Saints and holy (and not so holy) individuals out of whom they are fashioned have held a perennial fascination for sinful, wayward mankind. Over the last forty years, Peter Brown has transformed historians' ways of looking at early Christian saints, with a new, anthropologically orientated approach. His ideas are tested and modified in novel ways in this book which takes a broad view of the cult of saints in its first millennium.

Saints and holy (and not so holy) individuals out of whom they are fashioned have held a perennial fascination for sinful, wayward mankind. Over the last forty years, Peter Brown has transformed historians' ways of looking at early Christian saints, with a new, anthropologically orientated approach. His ideas are tested and modified in novel ways in this book which takes a broad view of the cult of saints in its first millennium.