This is the first book-length study of the late-fourteenth-century 'Scottish Legendary', the only extant collection of saints' lives in the vernacular from medieval Scotland. The fifty saints' legends are remarkable for their narrative art: the enjoyment of reading the legends is heightened, while didactic and edifying content is toned down.
This study scrutinises the dynamics of hagiographic narration, its implicit assumptions about literariness and the functions of telling the lives of the saints. Focusing on the role of the narrator, the depiction of the saintly characters, their interiority, as well as temporal and spatial parameters, the author demonstrates that the Scottish poet has adapted the traditional material to the needs of an audience versed in reading romance and other secular genres. The legends of the saints are 'secularised' in their narrative design and the emphasis put on aspects such as familial conflict and interpersonal tensions. The Scottish compilation is placed within the hagiographic landscape of medieval Britain: while undoubtedly bearing similarities to other vernacular saints' legends such as the 'South English Legendary' or Osbern Bokenham's legends, it ultimately follows its own agenda of popularising the hagiographic tales. The implications of the Scottish poet's narrative strategies are scrutinised also with respect to the Scottishness of the legendary.
This study will be of interest to students and academics interested in late medieval narrative, the legends of the saints, and the intersections of secular and religious literature in medieval Britain.
Author(s): Eva von Contzen
Series: Manchester Medieval Literature and Culture, 15
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Year: 2016
Language: English
Pages: 278
List of illustrations
Acknowledgements
List of abbreviations
Introduction The 'Scottish Legendary' and narrative art
Introducing the 'Scottish Legendary'
Saints lives as narratives
Transcending genre: the Scottish Legendary and romance
Notes
1. Towards a narrative poetics of medieval saints’ lives
Narrative theory and the Scottish Legendary: a pragmatic approach
Narrative 'communication' and the open text: performing saints’ legends
Notes
2. Teacher and poet: the narrator in the Scottish Legendary
The Prologue of the 'Scottish Legendary'
Metanarrative and narratorial roles
Digressions and prayers
Narrating the Scottish Legendary: conclusions
Notes
3. Words and deeds: character depiction and direct discourse
Disruptive speech: female martyrs and pagan rulers
Holy and hollow? Narrating the saint
Mary of Egypt: how to talk without conversing
Theodora: the saint, the witch, and the adulterer
Andrew: a conversation postponed
Conclusions: gender, miracles, and the spoken word
Notes
4. Putting the saint in perspective: ideology and hagiographic narration
Parameters of perspective: narrating the Other
Foregrounding and the miraculous
Conclusions: authorising the hagiographic narratives
Notes
5. Saintly interiority: narrating conscience and consciousness
The representation of consciousness
Limiting the point of view
Conclusions
Notes
6. The past, a foreign country: time, space, and the Scottishness of the 'Scottish Legendary'
Salvation history and the suspension of time
Sanctifying space(s)
How Scottish is the 'Scottish Legendary'?
Notes
Conclusion: A poetics of hagiographic narration
Notes
Appendix: the 'Scottish Legendary': authorship, dialect, and arrangement
Scribal practice
Dialect and dating
Dedications to the saints
Arrangement of the legends
Bibliography
Primary sources
Secondary sources
Online databases
Index
