 
              
    
            Format: Hardback
        
        
        
        
            Pages: 288
          
                              
            ISBN: 9780719095962
          
                              
            Pub Date: May 2016
          
                                                            
                          Imprint: Manchester University Press
                      
                              
                Sale Price:
      
      
                £25.00
            
                  RRP: £80.00
      
  
          
          
          
                          In stock
                      
        
          Description:
      
      
        This is the first book-length study of the Scottish Legendary of the late fourteenth century. the only extant collection of saints’ lives in the vernacular from medieval Scotland, the work scrutinises the dynamics of hagiographic narration, its implicit assumptions about literariness, and the functions of telling the lives of the saints. The fifty saints’ legends are remarkable for their narrative art: the enjoyment of reading the legends is heightened, while didactic and edifying content is toned down. Focusing on the role of the narrator, the depiction of the saintly characters, their interiority, as well as temporal and spatial parameters, it is demonstrated that the Scottish poet has adapted the traditional material to the needs of an audience versed in reading romance and other secular genres. This study scrutinises the implications of the Scottish poet’s narrative strategies with respect to the Scottishness of the Legendary and its overall place in the hagiographic landscape of late medieval Britain.
      
      
       
    