This volume comparatively explores how members of “monastic” communities, broadly understood, developed practical strategies for the construction of identity across a range of religious traditions in the greater regions of premodern Europe and Asia. In particular, it seeks to understand how the production, distribution, and reception of hagiographic material (written, visual, and performative) served as a tool for the implementation of “monastic” dynamics of legitimation. This is accomplished by pursuing and developing a two-fold approach. At an empirical level, the volume expands our scholarly understanding of the cross-cultural processes that characterize religious communities’ notions of identity. At a meta-level, it furthers a re-evaluation of our taxonomy as it challenges established notions of categories such as “monk/monastic” and “hagiography.”

Marco Papasidero is Assistant Professor of History of Christianity and Churches at the University of Palermo.
Dean Accardi is Assistant Professor of History at Connecticut College.
Emilia Jamroziak is Professor of Medieval Religious History at the University of Leeds.

Introduction, by Dean Accardi, Emilia Jamroziak, and Marco Papasidero
Chapter 1. Communal and Individual Monastic Identity in Gregory the Great’s Dialogues, by Nikolas Hoel
Chapter 2. Hagiography and Monastic Legitimacy in the Translation of St Helena’s Relics to Hautvillers, by Marco Papasidero
Chapter 3. The Many Hagiographical Identities of the Chinese Buddhist Nun Zhujin, by Jennifer Eichman
Chapter 4. Hagiography Beyond the Saints: Redefining Genre and Kashmiri Identity through Sanctifying Narrative, by Dean Accardi
Chapter 5. A Re-membered Community: The Myth of Śaṅkara and the Making of the Smārtas, by Nabanjan Maitra
Chapter 6. The Ascetic and the Ecstatic: Examples of Identity Construction in the Rāmānandī Sampradāya, by Daniela Bevilacqua
Conclusions. Negotiating the Holy across Time and Place, by Sita Steckel
Index