Saints and Cities: Hagiography and Urban History

Dear Colleagues,

Hagiographical sources hold valuable information about urban history. Saints’ cults were often based in cities, or in places that grew into cities; rural shrines attracted pilgrims who came from or passed through cities; texts traveled among urban networks. Hagiographical texts thus reflect urban life from various angles and can, therefore, be used to explore urban history. Moreover, because hagiographical texts sometimes survive from or concern cities otherwise obscure in the historical record, they can be crucial evidence for the urban past. This Special Issue aims to showcase scholarship using hagiographical sources to explore various dimensions of urban history, including (but not limited to) urban growth, politics, economic history, urban society, the lived experience of city dwellers (or visitors), communications, and material culture. While the issue will primarily focus on texts and cities of medieval Europe, neither cities nor hagiography are exclusively European (or medieval) phenomena. Submissions are, therefore, welcome from other contexts as well. This Special issue is dedicated to expanding the body of scholarship demonstrating the value of hagiographical sources in exploring the multifaceted nature of urban history.

Dr. Samantha Kahn Herrick
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• history
• hagiography
• saints
• shrines
• medieval Europe
• cities
• urban history
• urban life

Title: Martyr, Straw-Saint, and Most-Barbarous Archtraitor: Debating Henry Garnet in Seventeenth-Century London

Abstract: In 1606 Henry Garnet, English Jesuit and purported leader of the Gunpowder Plot against James I, was executed at the Tower of London. Following his death, numerous hagiographical accounts of his life, including accounts of a miraculous relic recovered from his execution site, began to spread through London’s Catholic community. Though these accounts made it as far as the king’s Privy Chamber, they were soon countered by Protestant publications casting Garnet as a popish traitor. This article examines the hagiographical and anti-hagiographical accounts of Garnet’s life, death, and relic that emerged in London in the years following his execution and argues that the unique urban fabric of London as a desacralized space inhabited by a mixed population of English Protestants, English recusants, and foreign Catholics and Protestants led to the particular popularity of these accounts.