202 What can we learn about middle-Byzantine perceptions of monastic mobility and immobility by studying hagiography? This dissertation has explored various ways to answer this question. One major observation from the outset has been that discourses on mobility inevitably also reflect discourses on immobility: value judgements on those who move also imply (opposite) value judgements on those who stay. Throughout this thesis mobility and immobility have therefore been studied in tandem, sometimes with more emphasis on mobility, in other places on immobility. In order to re-assess discourses and mentalities on monastic (im)mobility, hagiography has been approached from multiple perspectives. This analysis therefore also served as a methodological experiment, illustrating what we can learn from each of the perspectives taken. Three hagiographical texts were chosen as case studies to test each of the perspectives. These are three Lives of frequently travelling ‘new saints’, who lived in the ninth century and whose Lives had been written soon after their deaths: the Life of Gregory of Decapolis, the Life of Euthymius the Younger and the Life of Elias the Younger. Due to the nature of the sources, the analyses also resulted in insights into another topic. Studying Lives of new saints from the perspective of (im)mobility laid bare discursive strategies that authors used to promote their monastic heroes as saints. This dissertation discovered ways in which (im)mobility was intertwined with the construction of sainthood in narrative representation as well as on a conceptual level. Approaches to study perceptions on monastic (im)mobility: a summary Before turning to the three middle-Byzantine saints’ Lives, this study has first reviewed several texts from earlier periods in chapter 1: the Rules of Basil of Caesarea, canon 4 of the Council of Chalcedon and several Novels of Justinian. The rationale for doing so was that these texts have been used in modern historiography to identify an ideal of stability (stabilitas loci), in Eastern Roman monasticism. Considering the authority and legislative nature of these late-antique texts the ideal derived from these texts was regarded relevant for later periods as well. Consequently, Byzantine mobility of all periods, including the middle-Byzantine period, is habitually discussed in relation to stabilitas loci. Chapter 1 has critiqued this scholarly discourse on two grounds. Firstly, the chapter has found fault with the term itself, which is taken from an interpretation of Benedictine monasticism and therefore imposes a western model to our understanding of Eastern Roman monasticism. The danger of not fully appreciating a past culture on its own terms is apparent. Secondly, the discussion of the three types of texts laid bare that each text represented ideas and ideals which were determined by their own specific cultural-historical contexts and they do not represent one unified ideal. Close reading of these texts has shown that they do not prescribe immobility or forbid monastic mobility as strongly and unambiguously as often has been put forward in the scholarly discourse. On the other hand, each of these texts did reveal certain preoccupations with monastic mobility in specific contexts and
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