Saints Colloquia Series: Public lecture by Emőke Nagy

The Department of Medieval Studies of CEU and OTKA Saints Project cordially invite you to the public lecture of the Saints Colloquia Series by

EMŐKE NAGY

(Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca – ELTE, Budapest)

Saint Anne’s Cult in Late Medieval Hungary (14th-16th centuries): the Trinubium Legend

The veneration of St. Anne was far from being uncontroversial in the Middle Ages, due to its apocryphal origin, the saint’s vitae, and the theological debates regarding the conception of her daughter, the Virgin Mary. The surviving textual sources of her cult from late medieval Hungary are mostly sermons and legends written in Franciscan environment. By analyzing and comparing them with foreign sermo models we can follow the development of the cult in Central Europe. This framework enables us to better understand the Hungarian sermons written by two renowned preachers of the time, Oswaldus de Lasko and Pelbartus de Themeswar, not analyzed so far. The few existing studies on the written sources of St. Anne’s cult in medieval Hungary survey only her legends preserved in manuscripts of Hungarian provenance. The Teleki, Kazinczy and Érdy codices were mainly intended to be read by various types of audience. I examine these works in a broader context of theological debates around Saint Anne’s figure, and focus on the various ways in which the scribes presented the saint’s vita in ecclesiastical environment.

Emőke Nagy is PhD student in co-tutelle program at Babeș-Bolyai University (Cluj-Napoca) and Eötvös Loránd University (Budapest). Among her recent publications are: “Motherhood and Sanctity in the Cult of Saint Anne: The Reception of the Saint’s Legend Based on her Earliest Sources from Medieval Hungary, the Teleki, Kazinczy, and Érdy codices,” Colloquia 16 (2009): 22-44; “«Had She Born Ten Daughters, She Would Have Named Them All Mary because of the Kindness of the First Mary.» St. Anne in the Sermons of Two Late Medieval Hungarian Preachers,” in Promoting the Saints: Cults and Their Contexts from Late Antiquity until the Early Modern Period; Essays in Honor of Gábor Klaniczay for His 60th Birthday, ed. Ottó Gecser et al., 273-283 (Budapest: CEU Press, 2011).