hagiography

From Ancient Greek ἅγιος (hágios, “holy”) + -γραφία (-graphía, “writing”).

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˌhæɡiˈɒɡɹəfi/, /ˌheɪdʒiˈɒɡɹəfi/
• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˌhæɡiˈɒɡɹəfi/

hagiography (countable and uncountable, plural hagiographies)

1. (uncountable) The study of saints and the documentation of their lives.
   • 2004, Rosalind C. Love, Goscelin of Saint-Bertin: The Hagiography of the Female Saints of Ely, →ISBN:

     The second half of the eleventh century saw a notable surge of interest in hagiography throughout England, which meant that many of the Anglo-Saxon saints of earlier eras were furnished, often for the first time, with a Latin Vita.

   • 2005, Thomas Head, Hagiography and the Cult of Saints: The Diocese of Orléans, 800-1200, →ISBN:

     Jacques LeGoff remarks, 'Hagiography tells us much about the mental infrastructure [of the middle ages]: the interpenetration between the tangible world and the supernatural world, the common nature of the corporeal and psychic, are the conditions which make miracles and related phenomena possible.

   • 2014, Jamie Kreiner, The Social Life of Hagiography in the Merovingian Kingdom, →ISBN, page 189:

     Charters, wills, and monastic rules offer evidence for this transformation, but it is hagiography and its double-scoped discourse that illuminates it best, and we will start with a vita that pursued the question of peroperty and prestige more comprehensively than the rest, the Vita Sadalbergae.

2. (countable) A biography of a saint.
3. (countable) A biography which expresses reverence and respect for its subject.
4. (derogatory) A biography which is uncritically supportive of its subject, often including embellishments or propaganda.

• mash note
• paean