The Hagiography of Healing: Miracle Narratives as Discourses on Disease and Disability. (360G-Wellcome-084161_Z_07_Z)

£104,895

This research sets out to explore how the medieval experience of disease and disability was mediated through the representations of healing miracles found in saints narratives. This goal will be achieved by exploring four main areas. The first will search these texts for evidence of practical healthcare; the ailments suffered and the treatments administered by the medieval medicus . The second part will situate these practices within the contemporary context by drawing upon sources such as Old English medicinal manuals, penitentials and sermons, with the aim of discovering whether the miracle narratives show a similarly syncretic attitude towards healing. The third part of this research will concentrate on the texts themselves, examining the manuscripts in which they were found, the scriptoria where they were produced and the conditions accounting for their composition. This will feed into a discussion of the narrative strategies employed by the authors and their subversion of the te xts testimonial format. The final section will consider the occasion of their communication; how these carefully crafted stories were relayed to the public. This will involve reconstructing the conditions of performance; assessing how the architectural and liturgical arrangements of the shrine may have affected the dissemination of the stories.

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Grant Details

Amount Awarded 104895
Applicant Surname Powell
Approval Committee Medical History and Humanities Interview Committee
Award Date 2007-11-27T00:00:00+00:00
Financial Year 2007/08
Grant Programme: Title Research Fellowship in H&SS
Internal ID 084161/Z/07/Z
Lead Applicant Dr Hilary Powell
Partnership Value 104895
Planned Dates: End Date 2012-09-30T00:00:00+00:00
Planned Dates: Start Date 2008-07-01T00:00:00+00:00
Recipient Org: Country United Kingdom
Region East of England
Sponsor(s) Prof Peter Jones