The novel is today the most popular literary genre worldwide. Irs early history has not been writen yet. My project aims to generate a paradigm shift (conceptually. cross-culturally and interdisciplinarily) in our understanding of this history. It offers the first comprehensive reconstruction and interpretation of the persistence of ancient novelistic material in (Greek, Latin. Syriac, Arabic, Annenian. Georgian and Coptic) hagiographical narrative traditions in the Mediterranean in Late Antiquity (4th-8th cent.) and the early Middle Ages (8th-12th cent.). Even though these periods are now seen by historians. classicists. medievalists and Byzantinists as crucial transition periods between Antiquity and the 'high' Middle Ages. they constitute a blind spot of several centuries on the radar of scholars working on the history of The novel. who conceptualize Ihem as an 'empty' interim period between the latest ancient representatives of the genre (4th cent.) and its re-emergence in 11th/12th century Byzantium and 11th-century Persia. This project, on the other hand. advances the hypothesis That different hagiographical traditions throughout Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages were impacted (directly or indirectly) by ancient novelistic influences of different kinds and adopted. rehearsed. re-used and adapted them 10 various degrees in order to represent saints as heroes/heroines. In this sense. (re)constructions of heroism in these traditions should be understood. at least partly, as 'novelistic' and raise crucial issues about fictionalization and Ihe texts' own implicit conceptualizations of fiction as a literary form.