ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the complex interrelation of manuscripts’ geography and the saint’s memory. It considers various novel aspects relevant to the cult of the saint, the broad readership of his hagiographical dossier, and his lasting memory: language, territory, rewriting methods, textual fixity, comprehensibility, and availability. We conclude that no places containing the manuscripts with the Martyrdom of Irenaeus of Sirmium expressed the manifest traces of his cult or any cult-like features. The monasteries kept the manuscripts with his martyrdom narrative among many other texts. The text’s use was mainly generic in the collections organized by calendars. His story was among many hagiographies read at best on the saint’s feast day, in monastic settings, during meals, or in individual monastic cells. As a sole marker of the saint’s memory, the text alone could not enforce maintaining his memory or developing his cult.
