THE HAGIOGRAPHICAL LEGEND: SPREAD, SURVIVAL AND INFLUENCE ON THE RELIGIOUS TRADITION OF THE MIDDLE AND MODERN AGES.

The aim of this article is to show the diffusion, survival and influence of the Christian medieval legendary in a corpus of historiographic sources. In this case, it is about how the tales of the Sevillian Saints Justa and Rufina, included in the Pasionario Hispánico, the most important hagiographic-liturgical collection in Spain and widely known in the Visigoth and Mozarab epochs, became ecclesiastical and urban stories, adapted and updated in function of the lay and ecclesiastical values and ideals. Thus, we consider that the religious and cultural tradition that grew up around the above-mentioned saints from the late antiquity was kept alive through written works. These served a clearly edifying purposes for faithful and devout Christians, with narrations that served to exalt their hometown, the city of Seville, ennobled by the illustrious patrons who, with their "tangible presence" demonstrated through their relics and miracles, sacralised it and protected its inhabitants during the Reconquest and everyday necessities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]