Overview

For thirteenth-century preacher, exorcist, and hagiographer Thomas of Cantimpré, the Southern Low Countries were a harbinger of the New Jerusalem. The Holy Spirit, he believed, was manifesting itself in the lives of lay and religious people alike. Thomas avidly sought out these new kinds of saints, writing accounts of their lives so that these models of sanctity might astound, teach, and trouble the convictions of his day. In Excessive Saints, Rachel J. D. Smith combines historical, literary, and theological approaches to offer a new interpretation of Thomas's hagiographies, showing how they employ vivid narrative portrayals of typically female bodies to perform theological work in a rhetorically specific way. Written in an era of great religious experimentation, Thomas's texts think with and through the bodies of particular figures: the narrative of the holy person's life becomes a site of theological invention in a variety of registers, particularly the devotional, the mystical, and the dogmatic. Smith examines how these texts represent the lives and bodies of holy women to render them desirable objects of devotion for readers and how Thomas passionately narrates these lives even as he works through his uncertainties about the opportunities and dangers that these emerging forms of holiness present. Excessive Saints is the first book to consider Thomas's narrative craft in relation to his theological projects, offering new visions for the study of theology, medieval Christianity, and medieval women's history.

Full Product Details

9780231188609

Table of Contents

Reviews

The results of Smith's approach are unfailingly compelling, advancing our knowledge of what Thomas of Cantimpr was hagiographically and theologically up to in his vitae while at the same time illuminating the spiritual and intellectual world that produced him. In the process we are asked to consider the role of body and gender, of belief and unbelief, of the medieval form of criticism that travelled under the banner of the via negativa as they operate in the thirteenth century and by extension our own.--Robert Sweetman, H. Evan Runner Chair in the History of Philosophy, Institute for Christian Studies

Rachel Smith brilliantly moves between Thomas of Cantimpr 's Dominican training, the bodies and behaviors of his saintly subjects, and the readers of his texts to uncover the 'imaginative theology' that Thomas expressed in his hagiographic narratives. Smith's sophisticated analysis illuminates Thomas's creative exploration of the limits of language, sign, and sensory apprehension for fostering religious devotion. Her book contributes to our understanding of thirteenth-century theologies that are often overshadowed by scholastic and syllogistic thought.--Martha G. Newman, author of The Boundaries of Charity: Cistercian Culture and Ecclesiastical Reform, 1098-1180 Excessive Saints is by far the best study yet written about the ceaselessly audacious holy women of the thirteenth-century Low Countries and their ceaselessly inventive interpreter, Thomas of Cantimpr . Indeed, it is one of the best studies in any field of medieval hagiography published in the last twenty-five years. Thoroughly immersed in Thomas's writings and their mixed literary, theological and cultural settings, Rachel Smith craftily but lovingly analyzes their urgencies, their unnerving tendency towards experimentalism, and the ways they use their saintly subjects to lay bare and in the process refresh the idea of the holy in all its weirdness.--Nicholas Watson, Henry B. and Anne M. Cabot Professor of English Literature, Harvard University The results of Smith's approach are unfailingly compelling, advancing our knowledge of what Thomas of Cantimpr was hagiographically and theologically up to in his vitae while at the same time illuminating the spiritual and intellectual world that produced him. In the process we are asked to consider the role of body and gender, of belief and unbelief, of the medieval form of criticism that travelled under the banner of the via negativa as they operate in the thirteenth century and by extension our own.--Robert Sweetman, H. Evan Runner Chair in the History of Philosophy, Institute for Christian Studies

The results of Smith's approach are unfailingly compelling, advancing our knowledge of what Thomas of Cantimpr� was hagiographically and theologically up to in his vitae while at the same time illuminating the spiritual and intellectual world that produced him. In the process we are asked to consider the role of body and gender, of belief and unbelief, of the medieval form of criticism that travelled under the banner of the via negativa as they operate in the thirteenth century and by extension our own.--Robert Sweetman, H. Evan Runner Chair in the History of Philosophy, Institute for Christian Studies

Author Information

Rachel J. D. Smith is associate professor of theology and religious studies at Villanova University.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available