"And if Men Might also Imitate her Virtues" An Examination of Goscelin of Saint-Bertin's Hagiographies of the Female Saints of Ely and Their Role in the Creation of Historic Memory
This dissertation addresses the ways hagiographies were used to engage in memory creation and political criticism by examining them as postcolonial discourse.In it, I study the hagiographies written about the royal female saints of Ely by the Flemish monk Goscelin of Saint-Bertin in the late eleventh century as a form of postcolonial literature and memory creation. Goscelin was a renowned writer of Anglo-Saxon saints’ lives. Through his hagiographies he not only created images of England’s Christian past that emphasized its pious, sophisticated rulers and close ties to the papacy, he engaged in political commentary and criticism. This is most apparent in his hagiographies of the female saints associated with the monastery at Ely, in which invoked the memory of these women to create a useful English history that allowed him to address issues he had with the new rulers, comment on current events, and criticize Norman treatment of the English. Hagiographic literature, which includes miracle stories, accounts of the lives, and lessons about saints, provides unique insight into memory creation. Ostensibly written to show the excellence of a saint associated with a monastery, this genre provided a way for the author to address contemporary issues he felt warranted extra attention. The audience for hagiographies included the aristocracy as well as clergy, making them an ideal vehicle for social and political critique. Because of this hagiographies are very useful for studying medieval social and political history.The role of hagiographies in understanding the process and impact of colonization, however, has not been addressed by Anglo-Norman scholars. Anglo-Latin hagiographies written after 1066 in England were written to validate the legitimacy of Anglo-Saxon saints, and by extension the English people, and so may be considered to be a form of postcolonial literature. This literary genre is a commentary on the relationship between colonized and colonizer, showing the perception of the politically dominant culture by the subaltern as well as the subaltern self-perception. There is a paucity of scholarly works examining the period after the Conquest as postcolonial, despite the fact that England was under the rule of a foreign force. Literature written during the first forty years of the Conquest, especially hagiographic literature, deals with the immediate consequences of Norman colonization and is thus decidedly postcolonial.
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