VON SPURSTEINEN UND IVO-KAPELLEN. HEILIGE HELFER WIDER UNGERECHTE GERICHTS-HÄNDEL UND IHRE ZEUGNISSE BESONDERS IN ÖSTERREICH
Sign Stones and Ivo Chapels. Helping Saints Against Unlawful Court Procedures and their Traces in Austria
Author(s): Herbert SchempfSubject(s): Christian Theology and Religion, Law, Constitution, Jurisprudence, Customs / Folklore, Cultural Anthropology / Ethnology, Socio-Economic Research, Sociology of Religion
Published by: Akadémiai Kiadó
Keywords: veneration of saints; legends of saints; Bishop Saint Stanislaus of Cracow; Saint Fridolin; Saint Ivo; Saint Aya; Saint Expeditus; legal disputes; Austria;
Summary/Abstract: Sign stones and Ivo chapels. Helping saints against unlawful court procedures and their traces in Austria. It is a basic existential behaviour that in seemingly hopeless life situations people turn to the means of faith, to persons who have been proclaimed saints or blessed. The article presents rarely mentioned saints to whom people turn in trouble, and their cult in Austria. Saints who helped in hopeless litigation, intervening in cases of debt settlement, providing evidence in inheritance proceedings involving property bequeathed to the church, and in legal disputes of the poor. However, the legends of the saints concerned and the motifs found in them often point beyond the difficult situations of individuals; propaganda for the church’s demand for property, justice and defence of the poor also appears in them.
Journal: Acta Ethnographica Hungarica
- Issue Year: 56/2011
- Issue No: 1
- Page Range: 163-174
- Page Count: 12
- Language: German
- Content File-PDF