Mystics, Star Wars, and Saints II
by Niamh Kehoe
In my last entry, I discussed some useful (and not so useful) ways of thinking about a couple of medieval English Christian texts and practices. I concluded by noting that examining such texts requires us to consider contemporary medieval Christian beliefs surrounding morality, sin, and damnation.
These are topics that I spend quite a bit of time thinking about, as one of my favourite type of medieval text to research are saints’ lives, or narratives about saints. Saints were ubiquitous throughout medieval Christendom: stories and deeds of native and universal saints marked out the landscape and saints’ feast days (the date they died) marked out the calendar year (as holidays, ‘holy days’, do for us today). Particular saints were invoked for particular ailments or situations. St. Margaret of Antioch, for example, having safely burst out the stomach of a dragon was often prayed to for safe delivery during childbirth. Naturally.
Saints were to medieval people what superheroes or celebrities are to society today. They were ever-present, influential, and could kick some ass when required. There are many different types of writings about saints (discussed by Dr Simon Thomson in his blog [Note by the Editor: to be published soon]) but the type I’m most interested in are the narrative accounts of their lives. These were likely read aloud by monks during mealtimes or used for private devotion. In the later medieval period (say, from the late thirteenth century onward, although feel free to correct me) they were possibly also read at home by the gentry. Why were they written and why were they read?
A narrative account could be commissioned for many purposes but put simply, the main reasons were to promote the cult of a particular saint, to promote a patron (whether that be an individual or a church), and to provide exemplary models of behaviour (i.e. how to be a good Christian). I’m mostly interested in this last point and how the presentation of ‘ideal’ models of behaviour change over time. I’m especially interested in moments when the presentation of a saint seems to break the mould and forces us to question our understanding of ‘ideal’ and even ‘typical’ holy – or moral – behaviour.
What do I mean by this? Let me give you an example from Old English hagiography (writings about the saints). Saints, as presented here, are typically known for being steadfast, fearless, and rather warrior-like; much has been written about the literary relationships between Old English hagiography and Old English heroic poetry. Perhaps we can say this is the ‘ideal’ model of holiness: resolute, fearless. A collection of Old English saints’ lives (known, funnily enough, as the Lives of the Saints) that appears to uphold this view is one that I’ve spent a lot of time working on and thinking about. It’s found in an early eleventh-century manuscript, British Library Cotton Julius E. vii, and most texts were written in the late-tenth century by a Benedictine monk, Ælfric of Eynsham. Ælfric’s saints’ lives arguably follow the ‘ideal’ model of holiness outlined above. Yet four anonymous lives are also included in this manuscript. Some of these portray saints that exhibit rather emotional – and dare I say, at times comically pathetic – models of holiness. Saint Eustace spends much of his text crying. The Seven Sleepers would rather not die for their faith, thank you very much, and fearfully run and hide from conflict. What are we to make of these emotional saints? Why should we care? Well, if saints were models of exemplary moral and Christian behaviour, what can these (possibly untypical) texts tell us? How do they fit with the pattern of holiness usually exhibited in Old English hagiography and what does mean for ideals of moral behaviour? These are just some of the research questions I’ve been working on lately, and which I may address in more detail in a later blog!