207 Conclusion discourses it should be recognised that the represented mobility mostly took place within one political entity (the Eastern Roman Empire). Elias, according to his Life, did cross borders. The different circumstances and the hostilities between Aghlabids and the Eastern Roman Empire had consequences for his reception by communities abroad (as is evinced by his enslavement in context of war and his imprisonment in North Africa due to his missionary work). Even within the borders of the same political entity people could have a hostile reception. Gregory, for example, was taken captive twice by local inhabitants (at Otranto) and authorities (at Buthrint), because he was perceived as a potential traitor. Considering that all three Lives were deeply rooted in the cultural-historical context of the ninth- and early tenth-century these representations most probably also represented possible hostile reactions to movers from another region, or who were in other way considered suspect, in and beyond the Eastern Roman Empire. Identity, travel motivation, the types of destinations and the political circumstances in which the monks moved therefore were all contributing factors shaping views on mobility (and consequently on immobility) in the ninth- and early tenth-century Mediterranean. 4. Ask whether discourses on mobility and immobility reveal deeper societal concerns of discourse communities The societal concerns that are most prominently revealed by the identified discourses on (im)mobility are concerns for spiritual integrity and spiritual development. These were captured in part by the ideal of hesychia and diverse ideas on how to reach it. The search for this ideal in the Lives of Gregory and Euthymius resulted in a tension between mobility and immobility in the narratives. In the Life of Elias a concern for the monk’s spiritual integrity in combination with his mobility was also addressed. In addition, in chapter 1 we observed that earlier normative discourses on mobility presented some aspects and effects of monastic mobility as potentially problematic. These reflected concerns of community building (cq. Basil’s Rules, and to a degree, Justinian’s Novels) or the separation of spheres of influence (cq. canon 4 of the Council of Chalcedon). Each of the texts discussed, including the saints’ Lives, represent a different cultural-historical context and we should therefore refrain from seeing a unified ideal as the origin of tensions between monastic mobility and immobility. (Im)mobility and sainthood: the how and why of narrative representation In the general introduction the issue was raised that answering the question ‘what can we learn about perceptions of monastic mobility by studying hagiography?’ inevitably also needed to deal with representation. This study therefore also sought to address a consecutive question: how did hagiographers represent monastic mobility and to what end? The ‘how’ and the ‘why’ are closely connected, but the latter is difficult to establish. As outlined in the introduction, the aims and social functions of hagiography were diverse, C
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