Women Saints' Lives in Old English Prose by Leslie A Donovan

Women Saints' Lives in Old English Prose by Leslie A Donovan

Devout, virtuous and independent, the heroines of Old English saints' lives (one of the most popular literary genres of the middle ages) provided exemplars of personal and public inspiration for medieval Christians. The eight lives translated here are the earliest known vernacular accounts of the biographies of thelthryth, Agatha, Agnes, Cecilia, Eugenia, Euphrosyne, Lucy, and Mary of Egypt. They depict women escaping unwanted marriages, communicating with male relatives, acquiring an education, living autonomously as hermits, and achieving positions of leadership; such lives document not only the importance of spiritual faith to early Christian women, but also testify to how these women (and their audience) employed faith as a tool for empowerment. Each life is preceded by a brief description of the saint's cult from its early Christian origins to its presence in Anglo-Saxon culture. The translationis accompanied by an introduction establishing the general background for the genre, the conventions of women saints' lives, and women's religious culture in Anglo-Saxon England; and an interpretive essay exploring the relationships between explicit presentations of the female body and the strength of spiritual authority as exhibited in these texts completes the volume. LESLIE A. DONOVAN is Associate Professor at the University of New Mexico.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780859915687
ISBN 10	0859915689
Title	Women Saints' Lives in Old English Prose
Author	Leslie A Donovan
Series	Library Of Medieval Women
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Boydell & Brewer Ltd
Year published	1999-12-23
Number of pages	148
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.