The Footprints Of Michael The Archangel

Early Christians sought miracles from Michael the Archangel and this enigmatic ecumenical figure was the subject of hagiography, liturgical texts, and relics across Western Europe. Entering contemporary debates about angelology, this fascinating study explores the formation and diffusion of the cult of Saint Michael from c. 300-c.800.

This book takes an interdisciplinary approach in order to understand angels, focusing on Africa and the cult and persona of the Archangel Michael. Traditional methods in the study of religion including philology, papyrology, art and iconography, anthropology, history, and psychology are combined with methodologies deriving from memory studies, graphic design, art education, and semiotics. Chapters explore both historical and contemporary case studies from Coptic Egypt, Nubia, Ethiopia, and South Africa, providing a comparative perspective on the Archangel Michael, alongside 25 images. Innovative in both its methodologies and geographical focus, this book is an important contribution to the study of religion and art, Christianity in Africa, and Coptic studies.

The cult and legends of St Michael the archangel were widespread in medieval England, and this book - the first full-length study of the subject - offers a comprehensive examination of their genesis and diffusion. Part I identifies and analyses the concerns, conflicts, and roles with which St Michael is associated, from scriptural and apocryphal literature through to the homiletic literature of the medieval period. Part II begins with a discussion of the vernacular recensions of the popular account of the archangel's earthly interventions, and goes on to survey the legendary accounts in Old English, Anglo-Norman, and Middle English of the archangel and his roles as guardian, intercessor, psychopomp, and warrior-angel follows. The Appendices contain the first English translation of the archangel's hagiographic foundation-myth; an annotated bibliographical list and motif index of textual materials relating to the archangel; and an essay on the iconographic representations of the archangel in medieval England. RICHARD F. JOHNSON is Assistant Professor of English at William Rainey Harper College.

In this enlightening work, Virtue teaches the many ways in which the Archangel Michael brings peace to people everywhere. The book includes fascinating true stories of how Michael has protected people while driving, safeguarded their children, and more.

Founded in 1927, Romania’s Legion of the Archangel Michael was one of Europe’s largest and longest-lived fascist social movements. In Holy Legionary Youth, Roland Clark draws on oral histories, memoirs, and substantial research in the archives of the Romanian secret police to provide the most comprehensive account of the Legion in English to date. Clark approaches Romanian fascism by asking what membership in the Legion meant to young Romanian men and women. Viewing fascism "from below," as a social category that had practical consequences for those who embraced it, he shows how the personal significance of fascism emerged out of Legionaries’ interactions with each other, the state, other political parties, families and friends, and fascist groups abroad. Official repression, fascist spectacle, and the frequency and nature of legionary activities changed a person’s everyday activities and relationships in profound ways. Clark’s sweeping history traces fascist organizing in interwar Romania to nineteenth-century grassroots nationalist movements that demanded political independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It also shows how closely the movement was associated with the Romanian Orthodox Church and how the uniforms, marches, and rituals were inspired by the muscular, martial aesthetic of fascism elsewhere in Europe. Although antisemitism was a key feature of official fascist ideology, state violence against Legionaries rather than the extensive fascist violence against Jews had a far greater impact on how Romanians viewed the movement and their role in it. Approaching fascism in interwar Romania as an everyday practice, Holy Legionary Youth offers a new perspective on European fascism, highlighting how ordinary people "performed" fascism by working together to promote a unique and totalizing social identity.

Reflecting the profound impact of critical theory on the study of the humanities, this collection of original essays examines the texts and artifacts of the Anglo-Saxon period through key theoretical terms such as ‘ethnicity’ and ‘gender’. Explores the interplay between critical theory and Anglo-Saxon studies Theoretical framework will appeal to specialist scholars as well as those new to the field Includes an afterword on the value of the dialogue between Anglo-Saxon studies and critical theory

Medieval Welsh literature is rich in hagiographical lore and numerous Welsh versions of the Lives of saints are extant, recording the legends of both native and universal saints. Although the cult of St Ursula and the 11,000 virgins is well known internationally, this is the first time that a scholarly edition of her Welsh legend has been published in its entirety. Hystoria Gweryddon yr Almaen was adapted into Welsh by Sir Huw Pennant and it survives in a unique manuscript – Aberystwyth, National Library of Wales, Peniarth MS 182 (c. 1509–1514). The edition is accompanied by a full glossary, as well as detailed textual and linguistic notes, and information on the development and transmission of the legend. The peculiarities of the Welsh text are considered in the introduction as well as the similarities it shares with other versions. The volume also considers the wider cultural context of the legend and discusses the Welsh cult of St Ursula and her companions. Welsh tradition claims that Ursula was Welsh and she became associated with the church at Llangwyryfon in Ceredigion and other minor Welsh chapels.

In the modern world, angels can often seem to be no more than a symbol, but in the Middle Ages men and women thought differently. Some offered prayers intended to secure the angelic assistance for the living and the dead; others erected stone monuments carved with images of winged figures; and still others made angels the subject of poetic endeavour and theological scholarship. This wealth of material has never been fully explored, and was once dismissed as the detritus of a superstitious age. Angels in Medieval England offers a different perspective, by using angels as a prism through which to study the changing religious culture of an unfamiliar age. Focusing on one corner of medieval Europe which produced an abundance of material relating to angels, Richard Sowerby investigates the way that ancient beliefs about angels were preserved and adapted in England during the Anglo-Saxon period. Between the sixth century and the eleventh, the convictions of Anglo-Saxon men and women about the world of the spirits underwent a gradual transformation. This book is the first to explore that transformation, and to show the ways in which the Anglo-Saxons tried to reconcile their religious inheritance with their own perspectives about the world, human nature, and God.