Irene Jacobs

203 Conclusion reflecting specific concerns, such as community building or the separation of spheres of influence. They do not reflect a unified ideal that can be captured by the term or concept of stabilitas loci, but instead illustrate that at various points in time diverse attitudes existed, from particular societal groups or individuals to particular aspects of monastic mobility. Chapters 2, 3 and 4 examined the Lives of Gregory of Decapolis, Euthymius the Younger and Elias the Younger from three different perspectives, each chapter analysing discourses and perceptions of (im)mobility from the perspective taken. These approaches were: studying an emic term in its narrative contexts by means of a semantic and discourse analysis in chapter 2, analysing the representation of a thematic narrative building block in chapter 3, and examining patterns in metaphorical language use in chapter 4. The main discoveries from these respective approaches will be summarised below for each chapter. Chapter 2 approached the Lives from an emic perspective by selecting an emic term and study it in its narrative contexts. The chapter chose to focus on a term for ‘rest’, the spiritually significant term hesychia, and studied how it was connected to mobility and immobility in the three narratives. The semantic analysis of the term was informed by a maximalist view of semantics in linguistic theory. It revealed various layers of meaning of hesychia, which were broadly continuous from a late-antique understanding of the term. The subsequent analysis was informed by discourse analysis and close reading. It revealed both positive and (anticipated) negative discourses on monastic mobility: positive in the Lives of Gregory and Euthymius, as well as an anticipated negative discourses in the Life of Elias. The varying discourses were dependent on the authors’ understanding of hesychia, particularly considering its connection to space, mobility and immobility. Chapter 3 approached the Lives from a representational perspective. The chapter analysed the representation of a narrative building block: it examined how the authors represented the saints’ travel motivations. The analysis used mobility models from migration studies as a starting point, particularly the identification of push and pull factors and a model for categories of travel motivations. The model for analysis was enhanced by other motivations found in the narratives that were not originally reflected in the mobility model. The analysis showed that many different types of travel motivations were represented. The hagiographers thus did not present only one type of monastic mobility as legitimate or beneficial and others as undesirable. From the way in which these various motivations were represented, we could with some caution suggest two views on monastic mobility that the hagiographers may have expected from their audiences. The first position is that the author did not expect that the audience found high mobility of monks problematic – this envisioned position was especially suggested for the Life of Gregory. The second position is that the author did expect that (a part of) the audience potentially found monastic mobility problematic. This position was particularly suggested for the Life of Elias. Chapter 4 approached the texts from a cognitive linguistic perspective, informed by conceptual metaphor theory. This chapter centred on an analysis of metaphorical language C

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