Talk:Legendary (hagiography)

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The article title is rather dubious. It isn't clear what is supposed to be its scope. The lead definition as far as it even makes sense appears to be mistaken about its topic. The main problem is the term "legendary". "Legend" and "Christian hagiography" for the purposes of the Middle Ages are exact synonyms. It is only the Protestant Reformation which began to use "legend" as a term for "unhistorical story" in an attempt to discredit Catholic hagiography. The terms "legend" = "saint's life" and "legend" = "unhistorical story" blur together in an irritating fashion in an article purporting to discuss the "legendary in hagiography".

In any case the article needs references. The references cited appear to be just innocent editions of saint's lives. --dab (𒁳) 18:10, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

The topic of the article is significant. It is about the fact that Christian hagiography contains a great deal of legendary material, e.g. such tales as Saint Ursula and the Eleven Thousand Martyrs of Cologne, or The Ten Thousand Martyrs of Mount Ararat, or Saint George and the Dragon, or the Legend of the True Cross, or the Seven Sleepers of Christendom who slept for over a hundred years and so escaped martyrdom, and many more. Of Saint Ursula, the Catholic Encyclopedia itself says: “This legend, with its countless variants and increasingly fabulous developments, would fill more than a hundred pages.” They were widely believed in the Middle Ages and down to recent times so that a knowledge of these legends is necessary to anyone who wishes to understand the decorations of many mediaeval and later buildings, which depict them in rich detail. Fantastic tales of the deeds of the saints were not only an important literary genre in the Middle Ages, they are also important elements in the history of art and architecture. An encyclopedia article briefly indicating how these fabulous tales were invented and spread, followed by a short bibliography, written by someone competent, would be very useful.Campolongo (talk) 12:37, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

This sadly inadequate and effectively unreferenced article is first of all gravely limited in its scope and, secondly, fails to distinguish between themes which need to be separated and explored individually.

For a start, it seems to cover only Christian belief and practice in Western Europe, ignoring other areas and traditions.Then it sabotages itself by using the term legendary for what I think are two allied but quite different things.

One is the many so-called saints whose existence is almost certainly fictional, in which case everything written about them, every representation in art and every alleged relic is fictional as well. Recognising the ahistorical nature of their lives need not detract from the spiritual benefits of their stories.

The other category is those called saints whose existence is provable or possible but whose stories are largely or totally fictitious. Once again, the alleged details of their lives may have merit and, as pointed out above, the fictions have often and in some cases still do have considerable impact.

I might try some editing it one day, but first would have to find some decent references. Clifford Mill (talk) 20:15, 7 March 2018 (UTC)