Holy Marketing

Sponsoring Organization(s)

Hagiography Society

Organizer Name

Taiko M. Haessler; Felege-Selam Yirga

Organizer Affiliation

Univ. of Colorado-Boulder; Ohio State Univ.

Presider Name

Felege-Selam Yirga

Paper Title 1

The Shrine to Saint Maurus at Glanfeuil: Losing Relics and Surviving Competitors

Presenter 1 Name

John Wickstrom

Presenter 1 Affiliation

Western Michigan Univ./Kalamazoo College

Paper Title 2

Underground Marketing: Portuguese Royal Tombs as Dynastic Trademarks

Presenter 2 Name

Taiko M. Haessler

Paper Title 3

The Beginnings of Marian Pilgrimage in Western Europe as the Context for the Rise of Marian Images

Presenter 3 Name

Jim Bugslag

Presenter 3 Affiliation

Univ. of Manitoba

Paper Title 4

The Fourteenth-Century Frescoed Cycle of James the Great by Altichiero and Jacopo Avanzo in Padua: An Example of "Holy Marketing"?

Presenter 4 Name

Mary Douglas Edwards

Presenter 4 Affiliation

Pratt Institute

Start Date

12-5-2018 3:30 PM

Session Location

Schneider 1275

Description

Holy Marketing (organized by Felege-Salam Yirga: yirga.5@buckeyemail.osu.edu)

Medieval tombs, shrines, and sacred spaces were often crafted through the collaborative efforts of a network of agents. In competitive religious environments, ecclesiastical and secular figures who managed such holy sites drew profit from the contributions of pilgrims, and often found themselves in competition for the same "business" of attracting these visitors. They worked to imbue a site with the holy attributes of a particular saint, transforming it into an important nucleus of social and economic activity. In this way, these sites and objects became "material hagiographies" that attracted pilgrims and devotees in similar and dissimilar manner to textual hagiographies. The papers in this session will examine this material "genre" of hagiography and its socioeconomic influence.

Yirga Felege-Selam