Postdoctoral researcher
E-mail: ildiko.csepregi@gmail.com
Dr. Ildikó Csepregi studied Classics and medieval studies, earned her doctorate from the Central European University and the European Doctorate title from the Università Ca’ Foscari, Venice. In the past ten years she has been working on the transformation of the practice of temple sleep (incubation) and published on various aspects of non-medical healing. Her research fields include: illness interpretations, illness narratives, ritual healing, miracle accounts, the hagiography of doctor saints, dreams and the formation of healing cults. Before joining the project, she has been a research fellow at Dumbarton Oaks, where she prepared her book for publication by CUP.
Project
Ildikó’s postdoctoral work in the project is twofold: the first part consists of preparing the English translation of Saint Margaret’s legend and canonization documents, with notes and commentaries. The importance of Saint Margaret’s figure for Hungarian medieval studies needs no explanantion. In addition, her legend and the written testimonies of her canonization process – that lasted almost from her death in the 13th century until the Second World War – left a strong mark in European hagiography and art history. What is more, the miracles recorded in these documents attest to various aspects of medieval everyday life. They form a group of sources for the way of life of those who turned to Margaret: women, children, sick people, exactly those social groups who in other sources left little traces behind.The people who turned to the saint most often sought help for an illness. Hence the second part of her research project: The healing miracles as well as the dreams and visions leading to the miraculous cure allow us an insight into the working of medieval thaumaturgic cults. Ildikó proposes to examine the healing miracles in the records and establish a typology both for the invocation of the saint as healer and the miraculous cures themselves. This material offers a valuable comparision with other medieval healing saints whose cults established themself here (e.g. Saint Cosmas and Damian or Saint Luke).
The English edition and interpretation of this work would enrich international research with an important hagiographic source and most importantly, would make Margaret’s legend and representative canonization documents available for foreign researchers and students who do not read Latin any more.
(The translation and edition will be based on the following volumes: Inquisitio super vita, conversatione et miraculis beatae Margarethae virginis, Belae IV. Hungarorum regis filiae, sanctimonialis monasterii virginis gloriosae de insula Danubii, Ordinis Praedicatorum, Vesprimis diocesis. Ed. FraknóiVil mos. In: A veszprémipüspökség római oklevél tára. Monumenta Romana Episcopatus Vesprimiensis I–IV. Ed. a collegio historicorum Hungarorum Romano. Budapest, 1896–1907; Legenda Beatae Margaritae de Hungaria. In: Scriptores rerum Hungaricarum tempore ducum regumque stirpis Arpadianae gestarum I–II. Edendo operi praefuit Emericus Szentpétery. Budapest, 1999.2, 685-709.)