Bibliography
Elizabeth
Dawson
Works authored
Dawson, Elizabeth, Lives and afterlives the Hiberno-Latin Patrician tradition, 650–1100, Turnhout: Brepols, 2023.
Contents: Acknowledgements -- List of abbreviations -- Preface -- Chapter 1. Beginnings -- Chapter 2. Tírechán -- Chapter 3. Muirchú -- Chapter 4. Beyond the seventh century -- Chapter 5. Expanding the tradition: Vita secunda, Vita tertia & Vita quarta -- Epilogue -- Appendix -- Bibliography -- Index.
abstract:
Saint Patrick is a central figure in the medieval Irish Church. As the converter saint he was a central anchor through which Irish people came to understand their complicated religious past as well as their new place in the wider Christian world. This study considers some of the earliest and most influential writings focused on Saint Patrick, and asks how successive generations forged, sustained and redirected aspects of the saint’s persona in order to suit their specific religious and political needs.
In this book Elizabeth Dawson, for the first time, treats the Hiberno-Latin vitae of Patrick as a body of connected texts. Seminal questions about the corpus are addressed, such as who wrote the Lives and why? What do the works tell us about the communities that venerated and celebrated the saint? And what impact did these Lives have on the success and endurance of the saint’s cult? Challenging the perception that Patrick’s legend was created and sustained almost exclusively by the monastic community at Armagh, she demonstrates that the Patrick who emerges from the Lives is a varied and malleable saint with whom multiple communities engaged.
Contents: Acknowledgements -- List of abbreviations -- Preface -- Chapter 1. Beginnings -- Chapter 2. Tírechán -- Chapter 3. Muirchú -- Chapter 4. Beyond the seventh century -- Chapter 5. Expanding the tradition: Vita secunda, Vita tertia & Vita quarta -- Epilogue -- Appendix -- Bibliography -- Index.
abstract:
Saint Patrick is a central figure in the medieval Irish Church. As the converter saint he was a central anchor through which Irish people came to understand their complicated religious past as well as their new place in the wider Christian world. This study considers some of the earliest and most influential writings focused on Saint Patrick, and asks how successive generations forged, sustained and redirected aspects of the saint’s persona in order to suit their specific religious and political needs.
In this book Elizabeth Dawson, for the first time, treats the Hiberno-Latin vitae of Patrick as a body of connected texts. Seminal questions about the corpus are addressed, such as who wrote the Lives and why? What do the works tell us about the communities that venerated and celebrated the saint? And what impact did these Lives have on the success and endurance of the saint’s cult? Challenging the perception that Patrick’s legend was created and sustained almost exclusively by the monastic community at Armagh, she demonstrates that the Patrick who emerges from the Lives is a varied and malleable saint with whom multiple communities engaged.
Contributions to journals
Dawson, Elizabeth, “Brigit and Patrick in Vita prima sanctae Brigitae: veneration and jurisdiction”, Peritia 28 (2017): 35–50.
abstract:
The early medieval cults of the saints Patrick and Brigit are most often associated with their churches at Armagh and Kildare, and the rivalry for preeminence that existed between the two federations. This paper considers the depiction of the saints in the Vita Prima Sanctae Brigitae and explores how these portrayals represent the wider cults of both.
abstract:
The early medieval cults of the saints Patrick and Brigit are most often associated with their churches at Armagh and Kildare, and the rivalry for preeminence that existed between the two federations. This paper considers the depiction of the saints in the Vita Prima Sanctae Brigitae and explores how these portrayals represent the wider cults of both.
Contributions to edited collections or authored works
Dawson, Elizabeth, “Pillars of conversion in Muirchú and Tírechán: two case studies”, Anthony Harvey [project leader], Jane Conroy [principal investigator], and Franz Fischer [principal researcher], Saint Patrick’s Confessio Hypertext Stack Project, Online: Royal Irish Academy, 2011–. URL: <http://www.confessio.ie/more/article_dawson>.
