ABSTRACT
The fifth chapter covers the compositional strategies of the texts, beginning with an analysis of the characters, including the thieves, the instigators of the thefts, the custodians of the relics, the communities that were robbed, and the populations that received the saints’ bodies in their cities. The chapter focuses on the cultural themes and topoi present in the texts, which serve to make the narratives full of miraculous events. These themes and topoi constitute a specific language employed by hagiographers to recount the arrival of the relics, reflecting a shared cultural and interpretative horizon. The chapter concludes with a detailed examination of the artistic representations of certain clandestine narratives, linking tale and visual memory to offer a comprehensive understanding of how these stories were perceived and remembered.
