21 Introduction Hagiography In order to examine perceptions of monastic mobility and immobility this study turns to one particular genre: hagiography, more particularly medieval Greek saints’ Lives.46 Hagiography is perhaps the richest corpus of literary medieval Greek texts surviving for the ninth and tenth centuries.47 Especially when it concerns monks and monasticism, including travelling monks, saints’ Lives are probably the most extensive narrative sources that have survived for the period. The research will be centred on three saints’ Lives written in the ninth and early tenth centuries: the Life of Gregory of Decapolis, the Life of Euthymius the Younger and the Life of Elias the Younger.48 These saints were all historical persons who lived in the ninth century and their Lives were most likely written within a generation.49 They are thus ‘new’ saints.50 Saints’ Lives detail the life and deeds of individuals considered saints.51 In the surviving manuscripts they are often titled ‘βίος καὶ πολιτεία καὶ θαύματα of saint x’ (‘life and way of life and miracles’).52 They narrate just that: the biography from birth to death, including miracles, and character traits of the saint (notably their virtues). They sometimes also include events after the saint’s death, particularly posthumous miracles or the translation of relics. Medieval Greek saints’ Lives are literary texts written in a particular form: they start with a prologue, subsequently include a biography, and end with an epilogue. In the prologue the hagiographer typically uses more figurative language (compared to the main narrative) and often compares the saint to biblical models or addresses a biblical theme which the author connects to the life of the individual. The following ‘biography’ treats events mostly in chronological order and is divided in short ‘chapters’.53 These thematic 46 Since I particularly focus on saints’ Lives, a literary genre narrating a biography of individuals considered saints, whenever I use hagiography, I refer to saints’ Lives. I am aware that there has been critique to use the term ‘hagiography’ or even to see it as a genre, because as a term it is introduced only in the nineteenth century and medieval authors would not be making a distinction between hagiography and historiography. Since I use it in a narrow way to refer here to saints’ Lives, which I do think can be considered as a genre, I think it is still possible to use the term, and thereby place this research in dialogue with other studies on hagiography, particularly in the field of Byzantine Studies. See Lifshitz (1994). 47 See also the comments in Kazhdan and Talbot (1998) ‘Dumbarton Oaks Hagiography Database: Introduction’, https://www.doaks.org/research/byzantine/resources/hagiography-database/hagiointro.pdf, p. 3. 48 I used the following editions for the texts of these Lives: Makris (1997); Alexakis (2016); Rossi Taibbi (1962). In these editions the Lives are divided into numbered ‘chapters’, corresponding to the tradition in medieval manuscripts to divide a text in small blocks (see footnote 53). Hereafter I will cite from these Lives by indicating the Life (e.g., Life of Elias the Younger) and the relevant ‘chapter’ in the Life as corresponding to the edition. 49 The criteria for selecting these specific Lives is elaborated on below, see pp. 29-31. 50 A large part of the hagiographical production during the ninth and tenth centuries included also the writing or rewriting of Lives of saints that would have lived centuries earlier, particularly early Christian martyrs. Efthymiadis (2011a), p. 96. 51 In the Byzantine tradition there was no official canonisation process for the recognition of saints similar to processes of pontifical canonisation that evolved in the western tradition and currently still in place in Catholicism (however, in the ninth and tenth centuries, these processes were also not yet established in the western tradition). On the development of official canonisation processes in western Europe, see Vauchez (1997). 52 And variations, sometimes leaving out πολιτεία or θαύματα. 53 These blocks are often referred to as ‘chapters’ in the editions, but they sometimes consist only of a few lines. In the surviving manuscripts such divisions are visible, such as in the oldest manuscript containing the Life of Gregory of Decapolis (from the ninth or tenth century), Vat.gr.807. In this manuscript the start of a new chapter is indicated by the placing of the first letter of the section, capitalised, in front of the main text column. I
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