“Quislibet sanctus mortuum potest suscitare” : peregrinos y muerte en la hagiografía castellana (siglos VII-XIII)

Abstract

Among many variables that surround the phenomenon of the medieval holiness, the topic of the displacement of devout and faithful to the centers were relics of saints were kept was always placed as a key topic. Grouped traditionally with the title of “peregrinations”, these movements arose with the beginning itself of the Christian worship, giving place to one of the principal manifestations of the piety. In this frame of particular trips, several are the hagiographical statements that do explicit reference to a particular phenomenon. It is a question of the peregrination that numerous believers carry out to certain sanctuaries, peregrination that is interrupted by the death of the visitor. In other cases, there are narrated trips that are done to implore the divine help before a possible suicide or that seek for the resurrection of an unexpectedly deceased relative in the way. Such statements are those that will occupy me in this opportunity, trying to offer a scheme of the texts in question, emphasizing the discursive lines of these wonderful histories. For it, I will work with some of the saints’ lives composed in the Iberian Peninsula between the VIIth and XIIIth centuries, which include passages relative to this problems.