Date:
October 15, 2013 - 17:30 - 19:00
Event type:
Lecture
Event audience:
Open to the Public The Department of Medieval Studies of CEU,
CULTSYMBOLS and OTKA Saints Projects
cordially invite you
to the public lecture of the OTKA Saints Colloquia Series by
Nils Holger Petersen
(University of Copenhagen)
Saints’ Liturgy, Historiography, and Identity Formation in the Latin Middle Ages
at 17:30 on Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Faculty Tower, Room 409, CEU, Nádor u. 9, Budapest
In this lecture, I shall discuss the liturgical use of saints’ legends in saints’ offices as a particular way of producing “sacred history,” focusing on the way such texts were integrated into the Nocturns (of Matins) in a saint’s office. I am not primarily concerned with the textual construction of saints’ legends as such, but rather with the mechanisms involved in the liturgical appropriation of a saint’s narrative, of significance also for the composition of the saint’s legend in the first place, since, as a text, it would have often been designed for being read in the saint’s office. First, I shall take up the question of how stories about saints and miracles were seen as part of “sacred history” in the theological philosophy of St Augustine, and how this seems to be a main reason for saints’ legends to have been accepted as liturgical readings for saints’ feasts. Secondly, I will discuss the meaning of inscribing saints’ legends in liturgical (saints’) offices and thereby in the overall annual round of liturgical celebrations, exemplifying this procedure by way of a brief discussion of one section from the Office of St Knud Lavard, a Danish saintly prince, killed in 1131 and canonised in 1169 by Pope Alexander III on the initiative of Knud’s son, King Valdemar I of Denmark.
Nils Holger Petersen is Associate Professor of Church History at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. His research focuses primarily on the reception history of Christianity in liturgy, music, and drama. He is the Project Leader of the international collaborative project of the ESF Symbols that Bind and Break Communities: Saints’ Cults as Stimuli and Expressions of Local, Regional, National and Universalist Identities (CULTSYMBOLS). He is the main editor of the book series Ritus et Artes: Traditions and Transformations at Brepols Publishers, Belgium, and an area editor for the Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception (Berlin-New York: De Gruyter, 2009–). Among recent publications are: a monograph (with E. Østrem), Medieval Ritual and Early Modern Music: The Devotional Practice of Lauda Singing in Late-Renaissance Italy (Turnhout: Brepols, 2008); and a co-edited volume (with E. Østrem and A. Bücker), Resonances: Historical Essays on Continuity and Change (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011).
File attachments:
