Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-788cddb947-55tpx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-10-14T05:27:13.780Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

6 - The idea of sanctity and the uncanonized life of Margery Kempe

from Part two - Cultural ideals and cultural conflicts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2011

Andrew Galloway
Affiliation:
Cornell University, New York
Get access

Summary

Although medievalists sometimes use the word “sanctity” as a synonym for “sainthood,” people in the later Middle Ages rarely did. Rather, Middle English saunctite, like the Old French saintete and the still earlier Christian Latin sanctitas, tends to have amore general meaning, suggesting a state of blessedness or a righteous manner of living rather than canonized sainthood in a strict sense. In a story from the Middle English translation of the Gesta Romanorum, for instance, in which a young woman's supernatural ability to create a shirt from a tiny piece of cloth is moralized as the Incarnation, Mary's womb is described as having undergone “sanctificacion” (sanctificatio). In this instance, the use of the word “sanctity” highlights Mary's body itself, as the vessel of creation and a site of blessedness, rather than drawing attention to her place in the roster of saints.

More common still was the sense of “sanctity” as lived righteousness. In Piers the Ploghman's Crede (c. 1390), one of the friars interviewed by the naive narrator describes “the pure Apostells life” that he and his brothers claim to imitate: they “suen hem in saunctite, and suffren well harde/ . . . and in wo lybbeth/In penaunce and poverte, and precheth the puple,/By ensample of oure life.” Despite the poem's satirical nature, saunctite's meaning here connotes a way of life in which actions accord with spiritual ideals. In these medieval works, sanctity is a lifestyle and not, in a narrow sense, sainthood.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×