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From its earliest centuries, one of the most notable features of Christianity has been the veneration of the saints--the holy dead. This sweepingly ambitious history from one of the world's leading medieval historians tells the fascinating story of the cult of the saints from its origins in the second-century days of the Christian martyrs to the Protestant Reformation. Drawing on sources from around the Christian world, Robert Bartlett examines all of the most important aspects of the saints--including miracles, relics, pilgrimages, shrines, and the saints' role in the calendar, literature, and art. As this engaging narrative shows, a wide variety of figures have been venerated as saints: men and women, kings and servant girls, legendary virgins and highly political bishops--and one dog. The book explores the central role played by the bodies and body parts of saints, and the special treatment these relics received: how they were treasured and enshrined, used in war and peace, and faked and traded. The shrines of the saints drew pilgrims, sometimes from hundreds of miles, and the book describes the routes, dangers, and rewards of pilgrimage, including the thousands of reported miracles. The book surveys the rich literature and images that proliferated around the saints, as well as the saints' impact on everyday life--from the naming of people and places to the shaping of the calendar. Finally, the book considers how the Christian cult of saints compares with apparently similar aspects of other religions.

religious history --- Christian religion --- Christianity --- worship --- saints --- anno 500-1499 --- anno 1500-1799 --- anno 1-499 --- Church history --- Christian saints --- Christian martyrs --- Eglise --- Saints chrétiens --- Martyrs chrétiens --- Histoire --- History --- Saints chrétiens --- Martyrs chrétiens --- History. --- Apostolic Church --- Church, Apostolic --- Early Christianity --- Early church --- Primitive and early church --- Primitive Christianity --- Fathers of the church --- Great Apostasy (Mormon doctrine) --- Saints --- Canonization --- Martyrs --- Martyrdom --- Middle Ages, 600-1500 --- Church history - Primitive and early church, ca. 30-600 --- Church history - Middle Ages, 600-1500 --- Christian saints - History --- Christian martyrs - History --- Moyen Age --- Miracles