Description
Book SynopsisRachel J. D. Smith combines historical, literary, and theological approaches to offer a new interpretation of Thomas of Cantimpré’s hagiographies, showing how they employ vivid narrative portrayals of typically female bodies to perform theological work in a rhetorically specific way.
Trade ReviewExcessive Saints is by far the best study yet written about the ceaselessly audacious holy women of the thirteenth-century Low Countries and their ceaselessly inventive interpreter, Thomas of Cantimpré. Indeed, it is one of the best studies in any field of medieval hagiography published in the last twenty-five years. Thoroughly immersed in Thomas’s writings and their mixed literary, theological, and cultural settings, Rachel J. D. Smith craftily but lovingly analyzes their urgencies, their unnerving tendency towards experimentalism, and the ways they use their saintly subjects to lay bare and in the process refresh the idea of the holy in all its weirdness. -- Nicholas Watson, Henry B. and Anne M. Cabot Professor of English Literature, Harvard University
In this remarkable study, Smith argues that hagiographies written by a contemporary of Thomas Aquinas invented
and unraveled theology, offering a semiotic theory of unrivaled complexity that directly confronted the improbable demands of faith. Gracefully written and fearlessly ambitious,
Excessive Saints reveals the relevance of Judaism, gender, and devotion to a Christian theology of signification and should be read by anyone interested in the transformative power of textual relationships. -- Constance Furey, author of
Poetic Relations: Intimacy and Faith in the English ReformationRachel J. D. Smith brilliantly moves between Thomas of Cantimpré's Dominican training, the bodies and behaviors of his saintly subjects, and the readers of his texts to uncover the 'imaginative theology' that Thomas expressed in his hagiographic narratives. Smith’s sophisticated analysis illuminates Thomas’s creative exploration of the limits of language, sign, and sensory apprehension for fostering religious devotion. Her book contributes to our understanding of thirteenth-century theologies that are often overshadowed by scholastic and syllogistic thought. -- Martha G. Newman, author of
The Boundaries of Charity: Cistercian Culture and Ecclesiastical Reform, 1098-1180The results of Smith's approach are unfailingly compelling, advancing our knowledge of what Thomas of Cantimpré was hagiographically and theologically up to in his
vitae while at the same time illuminating the spiritual and intellectual world that produced him. In the process we are asked to consider the role of body and gender, of belief and unbelief, of the medieval form of criticism that travelled under the banner of the
via negativa as they operate in the thirteenth century and by extension our own. -- Robert Sweetman, H. Evan Runner Chair in the History of Philosophy, Institute for Christian Studies
Advances scholarly conversation on several fronts and makes a major contribution to the gradual deconstruction of categories and binaries within the study of medieval theologies...Smith’s work is a genuine gift to the field and will likely to be used widely for many years to come. * Reading Religion *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments
Abbreviations
Introduction. Hagiographical Theology—Making Holy Bodies from the Word
1. Thomas of Cantimpré: His Life and Literary Activity
2. “With Wondrous Horror She Fled”: Dissimilarity and Sanctity in
The Life of Christina the Astonishing3. Gendering Particularity: A Comparison of
The Life of Christina the Astonishing and
The Life of Abbot John of Cantimpré4. A Question of Proof: Augustine and the Reading of Hagiography
5. Language, Literacy, and the Saintly Body
6. The Uses of Astonishment: Apophasis and the Writing of Mystical Hagiography
7. Producing the Body of God: Exemplary Teaching, Jewish Carnality and Christian Doubt in the
Bonum Universale de ApibusConclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
