Jüdische Hagiographie im mittelalterlichen Aschkenas

Lucia Raspe explores the origins of the corpus of hagiographic tales about the great luminaries of medieval Ashkenaz that was first printed, in both Hebrew and Yiddish, towards the end of the sixteenth century. Tracing a number of these tales back into manuscript and oral tradition, the study shows how traditional narratives were linked to historical heroes in the course of what was an essentially literary dynamic. Once such a link had been established, however, some of these narratives seem to have taken on a life of their own. Thus, they may offer a glimpse of a sort of grassroots veneration of saints after all.