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Book SynopsisTrade Review“Fifteenth-Century Lives is one of the most original studies of later medieval sanctity I have encountered. Karen Winstead analyzes ways in which fifteenth-century hagiographical texts, often considered staid, dull, and conservative, are instead highly innovative.” —Nancy Bradley Warren, author of Chaucer and Religious Controversies in the Medieval and Early Modern Eras
"This is a significant contribution to our understanding of the development of literary treatments of saints’ lives, and I found that the final chapters, which looked at the ways that later authors continued and changed the emphases of the chosen texts, provided some unexpected insights." —The Medieval Review
"Winstead provides fruitful insight into the connections between English pre- and post-Reformation thought. She successfully argues that fifteenth-century reformers were just as concerned as their sixteenth-century Protestant successors about the importance of education to create and maintain theologically orthodox Christians." —Journal of British Studies
"Winstead demonstrates true mastery of late medieval English hagiography.... [H]er literary analysis and historicism is impressive and convincing—one finishes the book with a greater understanding of late medieval English hagiography as a hidden historical resource." —Fides et Historia