Through a glass, darkly: Recent work on sanctity and society. A review article

Comparative Studies in Society and History

Volumn 38, Issue 2, 1996, Pages 301-306

  Caciola, Nancy ^a  

^a RHODES COLLEGE   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 5244250765     PISSN: 00104175     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/s0010417500020284     Document Type: Review

References (34)

1. Patrick Geary dates the movement toward studying society through sanctity to the publication of F. Graus's Volk, Herrscher, und Heiliger im Reich der Merowinger: Studien zur Hagiographie der Merowingerzeit (Prague, 1965). While this "new" approach certainly has long roots and a complex development, I will be concerned in this essay more with the widespread acceptance, since the 1980s, of such concerns as de rigueur to the study of sanctity. See Patrick Geary, "Saints, Scholars, and Society: The Elusive Goal," Living with the Dead in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, NY, 1994), 9-29.
2. Patrick Geary dates the movement toward studying society through sanctity to the publication of F. Graus's Volk, Herrscher, und Heiliger im Reich der Merowinger: Studien zur Hagiographie der Merowingerzeit (Prague, 1965). While this "new" approach certainly has long roots and a complex development, I will be concerned in this essay more with the widespread acceptance, since the 1980s, of such concerns as de rigueur to the study of sanctity. See Patrick Geary, "Saints, Scholars, and Society: The Elusive Goal," Living with the Dead in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, NY, 1994), 9-29.
3. Peter Brown, "Society and the Supernatural: A Medieval Change," Society and the Holy in Late Antiquity (Berkeley, 1982), 318. The essay was first published in Daedalus, CIV (1975), 133-51.
4. Peter Brown, "Society and the Supernatural: A Medieval Change," Society and the Holy in Late Antiquity (Berkeley, 1982), 318. The essay was first published in Daedalus, CIV (1975), 133-51.
5. Geary, "Saints, Scholars, and Society: The Elusive Goal." While many of the general developments that Geary charts correspond with my own, I would disagree with his conclusions regarding the future of the field as defined by microstudies. While microstudies are indeed valuable and the specific works he cites admirable, I believe that microstudies work most productively when done in dialogue with broader synthetic studies. Both kinds of work are necessary to provoke further analysis and understanding of the phenomenon of sanctity.
6. See note 2, above; The Cult of the Saints (Chicago, 1981).
7. Holy Feast, Holy Fast (Berkeley, 1987); Fragmentation and Redemption (New York, 1990).
8. Holy Feast, Holy Fast (Berkeley, 1987); Fragmentation and Redemption (New York, 1990).
9. La Sainteté en Occident aux Derniers Siècles du Moyen Âge, d'Après les Procès de Canonisation et les Documents Hagiographiques (Rome, 1981); Les Laïcs au Moyen Âge, Pratiques et Expériences Religieuses (Paris, 1987); and numerous articles.
10. La Sainteté en Occident aux Derniers Siècles du Moyen Âge, d'Après les Procès de Canonisation et les Documents Hagiographiques (Rome, 1981); Les Laïcs au Moyen Âge, Pratiques et Expériences Religieuses (Paris, 1987); and numerous articles.
11. In Castro Poenitentiae: Santità e Società Femminile nell'Italia Medievale (Rome, 1990); and numerous articles.
12. Vision und Visionsliteratur im Mittelalter (Stuttgart, 1981).
13. The literature on performance theory is extensive. A helpful, though somewhat out of date, overview is in Lawrence Sullivan, "Sound and Senses: Toward a Hermeneutics of Performance," History of Religions, 26:1 (August 1986), 1-33. See also Catherine Bell, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice (New York, 1992), for a discussion of the history of ritual theory. Helpful specific examples include the essays of S. J. Tambiah in Culture, Thought, and Social Action (Cambridge, MA, 1985); Roy Rappaport, "The Obvious Aspects of Ritual," in R. Rappaport, Ecology, Meaning, and Religion (Berkeley, 1979), 173-222; Edward Schieffelin, "Performance and the Cultural Construction of Reality," American Ethnologist, 12 (1985), 707-24; Jonathan Z. Smith, To Take Place: Toward Theory in Ritual (Chicago, 1987). Discussion of a performative theory of identity formation in relation to medieval women saints is in Kathleen Biddick's critique of Caroline Bynum ("Genders, Bodies, Borders: Technologies of the Visible," Speculum, 68 (April 1993), 389-418 ). For a brilliant application of performance theory to the realm of gender formation, Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York, 1990).
14. The literature on performance theory is extensive. A helpful, though somewhat out of date, overview is in Lawrence Sullivan, "Sound and Senses: Toward a Hermeneutics of Performance," History of Religions, 26:1 (August 1986), 1-33. See also Catherine Bell, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice (New York, 1992), for a discussion of the history of ritual theory. Helpful specific examples include the essays of S. J. Tambiah in Culture, Thought, and Social Action (Cambridge, MA, 1985); Roy Rappaport, "The Obvious Aspects of Ritual," in R. Rappaport, Ecology, Meaning, and Religion (Berkeley, 1979), 173-222; Edward Schieffelin, "Performance and the Cultural Construction of Reality," American Ethnologist, 12 (1985), 707-24; Jonathan Z. Smith, To Take Place: Toward Theory in Ritual (Chicago, 1987). Discussion of a performative theory of identity formation in relation to medieval women saints is in Kathleen Biddick's critique of Caroline Bynum ("Genders, Bodies, Borders: Technologies of the Visible," Speculum, 68 (April 1993), 389-418 ). For a brilliant application of performance theory to the realm of gender formation, Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York, 1990).
15. The literature on performance theory is extensive. A helpful, though somewhat out of date, overview is in Lawrence Sullivan, "Sound and Senses: Toward a Hermeneutics of Performance," History of Religions, 26:1 (August 1986), 1-33. See also Catherine Bell, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice (New York, 1992), for a discussion of the history of ritual theory. Helpful specific examples include the essays of S. J. Tambiah in Culture, Thought, and Social Action (Cambridge, MA, 1985); Roy Rappaport, "The Obvious Aspects of Ritual," in R. Rappaport, Ecology, Meaning, and Religion (Berkeley, 1979), 173-222; Edward Schieffelin, "Performance and the Cultural Construction of Reality," American Ethnologist, 12 (1985), 707-24; Jonathan Z. Smith, To Take Place: Toward Theory in Ritual (Chicago, 1987). Discussion of a performative theory of identity formation in relation to medieval women saints is in Kathleen Biddick's critique of Caroline Bynum ("Genders, Bodies, Borders: Technologies of the Visible," Speculum, 68 (April 1993), 389-418 ). For a brilliant application of performance theory to the realm of gender formation, Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York, 1990).
16. The literature on performance theory is extensive. A helpful, though somewhat out of date, overview is in Lawrence Sullivan, "Sound and Senses: Toward a Hermeneutics of Performance," History of Religions, 26:1 (August 1986), 1-33. See also Catherine Bell, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice (New York, 1992), for a discussion of the history of ritual theory. Helpful specific examples include the essays of S. J. Tambiah in Culture, Thought, and Social Action (Cambridge, MA, 1985); Roy Rappaport, "The Obvious Aspects of Ritual," in R. Rappaport, Ecology, Meaning, and Religion (Berkeley, 1979), 173-222; Edward Schieffelin, "Performance and the Cultural Construction of Reality," American Ethnologist, 12 (1985), 707-24; Jonathan Z. Smith, To Take Place: Toward Theory in Ritual (Chicago, 1987). Discussion of a performative theory of identity formation in relation to medieval women saints is in Kathleen Biddick's critique of Caroline Bynum ("Genders, Bodies, Borders: Technologies of the Visible," Speculum, 68 (April 1993), 389-418 ). For a brilliant application of performance theory to the realm of gender formation, Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York, 1990).
17. The literature on performance theory is extensive. A helpful, though somewhat out of date, overview is in Lawrence Sullivan, "Sound and Senses: Toward a Hermeneutics of Performance," History of Religions, 26:1 (August 1986), 1-33. See also Catherine Bell, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice (New York, 1992), for a discussion of the history of ritual theory. Helpful specific examples include the essays of S. J. Tambiah in Culture, Thought, and Social Action (Cambridge, MA, 1985); Roy Rappaport, "The Obvious Aspects of Ritual," in R. Rappaport, Ecology, Meaning, and Religion (Berkeley, 1979), 173-222; Edward Schieffelin, "Performance and the Cultural Construction of Reality," American Ethnologist, 12 (1985), 707-24; Jonathan Z. Smith, To Take Place: Toward Theory in Ritual (Chicago, 1987). Discussion of a performative theory of identity formation in relation to medieval women saints is in Kathleen Biddick's critique of Caroline Bynum ("Genders, Bodies, Borders: Technologies of the Visible," Speculum, 68 (April 1993), 389-418 ). For a brilliant application of performance theory to the realm of gender formation, Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York, 1990).
18. The literature on performance theory is extensive. A helpful, though somewhat out of date, overview is in Lawrence Sullivan, "Sound and Senses: Toward a Hermeneutics of Performance," History of Religions, 26:1 (August 1986), 1-33. See also Catherine Bell, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice (New York, 1992), for a discussion of the history of ritual theory. Helpful specific examples include the essays of S. J. Tambiah in Culture, Thought, and Social Action (Cambridge, MA, 1985); Roy Rappaport, "The Obvious Aspects of Ritual," in R. Rappaport, Ecology, Meaning, and Religion (Berkeley, 1979), 173-222; Edward Schieffelin, "Performance and the Cultural Construction of Reality," American Ethnologist, 12 (1985), 707-24; Jonathan Z. Smith, To Take Place: Toward Theory in Ritual (Chicago, 1987). Discussion of a performative theory of identity formation in relation to medieval women saints is in Kathleen Biddick's critique of Caroline Bynum ("Genders, Bodies, Borders: Technologies of the Visible," Speculum, 68 (April 1993), 389-418 ). For a brilliant application of performance theory to the realm of gender formation, Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York, 1990).
19. The literature on performance theory is extensive. A helpful, though somewhat out of date, overview is in Lawrence Sullivan, "Sound and Senses: Toward a Hermeneutics of Performance," History of Religions, 26:1 (August 1986), 1-33. See also Catherine Bell, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice (New York, 1992), for a discussion of the history of ritual theory. Helpful specific examples include the essays of S. J. Tambiah in Culture, Thought, and Social Action (Cambridge, MA, 1985); Roy Rappaport, "The Obvious Aspects of Ritual," in R. Rappaport, Ecology, Meaning, and Religion (Berkeley, 1979), 173-222; Edward Schieffelin, "Performance and the Cultural Construction of Reality," American Ethnologist, 12 (1985), 707-24; Jonathan Z. Smith, To Take Place: Toward Theory in Ritual (Chicago, 1987). Discussion of a performative theory of identity formation in relation to medieval women saints is in Kathleen Biddick's critique of Caroline Bynum ("Genders, Bodies, Borders: Technologies of the Visible," Speculum, 68 (April 1993), 389-418 ). For a brilliant application of performance theory to the realm of gender formation, Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York, 1990).
20. The literature on performance theory is extensive. A helpful, though somewhat out of date, overview is in Lawrence Sullivan, "Sound and Senses: Toward a Hermeneutics of Performance," History of Religions, 26:1 (August 1986), 1-33. See also Catherine Bell, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice (New York, 1992), for a discussion of the history of ritual theory. Helpful specific examples include the essays of S. J. Tambiah in Culture, Thought, and Social Action (Cambridge, MA, 1985); Roy Rappaport, "The Obvious Aspects of Ritual," in R. Rappaport, Ecology, Meaning, and Religion (Berkeley, 1979), 173-222; Edward Schieffelin, "Performance and the Cultural Construction of Reality," American Ethnologist, 12 (1985), 707-24; Jonathan Z. Smith, To Take Place: Toward Theory in Ritual (Chicago, 1987). Discussion of a performative theory of identity formation in relation to medieval women saints is in Kathleen Biddick's critique of Caroline Bynum ("Genders, Bodies, Borders: Technologies of the Visible," Speculum, 68 (April 1993), 389-418 ). For a brilliant application of performance theory to the realm of gender formation, Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York, 1990).
21. Judith Butler, Gender Trouble, 33.
22. Schieffelin, "Performance and Cultural Construction," 722.
23. An illuminating discussion of this point may be found in Gábor Klaniczay, "Legends as Life-Strategies for Aspirant Saints in the Later Middle Ages," The Uses of Supernatural Power (Princeton, 1990), 95-110.
24. Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York, 1973), 5.
25. Joan Wallach Scott, "Experience," in J. Butler and J. W. Scott, Feminists Theorize the Political (New York, 1992), 22-40. A longer version of the essay was published in Critical Inquiry, 17 (Summer 1991), 773-97.
26. Joan Wallach Scott, "Experience," in J. Butler and J. W. Scott, Feminists Theorize the Political (New York, 1992), 22-40. A longer version of the essay was published in Critical Inquiry, 17 (Summer 1991), 773-97.
27. For a useful exposition of this point, see Pierre Delooz, "Toward a Sociological Study of Canonized Sainthood in the Catholic Church," in S. Wilson, ed., Saints and Their Cults: Studies in Religious Sociology, Folklore, and History (Cambridge, 1983), 189-216; P. Delooz, Sociologie et Canonisations (Liège, 1969).
28. For a useful exposition of this point, see Pierre Delooz, "Toward a Sociological Study of Canonized Sainthood in the Catholic Church," in S. Wilson, ed., Saints and Their Cults: Studies in Religious Sociology, Folklore, and History (Cambridge, 1983), 189-216; P. Delooz, Sociologie et Canonisations (Liège, 1969).
29. His references include Donald Weinstein and Rudolph Bell, Saints and Society (Chicago, 1982); Rudolph Bell, Holy Anorexia (Chicago, 1985); Caroline Bynum, Holy Feast, Holy Fast (Berkeley, 1987); and Thomas Heffernan, Sacred Biography (Oxford, 1988). By contrast, Kleinberg adopts a classic Enlightenment stance, following David Hume's polemical works on miracles and religion, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understandings and The Natural History of Religion. For an incisive response to the Humean position and its relationship to culture, see Brown, Cult of the Saints, 13-22.
30. His references include Donald Weinstein and Rudolph Bell, Saints and Society (Chicago, 1982); Rudolph Bell, Holy Anorexia (Chicago, 1985); Caroline Bynum, Holy Feast, Holy Fast (Berkeley, 1987); and Thomas Heffernan, Sacred Biography (Oxford, 1988). By contrast, Kleinberg adopts a classic Enlightenment stance, following David Hume's polemical works on miracles and religion, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understandings and The Natural History of Religion. For an incisive response to the Humean position and its relationship to culture, see Brown, Cult of the Saints, 13-22.
31. His references include Donald Weinstein and Rudolph Bell, Saints and Society (Chicago, 1982); Rudolph Bell, Holy Anorexia (Chicago, 1985); Caroline Bynum, Holy Feast, Holy Fast (Berkeley, 1987); and Thomas Heffernan, Sacred Biography (Oxford, 1988). By contrast, Kleinberg adopts a classic Enlightenment stance, following David Hume's polemical works on miracles and religion, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understandings and The Natural History of Religion. For an incisive response to the Humean position and its relationship to culture, see Brown, Cult of the Saints, 13-22.
32. His references include Donald Weinstein and Rudolph Bell, Saints and Society (Chicago, 1982); Rudolph Bell, Holy Anorexia (Chicago, 1985); Caroline Bynum, Holy Feast, Holy Fast (Berkeley, 1987); and Thomas Heffernan, Sacred Biography (Oxford, 1988). By contrast, Kleinberg adopts a classic Enlightenment stance, following David Hume's polemical works on miracles and religion, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understandings and The Natural History of Religion. For an incisive response to the Humean position and its relationship to culture, see Brown, Cult of the Saints, 13-22.
33. His references include Donald Weinstein and Rudolph Bell, Saints and Society (Chicago, 1982); Rudolph Bell, Holy Anorexia (Chicago, 1985); Caroline Bynum, Holy Feast, Holy Fast (Berkeley, 1987); and Thomas Heffernan, Sacred Biography (Oxford, 1988). By contrast, Kleinberg adopts a classic Enlightenment stance, following David Hume's polemical works on miracles and religion, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understandings and The Natural History of Religion. For an incisive response to the Humean position and its relationship to culture, see Brown, Cult of the Saints, 13-22.
34. His references include Donald Weinstein and Rudolph Bell, Saints and Society (Chicago, 1982); Rudolph Bell, Holy Anorexia (Chicago, 1985); Caroline Bynum, Holy Feast, Holy Fast (Berkeley, 1987); and Thomas Heffernan, Sacred Biography (Oxford, 1988). By contrast, Kleinberg adopts a classic Enlightenment stance, following David Hume's polemical works on miracles and religion, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understandings and The Natural History of Religion. For an incisive response to the Humean position and its relationship to culture, see Brown, Cult of the Saints, 13-22.