Melissa M. Coll-Smith

Melissa M. Coll-Smith is an independent researcher who works with the hagiographical depiction of saints and the manifestation of their cults in late medieval Scotland. Her primary interest is the anonymous fourteenth-century vernacular Scottish Legendary, which draws largely on the traditions of the Legenda aurea of Jacobus de Voragine. Her doctoral thesis, "The Scottish Legendary and Female Saints' Lives in Late Medieval Scotland" was completed at the University of Oxford, and more recently she has published articles on the development of the Scottish cult of Margaret of Scotland and the role of cultic devotion in the political motivations of James IV. She currently teaches at Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, MI.