Summary: How does one articulate the discernment among hagiographical accounts, personal writings, the selection of a written document as the measure of interpretation, the narrative articulation of different traditional layers and the institutional systems to which an individual person gives rise, impulse or pretext ? The metaphore of the body moving among these different sedimentations is evoked here, not as a fantastic response, but as a critical way of examining the formidable and fruitful challenge of the relationships, more difficult than ever, between individuals and institutions.