Catherine of Siena

The Creation of a Cult

Edited by Jeffrey F Hamburger Edited by Gabriela Signori

Book cover: Catherine of Siena

Extent: 352 pages

Publisher: Brepols Publishers

Subjects: Medieval Studies, Religious Studies

Series: Medieval Women: Texts and Contexts

Series volume number: 13

Language: English

Hardback (Published)

(December 2013)

ISBN: 9782503544151

Price: $138.00

In stock

The question of how to make a cult, which stands at the center of this volume, thus presents itself in terms of the challenge of rewriting a legend for different audiences. The various contributions consider the role, not only of texts in many different vernaculars (Czech, English, French, German, and Italian), but also of images, wh


How does one construct a saint and promote a cult beyond the immediate community in which he or she lived? Italian mendicants had accumulated a good deal of experience in dealing with this politically explosive question. The posthumous description of the life of Francis of Assisi (d. 1226) written by the Master General of the order, Bonaventure (d. 1274), could be regarded as paradigmatic in this regard. A similarly massive intervention in the production and diffusion of a cult can be observed in the case of the Dominican tertiary, Catherine of Siena (d. 1380), who in many respects (e.g. the imitation of Christ and her stigmatization) ‘competed’ with Francis of Assisi. Raymund of Capua (d. 1399), the Master General of the order, established the foundation for the dissemination of the cult by writing the authoritative life, but it was only the following generation that succeeded in establishing and disseminating the cult on a broad basis by means of copies, adaptations, and translations. The question of how to make a cult, which stands at the center of this volume, thus presents itself in terms of the challenge of rewriting a legend for different audiences. The various contributions consider the role, not only of texts in many different vernaculars (Czech, English, French, German, and Italian), but also of images, whether separately or in connection with one another.

  • Edited by Jeffrey F Hamburger
  • Edited by Gabriela Signori