Holy Men and Holy Women: Old English Prose Saints' Lives and Their Contexts

This is a collection of essays on the literature of "saints' lives" in Anglo-Saxon literature.

"This book will fill a major gap in the field of Anglo-Saxon studies. The prose saints' lives represent a major body of surviving Old English literature, and have much to tell us about the culture, intellectual history, and literary traditions of the Anglo-Saxon period, but they have been generally neglected in favor of poetic texts and Anglo-Latin hagiography. Given the renewed interest in Old English prose and in medieval hagiography generally, this book is both timely and valuable. In addition, the contributions are of uniformly high quality, and represent diverse approaches and methodologies. The essays by Whatley and Hill make up a splendid introduction to the historical and literary study of hagiography." -- Charles D. Wright, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

"This collection significantly advances knowledge of Old English prose saints' lives through its inclusion of resource materials, the results of basic research, and new interpretations of Aelfric's works that help us to better understand his aims and achievements as the leading author of prose saints' lives." -- Mary P. Richards, Dean College of Arts & Sciences, University of Delaware

"This is a distinguished contribution to the field; I don't know how we got along without it for so long. The introduction by Whatley is magnificent, a model of its kind: 'cutting edge' scholarship yet readable, accessible to a wide audience. The pieces by Lapidge/Jackson, Joyce Hill, and Scragg will be standard reading. The literary articles are either excellent or provocative, usually both. This will be on every Anglo-Saxonist's bookshelf." -- Roberta Frank, Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto