Suspect Saints and Holy Heretics: Disputed Sanctity and Communal Identity in Late Medieval Italy

Awards:   Runner-up for Hagiography Society Book Prize 2020 (United States)
Author:   Janine Larmon Peterson
Publisher:   Cornell University Press
ISBN:  

9781501742347


Pages:   270
Publication Date:   15 December 2019
Recommended Age:   From 18 years
Format:   Hardback
Availability:   In Print   Availability explained
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Suspect Saints and Holy Heretics: Disputed Sanctity and Communal Identity in Late Medieval Italy


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Awards

  • Runner-up for Hagiography Society Book Prize 2020 (United States)

Overview

In Suspect Saints and Holy Heretics Janine Larmon Peterson investigates regional saints whose holiness was contested. She scrutinizes the papacy's toleration of unofficial saints' cults and its response when their devotees challenged church authority about a cult's merits or the saint's orthodoxy. As she demonstrates, communities that venerated saints increasingly clashed with popes and inquisitors determined to erode any local claims of religious authority. Local and unsanctioned saints were spiritual and social fixtures in the towns of northern and central Italy in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. In some cases, popes allowed these saints' cults; in others, church officials condemned the saint and/or their followers as heretics. Using a wide range of secular and clerical sources-including vitae, inquisitorial and canonization records, chronicles, and civic statutes-Peterson explores who these unofficial saints were, how the phenomenon of disputed sanctity arose, and why communities would be willing to risk punishment by continuing to venerate a local holy man or woman. She argues that the Church increasingly restricted sanctification in the later Middle Ages, which precipitated new debates over who had the authority to recognize sainthood and what evidence should be used to identify holiness and heterodoxy. The case studies she presents detail how the political climate of the Italian peninsula allowed Italian communities to use saints' cults as a tool to negotiate religious and political autonomy in opposition to growing papal bureaucratization.

Full Product Details

Author:   Janine Larmon Peterson
Publisher:   Cornell University Press
Imprint:   Cornell University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 2.50cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.907kg
ISBN:  

9781501742347


ISBN 10:   1501742345
Pages:   270
Publication Date:   15 December 2019
Recommended Age:   From 18 years
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print   Availability explained
This item will be ordered in for you from one of our suppliers. Upon receipt, we will promptly dispatch it out to you. For in store availability, please contact us.

Table of Contents

List of Tables and Illustrations Acknowledgments Abbreviations Introduction 1. Tolerated Saints 2. Suspect Saints 3. Heretical Saints 4. Holy Heretics 5. Economics, Patronage, and Politics 6. Anti-Inquisitorialism to Antimendicantism 7. Papal Politics and Communal Contestation 8. Methods of Contesting Authority Conclusion Bibliography Index

Reviews

Janine Larmon Peterson has written a book of excellent quality that grapples directly with a wide range of aspects related to sanctity in the Middle Ages. Considerable thought has gone into this book, and it shows. -- George Ferzoco, University of Bristol, co-editor of <I>A Companion to Catherine of Siena</I> Suspect Saints and Holy Heretics is a significant contribution in how we think about responses to political and social change in Italy during the later Middle Ages. A great achievement and worthwhile book. -- Lezlie Knox, Marquette University, author of <I>Creating Clare of Assisi</I>


Author Information

Janine Larmon Peterson is Professor of History, Coordinator of the Medieval and Renaissance Studies Program, and Director of the Honors Program at Marist College. She is the Medieval Europe Editor for the Database of Religious History, and has published in Past & Present, Scriptorium, Traditio, and Viator.

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