ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on inappropriate behaviour and its consequences. The cult of the saints was a ubiquitous feature of life based on an understanding that the saints were known to be powerful thaumaturges. Despite this, people were willing to defy, attack and ignore the local saint, perhaps enacting a critique of the cult and its workings. Throughout the period, saints reacted to slights against their communities and cults with miracles of vengeance. Saints took part in legal disputes, punished thieves, made sure their people were secure and protected themselves from mockery and mistreatment. Miracles of vengeance could be petitioned like any other miracle, but they could be produced reactively by a saint as well. Either way, these intercessions were triggered by human actions taken with a foreknowledge of the saint in question, thus following the structure outlined in chapter three. The misbehaviour of these people shows not only what a saint could not tolerate and what a hagiographer found instructive; it also highlights the elements of the cult of the saints which people resisted.
