The usual consideration of hagiographical texts as mainly (if not solely) edifying literature aiming to convey messages of moral Christian improvement is in many ways shaken or at least enriched with the idea that hagiography could also be entertaining, both for authors and their audiences. The interdisciplinary approach so fruitfully developed in all the papers, mixing sociology, literary criticism, history, and other disciplines, provides more evidence supporting the need to look at hagiographical texts from a number of different perspectives.

Koen De Temmerman, Julie Van Pelt, and Klazina Staat, eds. Constructing Saints in Greek and Latin Hagiography: Heroes and Heroines in Late Antique and Medieval Narrative. Fabulae, volume 2. Brepols, 2023. [Open access]

From The Medieval Review (TMR). Review by Francesco Veronese, Università di Padova