Christians, warned by Paul on no account to worship angels, had traditionally shrunk from offering Michael open honour; but increasingly, across what remained of the Roman Empire, in the eastern Mediterranean, his fame had spread. He was said to have appeared in Galatia; then near Constantinople, the great capital founded back in 330 to serve as a second Rome, in a church built by Constantine himself. Never, though, had Michael been seen in the west – until, that was, he alighted on Gargano, and proclaimed himself its guardian.
