Picq, Jean <br/><br/>
Europe and Its States in Globalization 

 -  2010.<br/>							 
<br/><br/> 52 
<br/><br/> Written in Middle Scots, The Life of St. Julian Hospitaller in the Scottish Legendary (c.1400), the last vita of the collection, testifies to the growing popularity of abbreviated legendaries produced in the wake of the legendarium par excellence, Jacobus of Voragine’s thirteenth-century Legenda aurea presently translated into vernacular languages all over Europe. The sundry versions of the myth of the patron of innkeepers, ferrymen, travellers and pilgrims bear out the medieval cult of saintly figures, in this case Julian Hospitaller. The life of this criminal who achieves redemption through heartfelt penance starts like that of Œdipus the parricide and ends like that of Mercury the protector of wayfarers. The evocation of this saint paints him as a holy sinner, a living oxymoron that defies classification. This article attempts to explore the various facets of Julian’s long and difficult progress from parricide to selfless accommodation of the weakest while drawing attention to porous generic borders, which a close reading of the hagiographical romance of the Hospitaller reveals.