Hagiographers writing in early Normandy did not always remember the evangelization of their region as an easy task. Sometimes they portrayed Christianization as effected by saints employing example, persuasion, miracle and even force among a people reluctant to believe. Such authors did not shy away from this troubling memory; in fact, they chose this version of the past deliberately.

The Vita Vigoris represents one example of this larger trend. This text relates the deeds of an early saint, the bishop and ostensible evangelizer of Bayeux in the days of the Merovingian kings. The life recounts his struggles to render the Bessin Christian by every means in his power, and it examines the process of conversion in detail. As the product of early Normandy, however, the Vita Vigoris reveals little about the real advent of Christianity in northwestern Francia. Instead, it reveals a great deal about the memory of that event many centuries later.

The Vita Vigoris exemplifies the Norman interest in saints of the early Christian era associated with frontier regions. The lives written for these saints helped to strengthen the authority of the Norman rulers by aligning the distant past with the Norman present. The Vita Vigoris thus shows how one early saint served the political, religious and cultural ambitions of a later age.

Understanding the significance of Vigor's memory in early Normandy involves inquiry into both the Vita Vigoris itself and the milieu that produced it.