Introduction: Remembering Perpetua

Abstract

Remembering Perpetua provides an overview of the medieval textual tradition for the veneration of St. Perpetua. Beginning with the third-century Passio Perpetuae, or Passion of Saint Perpetua, and ending with Jacob of Voragine’s Legenda Aurea, or Golden Legend, Cotter-Lynch surveys the transformation of hagiographic narrative within the context of Mary Carruthers’ consideration of the medieval memory arts. Cotter-Lynch argues that various retellings of Perpetua’s story across the Middle Ages reconfigure the memory of the saint for different audiences, and that by examining which elements of Perpetua’s story are retold at different times, in different places, by different authors, we can gain insight into both changing theological ideas about the relationship between gender and sanctity, and the composition and circulation of stories in the medieval world.