This chapter locates a shift in beginning in the seventh century in which the power to halt quakes began to move away from collective repentance and toward saintly intercession. First, it examines the seventh-century Life of St. Symeon Stylites the Younger, a Syrian pillar saint with ties to Constantinople. It focuses in particular on hymns recorded in the Life for earthquakes that purportedly caused them to cease when sung by the holy man. The chapter shows how seventh-century Byzantines could have constructed the role of the saintly intercessor when faced with natural disasters. Next, it analyzes changes in Constantinople’s earthquake commemoration rite in the eighth century, specifically the introduction of the Theotokos as the city’s chief protection against earthquakes. Eighth-century liturgical editors borrowed from the rites commemorating the enemy invasions of Constantinople in 623, 626, and 717–18, in which the Theotokos was remembered to play a prominent role in protecting the city. It shows how the earthquake commemoration liturgy no longer saw earthquakes as divine judgment against the sin of the city, but as outside threats to the city for which powerful heavenly intercessions were needed.

This chapter discusses the lives and letters of saints and bishops who were considered truth-tellers by their contemporaries. The selected letters and saints’ lives were written in Francia between c. 550 and c. 750. In addition, two hagiographic texts and one letter from Italy and Visigothic Spain are included to compare developments in Merovingian Francia with other kingdoms and regions of the former Western Roman empire. In the selected sources we encounter Gallo-Roman, Frankish, Visigothic, Anglo-Saxon and Irish holy men who ventured to criticise those in power. Although the rhetoric of these truth-tellers and the vocabulary of their biographers do not conform to classical standards, this chapter demonstrates that their frank speech and behaviour was very much related to the late antique tradition of free speech.