From Stories to Artefacts

The Cult of Martyrs in Hispania and their Meta-historical Value

Bibliographic Data

ID4082431
AuthorsAntón Alvar Nuño (0000-0003-0938-308X, corresponding author)
Year2021
Issue116
Publication date2021-06-17
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePallas (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0031-0387 • E-ISSN: 2272-7639
PublisherOpenEdition (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.4000/pallas.21665
OpenAlexW4312791993
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited22

This paper analyses the meta-historical value of the martyrs’ biographies and their cult in Hispania from the 4th century to the Visigothic period. Instead of carrying on with the intense debate on the historical authenticity of the martyrs’ lives or their political instrumentalisation, my aim here is threefold. First, I describe martyrs’ relics not only as artefacts valued because of the biography of associated martyr, but also for their inherent capacity of unlimitedly adding new stories to the martyr’s narrative through the miracles attributed to his/her relic. Second, I focus on space and the symbolic significance of a landscape, in which an area ceases to be a mere geographical entity to become the scenario of the martyr’s alleged events. Finally, I explore how the memory of martyrs was used to conceptualise time at a local level and the implications of this. The new time framework made it possible to connect important contemporary experiences in an individual’s everyday life with transcendent historical time represented by the days commemorating martyrs

Aesthetics · Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · Art history · Biography · Cult · Epistemology · Everyday life · Literature · Martyr · Narrative · Period (music · Political science · Politics · Value (mathematics · Archaeological and Historical Studies · Classical Studies and Legal History · Computer Science · History · Law · Medieval Architecture and Archaeology · Philosophy

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