Questioni di agiografia micaelica: il Chronicon sancti Michaelis monasterii in pago Virdunensi

The article focuses on the Chronicon sancti Michaelis monasterii in pago Virdunensi (first half of the 11th century), devoted to the history of the abbey of Saint-Mihiel, in the diocese of Verdun, in Lorraine. The Chronicon is re-examined referring to two former texts of the hagiographic tradition of Saint Michael, to which it is connected for different reasons: the Apparitio Sancti Michaelis in Monte Gargano, which is the foundation text of the Michaelic sanctuary of Monte Gargano in Apulia, and the Revelatio Sancti Michaelis in Monte Tumba, which narrates the establishment of the sanctuary of Mont Saint-Michel in Normandy. The comparison shows that the evocation of motifs and elements belonging to the Gargano tradition – an authoritative model within the Michaelic hagiography – gradually fades over time. This happens because new needs arise from a new territorial context and from new relational dynamics, including forms of rivalry, with the Norman sanctuary of Mont Saint-Michel.