In this research blog, we have discussed several forms of using and not using the past. Now, I wish to relate to a type of past we have not yet come across: the past that does not appear to make sense. Instead of looking at the incentives authors had to communicate a certain message about…
Although this fourth-century saint had become popular very early among the eastern Christians, in Western Europe St Alexius was the recipient of a wave of devotion only in the ninth and tenth century. From the ninth century onwards, different versions of his life spread in diverse religious communities from Spain to England. Around 1040 his…
In any historical period, the expansion of new cults and the new texts accompanying them, serve for the commemoration of the past. But such expansion also reflects – whether consciously or unconsciously – the needs of the society at that time. Thus the apparition of new feasts and new saints’ lives and the more active…
