Feisty Virgins: Truth-telling as a Concept of Social Responsibility in the First Printed Editions of the Dutch Golden Legends (1450-1500)

Description

Questions around free speech have been pertinent for centuries, but the stories of ‘truth-tellers’ form a vital element in these conversations. The truth-tellers discussed in this paper are from one of the most influential religious works of 13-16th century, the Gulden Legende (The Golden Legends/Legenda Aurea of Jacobus de Voragine). Sainty women like Cecilia, Katherina, Lucia, Agatha and Christina were considered women who put aside their social identity as quiet and high-born women and take on the mantle of truth-teller, fully knowing and accepting the physical dangers this brings with it. Truth-telling is essential to their identity and their social responsibility, more important than the superficial social markers of background, ancestry and wealth. If that made them worthy of adoration then, we should not forget them now.

These stories are a fertile field for future research. Dr Martine Veldhuizen’s ‘Truth-tellers: The mentality behind subversive speech behaviour in narratives in the first printed texts in Dutch (1450-1500)’, funded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research, is keen to continue discovering more of these truth-tellers and to explore their direct, and frequently aggressive, use of language.

Period	14 Jun 2022
Held at	Reformation Research Consortium
Degree of Recognition	International