ABSTRACT
BY ‘low level’ saints’ lives I mean the lives of saints whose activity is largely among relatively humble people, who have few connections with persons of power and influence, and who are not – except quite incidentally – members of the hierarchy of the Church. Such lives are generally composed in an unpretentious style and in a language little affected by classicising tendencies. Like all early Byzantine hagiographical texts they may be rewritten in more classicising and prestigious style in the tenth century. But both the language and style and the content of the original versions suggest that these lives were composed with a popular audience or readership in mind. The common features which they display – and they are many – may throw some light on how the Byzantine ‘man in the street’ saw holy men and what he expected of them.
