208 ranging from devotion to providing normative examples to entertainment. Moreover, certainty on authorial intentions – especially of dead authors – is a near impossibility. However, by considering the (possible) narrative effects of the way in which mobility and immobility are represented, it is possible to hypothesise about the authorial aims. The following will therefore elaborate on how (im)mobility is represented in the saints’ Lives as brought to light in the analyses in this thesis. Subsequently the discursive implications of this representation will be reflected on. Finally, we may hypothesise to which authorial aims as outlined in the introduction the representation of (im)mobility is connected. There are striking similarities between the three Lives. They all represent mobility mostly as translocation, they all pay attention to a variety of travel motivations, and in all three Lives the representation of (im)mobility is intertwined with the construction of sainthood. One of the explanations for these similarities is that the genre and the representation of particular themes within the Lives stand in a long literary tradition. Another is that these texts were written around the same time in a comparable political, cultural and literary context. These continuities and similarities aside, the analysis also revealed different strategies of representation between the three Lives. Different authorial techniques were used to connect (im)mobility to aspects of the saints’ identities. Traditionally, hagiographies have been characterised as narratives woven together out of topoi. While the Lives of Gregory, Euthymius and Elias equally include topoi, the high frequency of their mobility is not one of them. Perhaps for this reason, this study has been able to contribute to seeing diversity in the hagiographical genre. While the Lives are otherwise very comparable, produced around the same time, in the same language, featuring comparable types of saints, the analysis laid bare the creativity of individual hagiographers. Mobility as translocation As stated, one aspect of the representation of the saints’ mobility that is similar to all three Lives is that travel is mostly represented as translocation. That is, the narratives give attention to the changes from one place to another and in varying degrees give attention to the representation of the saints’ motivations to change place. The journeys that would have happened in between these translocations feature relatively little in the narratives.677 In chapter 2, for example, we concluded that it is not so much the travelling in search of hesychia that is emphasised in the narratives, nor is the journey itself presented as an important element in reaching hesychia. Rather, the arriving at a fitting place or the leaving of an unsuitable place is relevant for hesychia and thus the spiritual advancement of the saint. The implication of this finding is that, contrary to what some scholars have argued 677 This aspect of representation was not discussed elaborately in this thesis, but the briefness of travel descriptions has already been observed by Mantova. The ninth until the eleventh centuries would be a transition period, in which some hagiographies represent more elaborate travel scenes, particularly when they detail miracles of the saints performed while travelling, although still relatively little. My reading of the Lives of Gregory, Euthymius and Elias confirms Mantova’s observations about this period. Mantova (2014).
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