Dictionary Definition
hagiography n : a biography that idealizes or
idolizes the person (especially a person who is a saint)
User Contributed Dictionary
Extensive Definition
Hagiography [hægi'ɒgrəfi] is
the study of saints. A
hagiography refers literally to writings on the subject of such
holy people, and
specifically the biographies of ecclesiastical and
secular leaders. The
word comes from Greek (h)ağios (ἅγιος, "holy" or "saint") and
graphē (γραφή, "writing"). The term hagiology is also current in
English, though less common. (This in fact follows original Greek
practice, where ἁγιογραφία refers to visual images of the saints,
while their written lives (βίοι or vitæ) or the study thereof are
known as ἁγιολογία.)
Though many hagiographies
focus on the lives of men and women canonized by the Christian
Church, other religions such as Buddhism and
Islam also
create and maintain hagiographical texts concerning saints and
other individuals believed to be imbued with the
sacred.
The term "hagiographic" has
also come to be used as a pejorative reference to the
works of contemporary biographers and historians whom critics
perceive to be uncritical and even "reverential" in their
writing.
Development of hagiography
Hagiography constituted an
important literary
genre in the early
millennia of the Christian
church, providing
informational history as
well as inspirational stories and legend. A hagiographic account of
an individual saint can constitute a vita.
The genre of lives of the saints first came into being in
the Roman Empire
as legends about Christian
martyrs and were called
martyrologies. In
the 4th
century, there were three main types of catalogs of lives of
the saints:
- annual calendar catalogue, or menaion (in Greek, menaios means "month") (biographies of the saints to be read at sermons);
- synaxarion, or a short version of lives of the saints, arranged by dates;
- paterikon (in Greek, pater means "father"), or biography of the specific saints, chosen by the catalog compiler.
In Western
Europe hagiography was one of the more important areas in the
study of history during the Middle Ages.
The Golden
Legend of Jacob de
Voragine compiled a great deal of mediæval hagiographic
material, with a strong emphasis on miracle tales.
The Bollandist
Society continues the study, academic assembly, appraisal and
publication of materials relating to the lives of
Christian saints. (See Acta
Sanctorum.)
Hagiography of the mediæval period in England
With the introduction of
Latin
literature into England in the 7th and 8th centuries the genre of
the life of the saint grew increasingly popular. It is not
surprising that such a genre would become popular in England. When
one contrasts it to the popular heroic poem, such as “Beowulf,” one finds
that they share certain common features. In “Beowulf,” the
titular character battles against Grendel and his
mother, while the saint, such as Athanasius’
Anthony
(one of the original sources for the hagiographic motif) or the
character of Guthlac, battles
against figures no less substantial in a spiritual sense. Both
genres then focus on the hero-warrior figure, but with the
distinction that the saint is of a spiritual sort.
In Anglo-Saxon
and mediæval England,
Hagiography became a literary genre par excellence for the teaching
of a largely illiterate audience. Hagiography provided priests and
theologians with the classical handbooks in a form that allowed
them the rhetorical tools necessary to defend the truth of their
scriptures.
Of all the English
hagiographers no one was more prolific nor so aware of the
importance of the genre as Abbot Ælfric
of Eynsham. His work
The Lives of the Saints (MS Cotton Julius E.7) comprises a set
of sermons on saints' days, formerly observed by the English
Church. The text comprises two prefaces, one in Latin and one in
Old
English, and 39 lives beginning on December 25 with the
nativity of Christ and ending
with three texts to which no saints' days are attached. The text
spans the entire year and describes the lives of many saints, both
English and continental, and hearkens back to some of the earliest
saints of the early church.
Imitation of the life of
Christ then was the benchmark against which saints were measured,
and imitation of the lives of saints was the benchmark against
which the general population measured itself.
Hagiography of the mediæval period in Ireland
Ireland is notable and its
rich hagiographical tradition, and for the large amount of material
which was produced during the mediæval period. Irish hagiographers
wrote primarily in Latin while some of
the later saint's lives were written in the hagiographer's native
vernacular Irish. Of
particular note are the lives of St. Patrick,
St.
Columba and St.
Brigit—Ireland's three patron saints.
Hagiography in Eastern Orthodoxy
In the 10th
century, a Byzantine
monk Simeon
Metaphrastes was the first one to change the genre of lives of
the saints into something different, giving it a moralizing and
panegyrical character.
His catalog of lives of the saints became the standard for all of
the Western and
Eastern
hagiographers, who would create relative biographies and images of
the ideal saints by gradually departing from the real facts of
their lives. Over the years, the genre of lives of the saints had
absorbed a number of narrative plots and poetic images (often, of
pre-Christian origin, such as dragon fighting etc.), mediaeval parables, short stories and
anecdotes.
The genre of lives of the
saints was brought to Kievan Rus'
by the South Slavs
together with writing
and also in translations from the
Greek
language. In the 11th
century, the Rus' began to compile
the original life stories of the first Rus'ian saints, e.g.
Boris
and Gleb, Theodosius Pechersky etc. In the 16th
century,
Metropolitan Macarius expanded the list of the Rus'ian saints
and supervised the compiling process of their life stories. They
would all be compiled in the so called Velikiye chet’yi-minei
catalog (Великие Четьи-Минеи, or Grand monthly readings),
consisting of 12 volumes
in accordance with each month of the year. They were revised and
expanded by St. Dimitry
of Rostov in 1684-1705.
The genre of lives of the
saints was often used as ecclesiastic and political propaganda. Today, the works
in this genre represent a valuable historical source and reflection
of different social ideas, world outlook and aesthetic concepts of the
past.
Secular usage
The term "hagiography" has come to refer to the works of contemporary biographers and historians whom critics perceive to be uncritical and even "reverential." For example, critics of historian (and John F. Kennedy associate) Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. often call him a "Kennedy hagiographer."Aleister
Crowley's autobiography,
The Confessions of Aleister Crowley, is subtitled
An Autohagiography.
See also
- Legenda Aurea
- Jean Bolland
- Bollandist
- Secular saint
- Muslim Saints and Mystics by Farid ad-Din Attar
- Life of Alexander Nevsky
- Reginald of Durham
- Alban Butler
- Hippolyte Delehaye
- Fifth Business, a novel by Robertson Davies, featuring a hagiographer as the main character.
Bibliography
- André Vauchez, La sainteté en Occident aux derniers siècles du Moyen Âge (1198-1431), Rome, 1981 (BEFAR, 241) [Engl. transl. : Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages, Cambridge, 1987 and Ital. transl. : La santità nel Medioevo, Bologne, 1989].
External links
hagiography in Belarusian:
Агіяграфія
hagiography in Czech:
Hagiografie
hagiography in German:
Hagiographie
hagiography in Spanish:
Hagiografía
hagiography in Esperanto:
Hagiografio
hagiography in French:
Hagiographie
hagiography in Croatian:
Hagiografija
hagiography in Indonesian:
Hagiografi
hagiography in Interlingua
(International Auxiliary Language Association):
Hagiographia
hagiography in Italian:
Agiografia
hagiography in Hebrew:
הגיוגרפיה
hagiography in Georgian:
ჰაგიოგრაფია
hagiography in Macedonian:
Хагиографија
hagiography in Dutch:
Hagiografie
hagiography in Norwegian:
Hagiografi
hagiography in Polish:
Hagiografia
hagiography in Portuguese:
Hagiografia
hagiography in Russian:
Агиография
hagiography in Slovenian:
Hagiografija
hagiography in Finnish:
Hagiografia
hagiography in Swedish:
Hagiografi
hagiography in Thai:
วรรณกรรมนักบุญ
hagiography in Ukrainian:
Агіографія
Synonyms, Antonyms and Related Words
Buddhology, Clio, Mariolatry, Mariology, Mercersburg
theology, Muse of history, adventures, annals, apologetics, autobiography,
biographical sketch, biography, canonics, case history,
chronicle, chronicles, chronology, confessions, crisis
theology, curriculum vitae, dialogical theology, diary, divinity, doctrinalism, doctrinism, dogmatics, eschatology, existential
theology, experiences, fortunes, hagiology, hierology, historiography, history, journal, legend, life, life and letters, life story,
logos Christology, logos theology, martyrology, memoir, memoirs, memorabilia, memorial, memorials, natural theology,
necrology, neoorthodox
theology, neoorthodoxy, obituary, patristic theology,
phenomenological theology, photobiography, physicotheology,
profile, rationalism, record, religion, resume, scholastic theology,
secularism, soteriology, story, systematics, theology, theory of
history