Chastity or procreation? Models of sanctity for Byzantine laymen during the Iconoclastic and Post-Iconoclastic period

This article presents evidence for married saints, which can be dated to the early ninth century, and compares such material with hagiographical data about chaste laymen from the tenth century. This approach makes it possible to define more clearly the different concepts of sanctity that were current at these times and thus to gauge the changes that occurred during the intervening years. The article concludes with a brief discussion of possible reasons for the changes in the discourse about sainthood that set the eighth and early ninth centuries apart from both the preceding and the following periods