Publications

Analecta Bollandiana

Among the many current periodicals in the world, very few can claim such an authority, that even the oldest issues keep all their usefulness one century after their publication. That is however the case for Analecta Bollandiana, a journal of critical hagiography, edited and published since 1882 by the Société des Bollandistes in Brussels. Since the very beginning, the journal was conceived as a continuous updating of the prestigious Acta Sanctorum series, as well as an entirely new instrument devoted to hagiographical research. Every issue contains both critical editions of hagiographical texts (Greek, Latin, Oriental…), and fundamental studies about hagiography. The articles are published in modern international languages (English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish), each of them being provided with an English and a French summary. About one fifth of each issue is devoted to book reviews and bibliography on hagiography.

Such contents make the Analecta Bollandiana indispensable in any department of medieval, Byzantine, Slavonic or Christian oriental studies, as well as of Church history, comparative religions, ethnology and folklore.

With both the inheritance of the great tradition given by the Acta Sanctorum and the actual support of a highly qualified international scientific committee, Analecta Bollandiana has been for a century and will remain the ideal forum for everyone interested in Christian hagiography.

Latest Issue: Analecta Bollandiana, 142/I (2024)

Witold Witakowski.  The Ethiopic Version of the Story of Mamas the Martyr.
Ethiopic Text Edited with English Translation

  • Summary : The paper provides a critical edition, with an English translation, of the Ethiopic (Gəʿəz) version of the Martyrdom of Mamas, a Cappadocian saint martyred during the reign of Emperor Aurelian (270-275 AD). It is included in the collection of the Acts of Martyrs (Gadla samāʿətāt). The version is based on the Greek premetaphrastic Passion (BHG 1019). It is not, however, a direct translation of the Greek text, but – as characteristic errors in some of the names in the text show – it was most probably translated from an Arabic Vorlage. The edition is based on eight MSS preserved in Western libraries, the oldest of which dates back to the 14th cent.  
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Paulo Farmhouse Alberto.  The Confessio beatissimae Leocadiae. A Reassessment with a Critical Edition
(BHL 4848 and BHL 4848d)

  • Summary: This study explores the Confessio beatissimae Leocadiae (BHL 4848; CPL 2072), composed in the first half of the 7th cent. in Toledo. Later, the cult expanded to northern Francia and northern Spain. This account, with an interesting focus on the victims of Datianus, and little details on Leocadia, reached a significant circulation. The critical edition presented here is based on a study of the manuscript tradition. All extant manuscripts prior to the 12th cent. have been used. The article also includes an edition of the Passio uel uita beatissimae Leocadiae (BHL 4848d), written in the 12th cent. in the abbey of Saint-Ghislain, which had never been published.
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Basile Markesinis.  Nicolas Ier le Mystique, patriarche de Constantinople, commanditaire de la Vita
de S. Maxime le Confesseur (BHG 1234, rec. I+II). Avec une étude sémantique d’ἀρχιερεύς et de ἱεράρχης

  • Summary: The ‘hierarch’ (ἱεράρχης) bearing the same name as St Nicholas in the Vita of St Maximus the Confessor (BHG 1234, rec. I), exhibiting the same behaviour as the holy bishop of Myra, and who is said to have commissioned this Vita – composed in Constantinople by the end of the first two decades of the 10th cent. –, can only be the patriarch Nicholas I the Mystic (901-907 and 912-925). This article sets out to prove this assumption by studying the vocabulary and implicit references to the hagiography of St Nicholas of Myra (in particular, the Praxis de stratelatis).
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Jacques Noret.  Fragments nouveaux d’un synaxaire du XIVe siècle

  • Summary: Detailed description of 28 paper sheets from a so-called “pure Synaxary” of the “M* class”. Dating from the middle of the 14th cent., they are in poor condition, having been used, after dismantling, to reinforce the covers of another book. They clearly confirm the unity and stability of the “pure Synaxaries” of the “M* class”.
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Bernard Joassart.  Le subside gouvernemental alloué aux Bollandistes (1837-1869).
Histoire d’un enjeu idéologique (I)

  • Summary: As soon as it was reestablished in 1837, the Bollandist Society received an annual subsidy from the Belgian government: it was a “national” high-quality work. But very soon, voices were raised, particularly within the liberal political world, against this subsidy: was it necessary for the government to support such a Jesuit-run enterprise ? Often called into question, the grant was finally abolished in 1869. Though costing the state very little, this affair reflected, among other things, the opposition between the two major political tendencies of the time – Catholics and Liberals –, which, over the decades, put an end to the unionism of 1830. Not to mention the “fear of the Jesuits”.
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François De Vriendt – Timo Van Havere.  Une annotation du monumentiste L. C. Bethmann dans un manuscrit des Bollandistes (boll. 251)

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François De Vriendt. La digitalisation des manuscrits médiévaux conservés chez les Bollandistes / The Digitisation of Mediaeval Manuscripts Preserved by the Bollandists 

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Xavier Lequeux. Bibliotheca Hagiographica Graeca manuscripta. Avancements récents (II)

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Bulletin des publications hagiographiques — Publications reçues

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Editors

Robert GODDING (Director), Bernard JOASSART, Xavier LEQUEUX, François DE VRIENDT, and Pietro D’AGOSTINO (Editor-in-Chief)

Scientific Committee

Theofried BAUMEISTER (Mainz), Sebastian BROCK (Oxford), Tommaso CALIÒ (Roma), Paolo CHIESA (Milano), François DOLBEAU (Paris), Sergey KIM (Lausanne), Damien LABADIE (Lyon), Cécile LANÉRY (Paris), Michael LAPIDGE (Cambridge), José Carlos MARTIN IGLESIAS (Salamanca), Jacques NORET (Brussels), Pádraig Ó RIAIN (Cork), Flavia RUANI (Paris), Herman SELDESLACHTS (Louvain-la-Neuve), Ugo ZANETTI (Chevetogne)

Submissions

Previously unpublished contributions submitted for possible publication, as well as PDF of articles on hagiographical topics (to be included in the list of “Received Publications”), should be sent to info@bollandistes.be

Books for review should be sent to:

Analecta Bollandiana Editorial
Société des Bollandistes
Boulevard Saint-Michel 24
1040 Brussels (Belgium)

Subscriptions

The journal is published twice a year (in June and December) in issues of 240 pages each.  You may choose between two formulas of subscription:

Indices

How to order

To purchase one or more volumes of the Analecta Bollandiana or to subscribe to the journal, please send an e-mail to the following address: info@bollandistes.be