Holy Matter, Human Ties: Community-Building in the Vitae Kentigerni by Jocelin of Furness and John of Tynemouth

Wagner, Ricarda Patricia (30 March 2019). Holy Matter, Human Ties: Community-Building in the Vitae Kentigerni by Jocelin of Furness and John of Tynemouth (Unpublished). In: Northern Lights: Late Medieval Devotion to Saints from the North of England. Universität Lausanne. 28-30 März 2019.

Full text not available from this repository. (Request a copy)

The Life of St Kentigern, composed by Jocelin of Furness and then adapted by John of Tynemouth, is an extraordinary tale of a late-sixth-century saint who is born of no father, becomes bishop of Glasgow, travels to Rome multiple times and is instrumental in the Christianisation of southwest Scotland. In the preface to his Vita, Jocelin explains that his “Gaelic” source contained unorthodox material undermining the text’s Christian message. While we do not know exactly what Jocelin is referring to here, scholars have established the overall intention of his textual reworking: writing in the historical context of the newly independent diocese of Glasgow, Jocelin aimed to emphasise the unique identity of the region he calls “Cambria”, whose patron saint Kentigern testified to the area’s distinctiveness even then.

In this paper, I will draw on theoretical approaches from material culture studies to explore how exactly St Kentigern shapes such a notion of Cambria-ness. Adapting Latour’s concept of the association, I will argue that the saint builds a network of persons and things that crucially increases the cohesion of his local community. By associating himself with SS David and Columba, Kentigern puts his see on the hagiographical map of the North. As his Vitae do not include reports of posthumous miracles, the saint must prove his mastery over matter during his lifetime. Kentigern’s collection of wondrous things left behind includes a hazel twig, a staff, a bell, a ring, and a ram’s head – material focal points for his Cambrian community of followers.

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
Division/Institute:	06 Faculty of Humanities > Department of Linguistics and Literary Studies > Institute of English Languages and Literatures 06 Faculty of Humanities > Department of Linguistics and Literary Studies > Institute of English Languages and Literatures > Old English
UniBE Contributor:	Wagner, Ricarda Patricia
Subjects:	800 Literature, rhetoric & criticism 800 Literature, rhetoric & criticism > 820 English & Old English literatures
Language:	English
Submitter:	Federico Erba
Date Deposited:	21 Feb 2020 15:59
Last Modified:	14 Mar 2024 12:31
URI:	https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/138830