Hagiography

A biography of a saint or revered figure that emphasizes holiness and exemplary virtue. Hagiographies often present miracles and moral lessons alongside—or instead of—critical historical detail.

Sainthood: A status of exceptional holiness recognized within a religious tradition, sometimes formally conferred after death. Hagiographies narrate the virtues and deeds used to establish or celebrate this status.
Hagiographic topos: A recurring literary motif in saints’ lives, such as an auspicious birth, miraculous healing, or humble refusal of honor. Shared motifs let individual lives express recognizable ideals of sanctity.
Early Christian literature: Texts produced by Christian communities from the first through the early medieval centuries. Early Christian martyr acts and saints’ lives helped establish the genre’s forms.
Historical biography: A researched account of a person’s life that evaluates evidence and historical context. Unlike hagiography, it makes critical reconstruction rather than edification its primary aim.
Canonization: The formal recognition by a religious authority that a deceased person is a saint. Biographical testimony and reported miracles have figured in processes of recognizing saints.
Miracle: An event understood as an act of divine power that cannot be explained by ordinary natural causes. Accounts of miraculous deeds often demonstrate a subject’s holiness.
Conversion narrative: An account of a person’s change from one religious allegiance or way of life to another. A dramatic conversion can frame the subject’s virtues as the result of spiritual transformation.
Martyr Acts: Early Christian accounts of the trials and deaths of people killed for their faith. These narratives supplied foundational patterns for later saints’ biographies.
Mythography: The study or written presentation of myths and traditional sacred narratives. Hagiography centers on the life of a revered person, not primarily on mythic narratives.
Hagiography and kingship: The use of saints’ lives and cults to express or support ideas of royal authority. Some rulers’ sanctity narratives linked religious virtue to political legitimacy.

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