Late Medieval Devotion to Saints from the North of England

New Directions

Edited by Christiania Whitehead Edited by Hazel Blair Edited by Denis Renevey

Book cover: Late Medieval Devotion to Saints from the North of England

Extent: 456, 456 pages

Publisher: Brepols Publishers

Subjects: Medieval Studies, Religious Studies

Series: Medieval Church Studies

Series volume number: 48

Language: English

Hardback (Published)

(October 2022)

ISBN: 9782503588513

Price: $144.00

In stock

This volume fills an important gap in the study of medieval English sanctity. Focused on the period 1150-1550, it examines later manifestations of pre-conquest northern English cults (John of Beverley, Oswald, Hilda, Aetheldreda etc.), and the establishment and development of many more during the twelfth to fifteenth centuries (Godric of Finchale, Robert of Knaresborough, Oswine of Tynemouth, Aebbe of Coldingham, Bega of Copeland, William of York, etc.). It showcases the diversity of new northern cults that emerged after 1150, and pays particular attention to cultures of episcopal and eremitic devotion and hagiographic production in Yorkshire, Cumbria and Lincolnshire. Divided into five subsections, the volume opens by exploring the relation of sanctity to constructions of northern identity through targeted examinations of northern textual and material cultures. It then turns to a series of case studies of northern saints’ cults, grouped with reference to the eremitic life, female networks and locations, and the contextualisation of northern sanctity within national, transnational and post-medieval currents of veneration. Underlying all these essays is a concern with the conflicted idea of ‘northernness’. This collection argues for a northern sanctity that is imagined in varying ways by different communities (monastic, diocesan, national etc.), allied to a series of conceptual ‘norths’ that differ significantly in accordance with the bodies of evidence under survey.

  • Edited by Christiania Whitehead
  • Edited by Hazel Blair
  • Edited by Denis Renevey