| Abstract [eng] |
This thesis dwells on the issues pertaining to Catholic hagiography in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The key aim of this research was to analyse Catholic hagiographic literature which circulated in the GDL and highlight its constituent parts, thus exhibiting its reception and dissemination as well as the peculiarities of the saints’ cult in the GDL in the period from the late 14th to the early 17th century. This study is the first attempt at reconstructing the whole of the “imported” and local Catholic hagiography which circulated in the GDL in the late 14th-early 17th century, offering an analysis of its repertoire and trends as well as investigation of its reception and evolution in Lithuania. In the course of the research a list of hagiographic books which circulated in Lithuania was drawn up. The accumulated data helped exhibit and analyse the hagiographic repertoire (“lives” of saints, hagiographic sermons) and target reader groups of this type of literature, whereas provenances and marginalia were invoked to investigate issues of reading, perception, and dissemination routes. In isolated cases hagiographic literature is associated with its readers’ (owners’) personal piety to the saints; moreover, the accumulated data are compared with the general situation around the saints’ cult at that time. The research shed light on the early development of hagiography in Lithuania and allowed a different angle view on the phenomenon of saint veneration and peculiarities of separate cult evolution in the GDL society. |
