55-506: The Vita Germani is a hagiographic text written by Constantius of Lyon in the 5th century AD. It is one of the first hagiographic texts written in Western Europe, and is an important resource for historians studying the origins of saintly veneration and the " cult of saints ." It recounts the life and acts of bishop Germanus of Auxerre , who travelled to Britain c. 429 AD, and is the principal source of details about his life. It
110-789: A literary salon , a tradition which Mrs. Chadwick maintained after the death of her husband in 1947. Most of her life was spent on research, in her later years primarily on the Celts. She was University Lecturer in the Early History and Culture of the British Isles at the University of Cambridge from 1950 to 1958. She received honorary degrees from the University of Wales , the National University of Ireland and
165-561: A 'doublet' of the first it casts something of a shadow over the reliability of, at least the British episodes of Constantius's Vita – and certainly everything that occurs in the second visit. This must represent a version of the story of Germanus's visit that had changed so much in the telling that it had become unrecognisable as the same as a better recorded version and consequently was assumed by Constantius or his source, to represent another, 'second', visit. It particularly throws into doubt
220-450: A Carmelite nun. She received her undergraduate degree from Newnham College, Cambridge (where she was later an Honorary Life Fellow) and lectured at St Andrews during World War I . She returned to Cambridge in 1919 to study Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse under Professor Hector Munro Chadwick . They were married in 1922. Nora's mother and stepfather and Enid Welsford were the only wedding guests. The Chadwicks turned their home into
275-467: A notable lawyer, eventually being promoted to the office of dux , and rulership of more than one province. After his ascension to the bishopric of Auxerre ( Vita Germani 2), he built a large monastery on the river Yonne near Auxerre ( Vita Germani 6). Following this he and a fellow bishop, Lupus of Troyes , were elected by the synod to travel to Britain and preach against the Pelagian heresy . During
330-420: A preacher, priest, founder, saint, monk, nun or icon in any of the world's religions. Early Christian hagiographies might consist of a biography or vita (from Latin vita , life, which begins the title of most medieval biographies), a description of the saint's deeds or miracles, an account of the saint's martyrdom (called a passio ), or be a combination of these. Christian hagiographies focus on
385-415: A second visit. - especially since, according to Constantius, that second visit happened after Germanus's visit to Arles to secure tax relief, something that probably occurred in the mid-430s. That the event described by Prosper was indeed the same one as that attributed by Constantius to the second visit is best judged by comparing the two relevant texts. If the second visit of Germanus to Britain is, indeed,
440-631: A similarly allegorical episode (the curing of the blind girl by Germanus) in the "first" visit. In the Late Antique Era when Constantius was writing the Vita Germani , hagiography, or biographical texts celebrating saints and their lives, were not common. The " cult of saints ," or devotion to and veneration of a particular saint, was only in its infancy, making the Vita Germani one of the first of its kind. This had led to considerable debate among historians as to what Constantius' purpose
495-550: A trip to Arles in order to successfully negotiate a reduction in taxes. ( Vita Germani 19-24) Subsequent to this Germanus made a second voyage to Britain to combat the Pelagian heresy, this time healing the son of Elafius, one of the leading men of the country. After Germanus healed the boy, the whole country was converted to the Catholic faith and gave up the Pelagian heresy completely(Vita Germani 25-27). Having returned to Gaul
550-631: Is best known for her work on the Celts, particularly on the earliest period. Nora Chadwick died in Cambridge; she left a sum to the University of Cambridge to endow a readership in Celtic Studies. She published the first full English translation of Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks together with other sagas and ballads in Stories and Ballads of the Far Past (1921), as well as a translation of
605-448: Is one of the few surviving texts from the 5th century with information about Britain and the Pelagian controversy, and is also one of the first texts to identify and promote the cult of Saint Alban . Historians disagree on the date of composition of the Vita Germani . Some historians argue that the most probably date of composition is 480 AD, while others place it earlier than c. 470. The only evidence available to indicate an exact date
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#1732776315554660-651: Is possible, for instance, to suggest that Germanus's 'Allelieua' victory was simply a story made up in Gaul, based on a biblical parallel and no more than a generalised knowledge of the barbarian incursions that Britain was facing at the time. This might well be an excessively skeptical view but we are not in a position to be certain. Likewise the account of Germanus's confrontation with the Pelagians looks arguably too stereotypical to represent any accurate memory of what actually happened. What we can regard as more or less certain
715-407: Is that he visited Britain with the purpose of extinguishing the Pelagian "heresy" there, that the situation there was at least stable enough to make the visit feasible and that bringing the cult of Saint Alban within the fold of orthodoxy was an important part of the strategy by which he hoped to achieve his goal. A further deduction – based on Gildas's description of Saint Alban as Verolamiensem and
770-657: The Church of Scientology is commonly described as a heavily fictionalized hagiography. Nora K. Chadwick Nora Kershaw Chadwick CBE FSA FBA (28 January 1891 – 24 April 1972) was an English philologist who specialized in Anglo-Saxon , Celtic and Old Norse studies . Nora Kershaw was born in Lancashire in 1891, the first daughter of James Kershaw and Emma Clara Booth, married in 1888. Nora's sister Mabel, born in 1895, converted to Catholicism and became
825-567: The Ge'ez language are known as gadl (Saint's Life). There are some 200 hagiographies about indigenous saints. They are among the most important Medieval Ethiopian written sources, and some have accurate historical information. They are written by the disciples of the saints. Some were written a long time after the death of a saint, but others were written not long after the saint's demise. Fragments from an Old Nubian hagiography of Saint Michael are extant. Jewish hagiographic writings are common in
880-526: The Martyrology of Tallaght and the Félire Óengusso . Such hagiographical calendars were important in establishing lists of native Irish saints, in imitation of continental calendars. In the 10th century, a Byzantine monk Simeon Metaphrastes was the first one to change the genre of lives of the saints into something different, giving it a moralizing and panegyrical character. His catalog of lives of
935-524: The Middle Ages , can incorporate a record of institutional and local history , and evidence of popular cults , customs, and traditions . However, when referring to modern, non-ecclesiastical works, the term hagiography is often used today as a pejorative reference to biographies and histories whose authors are perceived to be uncritical or excessively reverential toward their subject. Hagiography constituted an important literary genre in
990-540: The Roman Empire as legends about Christian martyrs were recorded. The dates of their deaths formed the basis of martyrologies . In the 4th century, there were three main types of catalogs of lives of the saints: The earliest lives of saints focused on desert fathers who lived as ascetics from the 4th century onwards. The life of Anthony of Egypt is usually considered the first example of this new genre of Christian biography. In Western Europe , hagiography
1045-404: The early Christian church , providing some informational history along with the more inspirational stories and legends . A hagiographic account of an individual saint could consist of a biography ( vita ), a description of the saint's deeds or miracles, an account of the saint's martyrdom ( passio ), or be a combination of these. The genre of lives of the saints first came into being in
1100-437: The 16th. Production remained dynamic and kept pace with scholarly developments in historical biographical writing until 1925, when Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (d. 1938) placed an interdiction on Ṣūfī brotherhoods. As Turkey relaxed legal restrictions on Islamic practice in the 1950s and the 1980s, Ṣūfīs returned to publishing hagiography, a trend which continues in the 21st century. The pseudobiography of L. Ron Hubbard compiled by
1155-519: The Armoricans that Germanus dies. What the Vita says about the cult of Saint Alban is the following. After Germanus has confounded the Pelagians we are told: The martyr Alban is also mentioned, one more time, in the context of Germanus's return journey, by sea: Some more information about Germanus's visit to the tomb of the martyr Alban actually comes from some lines added to the official story of
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#17327763155541210-481: The British visits: Constantius of Lyons, trans. Robert Vermaat. " Vita Sancti Germani ". [5] www.vortigernstudies.org.uk. Retrieved 17 November 2014. Hagiographic A hagiography ( / ˌ h æ ɡ i ˈ ɒ ɡ r ə f i / ; from Ancient Greek ἅγιος , hagios 'holy' and -γραφία , -graphia 'writing') is a biography of a saint or an ecclesiastical leader, as well as, by extension, an adulatory and idealized biography of
1265-597: The University of St Andrews, and was made Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1961. In 1965 she delivered the British Academy 's Sir John Rhŷs Memorial Lecture. Chadwick took an interdisciplinary approach and wrote on many topics; she demonstrated influentially the study of multiple "early cultures of north-west Europe" and brought comparative evidence to bear on heroic literature. Nora Chadwick
1320-487: The authenticity of the second visit: he quoted the Vita Genovefa (Life of St Genevieve ) but this (perhaps 6th c. work) is one of many sources written after Constantius's Vita Germani which are likely to have been influenced by it. The allocation to Germanus of a different, named, companion - Severus instead of Lupus - remains hard to explain but it might be that it was details like this (originating perhaps with
1375-565: The authorship is the surviving letter of dedication, showing that the Vita was dedicated to Patiens, bishop of Lyon . The Vita was most probably dedicated to him while he was still living and serving as bishop, most probably between his ascendancy to the bishopric in 450, and his death in 494. The Vita opens with Germanus' early life: He was born and raised in Auxerre, and received a liberal education. He went on to study law in Rome, and became
1430-793: The case of Talmudic and Kabbalistic writings and later in the Hasidic movement. Hagiography in Islam began in the Arabic language with biographical writing about the Prophet Muhammad in the 8th century CE, a tradition known as sīra . From about the 10th century CE, a genre generally known as manāqib also emerged, which comprised biographies of the imams ( madhāhib ) who founded different schools of Islamic thought ( madhhab ) about shariʿa , and of Ṣūfī saints . Over time, hagiography about Ṣūfīs and their miracles came to predominate in
1485-686: The first trip ( Vita Germani 12-18 )- in 429, according to Prosper of Aquitaine - Germanus' ship was beset by a demonic storm while crossing the English Channel. Once in Britain, he debated the Pelagian leaders, and performed the miracle of healing the blind 10-year-old daughter of a man with the traditional Roman rank of Tribune. Having soundly beaten the Pelagians in debate Germanus visited the tomb of Saint Alban (see below) to give thanks. Subsequently, he injured his foot and then miraculously survived an accidental fire. Following on this comes perhaps
1540-522: The genre of manāqib . Likewise influenced by early Islamic research into hadiths and other biographical information about the Prophet, Persian scholars began writing Persian hagiography , again mainly of Sūfī saints, in the eleventh century CE. The Islamicisation of the Turkish regions led to the development of Turkish biographies of saints, beginning in the 13th century CE and gaining pace around
1595-402: The important hagiographical texts composed in medieval England were written in the vernacular dialect Anglo-Norman . With the introduction of Latin literature into England in the 7th and 8th centuries the genre of the life of the saint grew increasingly popular. When one contrasts it to the popular heroic poem, such as Beowulf , one finds that they share certain common features. In Beowulf ,
1650-443: The lives of St. Patrick , St. Columba (Latin)/Colum Cille (Irish) and St. Brigit/Brigid —Ireland's three patron saints. The earliest extant Life was written by Cogitosus . Additionally, several Irish calendars relating to the feastdays of Christian saints (sometimes called martyrologies or feastologies ) contained abbreviated synopses of saint's lives, which were compiled from many different sources. Notable examples include
1705-531: The lives of Saints Meriasek and Kea , respectively. Other examples of hagiographies from England include: Ireland is notable in its rich hagiographical tradition, and for the large amount of material which was produced during the Middle Ages. Irish hagiographers wrote primarily in Latin while some of the later saint's lives were written in the hagiographer's native vernacular Irish . Of particular note are
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1760-840: The lives, and notably the miracles , ascribed to men and women canonized by the Roman Catholic church , the Eastern Orthodox Church , the Oriental Orthodox churches , and the Church of the East . Other religious traditions such as Buddhism , Hinduism , Taoism , Islam , Sikhism and Jainism also create and maintain hagiographical texts (such as the Sikh Janamsakhis ) concerning saints, gurus and other individuals believed to be imbued with sacred power. Hagiographic works, especially those of
1815-608: The more reliable near contemporary one of Prosper of Aquitaine . The former relates that Germanus was sent by a council of Gaulish bishops, while Prosper states that he was sent by Pope Celestinus on the advice of the deacon, Palladius. It is possible to reconcile the two on the basis that, say, Palladius was acting at the urging of the Gaulish bishops but some uncertainty remains. Meanwhile, Professor Ian N. Wood has interpreted Constantius' account of Germanus's two British expeditions as in large part 'allegorical' rather than factual. It
1870-496: The most notable episode of the whole trip when Germanus led an outnumbered troop of British soldiers against an attacking army of Saxons and Picts on Easter day. Germanus ordered his troops to give the battle cry of "Alleluia," and the cries were so terrifying to the Saxons that they fled or were drowned in the river, and the British won the battle without striking a blow. Germanus then returns to Gaul and we are told that there he made
1925-512: The nativity of Christ and ending with three texts to which no saints' days are attached. The text spans the entire year and describes the lives of many saints, both English and continental, and harks back to some of the earliest saints of the early church. There are two known instances where saint's lives were adapted into vernacular plays in Britain. These are the Cornish-language works Beunans Meriasek and Beunans Ke , about
1980-569: The next important episode in the Vita concerns Germanus's attempt to mediate on behalf of the Armoricans who had revolted against Roman rule ( Vita Germani 28-42). Flavius Aetius , the Roman commander, had enlisted Goar the king of the barbarian Alans to put down the rebellion and Germanus personally confronts this formidable warlord. It is finally while visiting Ravenna to plead on behalf of
2035-469: The object is the same, Germanus is accompanied by another bishop and the incident of the cured boy of the second visit is matched by an incident in which Germanus cures a blind girl in the first. Then there is the fact that on both visits, as Germanus sets out, there are ‘demons’, active against him (in the first they provoke bad weather: in the second we are told they are unable to do this, but instead spread news of his approach). Professor Ian Wood argued for
2090-464: The only Romanesque doors in Europe to feature the life of a saint. The life of Saint Adalbert of Prague , who is buried in the cathedral, is shown in 18 scenes, probably based on a lost illuminated copy of one of his Lives. The Bollandist Society continues the study, academic assembly, appraisal and publication of materials relating to the lives of Christian saints (see Acta Sanctorum ). Many of
2145-493: The oral transmission of one version of the tale) that persuaded Constantius that Germanus must actually have made two separate visits. A recent study by Professor Anthony Barrett has concluded that the complex problems surrounding the dating of the life of Saint Germanus can be most credibly solved on the basis that he made only one visit. Particularly important to his argument are the near-contemporary mentions made by Prosper of Aquitaine . He mentions Germanus's first visit (under
2200-486: The original life stories of their first saints, e.g. Boris and Gleb , Theodosius Pechersky etc. In the 16th century, Metropolitan Macarius expanded the list of the Russian saints and supervised the compiling process of their life stories. They would all be compiled in the so-called Velikiye chet'yi-minei catalog (Великие Четьи-Минеи, or Great Menaion Reader ), consisting of 12 volumes in accordance with each month of
2255-519: The poem Hlöðskviða found within Heidrik's saga. With her husband, she published the three volume work The Growth of Literature between 1932–40. She also wrote The Beginnings of Russian History, an enquiry into sources (1946). Chadwick collaborated with V. M. Zhirmunsky on a revision of the part of volume III that deals with epic poetry in Central Asian languages. The revised text
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2310-528: The presence of that saint's cult centre there by the eighth century at least, according to Bede – might be that he very likely visited Verulamium , the modern Saint Albans. A particular controversy attaches to Germanus's second visit as described by Constantius, which has been suspected as representing merely a ‘doublet’, of the first: a version that was so badly remembered that it appeared to Constantius or his source as representing an entirely different, 'second', visit. As Norah Chadwick noted, in both visits
2365-689: The rhetorical tools necessary to present their faith through the example of the saints' lives. Of all the English hagiographers no one was more prolific nor so aware of the importance of the genre as Abbot Ælfric of Eynsham . His work Lives of the Saints contains set of sermons on saints' days, formerly observed by the English Church. The text comprises two prefaces, one in Latin and one in Old English , and 39 lives beginning on 25 December with
2420-462: The saint's martyrdom, the Passio Albani . Here we are told that he collected some of the martyr's blood from the ground where he had been killed. One version also says that Alban came to Germanus in a dream and revealed the story of his martyrdom to him. Germanus then had this written down in tituli , either in Britain, or as some have argued, back in Auxerre (the Gaulish town of which Germanus
2475-517: The saints became the standard for all of the Western and Eastern hagiographers, who would create relative biographies and images of the ideal saints by gradually departing from the real facts of their lives. Over the years, the genre of lives of the saints had absorbed a number of narrative plots and poetic images (often, of pre-Christian origin, such as dragon fighting etc.), mediaeval parables , short stories and anecdotes . The genre of lives of
2530-643: The saints was introduced in the Slavic world in the Bulgarian Empire in the late 9th and early 10th century, where the first original hagiographies were produced on Cyril and Methodius , Clement of Ohrid and Naum of Preslav . Eventually the Bulgarians brought this genre to Kievan Rus' together with writing and also in translations from the Greek language. In the 11th century, they began to compile
2585-455: The somewhat mysterious figure of Elafius , who is somewhat anomalous as representing the only named Briton in the whole of Germanus's account (besides saint Alban). Conceivably he might represent, like the expulsion of the Pelagians, a detail originally connected with the (first and only) visit of 429. However he is connected with an episode (the curing of his son by Germanus) that looks more like allegory than historical fact and which duplicates
2640-585: The success of the first visit while allowing a valid purpose for the second. In any case the point is that Prosper's mention in his In Collatorem was almost certainly written before any second visit could take place. He refers to a lapse of over 20 years since the start of the Pelagian controversy dated to 413 in his chronicle - which would date his In Collatorem to circa 433. Even more decisively he involves Pope Celestine I in this event and since Pope Celestine died in 432 it must have occurred before that time – which Professor Barret argues would not allow time for
2695-417: The titular character battles against Grendel and his mother , while the saint, such as Athanasius ' Anthony (one of the original sources for the hagiographic motif) or the character of Guthlac , battles against figures no less substantial in a spiritual sense. Both genres then focus on the hero-warrior figure, but with the distinction that the saint is of a spiritual sort. Imitation of the life of Christ
2750-421: The year 429) but not any second one (in later versions of his chronicle up to 455). In another work (his In Collatorem ) he describes the exile of the Pelagians which Constantius attributes to the second visit. In fact Ian Wood noted that the harsher treatment of the Pelagians on the second visit as something that differentiated it from the first but it could be that it represents, in fact, a desire to corroborate
2805-511: The year. They were revised and expanded by St. Dimitry of Rostov in 1684–1705. The Life of Alexander Nevsky was a particularly notable hagiographic work of the era. Today, the works in the genre of lives of the saints represent a valuable historical source and reflection of different social ideas, world outlook and aesthetic concepts of the past. The Oriental Orthodox Churches also have their own hagiographic traditions. For instance, Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church hagiographies in
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#17327763155542860-1032: Was in writing the Vita . Various historians have suggested that the purpose of the Vita was the edification of its audience, while others have argued that it was meant as a guide for Gallic bishops charged with shepherding congregations in the middle of the collapse of Roman infrastructure, and the incursion of barbarians. Still others have suggested that the Vita was in part an anti-Pelagian text, intended to promote grace over works. Original Latin: ed. Levison, Wilhelm, “XI: Vita Germani episcopi Autissiodorensis auctore Constantio ”, in: Krusch, B., and W. Levison (eds.), Passiones vitaeque sanctorum aevi Merovingici (IV), MGH Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum 7, Hanover and Leipzig, 1920. 225–283. [4] English Translation: Hoare, F. R. (1965) "The Western Fathers". New York: Harper Torchbooks French Translation: ed. & trans. Borius, René, "Constance de Lyon: Vie de Saint Germain d'Auxerre", Sources Chrétiennes 112, Paris: Les Editions du Cerf, 1965. English translation of sections describing
2915-499: Was one of the more important vehicles for the study of inspirational history during the Middle Ages . The Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine compiled a great deal of medieval hagiographic material, with a strong emphasis on miracle tales. Lives were often written to promote the cult of local or national states, and in particular to develop pilgrimages to visit relics . The bronze Gniezno Doors of Gniezno Cathedral in Poland are
2970-703: Was the bishop). Some scholars have argued that Albanus's name was unknown before it was revealed to Germanus, but this is disputed by others. With regard to the historical reliability of the Vita Germani Nora K. Chadwick quoted Constantius himself : “So many years have passed it is difficult to recover the facts from the silence in which they are buried”. Edward Arthur Thompson emphasised how poorly informed Constantius seems to have been about Germanus's British visit compared to his activities in Gaul and Italy. There are apparent discrepancies between Constantius's account of Germanus's British expeditions and
3025-408: Was then the benchmark against which saints were measured, and imitation of the lives of saints was the benchmark against which the general population measured itself. In Anglo-Saxon and medieval England, hagiography became a literary genre par excellence for the teaching of a largely illiterate audience. Hagiography provided priests and theologians with classical handbooks in a form that allowed them
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