HISTORIOGRAPHY IN THE MIDDLE AGES - Julian Emperor

BIOGRAPHY 1000‒1350 373for devotional and instructional purposes, aimed at providing rolemodels for female piety. Evidence of a flourishing cult has not alwaysbeen found, since many of these women do not appear in calendarsof the saints. 52 Some of the authors were women, such as Margaretof Oingt, Beatrice of Nazareth, Eva of St. Martin, and Philippine ofPorcellet, who belonged to circles of pious women, sometimes accusedof heresy, whose literary output reflects the literacy and mysticismincreasingly found in female cloisters. The rise of a lay public hungryfor such devotional literature spawned vernacular biographies,largely of the earlier saints and martyrs. 53 The translation of Jamesof Voragine’s Legenda aurea into several vernacular languages beginningin the late thirteenth century, which appears to have served asa handbook for much artistic production, attests to the growingdemand for easily accessible material outside clerical circles. Whilethe passions of the martyrs continued to predominate, such shortenedbiographies were provided in the increasing number of legendaries(some in the vernacular) that contained summarized saints’lives to be used by preachers in the composition of their sermons,or perhaps to be read by the laity. Bartholomew of Trent, PeterCalo, Jean de Mailly, Gui de Chartres, Pietro de’ Natal, and BernardGui are among those who produced such collections. 54Biography and the Legitimization of PowerMuch contemporary biography clearly was intended to sanctify propertyand political power by enshrining the claims of a monastery,religious order, or dynasty within the life of an honored figure. Forexample, the widespread foundation of monasteries following theNorman conquest of southern Italy or the restoration of older housesthat accompanied the pacification of northern and western France,the Low Countries, and Saxony in the eleventh century were accompaniedby the composition of lives which sought to legitimize monastic52Williams-Krapp (2001).53Brunel-Lobrichon (1994), 327–58. Lives of more contemporary saints such asLouis IX, Francis, Dominic, Elizabeth of Thuringia, Celestine V, Anthony of Padua,Yves of Tréguier, Peter of Luxemburg, Stephan of Grandmont, Peter Thomas, andRobert of Arbrissel were written between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries inFrench.54Philippart (1977), 45–47.