Byzantine Hagiography

Interest in all things Byzantine remains high today. And, among scholars at least, the question of hagiography also continues to attract a good deal of critical scrutiny. Along comes a new collection of essays to marry both interests: Stephanos Efthymiadis, Hagiography in Byzantium: Literature, Social History and Cult (Ashgate Variorum Collected Studies Series, 2011), 360pp.

About this book the publisher tells us:

Involving a vast number of texts, saintly heroes and authors, Byzantine hagiography stands out as a field of scholarly research highly rewarding for both the philologist and the historian. The studies reproduced in this volume cover a chronological range from late antiquity to the Paleologan era. They bring together annotated editions of specific texts and discussions of their contexts, complemented by comprehensive surveys of saintly and monastic cult. Having appeared over the last twenty years, they also illustrate and reflect upon the significant development and re-orientation which has marked the study of hagiography in recent decades.