Source genre: Saints' Lives

Written accounts of the lives of saints are known in scholarly terms as hagiographies (Greek hagios = holy; graphein = to write). They were written to provide posterity with testimony to the origins, life, works, merits and miracles or martyrdom of a saint. His chapter is intended to set out specific aspects of this source genre via the example of the life of the Augsburg bishop Ulrich.

On the manuscript: The Life of Ulrich survives in many manuscripts. The text used here come from a manuscript that dates to the beginning of the 11th century at the monastery of St. Quririnus on the Tergernsee. Today it is catalogued under the signature Cod. I. 2 4o 6 in the university library at Augsburg. The chapter headings are rubricated initials. The hand is a Carolingian minuscule, and the manuscript is written on parchment.