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Summary:
More than 1,300 saints are profiled in this most readable, extensive, and enlightening of references. Curious about the saint you're named after? Attending a feast day for a saint you never heard of? Want an obscure saint to include in your historical novel? Or merely desirous of the kind of feet-up-by-the-fire perusal that only a well-written reference text can provide? David Farmer's compilation of saints includes all English saints; all saints of whom there is or was a notable cult; important saints from Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and the rest of Europe; and recently canonized saints. Arranged alphabetically, the dictionary starts with Abbo of Fleury, ends with Zosimus of Syracuse, and includes Pelagia of Antioch, Crispina of Tagora, Cunegund the empress, and a wide assortment of other martyrs, popes, spiritual seers, and those, such as Crispin of Viterbo, who were canonized simply for their humble lives and Christian faith. There's also a wonderful appendix of the principal patronages of saints--telling, for example, who's the patron saint of healthy dogs (Hubert) and mad dogs (Sithney), plus an index of the main iconographical emblems of saints, another of places, and a calendar of feast days. --Stephanie Gold
Customer Reviews:
Average Customer Rating:
An exellent, balanced, . . .
Customer Rating:
. . . reasoned, and readable presentation of many, many of the saints of the Church, with particular emphasis on those saints important in the British Isles.
Other reviewers have pointed out the balanced nature of the author's presentation, balancing known fact, pious tradition, legend and just plain superstition with scholarship and tact. I have to completely concur. I was also particularly impressed with the primary source material used and referenced, so that the interested reader can dig more deeply into those particular lives of interest (and perhaps come to conclusions different from those of the author!) The introduction, giving a brief background of the "history" of the making of saints was also helpful.
Very highly recommended.
Indispensable for the Casual Anglo-Saxonist
Customer Rating:
Other reviewers have cogently noted Farmer's English bias in his otherwise witty and eminently readable accounts of Saints' lives, but I might add that this fills a necessary niche in a crowded field. English and Welsh saints are lacking in many major references of this kind, and Farmer, publishing under the appropriate Oxford imprint, provides a welcome reprieve from this omission.
Endlessly fascinating
Customer Rating:
This book is an interesting and engrossing catalogue of saints, primarily from the British Isles. Far from exhibiting the "bias" of which other reviewers accuse it, that focus on British/Irish saints was the_intent_of the book. Although the major saints of the universal Church are included, this book fills a vacuum by concentrating on the saints of the British Isles, the majority of which are obscure and of purely local interest and devotion. In the lives of these forgotten saints, Mr. Farmer has dug deeply through the layers of history to give us a fascinating snapshot of British piety and devotion since the earliest times. Although the tone of this book is scholarly rather than devotional, and some of the early legends and beliefs tend to amuse rather than edify, on the whole the lives of these saints cannot but inspire the faithful.
The Oxford Dictionary of Saints
Customer Rating:
A must for anyone who wishes to sort fact from fiction!
solid scholarship, endless entertainment
Customer Rating:
The Oxford Dictionary of Saints will not disappoint you, no matter what your reasons are for buying it.
It's an excellent reference book. David Hugh Farmer has a real gift for summarizing large amounts of material without sacrificing either natural language or the particularity of the information being summarized. He's especially good at conveying the nuances of sources and their reliability.
Also: no matter what your religious and educational background may be, The Oxford Dictionary of Saints is one of the very best bathroom books ever printed: endlessly varied, always interesting. It's a trove of self-contained little stories.
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