Of fools and men: Iurodstvo in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Russia

Vaz Pinto Simões Coelho, S

Oxford Thesis Collection

Thesis

Of fools and men: Iurodstvo in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Russia

Abstract:: This thesis investigates the emergence and rise in popularity of a type of saint known in Russian as iurodivyi, and in English as holy fool or fool for Christ, in late fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Russia. In doing so, it breaks with past scholarship on the topic, which has often depicted iurodstvo as a monolithic phenomenon shrouded in myth, and contributes to the scholarly understanding of the pre-modern cult of saints, while offering a fresh perspective on a period of Russian history often labelled ‘of state formation’.

Three main arguments are made here about fifteenth- and sixteenth-century iurodstvo, or holy foolery. Firstly, that iurodivye were primarily known in this period as saints, whose tombs worked posthumous miracles of healing. In this, their rise in popularity was indissociable, on the one hand, from the growth of the cult of saints and the multiplication of miracle cults; and, on the other hand, from the development of a Moscow-based Church, which claimed spiritual authority over the vast, and still expanding, territories controlled by its grand prince and later tsar.

Secondly, by analysing a large corpus of texts and images, this study argues that there were two occasionally overlapping understandings of iurodstvo in this period: one found mostly in ecclesiastical works, focused on the extreme asceticism of its practitioners; the other, apparently vernacular in origin, that conceived of iurodivye as charismatic, frequently aggressive living prophets.

Thirdly, by investigating sponsorship patterns behind the cults of iurodivye, this thesis identifies the ideological narratives running through writings about iurodivye and shows that most cults played a role in supporting the rise of Russian autocracy, rather than being opposed to it, as past studies have claimed.

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APA Style

Vaz Pinto Simões Coelho, S. (2024). Of fools and men: Iurodstvo in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Russia [PhD thesis]. University of Oxford.

MLA Style

Vaz Pinto Simões Coelho, S. Of Fools and Men: Iurodstvo in Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Russia. 2024. University of Oxford, PhD thesis.

Chicago Style

Vaz Pinto Simões Coelho, S. 2024. “Of Fools and Men: Iurodstvo in Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Russia.” PhD thesis, University of Oxford.
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