A site that collects information on “15,771 saints, beati, venerables and feasts“ and provides a vast amount of information for hagiographic research. Among the key benefits of this site is the extensive amount of search options: your research is not limited to the name or feast day of a saint but there are plenty of other options available: you will be able to browse the site via categories such as occupation, life status, gender, type of death, characteristics of the respective saint (e.g. disability) and the pope who beatified or canonised a saint. Additionally, there are several lists of saints (organised by alphabet, patronage groups, calendar etc.). The length and the content of the entries vary, although there are similarities in the structure of the entries (memorial, profile, born, died, canonation, representation and additional information such as books and other internet sources). However, it must be mentioned that the project is the work – in his own words – of an amateur hagiographer: the site does not provide access to its sources and while the site features a great collection of downloadable ebooks, the scientific value of these books has to be examined before using them for academic research – the same goes for the entries of the main site.
Nevertheless, the value of this site lies in the extensive amount of its entries and the very useful research categories. This way, the site is able to accommodate researchers with different interests.
Author: Terry Jones