The Book Of Sainte Foy

The miracle stories surrounding Sainte Foy form one of the most complete sets of material relating to a medieval saint's cult and its practices. Pamela Sheingorn's superb translation from the Medieval Latin texts now makes this literature available in English. The Book of Sainte Foy recounts the virgin saint's martyrdom in the third century (Passio), the theft of her relics in the late ninth century by the monks of the monastery at Conques (Translatio), and her diverse miracles (Liber miraculorum); also included is a rendering of the Provençal Chanson de Sainte Foy, translated by Robert L. A. Clark. The miracles distinguish Sainte Foy as an unusual and highly individualistic child saint displaying a fondness for gold and pretty things, as well as a penchant for playing practical jokes on her worshippers. In his record of Sainte Foy, Bernard of Angers, the eleventh-century author of the first parts of the Liber miraculorum, emphasized the saint's "unheard of" miracles, such as replacing missing body parts and bringing dead animals back to life. The introduction to the volume situates Sainte Foy in the history in the history of hagiography and places the saint and her monastery in the social context of the high Middle Ages. Sheingorn also evokes the rugged landscape of south central France, the picturesque village of Conques on the pilgrimage road, and, most important, the golden, jewel-encrusted reliquary statue that medieval believers saw as the embodiment of Sainte Foy's miracle-working power. In no other book will readers enjoy such a comprehensive portrait of Sainte Foy and the culture that nurtured her.

Bringing together artifacts, texts, and practices within an interpretive framework that stresses the cultural work performed by saints, Kathleen Ashley presents a comparative study of the cults of the medieval Sainte Foy at a number of the sites where she was especially venerated. This book analyzes how each cult site produced the saint it needed, appropriating or creating whatever was required to that end. Ashley’s approach is thoroughly interdisciplinary, incorporating visual, religious, medieval, and women’s and gender studies as well as literary studies and social history. She uses the theoretical framework of "cultural work" to analyze how the cult of Sainte Foy was sponsored and received by specific groups in different locales in Europe. The book is comprehensive in terms of historical as well as geographical range, tracing the history of the cult from the early Middle Ages into the present day. It also includes historiographical analysis, examining the way the cults of Sainte Foy have been represented in various historical accounts. Ashley’s narrative challenges the boundary between "elite" and "popular" culture and complicates the traditional vernacular vs. Latin language binary. A chief aim of the study is to show how "art" objects always operated in conjunction with other cultural texts to construct a saint’s cult. The volume is heavily illustrated, showing artifacts such as stained-glass windows and wall paintings which are not readily available from any other source. This book will be of special interest to scholars in art history, medieval history, gender studies, and religion.

"Writing Faith demonstrates that clusters of miracles form sign systems, and that it is those systems of meaning or representation that can be historically located. Thus, rather than treating individual miracle stories as transparent sources of specific historical data, we can recognize representations common to groups of miracle stories as coherent historical formations. For instance, the negative characterizations of Muslims in the late miracles situate the stories' composition in the eleventh century, a period of rising hostility on the eve of the Crusades."--Jacket.

The Battle of the Plains of Abraham in 1759 and the subsequent capitulation of Quebec set the stage for an equally significant French-British engagement in the struggle for northeastern North America, the Battle of Sainte-Foy. In the spring of 1760, after having suffered a brutal winter, Quebec garrison commander James Murray's troops were vulnerable and reduced to an army of skeletal invalids due to malnutrition and scurvy. Trapped in hostile territory and lacking confidence in the fortifications of Quebec, Murray planned to confront French attackers outside the walls. Instead of waiting at Montreal for the British to attack, Montcalm's successor, François-Gaston de Lévis, returned to the plains for a rematch accompanied by every combatant available--French regulars, Canadian militia and First Peoples warriors. The ensuing Battle of Sainte-Foy was less a battle for territory than a struggle for survival between two equally desperate adversaries. If the British lost the battle, they would lose Quebec. If the French lost the battle, they would very likely lose Canada--both the French and the British had their backs to the wall. MacLeod presents this historical event in riveting detail, from the preparation and day-by-day actions during the engagement to the compelling siege of Quebec by land and ship. Backs to the Wall is an accessible and engaging account of an important episode in Canadian history.

In the early 1970s, Hannah Green and her husband came upon a small village called Conques, curled like a conch shell in the mountains of south-central France. Entranced, she returned to this numinous place again and again, drawn to the story of the little saint whose spirit fills the lives of the people there. Housed in the village's yellow stone basilica sits the gold reliquary of Sainte Foy, who was beheaded in the fourth century for refusing to deny her faith before a Roman consul. Little Saint, a book written in ecstasy, is at once a moving and passionate tribute to Sainte Foy, a lyrical evocation of daily life in Conques, and a vivid chronicle of the author's intensely felt spiritual journey.

Like Graham Greene and Mary McCarthy before him, MacDonald Harris has written a thriller. And like them, he brings to his story the alchemical talent of a first-class novelist: The Treasure of Sainte Foy is not only gripping, but also transcendent. In the picturesque, isolated French village of Conques stands the Abbey of Sainte Foy. The church houses a priceless medieval treasure whose centerpiece is a magnificent, three-foot-high statue of the holy martyr Sainte Foy, bejeweled and covered with gold, its strange alabaster eyes gazing ahead as if at a nearby invisible world. To a small group of political terrorists in Toulouse, the treasure is an irresistible target. Working with them is Patrick, a disaffected American art historian, who recruits into the band Marie-Ange, the guide to the church. We see their methodical preparations for the robbery, the growing attraction between Patrick and Marie-Ange, the implacable pursuit of the police—all cool, dramatic, and passionate as a Bogart film. But we also sense the mysterious underworld of the Languedoc, a region of heretics and saints, criminals and martyrs; the stakes of the novel subtly change and ramify; we are caught up in a gorgeous and mystical endgame as the forces of retribution close in; we get the uncanny feeling that at play in the novel are forces unseen and unseeable. What is really at play, of course, is the masterful hand of MacDonald Harris. A native Californian, Harris is best known for The Balloonist, nominated for the National Book Award and translated into half a dozen language, and Pandora's Galley, his mesmerizing tale of the last days of the Venetian Republic. In The Treasure of Sainte Foy, Harris has written a novel that is spellbinding in every sense of the world.

To obtain sacred relics, medieval monks plundered tombs, avaricious merchants raided churches, and relic-mongers scoured the Roman catacombs. In a revised edition of Furta Sacra, Patrick Geary considers the social and cultural context for these acts, asking how the relics were perceived and why the thefts met with the approval of medieval Christians.

This book investigates the origins and transformations of medieval image culture and its reflections in theology, hagiography, historiography and art. It deals with a remarkable phenomenon: the fact that, after a period of 500 years of absence, the tenth century sees a revival of monumental sculpture in the Latin West. Since the end of Antiquity and the pagan use of free-standing, life-size sculptures in public and private ritual, Christians were obedient to the Second Commandment forbidding the making and use of graven images. Contrary to the West, in Byzantium, such a revival never occurred: only relief sculpture - mostly integrated within an architectural context - was used. However, Eastern theologians are the authors of highly fascinating and outstanding original theoretical reflections about the nature and efficacy of images. How can this difference be explained? Why do we find the most fascinating theoretical concepts of images in a culture that sticks to two-dimensional icons often venerated as cult-images that are copied and repeated, but only randomly varied? And why does a groundbreaking change in the culture of images - the revival of monumental sculpture - happen in a context that provides more restrained theoretical reflections upon images in their immediate theological, liturgical and artistic contexts? These are some of the questions that this book seeks to answer.The analysis and contextualization of the revival of monumental sculpture includes reflections on liturgy, architecture, materiality of minor arts and reliquaries, medieval theories of perception, and gift exchange and its impact upon practices of image veneration, aesthetics and political participation. Drawing on the historical investigation of specific objects and texts between the ninth and the eleventh century, the book outlines an occidental history of image culture, visuality and fiction, claiming that only images possess modes of visualizing what in the discourse of medieval theology can never be addressed and revealed.