Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things? Saints and Worshippers from the Martyrs to the Reformation, by Robert Bartlett

This sounds like a fantastic book. But then he's written them before.  

Bartlett, Robert. Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things? Saints and Worshippers from the Martyrs to the Reformation

   Reviewed by Diane Fruchtman

        DePauw University

        dianefruchtman@depauw.edu

Robert Bartlett's Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things? is delightful. Its acuity, readability, and impressive aggregation of fascinating details make it a compelling, useful, and thoroughly enjoyable read at any level of expertise. While the book is not without fault, its strengths as an avenue into the complex and multifaceted world of saints and worshippers in the Middle Ages far outweigh its shortcomings. Bartlett has a knack for selecting beautifully illustrative and compelling quotations from a wide range of primary sources to illuminate his points, allowing him to present, in glorious array, the diversity of the cult of saints. The book is a wonderful blend of judicious synthesis and confident command of detail, and its almost conversational progression of topics helps maintain and cultivate the reader's curiosity.

Bartlett offers his readers a chronological introduction to the cult of saints before branching out to a thematic exploration. Part one, "Developments," includes chapters on "Origins (100-500)," "The Early Middle Ages (500-1000)," "The High and Later Middle Ages (1000-1500)," and "The Protestant Reformation." While Bartlett occasionally uses primary sources uncritically (for instance, treating the whole of The Martyrdom of Polycarp as a contemporary account [2]), and while some of his chronological choices are curious (for instance, waiting until the second chapter to introduce Christian ambivalence about the power of the saints' bodily relics), in general these chapters provide an excellent diachronic overview of Western Christian saint veneration, one that lays a solid and necessary framework for the thematic chapters to come. The narrative Bartlett offers is familiar and succinct, yet filled with enough astute observations to make even a seasoned scholar pause and ponder. The chapter on the Reformation is rather too brief: Bartlett touches upon Luther, Zwingli, the Tudors, and Calvin just long enough to register these Reformers' varied rejections of the cult of saints, though not long enough to explore the underpinnings and manifestations of those rejections. Furthermore, the Catholic Reformation, to which the cult of the saints was essential and whose impact on saint veneration was substantial, is wholly absent from Bartlett's narrative. Nonetheless, this historical sketch is an excellent and compelling invitation into the medieval world of saints and worshippers; not only does it provide an accessible historical trajectory for the reader's reference, it piques the reader's interest and prompts questions for further study, many of which are addressed in later chapters.

The second (and far more substantial) section of the book (Part II: "Dynamics") is where Bartlett's brilliance most shines through, as he examines the cult of saints from many different angles, turning the jewel, so to speak, so that we can fully appreciate each facet. These ten chapters, covering topics as varied as liturgical calendars, literary effusions, pilgrim garb, and satirical skepticism, are so wide ranging and engaging that they warrant individual attention here.

"A saint was not a person of a particular type but a person who was treated in a particular way. That 'way' can be summed up by the word 'cult' and its three key elements were public recognition of the name and the day of the saint; special treatment of the saint's bodily remains; and celebrations of the saint in writing" (95). With these parameters, Bartlett (chapter 5: "The Nature of Cult") offers a conceptual foundation for how we can identify saints and their cults. Though sainthood remains in the eye of the beholder, historians and scholars can identify a cult by establishing that worshippers maintained a special relationship to the saint's name, body, and textual traditions. This chapter also assesses the purpose of cult--briefly stated, it is patronage, on a level slightly more accessible than dealing directly with God. The saints intercede on behalf of their petitioners, can be invoked by them, and are bound by the patron's rules of reciprocity, such that saints could be "shamed" or "humiliated" should their intervention seem in need of prodding.

Chapter 6, "Saints' Days," addresses the timing of saints' veneration and celebration. Bartlett describes the development of various liturgies for the saints (showing, in compelling detail, how murky and unsystematic this process often was); the hierarchy of feast days; how the celebration of saints' days varied by locality and thus served to carve out and reinforce local identities; and finally, how those holy days were publicized and celebrated in the lay calendar. This short chapter shows in microcosm the strengths of the book as a whole--attention to detail, illustrative examples, and an overarching dialogic tone that first illuminates what scholars "know" and then problematizes that body of knowledge by addressing questions the reader may not have considered, ultimately providing a cautious and nuanced overview of the topic. Similarly compelling is chapter 11, "Dedications and Naming." Once again, Bartlett sheds light on lesser-noted aspects of the cult of saints: the politics, logic, importance, consequences, and power of naming children after saints; the history of popes taking on saintly names as they ascend to office; the regional patterns of naming conventions, etc.

Chapters 7 and 8 tackle "Types of Saints" and "Relics and Shrines," respectively. Chapter 7 begins with the difficulties inherent in the historiographic project of counting saints--not least of which is the question of whom one should count. After describing the benefits and limitations of several models (delimiting by time, geography, canonization attempts, successful canonizations, etc.) and offering some insight into the data we think we have, Bartlett proceeds to discuss all of the various categories of saints he can muster, including Mary, angels, apostles and evangelists, martyrs, confessors (including doctors of the church, bishops, abbots, and hermits), virgins, Old Testament saints, lay saints, and royal saints (with a subsection on female royals). Then, acknowledging that any identity-based schema will fall short, Bartlett explores saints categorized by their roles as patrons of specific churches, cities, "nations," and individuals. The short sections allow the reader to peruse closely the examples that Bartlett offers, making the chapter, despite its length and encyclopedic potential, immensely readable--it is concise without being inane, wide ranging without ever becoming list-like. The "Relics and Shrines" chapter is, likewise, well structured and clear. It spans the various forms of relics (including body parts and contact relics), the logistics of shrines (their location and management), the collection of relics (in reliquaries and as objects of trade and theft), the movement of relics (in translation, procession, exchange, and theft), how relics appear in legal and military scenarios, and disputes about relics (both about their possession and about their validity).

One of the most satisfying chapters in this book, chapter 9 ("Miracles"), combines survey and analysis, incorporating medieval theories of the miraculous as well as scholarly debates about how to approach, quantify, and analyze the miracles we see in medieval sources. The chapter moves from theorizing and problematizing the miraculous to highlighting and exploring various categories of miracles, first by type (healing, provision, visions, prophecy) and then by context (war, against demons, among animals, in response to scoffers).

Less satisfying is chapter 10, on pilgrimage. While the chapter as a whole is replete with excellently chosen and illustrative quotes, an array of scholarly perspectives, and useful information, Bartlett's frame is perplexingly unhelpful. The chapter begins with a discussion of "Origins and Definitions," which opens with the following: "Unlike Judaism or Islam, Christianity did not originally have the idea of pilgrimage, that is, journeying to a holy place, a specially sanctioned spot with intrinsic spiritual significance like Jerusalem or Mecca" (410). Not only does this ill-judged preamble assume a clear historical separation between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (such that we can accurately assess "original" practices, as if each tradition emerged neatly as a discrete and distinct entity), it employs a definition of pilgrimage that limits the phenomenon to the purely physical. At the end of the chapter, Bartlett mentions--almost as an aside--the idea that a human's whole life is a pilgrimage to God, but this idea is both early and ubiquitous in Christian thought, from New Testament injunctions that a Christian should live "as a stranger and a pilgrim" in the world (Heb 11:13; 1 Pet 2:11) to Augustine's repeated characterizations of life as pilgrimage. On the one hand, by circumscribing pilgrimage as physical, Bartlett has facilitated his description of what medieval pilgrimage to the shrines of the saints looked like, what it entailed, and how it was thought of; on the other hand, he has foreclosed exploration of the spirituality that lies at the heart of the Christian experience of pilgrimage and alienation more broadly. Nonetheless, the chapter does compass some excellent topics of focus, including the debates over the localization of sanctity in a tradition whose divinity is transcendent, the various accouterments of shrines and their visitors, and the nuts-and-bolts logistics of medieval pilgrimage.

Chapters 12 and 13, on "Images of the Saints" and "The Literature of Sanctity," once again represent Bartlett at his best. These vast topics are treated with attention to detail, superbly selected examples, and fair representations of current scholarship and historical debates alike, all suspended in a clear and helpful organizational framework. In chapter 12, Bartlett explores the rise of images in the cult of saints as "focused on devotion rather than just being mimetic or memorial" (472), and he gives a clear and sensitive overview of iconoclasm (both East and West) before discussing the manifestations of the iconophile victory in various media and contexts. Likewise, in chapter 13, Bartlett's treatment of the literature of sanctity explores the whys and wherefores of writing about saints (including a brief discussion of hagiography as both a genre and a source for historians of religious life) before addressing various manifestations in legendaries, miracle books, sermons, canonizations, and vernacular hagiography.

Confidence in the cult of saints, generally speaking, was a consistent feature of Christian life in the medieval Latin West. But in every generation there were objectors, Christians who felt that the cult of the saints was ridiculous, idolatrous, polytheistic, pointless, or simply distracting. This "Doubt and Dissent" forms the subject of chapter 14. Beginning with Vigilantius, Bartlett moves from early medieval dissenters to the "Western Heretics" (the Cathars, Waldensians, and Lollards), finally proceeding to address the more diffuse skepticism that pervaded medieval cultures: the "bubbling broth of mockery, disrespect, doubt, disbelief, disdain, and derision" that stood in contrast to the "serious and principled" objections of the "heretics" (596). Recorded in hagiographies (where these doubters were invariably overcome) and in satire (where true sanctity is inviolate and sham sanctity a comedy of errors), this "skepticism and scoffing" usually served to reinforce the cult of the saints, rather than to undermine it. Bartlett ends the chapter with a section on "policing the saints"--how the Church controlled the proliferation of veneration and in effect instituted its own internal and ultimately cult-preserving systematic doubt and dissent. This chapter is essential to the book, providing a much-needed counterbalance to the attitudes seen in other chapters. And its placement at the end, concentrating all naysayers in one final content chapter, serves well to highlight positions that, if dispersed among other topics, might have been overwhelmed. It leaves the reader with a strong sense that there is much more to be known and to be questioned than she has already encountered. On the other hand, the separation of "doubt and dissent" into its own chapter replicates the impression that these positions were marginal and worthy of exclusion from the general discussion of saint veneration, an impression only underscored by Bartlett's unqualified use of terms like "heretic" and "orthodox."

The only thoroughly disappointing chapter is the final one, "Reflections," which is preoccupied with the conceptual origins and transcultural touchstones of the cult of saints. Bartlett explores whether saint veneration was an extension of pagan devotion to the gods, an offshoot of nature-worship, a negotiation of ancient mortuary practice, a consequence of Abrahamic views about inhumation, and/or a cousin to ancestor veneration. In each case, Bartlett presents the possibilities alongside scholarship that has assessed them, and in each case unsurprisingly finds the cult of saints unique in some way, not entirely attributable to one or another theory of origination. The question is: why do these possibilities, so long and so clearly discredited and so reductive of the topic itself, need to be aired? They are certainly less illuminating than a phenomenological or theological analysis of saint veneration would be. Singularly problematic is the final section, "Comparisons and Conclusions." The evenhanded diplomacy, helpful documentation, and reader-focused progression of topics evidenced elsewhere in the book are all lacking here, and Bartlett's comparisons are facile and unhelpful. He makes unsubstantiated comparisons between martyrdom in Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, resorting, for example, to the historically incorrect commonplace that Christian martyrdom is "marked off" from "Muslim martyrdom by its almost exclusively passive character" (634); furthermore (and once again with no supporting citations), he asserts that "in their radical asceticism Christian saints are closer to the holy men of Hinduism and Buddhism than to those of Judaism or Islam" (634). Comparisons between and across traditions must not be grounded in superficial external similarities but in contextual study that respects the intricacies of each tradition in the appropriate historical moment. Without sufficient care, comparisons are at best academically useless and at worst politically irresponsible. It was disappointing to see such carelessness here, at the end of such a strong book.

Also disappointing is the absence of an answer to the title's query: Why can the dead do such great things? Intermittently throughout the text we catch possible glimpses of medieval reasoning regarding the theology, anthropology, and soteriology behind belief in the efficacy of saintly intercession, but the question is never an object of focus or direct discussion, despite the fact that, for medieval thinkers, it often was. Of course, it would be impossible to address all of the cultural and theological logics that made the cult of the saints intelligible to practitioners, but given Bartlett's elsewhere evident talent for presenting disputed ideas in a productive and illuminating way, the omission of this central topic, a key feature of medieval spirituality and the medieval logic of sainthood, is jarring. Bartlett's is not a history of theology, but a history of practice, overwhelmingly¬--the two must be considered in tandem to be fully understood.

Aside from these (perhaps parochial) disappointments, the book is both a fantastic resource and an enjoyable read. Despite its concatenation of sources and exempla, the book never feels list-like or tedious, and the author's skill in selecting topics, quotations, and references makes the reader more than usually inclined to use this as a jumping-off point for further exploration--a
quality that makes this work particularly well suited to casual readers seeking an exciting overview of the medieval cult of saints, upper-level undergraduates in classroom settings and exploring independent research projects, and academics interested in pursuing conversations across areas of specialty. Frankly, it is difficult to imagine a scholar who would not glean something new from reading this work

In Georgia in the Caucasus, a modern stylite monk revives living on a stone pillar

Here's the story (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty):

In an isolated part of the Caucasus, a monk is spending his days in prayer and silence atop a 40-meter pillar of limestone in western Georgia (near the town of Chiatura). The Katskhi Pillar was used by stylites -- Christian ascetics who lived atop pillars and eschewed worldly temptations -- until the 15th century when the practice was stopped following the Ottoman Empire's invasion of Georgia. For centuries the pillar was abandoned and locals could only look up at the mysterious ruins on its summit. Finally, in 1944, a mountain climber ascended the pillar, discovering the skeleton of a stylite and the remains of a chapel. Shortly after the collapse of communism and the resurgence of religion in Georgia, former "bad boy" Maxime Qavtaradze (now 59) decided to live atop the pillar in the way of the old stylites. “When I was young I drank, sold drugs, everything. When I ended up in prison.... It was time for a change. I used to drink with friends in the hills around here and look up at this place, where land met sky. We knew the monks had lived up there before and I felt great respect for them." In 1993 Maxime took monastic vows and climbed the pillar to begin his new life. "For the first two years there was nothing up here so I slept in an old refrigerator to protect me from the weather." Since then Maxime and the nearby Christian community have constructed a ladder to the top, rebuilt the chapel, and built a cottage where Maxime spends his days praying, reading, and "preparing to meet God." As a result of the interest in the site there is now a religious community at the base of the pillar. Men with troubled lives come to stay and ask for guidance from Maxime and the young priests who live at the site. The men are fed and housed on the condition they join the priests in praying for around seven hours per day (including from 2 a.m. until sunrise) and help with chores. (19 PHOTOS) Photos by Amos Chapple.

Michael the Syrian says

Concerning the War of the Birds.
In 1434 of the Syrian Era [A.D. 1123], a great war of the birds took place. Cranes and storks assembled for many days in the country from Amida to Tellakum (T'lxum/T'e"lxam). Then they began sending emissaries back and forth for three days. After a good deal of this traffic, they commenced fighting from the third hour [g411] until the ninth hour, shrieking loudly the while. There was a great slaughter on both sides. The storks were defeated and fled, and the war ended. Only God knows the reason for this. 
More on this important chronicle and its new English translation soon. 

The Crusades and the Christian World of the East: Rough Tolerance, by Christopher MacEvitt. Another good one

Christopher MacEvitt's book has a certain resemblance to Giancarlo Casale's book on Ottoman exploration. It's about an important, difficult subject; it goes against the prevailing wisdom; and it is based on difficult research in fragmentary sources.

MacEvitt presents  the prevailing wisdom  about relations between Western Christians settling in the holy land and the Eastern Christians who already lived there, thus:  as a case of colonial segregation. There are not a lot of sources that discuss the legal situation, how legal doctrines actually worked, or how Eastern and Western Christians interacted in daily life. The sources we do have come from the 13th century, after the restoration of the kingdom of Jerusalem following its destruction in the 1180s. MacEvitt has returned to the 12th century, and done his best to find the real story of daily life in charters and, in the north where Armenian documents exist in some numbers, chronicles, to see whether different Christian groups actually lived strictly segregated.

Well of course, he concludes that 13th century evidence gives a false picture of the earlier era. In contrast to the effort by churchmen and legislators to classify people by ecclesiastical and even Christological criteria, the early crusader states were characterized by an effort to obscure the dividing lines. Although there was a strong argument for giving priority to the person's ecclesiastical allegiance in legal and status matters, MacEvitt portrays a society where most people did not want to live in religiously-defined silos. They wanted to have a certain degree of freedom of association, and there was a consistent effort by documented individuals to make sure that they were not pinned down against their will. That does not mean that everybody loved everyone else or that some groups were not more important than others. That's the rough in "rough tolerance."

 Over the last year the situation in Syria has made me realize how very diverse the country is even now. Sometimes the divisions– religious divisions – between Syrians don't matter very much, and other times you are forced to pick a side, generally one chosen for you by unsympathetic neighbors.  And then you fight till everybody's tired of fighting, or one group establishes a short or long-term supremacy. It looks to me like during the crusading times, things were not that different.  Except in the 12th and 13th century, there was always some Frank or Turk or Egyptian or Byzantine showing up to claim the land and the holy places. But if you look back a century or so and realize that Syria not so long ago included Lebanon, Jordan, and Israel, then maybe that difference disappears, too.

Update:  can sectarianism be discussed in today's Syria?  Should it?  From Ehsani at Syria Comment:

This is what a Syrian commentator wrote on one of the social media outlets this morning:

“Anyone that mentions the name of sect or religion in Syria, in any context, and all those who incite sect or religion in Syria, in any context and all those who try to show a range as a victim and a look executioner in any context is a traitor to Syria and Syria is innocent of it. All intolerance for other than Syria is betrayal. Martyrs have one religion and one sect and that is Syria. Blood flowing on the soil of Syria have a single identity and that is the identity of Syria.”

كل من يذكر اسم طائفة أو دين في سوريا بأي سياق و كل من يحرض على طائفة أو دين في سوريا بأي سياق وكل من يحاول أن يظهر طائفة بمظهر الضحية و طائفة بمظهر الجلاد بأي سياق هو خائن لسوريا و سوريا بريئة منه فكل تعصب لغير سوريا قدس الأقداس خيانة.
للشهداء دين واحد و طائفة واحدة هي سوريا فالدماء التي تسيل على تراب سوريا لها هوية واحدة هي الهوية السورية

While it is hard to argue with pleas to ignore religious and sectarian tendencies that may incite more killings and hatred, ignoring the obvious demons we face does not strike me as a credible solution.

It should be obvious to all of us by now that fake stability is an unsustainable model that is unlikely to last for long. Societies cannot advance and prosper unless they openly face their demons and discuss their long held taboos.

I, for one, want every Syrian to openly discuss everything that ails our society. This covers the role of religion and sectarianism.

Image:  Not St. George; St. Sergios.

How one gained entree into the highest circles in 6th-century Europe

This year I returned to the early Middle Ages or late Antiquity to teach a fourth-year seminar on Gregory of Tours. Gregory was a sixth century bishop of what is now western France and who wrote a massive history of his times, the Histories, or more commonly the History of the Franks.  Gregory is a lot of fun to study because he is interested in lots of things and wrote with a great deal of personality (though how much of that personality is literary artefact is hard to say).


Gregory begins his history with this statement: "I wish first of all to explain my faith, so that whoever reads me may not doubt that I am a Catholic." This is followed by about two pages of a detailed creed or declaration of faith. Fair warning about his priorities, admittedly not very surprising from a bishop who is justifying his role as a teacher to his audience, which undoubtedly included his fellow bishops and would include in the future his successors in the church at Tours.  For some people, this declaration was an essential preamble to anything else Gregory might say.. Gregory was completely in sympathy with that point of view.


Yesterday, I was reading the letters of St. Radegund in preparation for a class discussion of this famous nun who lived at the same time Gregory did.    Radegund is a very interesting figure.  Born as a Thuringian princess, she was carted off to Gaul while still a child, after the Franks had destroyed most of her family. On reaching adulthood, she was married to King Lothar of the Franks, presumably to strengthen the Frankish claim to overlordship of Thuringia. Radegund and Lothar never got along very well, and eventually she insisted on becoming a nun and establishing a convent where she could live the ascetic life surrounded by other like minded women – and some women who were also high-ranking refugees from court life. Radegund became the foremost female religious figure in Frankish Gaul, but never completely lost her royal status.  One example of her working the system through her dual status was her acquisition of a piece or pieces of the True Cross from the Byzantine emperor. We can guess that if a random, distant nun had asked for such a fantastic gift, she would not have gotten it.  Her request would never have gotten to the Emperor.


We dod not have Radegund's request for a relic, we do have something that looks like a thank you letter that she set off to Emperor Justin (II) and Empress Sophia once she had it.  And a curious letter it is.  
Here's the beginning of her letter:


To the August Justin and Sophia 
The highest glory of the father, son, and nourishing spirit, 
one god to be adored in this trinity, 
majesty, triple person, simple substance, 
equal consort and coeval with itself, 
one force remaining the same, one power in three 
(which the father begetting , the spirit enables), 
indeed distinct in persons, joined in vigor, 
of one nature, equal in strength, light, throne, 
the trinity was always with him, ruling without time, 
lacking no use nor capable by seizing. 10 
Highest glory to you, creator of things and redeemer, 
who, just, gives Justin headship in the world. 
He claims, properly, the dominant fortress over kings, 
who pleases the heavenly king by serving. 
How deservedly he rules Rome and the Roman world 
who follows what the dogma says from the cathedra of Peter, 
what Paul sang far and wide, with one trumpet to thousands, 
to heathens and the senseless he poured out salt from his mouth, 
whose four-sided axle the wheel of his tongue circled, 
cold hearts are warm from the faith of his eloquence. 20 
Highest glory to you, creator of things and redeemer, 
who, just, gives Justin headship in the world. 
Strengthened, the disturbed faith of the church shines again 
and venerable law returns to its former place. 
Give back your vows to God, since the new purple holds whatever 
the council of Chalcedon established. 
Gaul sings this to your merits, Augustus, 
the Rhone, the Rhine, the Danube, the Elbe do. 
Beneath the western axle Galicia heard the deed, 
Biscayne brought it to the nearby Basques. 30 
The pious fable runs to the farthest people of the faith 
and the British land across the ocean is favorable. 
How well, lover, do you share the care with the lord! 
You make his causes yours, he makes yours his. 
Christ gives you the power, you give Christ the honor: 
he gives the summit, you give back the faith. 
There was nothing more on earth that he might give to be ruled, 
nor more that you could give back than nourishing faith is strong. 
Fathers sent into exile for the name of Christ 
then came back, with the diadem to you. 40 
Released from prison, residing in the former seat, 
hold you to be one general good. 
Curing so many sorrows of the confessors, 
you come as a healing to innumerable people. 


Presumably Radegund had in a previous communication established that she was the kind of person who was worthy of Imperial attention -- holy woman and influential Frankish queen.  But just in case Justin and  Sophia might have second thoughts, and be tempted to think that Radegund was only a barbarian they mistakenly had been overgenerous to, Radegund spends line after line of poetry buttering them up, showing that she is quite aware of current religious conflicts, is on the right side of them, and appreciates (weak word) Justin's role in establishing theological truth and restoring unjustly persecuted bishops to their sees.  The man is a universal hero and his wife is not far behind him.  

That's the way, or one way, that one established one's right to a place in the Big Time in sixth-century Christian Europe.  Radegund may have been a Thuringian or a Frank, she was determined to show that she was no hick. One wonders if the letter had the desired effect.


Image:  Radegund imagined by the illustrator of the Nuremberg Chronicle, 15th century.

My characterization of Pope Innocent III

He was determined to rally Christendom to discipline the whole disobedient world.