“WORDS STOLEN” FROM THE LEGEND: THE DISPUTE OF THE SAINT IN THE SERMON?
“WORDS STOLEN” FROM THE LEGEND: THE DISPUTE OF THE SAINT IN THE SERMON?

Summary/Abstract: Compilation is an emphatic subject of the present scholarship on early medieval sermons. Most scholars investigate texts of the same genre from this point of view – in this case, sermons. It is worth extend¬ing the previous research on the basis of a well-known phenomenon: intertextuality. While listening to or reading the contio for the saints’ feast days, the reader often encounters fragments from legends. The preacher uses several rhetorical techniques to insert them into his sermons: as a narration, or as its marked exclusion (in a condensed, summarized form), or with the dispersed figure of face-catachresis, or as a thought of the Church Fathers about the given saint, presented in a third genre (usually a prayer). The preacher is guided in each case by a well-determined intention: to enforce the importance and truth of the dogmas of the Catholic faith in the confessional diversity of the Early Modern age. Therefore the orator’s voice must be eloquent, visual, and understandable for all. The rhetorical use of the saint’s legend is unavoidable – this enriches the sermon with a new meaning: it becomes a possibility for a procedure which combines several genres.

• Details
• Contents