Episode 22: “Encounters with Local Saints and Their Cults”

August 20, 2025 in Announcements, Event Registration, Manuscript Studies, Research Group Episodes for The Research Group Speaks, Research Group Speaks (The Series)

“The Research Group Speaks”
Episode 22

“Encounters with
Local Saints and Their Cults:
Traces in
Prose, Poetry, and Relics”

Saturday 13 December 2025
1:00–2:30 pm EST (GMT-5) by Zoom

[Posted on 20 August 2025, with updates]

For the series wherein “The Research Group Speaks,” we respond to suggestions and requests as the series unfolds. For information, please see:

For Episode 22 we turn to reports by several scholars working in different areas and language-groups upon a similar subject of perennial interest in religious, historical, and devotional identities. Presentations will be accompanied by responses, followed by opportunities for feedback and discussion.

This Episode considers the characteristics of veneration of local saints, as manifested in the surviving evidence, especially in manuscripts. Among the materials are vitae, hymns and liturgical practices for saints’ feast days. The nature of the subject, as well as research work and discoveries in a variety of fields, shows that this episode offers scope for follow-up in one or more episodes in our series.

Speakers and Respondents

Presider

Outline

London, British Library, MS Royal 14 B VI, detail. King Edward Martyr, Image Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons via https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e3/Edward_the_Martyr_-_MS_Royal_14_B_VI.jpg.

This episode aims to consider the challenges and opportunities when encountering and studying local saints, those whose renown and veneration might not have reached a wide audience or enjoyed a persistent duration. Nonetheless, their stories and the individuals or communities who both followed and cultivated their appeal can reach across time and place to show how the habits of pious practices and the methodologies for discovering materials and contexts in modern study might be shared in widely different cultures, languages, and periods.

Looking at case studies from complete vitae, where the saint’s biography is given in full but only circulated locally, and progressing to hymns and paracontent, where only names and scattered biographic hints survive, the speakers and respondents will reflect on the methodological challenges posed in each instance and strategies for engaging with them.

Among the subjects will be Ethiopic vitae and hymns and Western Medieval liturgical Kalendars (such as in Books of Hours in Latin and/or vernaculars). Evidence includes manuscripts, printed sources, and textiles.

Program

1. Presentations

Guesh Solomon Teklu

Guesh will present some newly digitized manuscript witnesses of previously unidentified gadlāt (vitae) for local saints from Tǝgrāy (Northern Ethiopia).

Augustine Dickinson

“Identifying Ethiopic Hymns for Local Saints in Anthology Manuscripts”

When working with manuscript anthologies or collections of malkǝʾ-hymns, it is most often the case that the saints whose hymns are included are well-known and easily identified, whether they are saints known across Christian traditions or saints proper to the Ethiopian/Eritrean context. This paper will present case studies where the subject of a hymn is not so easily identified, always monastic saints commemorated only by a single monastery or within a relatively small network. Each case study will highlight strategies for finding clues leading to identifications (whether tentative or confident) of their respective subjects and contribute to broader remarks on this phenomenon in the field of Ethiopic hymnography.

2. Responses

  • Mersha Alehegne Mengistie will describe experiences with and discoveries for local hagiography in Ethiopia broadly and their implications for publication.
  • Antony R. Henk will examine evidence for a cult for Peter the Deacon, papal secretary and biographer to Gregory the Great, as an unusual saint. (Note that this figure is not the 12th-century saint, Peter the Deacon.)

3. Q&A

There follows the opportunity for questions, comments, and discussion. We welcome your observations.

Manuscript still in situ. Fols. 14v-15r. The beginning of Malkəʾa Marqorewos (Image of Marqorewos), a local saint of the monastery Ṣaʿadā ʾƎmbā ʾƎndā ʾAbuna Marʿāwe Krǝstos, within an anthology (malkǝʾa gubāʾe) manuscript. Photograph by Michael Gervers. Image via https://malkeagubae.com/manuscripts/MK049/#unit1item3.

Registration

Within the RGME Eventbrite Collection:

Registration is free. We encourage you to Pay What You Can with the option for a Voluntary Donation. This year, the RGME has undergone setbacks with grants and funding, so that we ask your help. Any amount will give encouragement and contribute to recovering momentum. We thank you for your support.

Trier, Stadtbibliothek, MS. 171/1626: “Gregory Leaf”. Behind a curtain, Peter the Deacon witnesses Gregory the Great at work inspired by the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove. Master of the Registrum Gregorii, Image Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Donations, which may be tax-deductible, help us to continue with our activities and sustain our mission for an organization principally powered by volunteers.

Please note:

  • After your registration, the RGME will send you the Zoom Link as an email directly a few days before the event
  •  For security reasons, we do not distribute tickets or links through Eventbrite or Zoom.

If you have questions or problems with registering, or accessing the link,

We use these measures to protect the security of our events.

Thank you for your interest in this event.

*****

Next Episode

Bembino Swash Motif

For our next Episode, see

Registration

*****

Questions? Suggestions?

  • Leave your comments or questions below
  • Contact Us

Visit our Social Media:

Join the Friends of the RGME.

Please make a Donation in Funds or in Kind for our nonprofit educational corporation powered principally by volunteers. Your donations and contributions are welcome, and can go a long way. They may be tax-deductible to the fullest extent provided by the law.

*****

Tags: , , , , ,
No Comments »