There have already been a few references to saints’ ascetic practices and how it interlinks, to a varying degree, with the testimonies of their infirmities. When it comes to saints’ lives, in addition to patientia, abstinentia appears fundamental in all late medieval canonization hearings. Fasting, rough sleeping conditions, and wearing a hair shirt or an iron breastplate were frequently investigated and reported. To a point they delineated late medieval sainthood, because there existed the idea that the more ascetic one's life was, the more pleasing it was to God, and that mortifying one's body gave access to the divine. Furthermore, penitential and devotional acts like excessive prayers and vigils or taking care of the sick, were a crucial feature of a saintly life. In medieval thinking, asceticism can be viewed as a set of practices or a transformative process, which purifies and improves the ascetic's spiritual health and functions as a method to avoid sin. Penance, on the other hand, was motivated by sin, which it amends. Physical discomfort and even pain was a logical, evident aspect of the two practices, but in canonization testimonies its role appears to be similar, regardless of whether the witness was describing the saint's asceticism or penitence. Because sainthood was always negotiated within a community, the descriptions of abstinentia, penitence, devotion, and their connection with infirmitas provide a window onto the ways various community members aimed at exerting influence over the lifestyles and physical regimen of saints.