By Lawrence S. Cunningham
A short background of Saints follows the increase of the cult of saints in Christianity from its foundation within the age of the martyrs all the way down to the current day.Refers to either famous saints, equivalent to Joan of Arc, and lesser-known figures just like the ‘holy fools’ within the Orthodox traditionRanges over matters as various because the background of canonization approaches, the Reformation critique of the cult of saints, and the position of saints in different non secular traditionsDiscusses the relevance of sainthood within the postmodern eraTwo appendices describe consumer saints and the iconography of saints in paintings.
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Extra info for A Brief History of Saints (Blackwell Brief Histories of Religion)
Nor are the categories always observed in a rigid pattern. Pope Victor III (1027–1087) is invoked as a saint at the Abbey of Monte Cassino, but he bears only the title of “Blessed” in the martyrology of the universal church. The process itself was a slow one, and canon38 The Bureaucratization of Sanctity izations were not frequent at the papal level. The last English saint to be canonized before the Reformation was Saint John of Bridlington (died 1379), who was canonized by Pope Boniface IX in 1401.
The medieval canon of saints includes any number of kings and queens who serve as models of Christian leadership, just as model prelates, monks, and nuns are templates of authentic holiness. Even simple lay people (rarely) were canonized for their holy lives, such as the simple Saint Omobono (died 1197) of Cremona. Omobono was a married businessman who devoted himself to his family but also was centrally concerned with the needs of the poor. His rapid canonization (two years after his death) is almost without parallel in the medieval period where the distinguished path of holiness was to be found via the established orders of the religious life or in the clerical state.
Supporters of the use of icons in piety (the so-called “iconodules” or “image venerators”) were forced to make some careful distinctions in order to resist the logic of the iconoclasts. At the most elementary level, they made a distinction between an idol (Greek: eidolon) and an image (Greek: eikon).