Signs and Wonders

This book is concerned with the concepts of Christian holiness and spirituality, from Late Antiquity through to the Middle Ages. The first group of articles focuses on the Desert Fathers, the following ones examine key figures in the monastic history of the medieval West, dealing above all with England and with Bede and Anselm of Canterbury. Throughout, Benedicta Ward''s aim has been to find an approach that makes full sense of Christian writings, notably the hagiography, miracles and all. This should not be seen, she argues, simply as biography, nor as a quarry for information on social history, valuable though it may be for those purposes. The primary object of these Lives - as of the people about whom they were written - was religious; to neglect this meaning is to risk fundamentally misunderstanding these texts. Ce volume traite des concepts de la saintet© et de la spiritualit© chr©tiennes, de lâAntiquit© tardive jusquâau Moyen Age. Le premier groupe dâ©tudes se concentre sur les P¨res du D©sert, les suivants font lâexamen de personnages-clefs dans lâhistoire monastique de lâOccident m©di©val, sâattachant avant tout   lâAngleterre et   B¨de et Anselme de Cantorb©ry. Benedicta Ward   pour propos constant de trouver une approche rendent tout son sens   la litterature chr©tienne et notamment   la litt©rature hagiographique, miracles et autres. Bien que valable   ces deux niveaux, ceci ne devrait pas ªtre per§u, souligne-tâelle, en tant que simple biographie, ni en tant que source dâinformation sur lâhistoire sociale. Lâobjet premier de ces Vies est dâordre religieux; toute n©gligence de ce sens peut mener   une m©compr©hension fondamentale de ces textes.