Exploring Hagiography and Monasticism

Dear Colleagues,

Contributions are invited for a Religions Special Issue exploring the relationship between hagiography and the monastic tradition. Monasteries were the centre-point of the cult of saints as it emerged in medieval Europe, both in the east and west. They created and curated legends of the holy men and women connected with the history of their own foundations and they channelled the devotional currents of the lay communities surrounding them, bringing form, focus and sometimes wider fame to a wide variety of charismatic figures, which found a popular following almost organically. Their contribution was multi-faceted: it was the historiographical tradition of the older monastic orders, already vigorous at the turn of the 12^th century, which did the most to shape the hagiographical genre of the High Middle Ages. Their intellectual leadership, at least before the rise of Europe’s academic schools, fixed the theological foundation for saintly intercession and the immanent judgement delivered at the relic shrine. The architectural and artistic development of their church interiors in successive phases from the 12th to the 16^th centuries established a material-visual culture critical in sustaining cults even in the face of cultural, social and religious change. In post-Reformation Catholic Europe, monasteries continued to mediate cults, although now with a need to recover unity among the community of believers. The roles of the religious orders in education, mission and pastoral leadership have made them the subjects of new narratives of hagiography, some of which have been formally recognised.

This subject has always attracted academic scholarship but it is only relatively recently that the vital diachronic, gendered, interdisciplinary and trans-national perspectives have been opened up. This Special Issue aims to feature new and emerging research engaged in these approaches, especially in less well-studied contexts and regions of Europe in the medieval, Reformation and post-Reformation eras, and with the inter-relationship between hagiography in written, material and visual cultures. Original research articles are welcome. Areas of study may include (but are not limited to) the following:

• Hagiography and female monasticism;
• Hagiography and the east–west monastic tradition;
• Hagiography and monastic material culture;
• Hagiography and the monastic landscape environment;
• Monastic contributions to post-Reformation and modern era hagiography.

We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 200-300 words summarising their intended contribution. Please send it to the Guest Editor, or to the Assistant Editor of Religions. Abstracts will be reviewed by the Guest Editors for the purposes of ensuring proper fit within the scope of the Special Issue. Full manuscripts will undergo double-blind peer review.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

References

Barking Abbey and medieval literary culture. Authorship and authority in a female community (ed.) J.N. Brown and D. Bussell (2012).

Saints and cults in medieval England (ed.) S. Powell (2017).

Late medieval devotion to saints from the north of England. New directions. (ed.) C. Whitehead, H. Blair and D. Renevey (2022).

A Companion to medieval miracle collections (ed.) S. Kataljala-Peltomaa, J. Kuuliala, I. McCleery (2022).

Saints’ lives for medieval English nuns (ed.) V. O’Mara and V. Blanton (2024).

J.R.Ginther, ‘Hildegard as hagiographer: two saints’ lives and monastic reform in twelfth-century Germany’, Revue Bénédictine, 133 (2023), 162–88.

Jamroziak, ‘Miracles in monastic culture’, A Companion to Medieval Miracle collections (ed.) S. Katajala-Peltomaa, J. Kuuliala and I. McCleery (2021), 36–53.

Prof. Dr. James Clark
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• haigography
• monasticism
• saints
• relics
• miracles