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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 June 2009
Cults of saints in traditional rural society or in European societies of thepast have been studied by scholars in various disciplines.1 But lessattention has been paid to such cults in modern urban settings, where theyare also an important part of ‘popular’ Catholicism, and an example of thecontinuing vigour of ‘popular’ or ‘folk’ culture in industrial society.
1 See. for example, Gennep, Arnold van, Culte populaire des saints en Savoie (Paris, 1973), a collection of older articles;Google ScholarHertz, Robert, ‘Saint Besse, étude d'un culte alpestre’(1913), in Hertz, , Sociologie religieuseet folklore (Paris, 1970), pp. 110–60;Google ScholarBraz, Anatole Le, Les Saints Bretons d'après la tradition populaire en Cornouaille (Paris, 1937);Google ScholarRogerLecotté, , Recherchessur les cultespopulaires dans iactueldiocese de Meaux (DépartementdeSeine-et-Marne), Memoires de la Federation Folklorique de l'Ile-de-France, no. 4 (Paris, 1953);Google ScholarChristian, William A., Person and God in a Spanish Valley (New York and London, 1972), esp. ch. 2;Google ScholarBowen, E. G., The Settlements of the Celtic Saints in Wales (Cardiff, 1954);Google ScholarMacCulloch, J. A.. Mediaeval Faith and Fable (London. 1932), ch. 8;Google ScholarThomas, KeithReligion and the Decline of Magic, Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century England (Harmondsworth. 1973), pp. 28–32Google Scholar and passim; Goodich, Michael. ‘A Profile of Thirteenth-Century Sainthood’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 18 (1976), pp. 429–37;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and the bibliography and comments by Langlois, Claude in Bauberotetal, J.., L‘Histoire religieuse de la France, 19e–20e siècle, problemes et méthodes Paris, 1975, pp. 65–69).Google Scholar Mention should also be made of the work of Emile Mâle and of Pierre, Delooz, ‘Pour une étude sociologique de la sainteté canonisée dans l'Eglise catholique’. Archives deSociologie des Religions, 13 (1962), pp. 117–43;Google Scholar and Sociologie et canonisations (Liege, 1969).Google Scholar
2 The latter point is made by Bouteiller, Marcelle, Loux, Françoise, and Segalen, Martine, Crovances et coutumes, Musée National des Arts et Traditions Populaires, Guidesethnologiques, 12 (Paris, 1973), p. 5.Google Scholar
3 An invaluable aid in any study of Parisian churches is Amédée Boinet, Les ÉglisesParisiennes (Paris, 1958–1964), 3 vols.Google Scholar Also useful was Marquis de Rochegude and Maurice Dumolin, , Guide pratique a travers le vieux Paris (Paris, 1923). Most of the churches and chapels which were not visited were closed on more than one occasion (including one inSeptember). The Parisian churches are not excluded from the annual August shutdown. Insubsequent references, the conventional abbreviation ND will be used for Notre Dame.Google Scholar
4 The following reference books were used here and else where: Addis, William E. and Arnold, ThomasA Catholic Dictionary (London, 1960);Google ScholarDelaney, John T. and Tobin, James Edward, Dictionary of Catholic Biography (London, 1962);Google Scholar andAttwater, Donald, The Penguin Dictionary of Saints (Harmondsworth, 1965).Google Scholar
5 Ste. Thérèse was declared copatron of France in 1944.
6 See here Savart, Claude, ‘A la Recherche de l’“art” dit de Saint-Sulpice’, Revue de l'Histoire de la Spiritualité, 52 (1976), pp. 265–82, which was not seen, however, until afterthis article was written. In addition to considering the phenomenon of Saint-Sulpice artgenerally, Savart studied eighteen churches in the rural Haute-Marne, where he found thatthe most popular saints were St. Joseph, St. Antoine, Ste. Thérèse-de-Lisieux, and Ste.Jeanne-d'Arc.Google Scholar
7 This makes an important contrast, of course, with cults of saints in the past in Europe, and particularly in the Middle Ages; see, for example, Luchaire, Achille, Social France at theTime of Philip Augustus (1909) (New York, 1967), pp. 28–36;Google ScholarHuizinga, J., The Waning ofthe Middle Ages (1924) (Harmondsworth, 1955), pp. 166–78Google Scholar and passim; MacCulloch, , op.cit., ch. 9;Google ScholarHerrmann-Mascard, Nicole. Les Reliques des Saints, Formation coutumière d'undroit (Paris, 1975);Google ScholarRiche, Pierre, ‘Translations de reliques à I'époque carolingienne, Histoiredes reliques de Saint Malo‘, Moyen Age, 82 (1976), pp. 201–18;Google Scholar and Finucane, Ronald C., Miracles and Pilgrims, Popular Beliefs in Mediaeval England (London, 1977).Google Scholar
8 The most popular saints in the diocese of Meaux, according to Lecotte, (op. cit., pp.212–28) were St. Fiacre, Ste. Genevieve, St. Jean, St. Loup, St. Martin, St. Roch, St.Sebastien, and St. Vincent, only three of whom figure in our table 1. However, as we haveseen, Savart‘s findings from another rural area are very different, which suggests thatLecotte may have been looking for specifically ‘folkloric‘ cults and may have ignored moremodern ones.Google Scholar
9 The cult of Ste. Philomène was particularly sponsored in France by the Curé d'Ars; see Monnin, Alfred, Life of the Blessed Curé d‘Ars (London, no date), pp. 180–83Google Scholar and passim;and Trochu, Francis, La ‘petite sainte’ du Curé d'Ars, Sainte Philomène, vierge et martyre(Lyon and Paris. 1929). An Archiconfrerie devoted to the saint was founded in the church ofSt. Gervais-St. Protais in 1836. She was removed from the Calendar of Saints in 1961 since‘she has been revered because of popular fervour rather than liturgical fact‘, in the obscurewords of Delaney and Tobin.Google Scholar
10 The cult of Ste. Marguerite-Marie is also, of course, associated with that of the SacredHeart; see note 22 below. The first chapel dedicated to the Sacred Heart in Paris was that inSt. Sulpice in 1748.
11 On this saint, see Gadille, J., ‘Autour de Saint Benoît-Joseph Labre: hagiographie etcritique au XIXe siècle’. Revue d'Histoire de l'Eglise de France, 52 (1966). pp. 113–26.Google Scholar
12 Of the nine instances of the use of red lights noted, three are for the Virgin (including ND de Lourdes), and one each for St. Antoine, Ste. Therese, St. Joseph, Ste. Rita, Ste.Marie-Madeleine, St. Philippe, and St. Raphaël. Red lights are found mostly in a fewchurches only and notably La Madeleine and St. Eugène-Ste. Cécile, where they probablyreflect clerical policy. The related novelties of red lights and sand boxes are probably ingeneral inspired as much by clerical concern for tidiness and the reduction of fire risk as byany popular devotional preference.
13 The same tendency to play down the significance of the invocation and intercession ofthe saints, in themselves, is found in the two Catholic dictionaries cited in note 4.
14 For a general discussion of the mechanisms of sacrifice, see Hubert, Henri and Mauss, Marcel, Sacrifice: Its Nature and Function (1898) (London, 1964).Google Scholar
15 The practice was traditional and was transferred to the new basilica, built in 1864, froman older chapel on the site; see, for example, Forester, Thomas, Rambles in the Island s ofCorsica and Sardinia with Notices of their History, Antiquities and Present Condition(London, 1858), p. 13, who refers to ‘the chapel of Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde, held in greatreverence, and much resorted to, by mariners and fishermen; the walls and roof being hungwith-votive offerings, commemorating deliverances from shipwreck and other ills …’. Ontraditional ex-votos elsewhere in provincial France, see. for example. Le Monde Alpin etRhodanien (1977), articles by Bernard Cousin and Christian Loubet, with illustrations; and ex-votos from Sainte Anne-d‘Auray (Morbihan) in Exhibition, L Hommeetson corps dansla societe traditionelle. Musee National des Arts et Traditions Populaires, Paris, 1978, items409–23.Google Scholar
16 See, for example. Ciruelo, Pedro, A Treatise Reproving All Superstitions and Forms ofWitchcraft (1530) (Rutherford, Madison, Teaneck, and London, 1977), p. 255;Google ScholarMacCulloch, . op. cit., ch. 8;Google ScholarLecotte, , op. cit., esp. pp. 254–77;Google Scholar and Leproux, M.. Dévotions et saints guérisseurs (Paris, 1957).Google Scholar
17 Boinet, , op. cit., I, pp. 54–55.Google Scholar
18 In this context, see Hertz, Robert, ‘La Prééminence de la main droite, Etude sur la polarité religieuse’ (1909),Google Scholar in Hertz, , op. cit., pp. 84–109;Google Scholar and Needham, R. (ed.). Right and Left: Essays on Dual Symbolic Classification (Chicago, 1973).Google Scholar
19 This schema has been altered in theory by the recent repositioning of main altars, but inpractice this change seems yet to have had little effect.
20 For Ste. Thérèse's sponsorship of the cult of the Holy Face, see, for example, ‘Prayers of Saint Thérèse', in Taylor, Thomas N., Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, The Little Flower of Jesus (London, 1944), pp. 450–52.Google Scholar
21 A perusal of the monumental work by Laurentin, René and Billet, Bernard, Lourdes, dossier des documents authentiques (Paris, 1957–1964), 7 vols.Google Scholar, reveals no specialconnection of Ste. Anne with the Lourdes cult, though there may be one. On the generaldevelopment of the Lourdes cult in France, see Lecanuet, R. P., La Vie de I'église sous Léon XIII (Paris, 1930), pp. 140–47.Google Scholar
22 See, for example, Mgr. Demimuid, , Saint Margaret Mary (1647–1690) (London, 1927).Google Scholar The cult of ND de Pellevoisin derives from a series of visions experienced by EstelleFaguette, servant in the Rochefoucauld household at Pellevoisin (Indre) in 1876; see Beevers, John, The Sun her Mantle (Dublin, 1953), pp. 129–40 (where, however, Pellevoisinseems to be wrongly located near Châlons-sur-Marne). I am grateful for this reference, and for other helpful comments, to an anonymous reader.Google Scholar
23 See particularly four pictures illustrating this theme in the Chapelle de l'Hôpital Laennec, ND-des-Blancs-Manteaux, St. Louis-en-1‘Ile and St. Médard (not one of thechurches visited). Boinet, , op. cit., II, p. 203, and III, pp. 217–18.Google Scholar
24 See Bossy, John, ‘The Counter-Reformation and the People of Catholic Europe, Past and Present, 47 (1970), pp. 51–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
25 For examples of the former, see Rowell, Geoffrey, The Liturgy of Chrisian Burial, AnIntroductory Survey of the Historical Development of Christian Burial Rites (London, 1977), pp. 45 and 62.Google Scholar
26 This includes the church of St. François-Xavier. which does not have a chapel, but towhich the Pope granted in 1897 an ‘indulgence plénière applicable aux âmes en Purgatoire’for attendance at certain offices, as a plaque records.
27 These are a picture by Sebastiano Ricci (1662–1734) of St. Gregoire and St. Vitalinterceding for the souls in Purgatory in St. Gervais–St. Protais; a reduced copy of the samepicture in St. Nicolas-des-Champs; and a seventeenth-century picture of St. Ignace and St.François-Xavier interceding in St. Nicolas-du-Chardonnet; see Boinet, , op. cit., I, pp. 334 and 385–86, and III, p. 60. As we have noted, the chapelle des ames en Purgatoire in St.Gervais-St. Protais was rededicated in the nineteenth century to Ste. Philomène and later toSt. Benoît-Labre.Google Scholar
28 For the same phenomenon in Provence, see Vovelle, Gaby et Michel. Vision de la mortetde l'au-delà en Provence d'après les autels des ames du purgatoire, XVe-XXe siècles (Paris.1970). pp. 56–57. This work has also been of general guidance in our study.Google Scholar
29 But not always to the ethnographer; and doubtless some errors of attribution haveentered into our analysis as a result.