Introduction; Part I. Legendary Locations: 1. An antique land: Sainte-Reine in Burgundy; 2. Pilgrims and nature in the Pyrenees; 3. Notre-Dame du Puy: image, pilgrimage, and the religious wars; Part II. Text, Territory, and Truth: 4. Histories and archives of faith; 5. In the beginning: origins, legends, and fables; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.
Pilgrim shrines were places of healing, holiness, and truth in early modern France. This book explains how this came about.
Virginia Reinburg is an Associate Professor of History at Boston College. She is the author of French Books of Hours: Making an Archive of Prayer, c.1400-1600 (Cambridge, 2012), and many articles on the religious and cultural history of early modern France.
'Virginia Reinburg provides a profoundly empathetic yet incisive
reading of the ways in which communities which had suffered so much
during the French religious wars managed to defend and refurbish
their archives of faith. This is a masterpiece of the historian's
craft: both utterly compelling and deeply moving.' Simon
Ditchfield, University of York
'Virginia Reinburg's study of shrines in early modern France paints
them into the landscape of healing powers, mythic origins, and
local forces. Her well-documented case studies tell the story of
the powerful wellsprings of belief that the Protestant Reformation
had contested, but that Catholic revival successfully
reinvigorated.' Mark Greengrass, University of Sheffield
'Storied Places masterfully illuminates the important role that
pilgrimage shrines played in the Catholic renewal that took place
in the wake of France's Wars of Religion. As Virginia Reinburg
persuasively demonstrates, the apparitions and miracles reported at
these shrines, marrying grace to nature, re-affirmed Catholic
truths in places where the church and its truths had been most
contested. Reinburg's nuanced examination of the shrines as
products of both place and story makes a strikingly original
contribution to our understanding of early modern religious
culture.' Barbara Diefendorf, Boston University
'Storied Places is a compelling investigation of how pilgrimage
shrines were remade, materially and mentally, in the wake of the
French Wars of Religion. Bringing the histories of text and
territory, authority and archive, into creative dialogue, Virginia
Reinburg offers fresh insight into how early modern Catholicism
overcame the challenges of iconoclasm, discord, and doubt. Her book
persuasively recasts our understanding of the relationship between
sacred landscapes and religious truth in the Counter-Reformation
world.' Alexandra Walsham, University of Cambridge
'What happened to pilgrimage, that quintessential medieval activity
of Catholic worship, after the advent of the Reformation and the
shock of Protestant iconoclasm? Reinburg traces the renewal and
growth of pilgrim shrines in early modern France, emphasizing their
relations to the natural world, their ancient but sometimes mythic
origins, and their powers to heal and inspire. ... Those sites that
survived the violence of the religious wars faced a new challenge,
as writers strove to counter doubts about religious truth with
assertions of these shrines' antiquity and authenticity. The
'shrine books' that resulted combined myth, history, and archives
to counter iconoclasm, oblivion, and doubt. The works and their
authors employed print culture to convince those shaken by
religious turmoil that the Catholic Church possessed the one true
faith.' L. C. Attreed, Choice
'The author helps her readers to understand the impact of the
religious wars on Catholic survivors. Reinburg thoughtfully
highlights the ordeal Catholic communities faced and their efforts
to avoid confronting trauma in future generations by creating and
recreating shrines. She convincingly asserts that the rebuilding of
structures and communities was a way for Catholics to tell a story
of their history that was coherent and could overlook the religious
wars ... What makes Reinburg's book so engaging is its multifaceted
approach to telling the history of the shrines and the regions she
studies.' Susan E. Dinan, H-France Review
'This is an excellent book which merits a wide readership. It
displays deep scholarship, sophisticated use of a wide range of
sources including site visits - which are illustrated - and it is
written with clarity and gracefulness. It is a seminal essay, which
makes one reflect on spirituality and landscape in new ways.'
Elizabeth Tingle, The Journal of Ecclesiastical History
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