output both by Ælfric, the major hagiographer of his day, and by anonymous authors. Attention is devoted also to the post-Conquest legacy of Anglo-Saxon hagiography, as Ælfric’s Lives of Saints continued to be read, copied, edited, and readapted throughout the eleventh and twelfth centuries. In the new stress on the Latin source-texts, among which the long-neglected Vitas Patrum, on the historical background underlying the hagiographical production, this collection contributes to define the sanctorale in use in late Anglo-Saxon England and thereby advances our knowledge of the literary culture and intellectual history of the late Anglo-Saxon period and beyond.