Saints, Cure-seekers and Miraculous Healing in Twelfth-century England

Download Saints, Cure-seekers and Miraculous Healing in Twelfth-century England PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Boydell & Brewer
ISBN 13 : 1914049004
Total Pages : 263 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (14 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Saints, Cure-seekers and Miraculous Healing in Twelfth-century England by : Ruth J. Salter

Download or read book Saints, Cure-seekers and Miraculous Healing in Twelfth-century England written by Ruth J. Salter and published by Boydell & Brewer. This book was released on 2021 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The cults of the saints were central to the medieval Church. These holy men and women acted as patrons and protectors to the religious communities who housed their relics and to the devotees who requested their assistance in petitioning God for a miracle. Among the collections of posthumous miracle stories, miracula, accounts of holy healing feature prominently and depict cure-seekers successfully securing their desired remedy for a range of ailments and afflictions. What can these miracle accounts tell us of the cure-seekers' experiences of their journey from ill health to recovery, and how was healthcare presented in these sources? This book undertakes an in-depth study of the miraculous cure-seeking process through the lens of Latin miracle accounts produced in twelfth-century England, a time both when saints' cults particularly flourished and there was an increasing transmission and dissemination of classical and Arabic medical works. Focused on shorter miracula with a predominantly localised focus, and thus on a select group of cure-seekers, it brings together studies of healthcare and pilgrimage to look at an alternative to medical intervention and the practicalities and processes of securing saintly assistance.

Miracle Cures

Download Miracle Cures PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 0520271343
Total Pages : 266 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (22 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Miracle Cures by : Robert A. Scott

Download or read book Miracle Cures written by Robert A. Scott and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2011-10-04 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Scott has written a magnificent book on the realities of religious healing. He brings sensibility, reason, impressive insight, and the best information to bear—qualities seldom manifested in the centuries of claim, cynicism, and controversy on the topic. His analysis is destined to raise the level of discourse on dramatic religious experiences."—Neil Smelser, author of The Odyssey Experience

The Medicine of the Friars in Medieval England

Download The Medicine of the Friars in Medieval England PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Boydell & Brewer
ISBN 13 : 1914049233
Total Pages : 327 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (14 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Medicine of the Friars in Medieval England by : Peter Murray Jones

Download or read book The Medicine of the Friars in Medieval England written by Peter Murray Jones and published by Boydell & Brewer. This book was released on 2024-01-09 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing upon a surprising wealth of evidence found in surviving manuscripts, this book restores friars to their rightful place in the history of English health care.Friars are often overlooked in the picture of health care in late medieval England. Physicians, surgeons, apothecaries, barbers, midwives - these are the people we think of immediately as agents of healing; whilst we identify university teachers as authorities on medical writings. Yet from their first appearance in England in the 1220s to the dispersal of the friaries in the 1530s, four orders of friars were active as healers of every type. Their care extended beyond the circle of their own brethren: patients included royalty, nobles and bishops, and they also provided charitable aid and relief to the poor. They wrote about medicine too. Bartholomew the Englishman and Roger Bacon were arguably the most influential authors, alongside the Dominican Henry Daniel. Nor should we forget the anonymous Franciscan compilers of the Tabula medicine, a handbook of cures, which, amongst other items, contains case histories of friars practising medicine. Even after the Reformation, these texts continued to circulate and find new readers amongst practitioners and householders. This book restores friars to their rightful place in the history of English health care, exploring the complex, productive entanglement between care of the soul and healing of the body, in both theoretical and practical terms. Drawing upon the surprising wealth of evidence found in the surviving manuscripts, it brings to light individuals such as William Holme (c. 1400), and his patient the duke of York (d. 1402), who suffered from swollen legs. Holme also wrote about medicinal simples and gave instructions for dealing with eye and voice problems experienced by his brother Franciscans. Friars from the thirteenth century onwards wrote their medicine differently, reflecting their religious vocation as preachers and confessors.ok of cures, which, amongst other items, contains case histories of friars practising medicine. Even after the Reformation, these texts continued to circulate and find new readers amongst practitioners and householders. This book restores friars to their rightful place in the history of English health care, exploring the complex, productive entanglement between care of the soul and healing of the body, in both theoretical and practical terms. Drawing upon the surprising wealth of evidence found in the surviving manuscripts, it brings to light individuals such as William Holme (c. 1400), and his patient the duke of York (d. 1402), who suffered from swollen legs. Holme also wrote about medicinal simples and gave instructions for dealing with eye and voice problems experienced by his brother Franciscans. Friars from the thirteenth century onwards wrote their medicine differently, reflecting their religious vocation as preachers and confessors.ok of cures, which, amongst other items, contains case histories of friars practising medicine. Even after the Reformation, these texts continued to circulate and find new readers amongst practitioners and householders. This book restores friars to their rightful place in the history of English health care, exploring the complex, productive entanglement between care of the soul and healing of the body, in both theoretical and practical terms. Drawing upon the surprising wealth of evidence found in the surviving manuscripts, it brings to light individuals such as William Holme (c. 1400), and his patient the duke of York (d. 1402), who suffered from swollen legs. Holme also wrote about medicinal simples and gave instructions for dealing with eye and voice problems experienced by his brother Franciscans. Friars from the thirteenth century onwards wrote their medicine differently, reflecting their religious vocation as preachers and confessors.ok of cures, which, amongst other items, contains case histories of friars practising medicine. Even after the Reformation, these texts continued to circulate and find new readers amongst practitioners and householders. This book restores friars to their rightful place in the history of English health care, exploring the complex, productive entanglement between care of the soul and healing of the body, in both theoretical and practical terms. Drawing upon the surprising wealth of evidence found in the surviving manuscripts, it brings to light individuals such as William Holme (c. 1400), and his patient the duke of York (d. 1402), who suffered from swollen legs. Holme also wrote about medicinal simples and gave instructions for dealing with eye and voice problems experienced by his brother Franciscans. Friars from the thirteenth century onwards wrote their medicine differently, reflecting their religious vocation as preachers and confessors.riars practising medicine. Even after the Reformation, these texts continued to circulate and find new readers amongst practitioners and householders. This book restores friars to their rightful place in the history of English health care, exploring the complex, productive entanglement between care of the soul and healing of the body, in both theoretical and practical terms. Drawing upon the surprising wealth of evidence found in the surviving manuscripts, it brings to light individuals such as William Holme (c. 1400), and his patient the duke of York (d. 1402), who suffered from swollen legs. Holme also wrote about medicinal simples and gave instructions for dealing with eye and voice problems experienced by his brother Franciscans. Friars from the thirteenth century onwards wrote their medicine differently, reflecting their religious vocation as preachers and confessors.

Saints and Their Communities

Download Saints and Their Communities PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press on Demand
ISBN 13 : 019928363X
Total Pages : 260 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (992 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Saints and Their Communities by : Simon Yarrow

Download or read book Saints and Their Communities written by Simon Yarrow and published by Oxford University Press on Demand. This book was released on 2006-02-23 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author argues that miracle narratives were the product of and helped to foster lay notions of Christian practice and identity centred on the spiritual patronage of certain enshrined saints."--BOOK JACKET.

Madness, Medicine and Miracle in Twelfth-Century England

Download Madness, Medicine and Miracle in Twelfth-Century England PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1351257307
Total Pages : 184 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (512 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Madness, Medicine and Miracle in Twelfth-Century England by : Claire Trenery

Download or read book Madness, Medicine and Miracle in Twelfth-Century England written by Claire Trenery and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-02-12 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores how madness was defined and diagnosed as a condition of the mind in the Middle Ages and what effects it was thought to have on the bodies, minds and souls of sufferers. Madness is examined through narratives of miraculous punishment and healing that were recorded at the shrines of saints. This study focuses on the twelfth century, which has been identified as a ‘Medieval Renaissance’: a time of cultural and intellectual change that saw, among other things, the circulation of new medical treatises that brought with them a wealth of new ideas about illness and health. With the expanding authority of the Roman Church and the tightening of papal control over canonisation procedures in this period, historians have claimed that there was a ‘rationalisation’ of the miraculous. In miracle records, illnesses were explained using newly-accessible humoral theories rather than attributed to divine and demonic forces, as they had been previously. The first book-length study of madness in medieval religion and medicine to be published since 1992, this book challenges these claims and reveals something of the limitations of the so-called ‘medicalisation’ of the miraculous. Throughout the twelfth century, demons continue to lurk in miracle records relating to one condition in particular: madness. Five case studies of miracle collections compiled between 1070 and 1220 reveal that hagiographical representations of madness were heavily influenced by the individual circumstances of their recording and yet were shaped as much by hagiographical patterns that had been developing throughout the twelfth century as they were by new medical and theological standards.

Christ the Physician in Late-Medieval Religious Controversy

Download Christ the Physician in Late-Medieval Religious Controversy PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Boydell & Brewer
ISBN 13 : 1914049268
Total Pages : 300 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (14 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Christ the Physician in Late-Medieval Religious Controversy by : Patrick Outhwaite

Download or read book Christ the Physician in Late-Medieval Religious Controversy written by Patrick Outhwaite and published by Boydell & Brewer. This book was released on 2024-05-28 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A consideration of the allegory of Christ the Divine Physician in medical and religious writings. Discourses of physical and spiritual health were intricately entwined in the Middle Ages, shaping intellectual concepts as well as actual treatment. The allegory of Christ as Divine Physician is an example of this intersection: it appears frequently in both medical and religious writings as a powerful figure of healing and salvation, and was invoked by dissidents and reformists in religious controversies. Drawing on previously unexplored manuscript material, this book examines the use of the Christus Medicus tradition during a period of religious turbulence. Via an interdisciplinary analysis of literature, sermons, and medical texts, it shows that Wycliffites in England and Hussites in Bohemia used concepts developed in hospital settings to press for increased lay access to Scripture and the sacraments against the strictures of the Church hierarchy. Tracing a story of reform and controversy from localised institutional contexts to two of the most important pan-European councils of the fifteenth century, Constance and Basel, it argues that at a point when the body of the Church was strained by multiple popes, heretics and schismatics, the allegory came into increasing use to restore health and order.

The Guild Book of the Barbers and Surgeons of York (British Library, Egerton MS 2572)

Download The Guild Book of the Barbers and Surgeons of York (British Library, Egerton MS 2572) PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Boydell & Brewer
ISBN 13 : 1914049020
Total Pages : 383 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (14 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Guild Book of the Barbers and Surgeons of York (British Library, Egerton MS 2572) by : Richard D. Wragg

Download or read book The Guild Book of the Barbers and Surgeons of York (British Library, Egerton MS 2572) written by Richard D. Wragg and published by Boydell & Brewer. This book was released on 2021 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new exploration of the secular manuscripts and medieval medical texts associated with the York Guild and its members. Produced in 1486 and subsequently augmented, the Guild Book of the Barbers and Surgeons of York (British Library Egerton MS 2572) is a unique record of the knowledge, ambitions, activities and civic relationships maintained by the Barbers and Surgeons Guild over a period of 300 years. The manuscript's earliest folios contain images, astrological tracts, a plague treatise and a bloodletting poem. To these were added early modern ordinances and oaths, a series of royal portraits, and the names of the Guild's masters and apprentices. It is a rare survival of late medieval medical knowledge placed within a civic context. This new multi-disciplinary examination of the York Guild Book presents a comprehensive edition of its content and a detailed study of the creation and use of this fascinating manuscript. The York Guild Book was not owned by any one person but was intended to be representative of the types of manuscripts the Guild's members might have individually possessed. The Guild's commission elevated their manuscript's functional content into something which could be proudly owned and displayed, as is demonstrated by the stylishly executed pen and ink drawings, two of which are possibly unique. Through a contextualisation of the form and content of the manuscript, the book articulates ideas about material culture and the ceremonial role of secular manuscripts whilst shedding new light on the dissemination and status of medieval medical texts.

Kids Those Days: Children in Medieval Culture

Download Kids Those Days: Children in Medieval Culture PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9004458263
Total Pages : 376 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (44 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Kids Those Days: Children in Medieval Culture by :

Download or read book Kids Those Days: Children in Medieval Culture written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2022-02-22 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kids Those Days is a collection of interdisciplinary research into medieval childhood. Contributors investigate abandonment and abuse, fosterage and guardianship, criminal behavior and child-rearing, child bishops and sainthood, disabilities and miracles, and a wide variety of other subjects related to medieval children.

Miracles and Pilgrims

Download Miracles and Pilgrims PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN 13 : 9780312125288
Total Pages : 248 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (252 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Miracles and Pilgrims by : Ronald C. Finucane

Download or read book Miracles and Pilgrims written by Ronald C. Finucane and published by Palgrave Macmillan. This book was released on 1995-05-12 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The records of 'miracles' in the Middle Ages are among the most valuable and unexploited documents of medieval popular Christianity. Now available for the first time in paperback, Ronald Finucane's highly praised historical detective-work, based on over 3000 posthumous miracles (the wonders attributed to saints after their deaths), pieces together a fascinating account of the extent to which the world of pilgrims, miracles and faith-healing exerted its hold over the medieval imagination. Miracle-working at saints' shrines usually concerned curative healing. The book is rich in stories of crippled limbs crackling as they straightened during a miracle, 'possessed' people on the rampage, the screams and groans preceding the moment when blind people could see again. Above all, Ronald Finucane makes important new connections between the medical knowledge of the Middle Ages and the incidence of miracles; for the conditions of medieval life unquestionably reinforced the popular beliefs in wonder-working saints. The events at the curative shrines provide a rare glimpse of the behavior of medieval people at centres of popular religion and an indication of what sorts of people were involved, and why and how they made their journeys.

Wonderful to Relate

Download Wonderful to Relate PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN 13 : 0812206991
Total Pages : 349 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (122 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Wonderful to Relate by : Rachel Koopmans

Download or read book Wonderful to Relate written by Rachel Koopmans and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2011-11-29 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While the late Anglo-Saxons rarely recorded saints' posthumous miracles, a shift occurred as monastic writers of the late eleventh and twelfth centuries started to preserve hundreds of the stories they had heard of healings, acts of vengeance, resurrections, recoveries, and other miraculous deeds effected by their local saints. Indeed, Rachel Koopmans contends, the miracle collection quickly became a defining genre of high medieval English monastic culture. Koopmans surveys more than seventy-five collections and offers a new model for understanding how miracle stories were generated, circulated, and replicated. She argues that orally exchanged narratives carried far more propagandistic power than those preserved in manuscripts; stresses the literary and memorial roles of miracle collecting; and traces changes in form and content as the focus of the collectors shifted from the stories told by religious colleagues to those told by lay visitors to their churches. Wonderful to Relate highlights the importance of the two massive collections written by Benedict of Peterborough and William of Canterbury in the wake of the murder of Thomas Becket in 1170. Koopmans provides the first in-depth examination of the creation and influence of the Becket compilations, often deemed the greatest of all medieval miracle collections. In a final section, she ponders the decline of miracle collecting in the thirteenth century, which occurred with the advent of formalized canonization procedures and theological means of engaging with the miraculous.

Contextualizing Miracles in the Christian West, 1100-1500

Download Contextualizing Miracles in the Christian West, 1100-1500 PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literature
ISBN 13 : 0907570321
Total Pages : 231 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (75 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Contextualizing Miracles in the Christian West, 1100-1500 by : Matthew M. Mesley

Download or read book Contextualizing Miracles in the Christian West, 1100-1500 written by Matthew M. Mesley and published by Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literature. This book was released on 2014-12-01 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume brings together innovative research on miracles in the Christian West 1100-1500, and includes chapters on Anglo-Norman saints’ cults, late medieval Portugal and the legacy of medieval hagiography in the immediate Post-Reformation period. Contributors investigate miracle narratives in conjunction with broader socio-cultural ideals, practices and developments in medieval society. They also reassess the legacy of Peter Brown, challenge established dichotomies such as ‘medicine and religion’, and examine relics, lay beliefs and the liturgical evidence of a saint’s cult, moving beyond the traditional focus on canonization. Medical history features prominently alongside other approaches; these clarify the contexts of our sources, and demonstrate the methodological vibrancy in this field.

Medical Miracles

Download Medical Miracles PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 019533650X
Total Pages : 304 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (953 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Medical Miracles by : Jacalyn Duffin

Download or read book Medical Miracles written by Jacalyn Duffin and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2009 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Making saints : miracles, medicine, and evidence since 1588 -- The supplicants and their saints -- The miracles : diseases, corpses, and other wonders -- Doctors and medical knowledge in the canonization process -- Healing as drama : gestures of invocation and the context of cure -- Conclusion : religion, medicine, and miracles.

Nothing Short of a Miracle

Download Nothing Short of a Miracle PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Sophia Institute Press
ISBN 13 : 1933184582
Total Pages : 338 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (331 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Nothing Short of a Miracle by : Patricia Treece

Download or read book Nothing Short of a Miracle written by Patricia Treece and published by Sophia Institute Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Holy healings and countless cures: Miracles wrought daily through God's beloved saints in our lifetime

A Companion to Medieval Miracle Collections

Download A Companion to Medieval Miracle Collections PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9004468498
Total Pages : 388 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (44 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis A Companion to Medieval Miracle Collections by :

Download or read book A Companion to Medieval Miracle Collections written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2021-09-06 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A companion volume for the usage of medieval miracle collections as a source, offering versatile approaches to the origins, methods, and techniques of various types of miracle narratives, as well as fascinating case studies from across Europe.

The Sacred and the Secular in Medieval Healing

Download The Sacred and the Secular in Medieval Healing PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 9781472449627
Total Pages : 330 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (496 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Sacred and the Secular in Medieval Healing by : Barbara S. Bowers

Download or read book The Sacred and the Secular in Medieval Healing written by Barbara S. Bowers and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-07-28 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume challenges and redefines the traditional distinction made between the sacred and the secular in medieval healing, medical practice, and theory as evidenced in the historic, text record, and by material culture (sites and objects). The studies here are interdisciplinary and are grouped into two parts. The first focuses on secular and religious texts, demonstrating how the language of sacred and secular healing blurs and merges in both Latin and vernacular textual traditions. Chapters critically examine how medieval English literature draws directly from medical discourse when representing the physical and moral consequences of wrath; the reasons why empirical experience in medical education is central to the writings of Valesco de Tarenta; the narrative significance of Bede s representation of plague in his eighth-century prose Life of Cuthbert; and the implications of distinctions between late medieval religious sermons and secular discourse on plague. Authors also discuss how secular medicine and religious faith intersect in two, recorded, late medieval English miracles and present the largely unexplored impact of access to food on people s everyday health. The second part investigates how the concepts of the sacred and the secular are seen in material culture. Chapters explore how the practice of lapidary medicine by early practitioners and midwives used the protective and healing properties ascribed to gemstone amulets, eagle-stones, and lodestones. At pilgrimage sites, the dynamic nature of cure and spiritual interaction is evidenced in art and artifact. One type of object, pilgrim badges from English sites, is used to explore statistically the wider social context of faith and healing."

Mental Health, Spirituality, and Religion in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Age

Download Mental Health, Spirituality, and Religion in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Age PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN 13 : 3110361647
Total Pages : 744 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (13 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Mental Health, Spirituality, and Religion in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Age by : Albrecht Classen

Download or read book Mental Health, Spirituality, and Religion in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Age written by Albrecht Classen and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2014-07-28 with total page 744 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume continues the critical exploration of fundamental issues in the medieval and early modern world, here concerning mental health, spirituality, melancholy, mystical visions, medicine, and well-being. The contributors, who originally had presented their research at a symposium at The University of Arizona in May 2013, explore a wide range of approaches and materials pertinent to these issues, taking us from the early Middle Ages to the eighteenth century, capping the volume with some reflections on the relevance of religion today. Lapidary sciences matter here as much as medical-psychological research, combined with literary and art-historical approaches. The premodern understanding of mental health is not taken as a miraculous panacea for modern problems, but the contributors suggest that medieval and early modern writers, scientists, and artists commanded a considerable amount of arcane, sometimes curious and speculative, knowledge that promises to be of value and relevance even for us today, once again. Modern palliative medicine finds, for instance, intriguing parallels in medieval word magic, and the mystical perspectives encapsulated highly productive alternative perceptions of the macrocosm and microcosm that promise to be insightful and important also for the post-modern world.

Signs and Wonders

Download Signs and Wonders PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 330 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Signs and Wonders by : Benedicta Ward

Download or read book Signs and Wonders written by Benedicta Ward and published by Routledge. This book was released on 1992 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is concerned with the concepts of Christian holiness and spirituality, notably as expressed in hagiographical literature, from Late Antiquity through to the Middle Ages. The first group of articles focuses on the Desert Fathers, the following ones examine key figures in the monastic history of the medieval West, dealing above all with England and with Bede and Anselm of Canterbury. Throughout, Benedicta Ward's aim has been to find an approach that makes full sense of Christian hagiography, miracles and all. It should not be seen, she argues, simply as biography, not as a quarry for information on social history, valuable though it may be for those purposes. The primary object of these Lives - as of the people about whom they were written - was religious: in the accounts of saints in any age there is a pattern integral to their subject, and this is to highlight the Christ-likeness of the saint; to neglect this meaning is to risk fundamentally misunderstanding these texts.