In 1693, quarrymen working near Caerleon, outside Newport in Wales, uncovered an alabaster sculpture of a figure they did not recognise. The man wore a suit of armour, which had once been covered in gold leaf. In one hand he held a sword, in the other a pair of scales. The scales themselves held a girl’s face and a globe of the Earth. The sculpture was donated to the Ashmolean, but experts there were baffled by it. Could it represent the goddess Astrea, one of them wondered.
In fact, it represented the Archangel Michael, one of the most significant figures in the medieval church. Among other things, it will be Michael who wields the scales on Judgment Day. How could so significant a figure have been forgotten – the cultural memory of more than 1,000 years erased – in such a short space of time? More importantly, what else did the Tudor Reformation rob us of?
Amy Jeffs’s Saints is intended to help answer that question. It comprises brief, tightly shaped, almost fragmentary, fictionalised narratives about 40 saints, organised by month according to their respective feast days. In a nod to medieval calendars, each month is also accompanied by notes about the labours traditionally undertaken at that time of year, together with the relevant sign of the zodiac, thought to influence human health and well-being.
The book therefore hints at the holistic, all-encompassing, God-steeped world – the universe-wide web of spiritual signs and meanings – of which saints were a potent part. Each story is paired with a thoughtful essay reflecting on its historical context.
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