This article aims to discuss on a particular type of narrative about servants, the Lifes of holy servants. In particular it will focus on the Lives of a medieval saint, Zita of Lucca, that lived in the 14th century. It will show how her image was modified in order to transform it into a model to be imitated, special by servants, between the 16th and the 18th centuries. It will also describe the strategy elaborated by the Catholic Church in the 16th and the 17th centuries in order to reform its body and in order to arrest the spreading of the Protestant Reformation, paying particular attention to the role attributed to hagiography. Zita's story could suit the police of moral and religious restoration pursued by the Catholic Church in the 19th and part of the 20th centuries. It will analyze how the same story has been told differently in different cultural and social contexts and by authors who were pursuing different aims. After analyze the "story of Zita's stories", it will discuss the socio-economic transformations of domestic service, in particular on its feminization, trying to understand the more general implications and consequences of feminization with regard to social and gender history.
Hagiography; saint Zita of Lucca; Protestant Reform; saints