The Medieval Cult of Saints: Formations and Transformations

by Barbara Abou-El-Haj

This book sets new questions and offers innovative models for exploring the economic and artistic formations and reformations of the cult of saints in Medieval Europe together with its underlying social and political dynamic. The author examines a spectrum of cultural practices through more than thirty illustrated cycles of saints' lives in a range of media, published together for the first time: painted manuscripts; silver, gold, and ivory reliquaries; bronze doors; and stained glass. These are set against the history of one monastery, Saint-Amand d'Elnone, where three distinct illustrated versions of its saint's life survive from a hundred-year period, each adapted to a phase within the changing political and economic fortunes of the abbey.

Genres: Medieval

476 pages, Paperback

First published January 27, 1995