Tradition and transformation in text and image in the cults of Mary of Egypt, Cuthbert, and Guthlac: Changing conceptualizations of sainthood in medieval England.

摘要

The lives and images of saints were of widespread popularity and enduring importance in medieval Christian culture. While sometimes treated either as 'fossilized' evidence of a supposed 'dark age' credulity or as immutable evidence of an ethereal permanence and timelessness for the institutional Church, representations of the saints are, instead, dynamic, 'living,' flexible documents that can enrich our understanding of medieval thought and culture.; My dissertation contributes to the study of tradition and transformation in hagiography by tracing the 'evolution' of the presentations of Sts. Mary of Egypt, Cuthbert, and Guthlac. In examining the dynamic corpus of materials, both narrative and visual, for each saint and by analyzing the variations introduced into the corpus from c. 700 to c. 1300 in medieval England, I explore how changes introduced into selected representations of each saint in text (Latin, Old English, and Middle English) and image (illuminated manuscript, stonework, stained glass, fresco, and wax) over the course of the period indicate that the traditions of the saint were being told and retold, written and rewritten, and imaged and re-imaged for many different purposes. More specifically, this dissertation focuses on how changes in the presentations of the selected saints reflect ongoing discussions within the early Church over the via sancta (as exemplified in the tensions between cenobitism and eremitism) and evince appropriation of saints' cults for non-devotional purposes in the later Middle Ages. In doing so, this study also elucidates how the innovations represent changes in conceptualizations of sainthood (showing, for example, how Cuthbert, a humble monk and pastor of Lindisfarne, is transformed into Cuthbert, the bold champion and guardian of the North of England).