This book is the work of an international group of experts and is addressed to a broader public and the scholarly community of Byzantinists, medievalists, historians of religion and theorists of narrative. It highlights the literary dimension and the research potential of a representative number of texts appreciated by the Byzantines themselves and modern readers.

Table of Contents

• Acknowledgements
• Note on Transliteration and Citation
• Abbreviations
• Contributors
• Maps
• Introduction - Stephanos Efthymiadis
• PART I: GENRES, VARIETIES AND FORMS
• 1 Byzantine Hagiography and its Literary Genres. Some Critical Observations - Martin Hinterberger
• 2 Greek Passions of the Martyrs in Byzantium - Marina Detoraki
• 3 Collections of Miracles (Fifth–Fifteenth Centuries) - Stephanos Efthymiadis
• 4 Collections of Edifying Stories - André Binggeli
• 5 Greek Byzantine Hagiography in Verse - Stephanos Efthymiadis
• 6 Symeon Metaphrastes and the Metaphrastic Movement - Christian Høgel
• 7 Synaxaria and the Synaxarion of Constantinople - Andrea Luzzi
• PART II: HAGIOGRAPHY AS LITERATURE
• 8 The Byzantine Hagiographer and his Text - Martin Hinterberger
• 9 Audience, Language and Patronage in Byzantine Hagiography - Stephanos Efthymiadis – Nikos Kalogeras
• 10 Byzantine Hagiography and Hymnography: An Interrelationship - Antonia Giannouli
• 11 Fiction and/or Novelisation in Byzantine Hagiography - Charis Messis
• 12 Holy Actors and Actresses Fools and Cross-Dressers as the Protagonists of Saints’ Lives - Stavroula Constantinou
• 13 The Literary Portrait of Byzantine Female Saints - Nathalie Delierneux
• PART III: HAGIOGRAPHY AND SOCIETY
• 14 Economy and Society in Byzantine Hagiography: - Realia and Methodological Questions Michel Kaplan – Eleonora Kountoura-Galaki
• 15 The City in Byzantine Hagiography - Helen G. Saradi
• 16 The Hagiography of Doubt and Scepticism - Anthony Kaldellis