This article concentrates on the relation between the writing of hagiographical texts about Saint Bononius (d. 1026) and their actual political, social, and religious contexts in the diocese of Vercelli. Bononius’s cult came into existence at one of the crucial turning points in the history of the medieval Italy, when the structures of central government handed down from the Carolingian age were breaking down and new local centers of power were taking their place. Vercelli had traditionally held a privileged position in the German emperors’ Italian policy, but as a consequence the agitation connected to the remodeling of society was more violent here than in many other regions of regnum Italiae. In this situation Arderic, the bishop of Vercelli, seems to have sought reconciliation with the local anti-imperial aristocracy, and it appears that the cult of Saint Bononius played a major role in the bishop’s conciliatory politics. The author argues that Arderic used the cult to heal the wounds resulting from tumultuous recent history in two ways. First, references to the painful events of recent history, in which Bononius had also been involved, were omitted from the hagiographical texts and attention was directed to the less inflammatory aspects of the saint’s life. Second, the saint was represented in the texts as an arbitrator between adversaries, protector of the powerless, and one who appeased the anger and the arrogance of the powerful. Thus, the article is directly connected to the discussion on the role of the literacy in the ways in which the societies of the medieval West contemplated their past, thus shaping their identity and their perception of the present.