A Companion to Medieval Canonization Processes

New Contexts, Perspectives, and Comparisons
Erscheinungsjahr 2025
ISBN: 978-90-04-51629-8
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 109, 316 Seiten, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 235 mm

Reihe: Brill's Companions to the Christian Tradition

Canonizations, which officially proclaimed a person’s sanctity, were complex, embracing theological, judicial, social, and cultural aspects of medieval Christianity. The dossiers manifest the theological ponderings while also revealing the devotional practices, daily life, and troubles of those not learned in canon law or theology.

This volume offers tools for comprehending canonization processes by investigating their judicial background and structural elements, as well as devotional aspects reflected in the depositions. It approaches canonization processes in a three-fold way: as a phenomenon of the past, as a source material with methodological challenges, and as a specific field of historical studies. Furthermore, this volume engages in innovative methodological discussions and illuminates the state-of-the-art and topical new themes.

Contributors include: Christian Krötzl, Maria Teresa Fattori, Didier Lett, Saku Pihko, Jenni Kuuliala, Nicole Archambeau, Adelheid Russenberger, Jyrki Nissi, Laura Ackerman Smoller, Sari Katajala-Peltomaa, Marika Räsänen, and Jonathan Greenwood.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Weitere Mitwirkende

Katajala-Peltomaa, Sari

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtswissenschaft Allgemein

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Contents

Preface

List of Figures and Tables

Notes on the Editor and Contributors

Introduction: Canonization Processes in Context and Comparison

Sari Katajala-Peltomaa

1 The Papacy on the Canonization of Saints: between Appropriation, Regulation, and Disinterest

Christian Krötzl

2 God’s Ordinary and Extraordinary Speech: the Determination of Miracles by the Roman Congregation of Rites in the Early Modern Era

Maria Teresa Fattori

3 Transforming an Individual into a Saint and an Accused into a Criminal

Judicial Procedure in Canonization Processes and libri maleficiorum of Italian Communes at the End of the Middle Ages

Didier Lett

4 The Construction of Information in the Records of Medieval Canonization and Heresy Inquests: a Methodological Comparison

Saku Pihko

5 Testimonies of the Life of the Saint in the Context of Canonization

Jenni Kuuliala

6 Safe and Dangerous Names: Uncovering Connections and Boundaries in the Canonization Inquest for Countess Delphine de Puimichel, 1363

Nicole Archambeau

7 Disability, Miracle, and Sainthood in Early Fourteenth-Century Canonization Dossiers

Adelheid Russenberger

8 “Are You Content to Die?” Death Acceptance and Death Denial in Depositions of Canonization Processes

Jyrki Nissi

9 Writing Microhistory from the Canonizations of Bernardino of Siena and Vincent Ferrer

Laura Ackerman Smoller

10 Experiencing the Miraculous: Lived Religion in the Depositions

Sari Katajala-Peltomaa

11 Scent, Sight, Awe: Examining the Bodily Signs of Sainthood in the Canonization Processes of Dominican Saints

Marika Räsänen

12 Canonizations and Jesuit Saints: the Lives and Images amid the Causes for Ignatius Loyola and Francis Xavier

Jonathan Greenwood

Bibliography

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Sari Katajala-Peltomaa is currently Professor of Cultural History at the University of Turku, Finland. She has specialized in lived religion, gender, and family. Her recent publications on canonization processes include Demonic Possession and Lived Religion in Later Medieval Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020) and edited with Christian Krötzl, Miracles in Medieval Canonization Processes: Structures, Functions, and Methodologies (Turnhout: Brepols, 2018).