The Hagiography Society Article Prize
This new prize will be awarded to a scholarly essay or article written on any disciplinary subject that makes an outstanding contribution to the study and understanding of saints, holy men and women, virtue traditions, and the concept of sanctity in ideational, literary, artistic, and sociohistorical dimensions in the pre-modern period. Articles concerning all geographies and religious systems are eligible. The monetary value of the prize is $300. The author of the article must be a member of the Hagiography Society by the time of the article’s submission. All essays and articles that have been published in 2021 and 2022 are eligible for the prize. Submissions for this prize are now closed.
The next article prize will be for essays and articles published in 2023 and 2024. Deadline for submission: January 31, 2025. Please send an electronic copy of your published submission to Laura A. Smoller (laura.smoller@rochester.edu). The winner will be announced in fall 2025 and is encouraged to attend the Hagiography Society Business meeting at the International Congress on Medieval Studies in May, 2026 for the formal presentation of the award.
Past Winners of the Article Prize
2023- Austin Powell, “Manuscript Miscellanies, Jerome’s Letters to Women, and the Dominican Observant Reform in Fifteenth-Century Italy,” Renaissance Quarterly 74.3 (2021): 722-762.
The Hagiography Society Book Prize
The Hagiography Society book prize is awarded to a scholarly first book written on any disciplinary subject that makes an outstanding contribution to the study and understanding of saints, holy men and women, virtue traditions, and the concept of sanctity in ideational, literary, artistic, and sociohistorical dimensions in the pre-modern period. Books concerning all geographies and religious systems are eligible. The monetary value of the prize is $500. The author of the book presented to the competition must be a member of the Hagiography Society by the time of the book’s submission. Each year, the prize committee will consist of three scholars called upon by the Society to fulfill the task of awarding the prize. The committee will not include anyone currently serving the Hagiography Society in an official capacity. Submissions for the next prize are for books published in 2022 and 2023. Deadline for submission: January 31, 2024. Please arrange for three print copies of your book/manuscript to be sent by January 31, 2024 to Laura A. Smoller; Department of History; University of Rochester; Rush Rhees 369A; 755 Library Road; Box 270070; Rochester, NY 14627. The winner will be announced in fall 2024 and is encouraged to attend the Hagiography Society Business meeting at the International Congress on Medieval Studies in May, 2025 for the formal presentation of the award.
Past Winners of the Book Prize
2022 – Donna Trembinski, Illness and Authority: Disability in the Life and Lives of Francis of Assisi (University of Toronto Press, 2020).
2020 – Roy Flechner, Saint Patrick Retold: The Legend and History of Ireland’s Patron Saint (Princeton University Press, 2019).
2019 – Maya Maskarinec, City of Saints: Rebuilding Rome in the Early Middle Ages (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018).
2018 – Catherine M. Mooney, Clare of Assisi and the Thirteenth-Century Church: Religious Women, Rules, and Resistance (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016).
2017 – Jeanne-Nicole Mellon Saint-Laurent, Missionary Stories and the Formation of the Syriac Churches, Transformation of the Classical Heritage 55 (University of California Press, 2015).
The Sherry L. Reames Graduate Student Travel Award for Hagiographical Studies
Named in honor of the beloved founder and long-time leader of the Society, the award now provides up to $1000 to be used toward registration, travel, lodging, and meals to present a paper at the International Congress on Medieval Studies, held annually at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, MI. The winners will be granted a free two-year membership in the Hagiography Society.
Eligibility
Students who are Hagiography Society members and enrolled in a graduate program (anywhere in the world) are eligible to apply if their paper, on a topic involving hagiography, has been accepted for inclusion on a regular panel (not a round table or other format) in the program of the International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, MI, at the time of application. They are also expected to attend the annual Hagiography Society Business Meeting held at the International Congress on Medieval Studies.
Application
Please submit an application form, combined with a current curriculum vitæ in a single PDF with your last name in the document name, by November 15 to the Secretary / Treasurer of the Hagiography Society.
Applicants will be informed of the results by December 15.
We welcome contributions in any amount to the Sherry L. Reames Graduate Student Travel Award for Hagiographical Studies:
Past Winners for the Sherry L. Reames Travel Award
Silvio Ruberto, History, Univ. Utrecht, “Bishop, Royal, and Monk Saints as ‘Temple Priests’? Testing Ian Wood’s ‘Temple Society’ Thesis on Seventh-Century Merovingian Hagiographies (St Eligius, St Bathild, and St Columbanus)” (2022-2023)
Runners-up (2022-2023):
Thelma Trujillo, English, Univ. of Iowa, “Holy Flesh, Holy Doubt: Race and Female Sanctity in the Old English ‘Life of Saint Mary of Egypt’”
Antonio Lenzo, English, Stanford Univ., “Holy Strategy: gender transition in the old English Life of Saint Smaragdus/Euphrosyne”
Lacey Bonar, History, West Virginia University, “Losing Face, Saving Grace: The Trope of Facial Disfigurement in Saints’ Lives” (2019-2020). Since the International Congress on Medieval Studies was cancelled for 2020, this paper was delivered in 2021.
Niamh Kehoe, English, University College Cork, Ireland, “Fools and Sinners: Pedagogy in Two Anonymous Anglo-Saxon Saints’ Lives” (2018-2019)
Kortney Stern, English, Indiana, “Future Perfect” (2018-2019)
Dorottya Uhrin, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, “The Earliest Cult of Saint Margaret of Antioch in Hungary” (2017-2018)
Lydia Walker, UT-Knoxville, “The Formulation of Female Holiness and Masculine Integrity: An Examination of Lutgard of Aywières and Jacques de Vitry” (2017-2018)
John Fry, UT-Austin, “Hagiography and Dorigen’s Discontent in the ‘Franklin’s Tale’” (2016-2017)
Mary Anne Gonzales, Guelph University, “Imitation and Feeling: Sorrow and Compassion in the Stigmata of Elizabeth of Spalbeek” (2016-2017)
Christopher Paolella, U. Missouri-Columbia, “Servi et Servi Dei: Slaves and Saints in Early-Medieval Hagiography” (2016-2017)
David A. Heayn, City University of New York, “Byzantine Monasticism in Two Anatolian Provinces, ca. 500-700” (2015-2016)
Véronique Olivier, Université de Montréal and Université Nice-Sophia-Antipolis, “Saint Lambert in Vence: Plurisecular Fortune of a Local Cult” (2015-2016)
Britton Brooks, Oxford University, “The Vernacular Fenland: the literal landscape of the anonymous Old English prose Life of Saint Guthlac” (2014-2015)
Amy Devenney, University of Leeds, “‘You take the high road and I’ll take the low road’: exploring the experience of pilgrimage to monastic and civic shrines in twelfth century Apulia” (2014-2015)
Ashley Laverock, Emory University, “Dynamic Hagiography: Image and Inscription in the Thirteenth-Century Stained-Glass Window of St. Margaret of Antioch at Ardagger Abbey” (2014-2015)
Murrielle Michaud, Wilfrid Laurier University, “The Middle English Vita of Christina the Astonishing: Secular Hagiography, Patience Literature, and Biography” (2013-2014)
Jenny Bledsoe, Emory University, “Intercession and Devotion: Guthlac and Bartholomew in the Old English Prose Guthlac and Vercelli Homily XXIII” (2013-2014)