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3 results

  • 6 - The Frank Holy Man

  • from Part II
  • Irene van Renswoude, Universiteit van Amsterdam
  • Book:
    The Rhetoric of Free Speech in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages
    Published online:
    23 September 2019
    Print publication:
    26 September 2019, pp 133-160

  • Summary

    This chapter discusses the lives and letters of saints and bishops who were considered truth-tellers by their contemporaries. The selected letters and saints’ lives were written in Francia between c. 550 and c. 750. In addition, two hagiographic texts and one letter from Italy and Visigothic Spain are included to compare developments in Merovingian Francia with other kingdoms and regions of the former Western Roman empire. In the selected sources we encounter Gallo-Roman, Frankish, Visigothic, Anglo-Saxon and Irish holy men who ventured to criticise those in power. Although the rhetoric of these truth-tellers and the vocabulary of their biographers do not conform to classical standards, this chapter demonstrates that their frank speech and behaviour was very much related to the late antique tradition of free speech.

  • 22 - Saints and holy men

  • from Part IV - Christian Beliefs and Practices
  • Edited by Augustine Casiday, University of Wales, Lampeter, Frederick W. Norris
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Christianity
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    30 August 2007, pp 548-566

  • Summary

    This chapter shows that many acts of veneration shown to saints after their death had their origin in the connections of the faithful to living holy men. The Christian notion of personal sanctity can be understood from its cultural context. The idea that certain individuals held an elevated status among humans because of their connection to the divine was common in ancient culture. In pre-Constantinian times, individual Christians proved their faith through martyrdom, and Christian communities derived their group identity from witnessing the death of their martyrs. The cult of a saint was prepared long before that person's death. The chapter illustrates the interplay between discipleship, the production and dissemination of texts, and patronage in creating a cult by presenting three examples from different regions of the later Roman empire: Martin of Tours in Gaul, Felix of Nola in Italy and Symeon the Stylite in Syria. Central to the cult of saints are their relics.