Ottó Gecser

Ottó Gecser holds an MA and a PhD in medieval studies from the Central European University, as well as an MA in sociology from Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest. He is currently Associate Professor (docens) of Sociology at the latter institution. His research has focused on preaching and the cult of saints between the thirteenth and the fifteenth centuries, as well as on religious and medical interpretations of the plague in the late Middle Ages.

Selected publications on hagiography and the cult of saints

Book

The Feast and the Pulpit: Preachers, Sermons and the Cult of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, 1235–ca. 1500. Spoleto: Centro Italiano di Studi Sull’Alto Medioevo, 2012. Pp. xvi+462.

Edited Book

Together with József Laszlovszky, Balázs Nagy, Marcel Sebők, and Katalin Szende: Promoting the Saints: Cults and Their Contexts from Late Antiquity until the Early Modern Period; Essays in Honor of Gábor Klaniczay for his 60th Birthday. Budapest and New York: CEU Press, 2010. Pp. 336.

Book Chapter
  • “Helper Saints and their Critics in the Long Fifteenth Century.” In Bridging the Historiographical Divides: Religious Transformations in “New Communities of Interpretation” in Europe (1350-1570), ed. by Élise Boillet and Ian Johnson. Turnhout: Brepols, forthcoming.
  • “Intercession and Specialization. St. Sebastian and St. Roche as Plague Saints and their Cult in Medieval Hungary.” In Saints et leur culte en Europe centrale au Moyen Âge, ed. Marie-Madeleine de Cevins and Olivier Marin, 77-108. Turnhout: Brepols, 2017.
  • “Kultusz és identitás: Árpádházi Szent Erzsébet és a domonkos rend a 13. században” (Cult and Identity: St. Elizabeth of Hungary and the Dominican Order in the thirteenth century). In Az első 300 év Magyarországon és Európában. A Domonkos rend a középkorban [The first 300 years in Hungary and Europe. The Dominican Order in the Middle Ages], ed. József Csurgai Horváth, 145-163. Székesfehérvár: Alba Civitas Történeti Alapítvány, 2017.
  • “Sermons on St. Sebastian after the Black Death (1348–ca. 1500).” In Promoting the Saints: Cults and Their Contexts from Late Antiquity until the Early Modern Period; Essays in Honor of Gábor Klaniczay for his 60th Birthday, ed. Ottó Gecser et al., 261–272. Budapest and New York: CEU Press, 2010.
  • “Szent Erzsébet rózsacsodájának előzményei és legkorábbi latin szövegváltozatai” (The rose miracle: Its antecedents and earliest Latin versions). In Árpád-házi Szent Erzsébet kultusza a 13–16. században: Az Eötvös Loránd Tudományegyetem Bölcsészettudományi Karán 2007. március 24-én tartott konferencia előadásai (The cult of St. Elizabeth of Hungary in the 13th–16th centuries: Papers of the Conference at the Faculty of Arts of the Eötvös Loránd University, on 24 March 2007), ed. Dávid Falvay, 117–126. Budapest, 2009.
  • „Latin nyelvű prédikációk Árpád-házi Szent Erzsébetről a középkori Európában” (Latin sermons in honor of St. Elizabeth of Hungary in medieval Europe). In Magistrae discipuli: Tanulmányok Madas Edit tiszteletére (Studies in honor of Edit Madas), ed. Előd Nemerkényi, 117–126. Budapest: Argumentum, 2009.
  • Articles in the exhibition catalogue Elisabeth von Thüringen – eine europäische Heilige, ed. Dieter Blume and Matthias Werner, 121, 149, 155, 157, 160–161, 209, 228, 291–292; pp. 191–193, 222–223, 230–231, 232–233, 241–242, 316–317, 343–344, 438–440. Petersberg: Imhof, 2007.
  • “Santa Elisabetta d’Ungheria e il miracolo delle rose.” In Annuario 2002–2004: Conferenze e convegni, ed. László Csorba and Gyöngyi Komlóssy, 240–247. Rome: Accademia d’Ungheria in Roma, 2005.

Journal Article

  • “Holy Helpers and the Transformation of Saintly Patronage at the End of the Middle Ages.” Annual of Medieval Studies at CEU 22 (2016): 174-201.
  • “Miracles of the Leper and the Roses: Charity, Chastity and Female Independence in St. Elizabeth of Hungary,” Franciscana 15 (2013): 149-171+I-V.
  • “Lives of St. Elizabeth: Their Rewritings and Diffusion in the Thirteenth Century.” Analecta Bollandiana 127 (2009): 49–107.
  • “Arpád-házi Szt. Erzsébet kultusza a középkori Európában” (The Cult of St. Elizabeth of Hungary in Medieval Europe). Vigilia 72 (2007): 490–497.