Saints in the Oxford DNB

The cult of the Christian saints has developed over several centuries. The earliest were martyrs, an expression derived from the Greek word for witness: these first saints were so called because they were regarded as having borne witness by their deaths to the truth of the Christian faith. Later they were joined by the ‘confessors’, men and women who bore an equivalent witness to divine truth through their holy lives, and by the doctors of the church. For many centuries there was no formal process of canonization, and sainthood was usually spontaneously proclaimed, especially at places where relics were preserved. Partly for lack of formal records, the men and women commemorated in the resulting cults often passed rapidly into obscurity. The formal process of canonization as it exists today developed as a result of the growing involvement of the papacy in the recognition of saints from the early eleventh century onwards. It is impossible to say, however, exactly when a papal monopoly of the making of saints became finally established. The men and women named as saints in the Oxford DNB are usually those who came to be venerated as such either through the development of their cults before the middle of the twelfth century, or by papal process and decree after that time.

The following material, detailing subjects in the Oxford DNB, is arranged in two sets of four lists each. Catholic and Roman Catholic saints from all periods who were venerated in the British Isles are set out in the first four lists, arranged in alphabetical order under nationality. For Ireland the particular localism of cults has made it appropriate to group all but the most important saints into large articles covering the five provinces of Connacht, Leinster, Meath, Munster, and Ulster, together with another substantial entry comprising nearly all the abbots of Iona, who were also venerated as holy men. The saints in these articles are listed under appropriate subheadings.

The second series begins with saints who are principally venerated overseas. Some are very well known in the British Isles; others are more than names only in their countries of adoption. A second list details those who were informally revered as saints, sometimes very locally and for relatively short periods; several have been proposed for canonization but without success. The third contains those who have been beatified by the Roman Catholic church, their veneration having been formally licensed through a process which may, but need not, lead to canonization. Last are those who are now commemorated for their holy lives or deaths through festivals in the Church of England, but who are not recognized as saints by the Roman church.