The Birth of a Legend : the So-called Legenda Maior of Saint Margaret of Hungary and Dominican Hagiography
2009; Volume: 20; Linguagem: Inglês
10.1484/j.rm.5.101145
ISSN2295-9696
Autores Tópico(s)Reformation and Early Modern Christianity
ResumoThe sources are numerous regarding Saint Margaret of Hungary (1242-1270), Dominican nun and daughter of Bela IV. My paper focuses on the so-called Legenda Maior, her longest and most beautiful legend, probably written in Avignon by the French Dominican theologian Garin de Gy-l'Évêque around 1340. The paper seeks to explain why this legend was commissioned by the then Master of the Order, Hugues de Vaucemain. Previous scholarship has presumed that the Legenda Maior's function was to provide a biography of Margaret and assumed that the Dominicans did not have one. The paper demonstrates that the Legenda Maior was written in a combined effort on the part of the Order's government, the Hungarian Dominican province and the Hungarian royal family to initiate a new process of canonization for Margaret, for which a new and up-to-date legend was needed. Beginning with a brief analysis of Dominican hagiography that focuses on the role of those commissioning the different documents regarding holy men and women, there follows a discussion of the Hungarian royal family's continued preoccupation with Margaret's canonization.
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