ABSTRACT
Hagiographical writings for the eighth and ninth centuries represent a particularly important source, since they can reflect popular and unofficial views and attitudes in a way less open to works which are conceived as belonging to the genre ofhistoriography and chronography. Saints' lives and related collections of miracles have regularly been used by historians to shed light on Byzantine society and institutions as well as beliefs, everyday life and the development ofthe Greek language. But they are also a dangerous source, since they are always informed by a clear ideological programme - representing the saint or chief character in the best possible light, encouraging the reader or listener to imitate the piety and spiritual purity of the protagonists as far as they were able, and imbued in consequence with sets of values, implicit and explicit, which invariably meant the introduction of a strongly interpretative element by the writer or compiler. 1 They also presented strongly
See, for example, the discussion in C. Walter, 'Theodore, archetype ofthe warrior saint', REB 57 (1999) 163-210, on the relationship between hagiography and iconography (with further literature on the cults of the 'military' saints); and especially that in M. Vinson, 'Gender and politics in the post-iconoclastic period: the Lives of Antony the Younger, the Empress Theodora, and the patriarch Ignatios', B 68 (1998) 469-515. For aspects of the use of hagiography in social history and the history of cultural values, see, for example, A.-M. Talbot, 'Byzantine women, saints' lives and social welfare', in E.A. Hanawalt and C. Lindberg, eds, Through the eye of a needle: Judaeo-Christian roots of social welfare (Kirkville, MO 1994) 105-22; D. de F. Abrahamse, 'Magic and Sorcery in the Hagiography ofthe Middle Byzantine Period', BF 8 (1982) 3-17; R.J. Magoulias, 'The Lives of Byzantine Saints as Sources of Data for the History of Magic in the Sixth and Seventh Centuries A.D.: Sorcery, Relics and Icons', B 37 (1967) 228-69; idem, 'The Lives of the Saints as Sources of Data for the History of Byzantine Medicine in the Sixth and Seventh Centuries', BZ 57 (1964) 127-50; L. Ryden, 'Gaza, Emesa and Constantinople: Late Ancient Cities in the Light of Hagiography', in L. Ryden and lO. Rosenqvist, eds, Aspects of Late Antiquity and Early Byzantium 4 (Stockholm 1993) 133-44; G. Dagron, 'Quand la terre tremble .. .', TM 8 (1981) 87-103 (repr. in idem, La romanite chretien en Orient [London 1984] III) and 'Le saint, Ie savant, I'astrologue: etude de themes hagiographiques Ii travers quelques recueils de "Questions et reponses" des V e-VIle siecles', in Hagiographie, cultures et societes (IVe-VIle siecles): etudes augustiniennes (Paris 1981) 143-55 (repr. in G. Dagron, La romanite chretienne en Orient [London 1984] IV). On the lexicography ofthe hagiographical texts, see the brief remarks of E. Trapp, 'Die Bedeutung der byzantinischen Hagiographie fur die griechische Lexikographie', lO. Rosenqvist, ed., Leimon. Studies presented to Lennart Ryden on his sixty-fifth birthday (Acta Universitatis Uppsa\iensis. Studia Byzantina Uppsaliensia 6. Uppsa\a 1996) 1-10.
