This book explores the making of saints' cults in the early modern world from an interdisciplinary perspective, considering the entangled roles of materiality and globalization processes. It brings together work across diverse media, objects and materials, as well as communities, cultures and geographies to reframe a more synoptic, materials-centric and comparative history of the making and remaking of saints' cults, with special focus on the long Counter-Reformation. The contributions engage with dynamics of local and universal and draw attention to the vital role of textual, visual and material hagiographies in the creation and promotion of saints' and would-be saints' cults. The book fosters novel conceptualizations and cross-pollination of ideas across traditions, regions and disciplines, and expands hagiography's horizons by reconsidering canonical saintly figures and reframing lesser-known cults of saints and would-be saints. It will be of interest to scholars of religious and early modern history as well as art history and visual and material studies.

This book explores the making of saints’ cults in the early modern world from an interdisciplinary perspective, considering the entangled roles of materiality and globalization processes. It brings together work across diverse media, objects, and materials as well as communities, cultures, and geographies to reframe a more synoptic, materials-centric, and comparative history of the making and remaking of saints’ cults, with a special focus on the long Counter-Reformation. The contributions engage with dynamics of local and universal and draw attention to the vital role of textual, visual, and material hagiographies in the creation and promotion of saints’ and would-be saints’ cults. The book fosters novel conceptualizations and cross-pollination of ideas across traditions, regions, and disciplines and expands hagiography’s horizons by reconsidering canonical saintly figures and reframing lesser-known cults of saints and would-be saints. The book will be of interest to scholars of religious and early modern history as well as art history and visual and material studies.

Peter Paul Rubens and the Crisis of the Beati Moderni takes up the question of the issues involved in the formation of recent saints - or Beati moderni (modern Blesseds) as they were called - by the Jesuits and Oratorians in the new environment of increased strictures and censorship that developed after the Council of Trent with respect to legal canonization procedures and cultic devotion to the saints. Ruth Noyes focuses particularly on how the new regulations pertained to the creation of emerging cults of those not yet canonized, the so-called Beati moderni, such as Jesuit founders Francis Xavier and Ignatius Loyola, and Filippo Neri, founder of the Oratorians. Centrally involved in the book is the question of the fate and meaning of the two altarpiece paintings commissioned by the Oratorians from Peter Paul Rubens. The Congregation rejected his first altarpiece because it too specifically identified Filippo Neri as a cult figure to be venerated (before his actual canonization) and thus was caught up in the politics of cult formation and the papacy’s desire to control such pre-canonization cults. The book demonstrates that Rubens' second altarpiece, although less overtly depicting Neri as a saint, was if anything more radical in the claims it made for him. Peter Paul Rubens and the Crisis of the Beati Moderni offers the first comparative study of Jesuit and Oratorian images of their respective would-be saints, and the controversy they ignited across Church hierarchies. It is also the first work to examine provocative Philippine imagery and demonstrate how its bold promotion specifically triggered the first wave of curial censure in 1602.

A common objective of saint veneration in all three Abrahamic religions is the recovery and perpetuation of the collective memory of the saint. Christianity, Judaism, and Islam all yield intriguing similarities and differences in their respective conceptions of sanctity. This edited collection explores the various literary and cultural productions associated with the cult of saints and pious figures, as well as the socio-historical contexts in which sainthood operates, in order to better understand the role of saints in monotheistic religions. Using comparative religious and anthropological approaches, an international panel of contributors guides the reader through three main concerns. They describe and illuminate the ways in which sanctity is often configured. In addition, the diverse cultural manifestations of the cult of the saints are examined and analysed. Finally, the various religious, social, and political functions that saints came to play in numerous societies are compared and contrasted. This ambitious study covers sanctity from the Middle Ages until the contemporary period, and has a geographical scope that includes Europe, Central Asia, North Africa, the Americas, and the Asian Pacific. As such, it will be of use to scholars of the history of religions, religious pluralism, and interreligious dialogue, as well as students of sainthood and hagiography.

Visualizing Sensuous Suffering and Affective Pain in Early Modern Europe and the Spanish Americas is a trans-cultural collection of studies on visual treatments of the phenomena of suffering and pain in early modern culture. Ranging geographically from Italy, Spain, and the Low Countries to Chile, Mexico, and the Philippines and chronologically from the fourteenth to the eighteenth centuries, these studies variously consider pain and suffering as somatic, emotional, and psychological experiences. From examination of bodies shown victimized by brutal public torture to the sublimation of physical suffering conveyed through the incised lines of Counter-Reformation engravings, the authors consider depictions of pain and suffering as conduits to the divine or as guides to social behaviour; indeed, often the two functions overlap.

Offering snapshots of mercantile devotion to saints in different regions, this volume is the first to ask explicitly how merchants invoked saints, and why. Despite medieval and modern stereotypes of merchants as godless and avaricious, medieval traders were highly devout – and rightly so. Overseas trade was dangerous, and merchants’ commercial activities were seen as jeopardizing their souls. Merchants turned to saints for protection and succor, identifying those most likely to preserve their goods, families, reputations, and souls. The essays in this collection, written from diverse angles, range across later medieval western Europe, from Spain to Italy to England and the Hanseatic League. They offer a multi-disciplinary examination of the ways that medieval merchants, from petty traders to influential overseas wholesalers, deployed the cults of saints. Three primary themes are addressed: danger, community, and the unity of spiritual and cultural capital. Each of these themes allows the international panel of contributors to demonstrate the significant role of saints in mercantile life. This book is unique in its exploration of saints and commerce, shedding light on the everyday role religion played in medieval life. As such, it will be of keen interest to scholars of religious history, medieval history, art history, and literature.

On 29 December, 1170, Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, was brutally murdered in his own cathedral. News of the event was rapidly disseminated throughout Europe, generating a widespread cult which endured until the reign of Henry VIII in the sixteenth century, and engendering a fascination which has lasted until the present day. The Cult of Thomas Becket: History and Historiography through Eight Centuries contributes to the lengthy debate surrounding the saint by providing a historiographical analysis of the major themes in Becket scholarship, tracing the development of Becket studies from the writings of the twelfth-century biographers to those of scholars of the twenty-first century. The book offers a thorough commentary and analysis which demonstrates how the Canterbury martyr was viewed by writers of previous generations as well as our own, showing how they were influenced by the intellectual trends and political concerns of their eras, and indicating how perceptions of Thomas Becket have changed over time. In addition, several chapters are devoted a discussion of artworks in various media devoted to the saint, as well as liturgies and sermons composed in his honor. Combining a wide historical scope with detailed textual analysis, this book will be of great interest to scholars of medieval religious history, art history, liturgy, sanctity and hagiography.

This book focuses on the comparatively unknown cults of new saints in late-mediaeval Venice. These new saints were near-contemporary citizens who were venerated by their compatriots without official sanction from the papacy. In doing so, the book uncovers a sub-culture of religious expression that has been overlooked in previous scholarship. The study highlights a myriad of hagiographical materials, both visual and textual, created to honour these new saints by members of four different Venetian communities: The Republican government; the monastic orders, mostly Benedictine; the mendicant orders; and local parishes. By scrutinising the hagiographic portraits described in painted vita panels, written vitae, passiones, votive images, sermons and sepulchre monuments, as well as archival and historical resources, the book identifies a specifically Venetian typology of sanctity tied to the idiosyncrasies of the city’s site and history. By focusing explicitly on local typological traits, the book produces an intimate and complex portrait of Venetian society and offers a framework for exploring the lived religious experience of late-mediaeval societies beyond the lagoon. As a result, it will be of keen interest to scholars of Venice, lived religion, hagiography, mediaeval history and visual culture.

'In the last two decades, the history of the Counter-Reformation has been stretched and re-shaped in numerous directions. Reflecting the variety and innovation that characterize studies of early modern Catholicism today, this volume incorporates topics as diverse as life cycle and community, science and the senses, the performing and visual arts, material objects and print culture, war and the state, sacred landscapes and urban structures. Moreover, it challenges the conventional chronological parameters of the Counter-Reformation and introduces the reader to the latest research on global Catholicism. The Ashgate Research Companion to the Counter-Reformation presents a comprehensive examination of recent scholarship on early modern Catholicism in its many guises. It examines how the Tridentine reforms inspired conflict and conversion, and evaluates lives and identities, spirituality, culture and religious change. This wide-ranging and original research guide is a unique resource for scholars and students of European and transnational history.