The Devotion and Promotion of Stigmatics in Europe, c. 1800–1950

Download or read book The Devotion and Promotion of Stigmatics in Europe, c. 1800–1950 written by Tine Van Osselaer and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2020-10-12 with total page 486 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the nineteenth century a new type of mystic emerged in Catholic Europe. While cases of stigmatisation had been reported since the thirteenth century, this era witnessed the development of the ‘stigmatic’: young women who attracted widespread interest thanks to the appearance of physical stigmata. To understand the popularity of these stigmatics we need to regard them as the ‘saints’ and religious ‘celebrities’ of their time. With their ‘miraculous’ bodies, they fit contemporary popular ideas (if not necessarily those of the Church) of what sanctity was. As knowledge about them spread via modern media and their fame became marketable, they developed into religious ‘celebrities’.