Medieval Irish Saints' Lives

`A tour de force of meticulous scholarship, this book should have a major impact on the study of Saints' lives in general.'David Rollason, History

• Note on references; Part I. Introduction: The writing of saints' lives in medieval Ireland; The background to Act Sanctorum Hiberniae; Modern scholars and their methods; Part II. The Textual Evidence: Manuscripts of the Dublin collection; A paradigm of the Dublin collection: Vita IV S. Brigitae; Applying the paradigm: St Patrick and St Maedoc; The collection in the Codex Salmanticensis; Manuscripts of the Oxford collection; A group of texts in SO; The O'Donohue group in SDO; The value of the textual evidence; Part III. The Collectors and Their Sources: The compilation of the Dublin collection; The milieux of the later collections; Coda; Bibliography; Index