Narrating Power and Authority in Late Antique and Medieval Hagiography across East and West

Ghazzal Dabiri, ed., Narrating Power and Authority in Late Antique and Medieval Hagiography across East and West (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021). 9782503590653.

Reviewed by Richard Broome, University of Leeds, rickybroome@hotmail.com.

Hagiography—a genre once seen as containing texts that had to be mined for historical nuggets buried within superstitious nonsense—has become one of the most studied genres of medieval literature since the last decades of the twentieth century. Hagiographical texts are now treated as worthwhile sources about the cultures that produced them, offering commentary on all aspects and levels of society. Even if many of the texts are based as much on topoi as on reality, this only makes hagiography more fertile ground for the kinds of comparative studies at the heart of the movement towards a more inclusive, global Middle Ages, as the volume under review proves.

Narrating Power and Authority is the product of the almost identically titled 2018 conference ‘Narrating Power and Authority in Late Antique and Medieval Hagiography from East to West’. According to the book’s acknowledgements: “The goal of the conference was to bring together a diverse group of scholars working on the various hagiographical traditions of the late antique and medieval periods to challenge commonly held notions about how power and authority are articulated and to what possible aims” (p. 7). The resulting volume thus offers a wide geographical and chronological scope ranging from Persia to western Europe and from the fifth to the fifteenth centuries. There are more contributions on the East than the West, which is rare for an Anglophone volume and serves as a particularly welcome introduction for a Western/Anglophone audience that may be unfamiliar with such subjects as Georgian Christianity or medieval Zoroastrianism.

In her introduction to the volume, editor Ghazzal Dabiri expands upon the goal of the originating conference quoted above. Dabiri opens with two stories from the Taẕkirat al-awliyāʾ of the Sufi author Farīd al-Dīn ʿAṭṭār (pp. 13-17). The stories each contain a rather generic encounter between an imam and, first, a secular ruler and, second, an ascetic master. In both cases, the imam is shown to be the superior. Yet, as Dabiri argues, such generic encounters – long identified as stock topoi by modern historians – could be put to very different uses by hagiographers. It is these different – and specifically unconventional – uses of topoi, that, according to Dabiri, form the common thread running through the volume (p. 20). I shall return to common threads towards the end of this review, but first I shall provide an overview of the rest of the contributions.

Following the introduction, the volume is divided into four sections. Instead of being ordered chronologically or geographically, these are thematic. Indeed, even within the sections, the chapters are not arranged in a particular order. Rather than feeling haphazard, this arrangement serves to demonstrate the longue durée of debates about power and authority in hagiography across both time and space.

The first section, “Saints at the Courts of Rulers,” gets straight to the heart of what it meant to debate power and authority in the medieval world: What happened when a secular ruler and a representative of divine authority were at odds? Such encounters are at the root of the misunderstanding that the medieval world was characterized by the clash between “Church” and “State.”¹ The contributions in this section remind us that, of course, things were more complicated than that.

In his contribution on the Life of John of Damascus, Petros Tsagkaropoulos demonstrates that, as much as saints could offer counterpoints of authority to secular rulers during their lifetime, the texts written about them must always be seen instead through the lens of contemporary concerns, however far removed they are from the original events. Such can be seen particularly clearly when we have texts from different contexts: in the case of John of Damascus, a Greek and an Arabic version of the Life. Tsagkaropoulos thoroughly explores the differences these contexts made to the resulting texts’ differing attitudes toward the relationship between John and authority figures, and toward the nature of power and authority as concepts.

Following with another John in the Georgian Life of John of Edessa, Damien Labadie examines how realistic expectations about Christian life under Muslim rule could be realised through careful presentation of the situation. A Jewish stereotype, Phineas, provides the figure who is hostile to Christians, having turned the caliph against his Christian subjects. The caliph, meanwhile, requests a debate between John and Phineas, and in the course of the debate becomes a sympathetic figure, unwilling to convert, but well placed and inclined to protect Christians from persecution. Labadie elucidates from this account three traits Christians could hope for in a Muslim ruler: divine authority to rule in God’s name and listen to Christians, rhetorical authority to establish religious truth, and political authority to enforce religious freedom.

Of course, things were not necessarily easier for Christians living under Christian rule, especially in the theologically turbulent late antique Byzantine Empire. In this context, Maria Conterno explores how a story preserved in Eutychius of Alexandria’s String of Pearls (or Annals). The story is that of two purported childhood friends, Theodosius I and Theophilus of Alexandria, and is laden with biblical imagery equally applied to both protagonists. Yet, while the message appears to be that secular rulers were in a position of superiority in that they could appoint bishops, the reminder is that their authority ultimately rested on their own holiness and subservience to God’s power.

The second section, “Authority at the Cross-Sections of Society,” examines the relationship between religion and authority across social boundaries, particularly of gender and class. For the most past, the upper echelons of a religious career were closed off to women and the poor. Yet, in theory, sainthood could offer compelling ways to overcome these boundaries—for example, by allowing routes to sanctity for both men and women, or in the use of its tropes of poverty to criticize the wealthy.

Federica Boldrini addresses the gender boundary in her examination of female mystics in late medieval Italy. Inspired by the growth of the Mendicant movement, these women were marked not by their renunciation of the world as such (as had been the case with earlier female holy figures) but rather by their renunciation of “female vanities”—specifically, their fashionable attire. In fact, such women provided a critique not only of secular femininity but also of the trappings of the wealthy.

We then move onto two contributions about Zoroastrianism in the Islamic world. Carlo G. Cereti provides a clear and comprehensive examination of the fullest extant early versions of Zoroaster’s legend, those found in Dēnkard book VII and the Zarātushtnāmah. Cereti does an excellent job of contextualizing the two versions, particularly by highlighting the differences an Islamic cultural milieu made for the latter in order to keep it relevant to a non-Zoroastrian audience. Cereti opens with an equally lucid overview of the previous historiography on the topic.

The editor continues this examination of Islamic writing about Zoroastrianism in her own contribution, focusing on how Zoroastrians both historical and contemporary could provide exemplars for correct Muslim behaviour. Dabiri uses as her case study two works by the Sufi author Farīd al-Dīn ʿAṭṭār, who showed a fascinating interest in interactions at all levels of society. Particularly important is how Dabiri relates ʿAṭṭār’s own position at multiple social boundaries to his complex and open-minded worldview.

The third section, “Mapping the Terrain of Power,” explores the use of hagiography in confirming, consolidating, or even complicating geographical borders. Recent scholarship has demonstrated the importance of such issues for the authors of saints’ lives, especially when the author and/or saint in question was the abbot or bishop of an establishment with contested boundaries.² In such cases, there could be competition not only between secular and religious figures, but also between rival seats of religious authority.

Maïeul Rouquette examines an example of this from late antique Cyprus. Rouquette lays out the case against the traditional view that the fifth century witnessed a long conflict between the churches of Cyprus and Antioch before moving on to reframe the conflict as one between two churches on Cyprus itself: Salamis and Tamasos. Each church used a different technique to establish its primacy: Salamis relied on the apostolic tradition of Barnabas and Tamasos on the non- (or pre-)apostolic tradition of Heracleides. Rather than seeing this simply as a battle for supremacy, Rouquette shows that the churches were engaged in an intricate debate about the relationship between two founding figures.

We revisit Georgia for Nikoloz Aleksidze’s exploration of the entangled relationships between geography and authority in tenth- and eleventh-century hagiography from the region. Aleksidze builds upon a previously recognized common thread in Georgian hagiography: the theme of alienation caused by holy figures finding themselves in a foreign land (usually having traveled to Georgia from elsewhere). Aleksidze astutely points out that this theme emerged because the authors of the texts were Georgians living on Mount Athos, thus themselves experiencing the alienation of separation from their homeland.

In possibly the strongest contribution to the volume, Jason Moralee tackles the sixth-century Roman gesta martyrum. That the gesta circulating anonymously among Rome’s lay population presented a potential threat to the Church hierarchy is certain, but Moralee takes nothing else about the collection(s) for granted. Yet, problematizing the origins and compositions of these texts is not Moralee’s goal. Instead, focussing on the Acts of Silvester – one of the few gesta to be singled out for approval – Moralee demonstrates how hagiographers presented their audiences with a Rome that appeared grounded in reality but in fact could be just as much the product of the author’s imagination. The author then built on top of that an ambivalent attitude to secular authority, which—even when Christian—remained inferior to the power God worked through the saints.

The fourth and final section, simply titled “Negotiating Power and Authority,” overlaps somewhat with the first section, although the focus is less on the relationship between religious and secular authority and more on how hagiographical texts contributed to understandings of authority in society generally.

Sibel Kocaer provides an examination of one facet of the complex Islamic hagiographical figure Saltuk found in the Ṣaltuḳ-nāme, in which the holy man not only disguised himself as a Christian, but also lived in the Christian community and acted as a vessel for teaching Muslims (and reminding Christians) about various elements of Christianity. Unlike previous scholars, Kocaer contends that at least some aspects of Saltuk’s lessons are accurate to reality, albeit reflecting Christian social mores rather than religious beliefs as such. Kocaer also frames this study within a welcome overview of the life of the text’s patron, the Ottoman prince Cem.

Fabrizio Petorella examines the Life of Saint Daniel the Stylite and argues that the text’s author, rather than being aligned with any particular Byzantine theological faction, saw orthodoxy and legitimacy as united in the figure of the emperor, since—in line with Pauline doctrine—all earthly authority originated from God. This is in contrast to some other hagiographical texts, whose authors used their subjects to criticize secular rules. Instead, the author of the Life of Saint Daniel has their subject support legitimate emperors while still occasionally reminding them of their duty to live pious Christian lives. This is similar to the message in the story of Theodosius and Theophilus examined by Maria Conterno and the two texts could be fruitfully compared.

The volume closes with Jeremiah A. Lasquety-Reyes’s consideration of the Virgin Mary’s role as heavenly queen within the late medieval Legenda Aurea. In this hagiographical compilation, Mary fills the role of a queen who can be approached for assistance. Yet, unlike many contemporary queens, Mary willingly received supplicants from all levels of society and accommodated them whether righteous or sinful. Indeed, as Lasquety-Reyes demonstrates, Mary’s sacred authority was such that she could remit large sins in return for small acts of devotion. Thus, Mary appears an incredibly accommodating source of authority, explaining—at least in part—the vast popularity of the Legenda prior to the Reformation.

When assessing a volume of this nature, one may legitimately ask how well it coheres. Ultimately, the volume’s overarching themes are too broad and the contributions too diverse to build a unified whole. This is slightly overcome by Dabiri’s introduction, in which she highlights some of the themes running between the articles, such as: the topos of the Christian saint at the court of the Muslim caliph; hagiography as a response to lay social pressures; or contests for power and authority centred on physical space. Even here, though, the comparisons are between articles within the same thematic sections of the volume. Dabiri’s points – and the cohesion of the volume – could have been strengthened by more evidence of dialogue or collaboration between the authors.

The strength of Narrating Power and Authority lies instead in the quality of the individual articles. All represent excellent starting points for a wide variety of subjects and are accompanied by lengthy bibliographies to facilitate further investigation. Each contribution will make a worthwhile addition to the reading list of researchers at any level of their career wishing to broaden their knowledge of the uses to which hagiography could be put across medieval Afro-Eurasia. This is not to say that Narrating Power and Authority cannot or should not be read in its entirety though. The dedicated scholar of medieval hagiography will certainly be rewarded with much food for thought by reading from cover to cover. If there is one thing to be taken from the volume as a whole, it is that hagiography clearly was a universal genre in the Middle Ages. I hope Narrating Power and Authority inspires other studies of similar scope in the future.

Table of Contents

Introduction / Ghazzal Dabiri (13–25)
Part 1. Saints at the Courts of Rulers
1. Between Emperor and Caliph: The Representation of Power Relations in the Life of John of Damascus / Petros Tsagkaropoulos (29–42)
2. The Caliph, the Jew, and the Bishop: Power and Religious Controversy in the Georgian Life of John of Edessa / Damien Labadie (43–58)
3. Whose Dream Comes True? Negotiation of Primacy in the ‘Legend of Theodosius and Theophilus’ / Maria Conterno (59–68)
Part 2. Authority at the Cross-Sections of Society
4. Getting Naked for God: Social and Juridical Implications of Renouncing Female Vanities in the Vitae of Mystics of Medieval Italy / Federica Boldrini (71–83)
5. Zoroaster’s Legend in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages / Carlo G. Cereti (85–102)
6. Who’s the Authority Around Here? Zoroastrians as Sites of Negotiation in ʿAṭṭār’s Taẕkirat al-awliyāʾ and Ilāhīnāmah / Ghazzal Dabiri (103–18)
Part 3. Mapping the Terrain of Power
7. Two Churches, Two Saints, One Island: The Narrative Construction of a Conflict between Tamasos and Salamis (Cyprus) through Heracleides and Barnabas / Maïeul Rouquette (121–32)
8. Strangers in a Strange Land: Alienation, Authority, and Powerlessness in Georgian Hagiography (Tenth–Eleventh Century) / Nikoloz Aleksidze (133–51)
9. State Power, Hagiography, and the Social Shape of the Past: Re-Reading the Gesta Martyrum Romanorum / Jason Moralee (153–64)
Part 4. Negotiating Power and Authority
10. Disguising Himself or Describing the Other? Muslim-Christian Encounters and Narratives of Sarı Saltuk in Ottoman Times / Sibel Kocaer (167–81)
11. Power and Prophecy in Late Antique Hagiography: The Life of Saint Daniel the Stylite / Fabrizio Petorella (183–96)
The Accommodating Queen: The Miracles of the Virgin Mary in the Legenda Aurea / Jeremiah A. Lasquety-Reyes (197–210)

Notes

1. Crucial in exposing this misunderstanding, at least in the context of the early medieval West, have been the studies of Mayke de Jong. See, for example, Mayke de Jong, “Ecclesia and the Early Medieval Polity,” in Staat im Frühen Mittelalter, ed. Stuart Airlie, Walter Pohl, and Helmut Reimitz (Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences, 2006), 113–32.

2. See Alexander O’Hara, Jonas of Bobbio and the Legacy of Columbanus: Sanctity and Community in the Seventh Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), for the example of Columbanus, and Janneke Raaijmakers, The Making of the Monastic Community of Fulda, c.744–c.900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), for the example of Abbot Sturm of Fulda.