Publication
Title
'Valued most highly and preserved most carefully': Using saintly figures' houses and memorabilia collections to campaign for their canonisation
Author
Abstract
In this article, I argue that the houses and memorabilia collections associated with venerated personages played an important role in campaigns to elevate popular, unofficial, saintly figures to the level of the blessed or even canonised saints. Two practices converged in these campaigns: the Catholic tradition of sacralising specific sites and endowing material remnants with special meaning, and the 'museumification' of memorial houses and collections. The focus here is on the use of material culture in the beatification campaigns for modern stigmatics (who carried the wounds of Christ). Of the hundreds of cases that were reported, only a few were beatified and canonised. The article concentrates primarily on one success story: the evolution of the German stigmatic Anne Catherine Emmerick (1774-1824) from a living saint' to her being officially blessed (2004) and the role that her houses and possessions played in the promotion of her cult following and image construction.
Language
English
Source (journal)
Museum history journal. - Walnut Creek, CA, 2008, currens
Publication
Walnut Creek, CA : Left Coast Press , 2018
ISSN
1936-9816 [print]
1936-9824 [online]
DOI
10.1080/19369816.2018.1429097
Volume/pages
11 :1 (2018) , p. 94-111
ISI
000425787300006
Full text (Publisher's DOI)
Full text (open access)
UAntwerpen
Faculty/Department
Research group
Project info
Between saints and celebrities. The devotion and promotion of stigmatics in Europe, c.1800-1950 (STIGMATICS).
Publication type
Subject
Affiliation
Publications with a UAntwerp address
External links
VABB-SHW
Web of Science
Record
Identifier
Creation 29.03.2018
Last edited 15.12.2021
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