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The rich hagiographical corpus, charters and privileges of the monastery of Werden on the Ruhr allow unparalleled access to its ninth-century history. This article focuses upon three ninth-century vitae of its founding saint which delineate both the transformations which Werden underwent in the course of the century and the ways in which the monastery attempted to respond and adapt to these changes. In so doing, it illuminates the role that saintly relics and hagiography could play in the formation of Christian communities both within and beyond cloister walls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Ottonian kings of Germany (919-1024) inherited from their Carolingian predecessors a tripartite system of pastoral care for the army. At the most basic level, the Ottonian kings provided chaplains to their soldiers to hear their confessions before battle. At the army-wide level, priests and bishops serving with the army celebrated intercessory masses to gain divine favour for the army, preached to the soldiers in order to encourage bravery in the face of battle and carried sacred relics onto the field. Finally, priests and bishops also helped to mobilise the 'home front' on behalf of the army, by leading the population as a whole in intercessory prayers, as well as in fasts and other acts of penitence that were intended to gain God's favour for their fighting men. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In the early 840s, Archbishop Amolo of Lyons wrote to one of his suffragan bishops about extraordinary miracles reportedly taking place at Dijon in the wake of the arrival of mysterious new relics. Re-examining the complex interaction of these relics with pre-existing social and political processes in the region and locally, this article also explores other aspects of Amolo’s letter which have been less discussed, notably its manuscript transmission and the insights it offers into structures of religious organisation. Finally, it argues that the way issues treated together in the letter tend to be separated or even opposed in the historiography points to the need for renewed, critically reflexive attention to the specificities of the Carolingian church reforms. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The Franks incorporated Saxony into the Carolingian empire through a long, brutal struggle coupled with forced conversion. When Saxons themselves began to write a few decades afterwards, they had to make sense of this history and of their role and identity in their contemporary Carolingian world. In contrast to the portrayal of Saxons in writers such as Einhard and Rudolf, three ninth-century Saxon accounts of relic translations — those of Vitus, Pusinna and Liborius — reinterpreted history to claim a place for the Saxons as a distinct group equal to the Franks within the populus Christianus under the Carolingian monarchs. As a key part of their literary strategies, these authors attempted to salvage from the story of their defeat and forced Christianisation an account of God''s sovereignty, native agency and virtue (especially fidelity) as a foundational element of Saxon identity. These texts prefigure the debates about post-conquest Saxon identity which would underlay the later and better-known Ottonian triumphal self-conceptions. Moreover, the concerns of these authors led them to remarkable hagiographical innovations in grappling with paganism, conversion, miracles, social class and faith. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The facts regarding the saints of the major churches of Zurich are easy to establish. A priory, later known as the Grossmünster, was erected on the east side of the Limmat over the supposed burial sites of the early Christian martyrs Felix and Regula. In 853 Louis the German founded an abbey of canonesses, dedicated to the same saints, on the west side of the river immediately opposite. In the mid-twelfth century, sculptured reliefs in the new buildings at both sites described episodes from the saints' legend. The Grossmünster acquired Charlemagne relics in 1233, about the same time that a new saint, Exuperantius, for whom there is no historical basis, mysteriously joined Felix and Regula as a companion martyr. Shortly before 1300 the Chronica universalis Turicensis likened Louis' daughters, the first abbesses of his church, now known as the Fraumünster, to saints, mentioning miracles at their tombs in the south transept. A fresco painted nearby about 1300 recorded the earlier translation of the relics of Felix and Regula from the Grossmünster to the Fraumünster in a way that played up the importance of this event.This paper examines these events as part of a competition between these two foundations in which works of art advertised the status and number of their saints, a one-upmanship in which each successive incident was intended to represent the greater prestige of one's own saints in contrast to those of the competing institution. The Grossmünster's interest in Charlemagne, for example, has little to do with any historical connection of the saint to either the foundation or the city, but more likely derives from the fact that Charlemagne was the more famous predecessor of Louis the German. Charlemagne's greater age, legendary status as the first Holy Roman emperor, and recent sainthood thus trump the Fraumünster's longer-standing connection to the Carolingians. The very name Exuperantius and the unusual terms of his "appearance" suggest similar competitive grounds as the basis for his invention.This "battle of the saints" can be seen as the outward expression of a struggle for spiritual and political power within the city. Images of the city's original martyrs and depictions of newly claimed saints defined institutional identity, but it was an identity in flux as these rival institutions sought to position themselves in relation to one another. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]