hagiography

noun

Etymology: Etymology tree English hagio- Proto-Indo-European *gerbʰ- Proto-Hellenic *grə́pʰō Ancient Greek γρᾰ́φω (grắphō) Ancient Greek -ᾱ (-ā) Ancient Greek -η (-ē) Ancient Greek γραφή (graphḗ) Ancient Greek -γραφίᾱ (-graphíā)bor. French -graphieder. English -graphy English hagiography From hagio- + -graphy.

1. The study of saints and the documentation of their lives.

   “The second half of the eleventh century saw a notable surge of interest in hagiography throughout England, which meant that many of the Anglo-Saxon saints of earlier eras were furnished, often for the first time, with a Latin Vita.”

   “Jacques LeGoff remarks, 'Hagiography tells us much about the mental infrastructure [of the middle ages]: the interpenetration between the tangible world and the supernatural world, the common nature of the corporeal and psychic, are the conditions which make miracles and related phenomena possible.”

2. A biography of a saint.
3. A biography which expresses reverence and respect for its subject.

   “Churchill revisionism, of course, is almost as much of a cottage industry as Churchill hagiography.”

4. A biography which is uncritically supportive of its subject, often including embellishments or propaganda.

   “For an obsequious hagiography of [William] Byrd, see L. Wright 1940. For a more critical assessment, see Lockridge 1987, 1992.”

   “This 'cultivated characteriology' (ibid., p. 117) is one that she suggests has been reduced to the cult of the theorist's personality in many of the hagiographies written about Foucault, missing how he cultivated his ethos or characteriology in order to persuade, seduce, unsettle, question, and so forth.”