This is the first book-length study of the late-fourteenth-century Scottish Legendary, the only extant collection of saints' lives in the vernacular from medieval Scotland. The fifty saints' legends are remarkable for their narrative art: the enjoyment of reading the legends is heightened, while didactic and edifying content is toned down. This study scrutinises the dynamics of hagiographic narration, its implicit assumptions about literariness and the functions of telling the lives of the saints. Focusing on the role of the narrator, the depiction of the saintly characters, their...
This is the first book-length study of the late-fourteenth-century Scottish Legendary, the only extant collection of saints' lives in the vernacular f...