The Cult of Saint Catherine of Siena

Download or read book The Cult of Saint Catherine of Siena written by Gerald Parsons and published by Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.. This book was released on 2008 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the origins, development and history of the cult of Saint Catherine of Siena. Gerald Parsons argues that the cult of Catherine of Siena constitutes a remarkable example of the cult of a particular saint which, across more than six centuries, has been the vehicle for an evolving sequence of civil religious rituals and meanings. He shows how the cult of this particular saint developed, firstly, as an expression of Sienese civil religion; secondly, as a focus for Italian civil religion; and finally into an expression of European civil religion. Instead of the predominantly devotional - and frequently essentially hagiographical - approach of much of the literature on Catherine of Siena, Parsons examines the significance of her cult from the perspective of civil religion and the social history of religion.