E-grāmata: Signs and Wonders: Saints, Miracles and Prayer from the 4th Century to the 14th

This book is concerned with the concepts of Christian holiness and spirituality, from Late Antiquity through to the Middle Ages. The first group of articles focuses on the Desert Fathers, the following ones examine key figures in the monastic history of the medieval West, dealing above all with England and with Bede and Anselm of Canterbury. Throughout, Benedicta Ward's aim has been to find an approach that makes full sense of Christian writings, notably the hagiography, miracles and all. This should not be seen, she argues, simply as biography, nor as a quarry for information on social history, valuable though it may be for those purposes. The primary object of these Lives - as of the people about whom they were written - was religious; to neglect this meaning is to risk fundamentally misunderstanding these texts. Ce volume traite des concepts de la sainteté et de la spiritualité chrétiennes, de lAntiquité tardive jusquau Moyen Age. Le premier groupe détudes se concentre sur les Pčres du Désert, les suivants font lexamen de personnages-clefs dans lhistoire monastique de lOccident médiéval, sattachant avant tout Ć  lAngleterre et Ć  Bčde et Anselme de Cantorbéry. Benedicta Ward Ć  pour propos constant de trouver une approche rendent tout son sens Ć  la litterature chrétienne et notamment Ć  la littérature hagiographique, miracles et autres. Bien que valable Ć  ces deux niveaux, ceci ne devrait pas ĆŖtre perƧu, souligne-telle, en tant que simple biographie, ni en tant que source dinformation sur lhistoire sociale. Lobjet premier de ces Vies est dordre religieux; toute négligence de ce sens peut mener Ć  une mécompréhension fondamentale de ces textes.