Chapter 2 broadens the contextual setting of the miracle cycle by examining its role in the cultural production of the period, noting that its proliferation in visual art was not an isolated phenomenon. I locate the expanded imagery in its contemporary cultural milieu and literary production, looking especially at texts in the domains of historiography, hagiography, and poetry, by authors associated with the court, such as George Pachymeres, Nikephoros Gregoras, Theoktistos the Stoudite, Nikephoros Kallistos Xanthopoulos, and Manuel Philes. Literary commissions dealing with miracles are closely linked to the restoration and rededication of churches and monasteries and the reactivation of the healing powers of relics and shrines, demonstrating a new interest in, and emphasis on, the miraculous.