ABSTRACT

The modern historian’s main motivation for studying a miracle collection lies in the wealth of information it provides in terms of prosopography details of daily life, folklore and medical science, all fields of scholarship poorly or modestly documented in other literary sources. A miracle is a personal event, arguably the most emotional and fascinating episode in a person’s life, and its importance needed to be conveyed to those who would visit the shrine whether in person or spiritually through prayer. The clear signs of variety and differentiation are tangible from the outset in the two oldest Greek miracle collections, which date from the mid-fifth century. In the run-up to the Middle Byzantine period, when new political, demographic, geographical, social and economic realities were affecting life in the Eastern Mediterranean, few of the conditions which had generated and nurtured the writing of miracle collections in late antiquity could be sustained.