God's Chosen: The Cults of Virgin Martyrs in Anglo-Saxon England

<p>At the center of Anglo-Saxon life was a thriving religious culture, which—in one of its most vibrant forms—was expressed in the cult of saints. The virgin martyr became one of the most popular forms of sanctity, yet with hundreds of possible martyrs who could have been venerated, the question becomes which ones ultimately thrived in Anglo-Saxon England and why? Moreover, the very need for these two questions reveals a troubling fact: when writing about female virgin martyrs, the hagiographers never chose a native Anglo-Saxon woman as the focus of their passiones. In exploring both the reasons for and the implications of the choice made by these hagiographers to forgo local female virgin martyrs in favor of foreign models, I particularly investigate the appeal of Saint Juliana of Nicomedia and St. Margaret of Antioch, as they represent not only two of the earliest models of the virgin martyr brought to England, but also two of the models that would survive to the end of the Anglo-Saxon era and continue on into the Anglo-Norman one. The purpose of this dissertation is thus two-fold: firstly, to demonstrate that viable options existed for Anglo-Saxon female martyrs and were intentionally ignored by those who had the authority to promote their cults; and, secondly, to explore the specific appeal the Mediterranean female martyrs held for Anglo-Saxons.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

English

Level thesis:degree_level

Doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

English

Year dc:date.available

2015

Author dc:creator

• Dunn, Colleen

Contributors dc:contributor

• Davis-Secord, Jonathan
• Damico, Helen
• Obermeier, Anita
• Graham, Timothy
• N/A

• Saint Juliana
• Saint Margaret
• Anglo-Saxon England
• English Language and Literature

Language dc:language

English

Identifier

https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/engl_etds/4

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalrepository.unm.edu:engl_etds-1003