Wonderful to relate : miracle stories and miracle collecting in high medieval England

Resource Information

The work Wonderful to relate : miracle stories and miracle collecting in high medieval England represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in University of Missouri Libraries. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

Wonderful to relate : miracle stories and miracle collecting in high medieval England

Title remainder

miracle stories and miracle collecting in high medieval England

Statement of responsibility

Rachel Koopmans

Creator

• Koopmans, Rachel

Author

• Koopmans, Rachel

Subject

• Biography
• Christian saints
• Christian saints -- England -- Biography
• Criticism, interpretation, etc
• Engeland
• Engelse handschriften
• England
• English literature -- Middle English
• English literature -- Middle English, 1100-1500 -- History and criticism
• Hagiografie
• Heiligenvita
• History
• LITERARY CRITICISM -- Medieval
• Literary form
• Literary form -- History -- To 1500
• Literatur
• Literature and society
• Literature and society -- England -- History -- To 1500
• Miracles
• Miracles
• Mirakel
• Mirakel
• Mittelenglisch
• Mittelenglisch
• Monastic and religious life -- England -- History -- Middle Ages, 600-1500
• Monastic and religious life -- Middle Ages
• Mysterienspiel
• Mysterienspiel
• To 1500
• Vertelkunst
• Wonderen
• "Multi-User"
• Biographies

Genre

• Criticism, interpretation, etc
• History
• Biography
• Biographies

Language

eng

Summary

While the late Anglo-Saxons rarely recorded saints' posthumous miracles, a shift occurred as monastic writers of the late eleventh and twelfth centuries started to preserve hundreds of the stories they had heard of healings, acts of vengeance, resurrections, recoveries, and other miraculous deeds effected by their local saints. Indeed, Rachel Koopmans contends, the miracle collection quickly became a defining genre of high medieval English monastic culture. Koopmans surveys more than seventy-five collections and offers a new model for understanding how miracle stories were generated, circulated, and replicated. She argues that orally exchanged narratives carried far more propagandistic power than those preserved in manuscripts; stresses the literary and memorial roles of miracle collecting; and traces changes in form and content as the focus of the collectors shifted from the stories told by religious colleagues to those told by lay visitors to their churches. "Wonderful to Relate" highlights the importance of the two massive collections written by Benedict of Peterborough and William of Canterbury in the wake of the murder of Thomas Becket in 1170. Koopmans provides the first in-depth examination of the creation and influence of the Becket compilations, often deemed the greatest of all medieval miracle collections. In a final section, she ponders the decline of miracle collecting in the thirteenth century, which occurred with the advent of formalized canonization procedures and theological means of engaging with the miraculous. -- Book jacket

Member of

• Middle Ages series

Cataloging source

CN8ML

Dewey number

820.9

Illustrations

• illustrations
• maps

Index

index present

Language note

In English

LC call number

PR255

LC item number

.K66 2011

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

• dictionaries
• bibliography

Series statement

The Middle Ages Series