Abstract

Scholarly opinion generally recognises the period from the end of Iconoclasm to the end of the tenth century as the high point of Byzantine hagiography. Milestone compositions of this period include the Menologion of Symeon Metaphrastes and the Synaxarion of Constantinople. The Palaiologan period, the subject of the following chapter, is also generally recognised as an important one for hagiography. The intervening two centuries have usually been thought of as a period of decline, a void between two flourishing periods of hagiographic production. Nevertheless, a more careful consideration of developments in hagiographic production in these two centuries in the light of the diverse circumstances that marked the political history and spiritual life of Byzantium of the period may, if not overturn, at least re-orient the prevailing view.