Sacrificial illness and the ability to perform healing miracles are the hallmarks, indeed the sine qua non, of sanctity throughout the Middle Ages and beyond. Hagiographers ring the changes on these themes, and we are often struck by the sameness of so many Lives and their miracles. Teasing out a saint’s individuality is not easy and often pointless, because making their subject conform to a holy model is precisely the goal of most hagiographers. In this talk I explore what makes Colette's Lives somewhat different by analyzing to what use incidents around illness are put in the Lives: the dramatic descriptions of Colette’s own illnesses are of course designed to buttress claims to Colette’s holiness, but they also give us an image of the challenges illness poses to her working life as a Franciscan reformer. Colette’s own thaumaturgic abilities also relate to her work in that they serve to keep her communities and support networks healthy and functioning.
Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski is Distinguished Professor of French emerita at the University of Pittsburgh. In 2020-21 she served as President of the Medieval Academy of America. She is the author of numerous articles and books on medieval French culture and religion. Her most recent monograph is The Strange Case of Ermine de Reims: A Medieval Woman between Demons and Saints (U. of Pennsylvania Press, 2015). Among her many translations is Pierre de Vaux and Sister Perrine de Baume, Two Lives of Saint Colette, to appear with Iter Press in July of this year.
Zoom link:
https://ceu-edu.zoom.us/j/97413566507?pwd=bTJ4ZDBSelh1QmdidHNva1lEWW4xUT09
Meeting ID: 974 1356 6507
Passcode: 657640
The lecture is online-only.