Fideales Erzählen

Abstract

Literary theory has developed its understanding of narrative as either fictional or factual without taking into account the specific conditions of literature that is grounded in religious faith. The paper discusses the shortcomings of the dichotomy ‘fictional’/‘factual’ with regard to medieval religious literature. It argues that it is necessary to conceptualize further modes of narration in order to describe adequately the historical and global plurality of story-telling. The concept of “fideal narrative” is introduced in order to specify the pragmatic and epistemological conditions of religious literature. Its historical validity is tested in a comparison of the prologues of historiographer and hagiographer William of Malmesbury.