ABOUT

The Long Answer

For skeptics and press. In four sections.

This job is eight hundred years old.

In 1215, the hagiographer Jacques of Vitry wrote a vita that made Marie of Oignies famous across Europe. The hagiographer was the PR agent. The vita was the press kit. The shrine was the platform. Saint Me is that service, brought forward eight hundred years and pointed at you. We did not invent any of this. We are answering a phone that has been ringing since the thirteenth century.

You were already doing this.

Autohagiography: everyone is already writing their own saint's life on social media — the curated highlights, the trials borne with grace, the patron-saint-of-this-very-specific-thing bios. Saint Me makes it explicit, structured, and better written. The friend who is the patron saint of remembering everyone's birthday. The cousin who is the Madonna of small dogs. You have made saints of the people around you your whole life. We are just writing them down.

Your shrine is technically a sanctuary.

André Vauchez gave the three criteria of medieval sanctuary. We checked, point by point.

• FAMA SANCTITATIS(reputation of holiness) — your friends sharing the Card. We checked.
• VIRTUS(signs and wonders) — the small absurdities of your specific life, treated with reverence. We checked.
• CULTUS(people show up) — the candles pilgrims light on your shrine page. We checked.

The receipts.

The full annotated bibliography lives at Saints 101 → The Bibliography. Built atop Brown, Vauchez, Geary, Bynum, Spencer-Hall, Self, and Morgan.

Made by the medievalist behind The Medieval Project.