ABSTRACT
Irenaeus of Sirmium was a martyr from late antiquity who suffered in the settlement of the Roman Pannonia during the “Great Persecution” in the fourth century. The extant elements of his cult, namely, the late antique archeological remnants, his feast day in the early calendars, and the historical and authentic martyrdom narrative translated into five languages, did not provide him a place in the long-lasting memory of the Middle Ages. They further eased the forgetting of the saint due to their nonsynchronicity. This chapter introduces the readers to these cult aspects and the book’s theoretical framework. Memory and forgetting are tested through textual analysis, helped by narratology and intertextuality. The quantitative study of manuscripts further substantiates the study of memory and forgetting. The book targets the entire hagiographical dossier of the saint presented in this introduction.
