Spencer-Hall, A;
(2017)
The horror of orthodoxy: Christina Mirabilis, thirteenth-century ‘zombie’ saint.
Postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies
, 8
(3)
pp. 352-375.
10.1057/pmed.2016.19.
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Abstract
In 1232, Thomas of Cantimpré wrote his Life of Christina Mirabilis (c. 1150–1224), an account of the miraculous life and three deaths of an unenclosed holy woman from the Low Countries. The text opens with an explicit vindication of Christina’s return(s) as divinely mandated. Yet, the narrative shows that her community struggles to deal with the revenant in their midst. Through her example, they must confront the terrifying mechanics of purgatory, resurrection, and the co-incidence of body and soul. A similar unease is found in modern scholarship, in which Christina is typically referred to dismissively in terms more commonly applied to cinematic monsters. I work with such dismissive language – specifically the term ‘zombie’ – to move beyond this heuristic roadblock. The terms of filmic zombie-ism provide new insight into the merging of orthodoxy and terror in Christina’s vita.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | The horror of orthodoxy: Christina Mirabilis, thirteenth-century ‘zombie’ saint |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1057/pmed.2016.19 |
| Publisher version: | http://doi.org/10.1057/pmed.2016.19 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions. |
| Keywords: | medieval hagiography, horror film, zombies, zombieology, Christina Mirabilis, Christina the Astonishing, Thomas of Cantimpré |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10073139 |
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