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The Book of Sainte Foy. Translated by PAMELA SHEINGORN. Philadelphia, Pa.: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995. xiii + 329 pp. $44.95 cloth; $19.95 paper.
Liber miraculorum sancte Fidis. Critical edition and commentary by LUCA ROBERTINI. Biblioteca di Medioevo Latino 10. Spoleto, Italy: Centro Italiano di Studi sull'Alto Medioevo, 1994. 477 pp.
The striking reliquary-statue of St. Foy at Conques represents her with the head of an adult male. This late-antique bust was obviously not made at this place or for this purpose, but its incongruous re-use to portray a female child-martyr aptly defines the composite character of this confected saint. Nothing is known of the life of St. Foy, who is supposed to have been tortured and decapitated at Agen in the third or fourth century. In the late ninth century her relics were stolen by...