3
Tom Lynch
So far we have established the great value placed on the relics of the saints. They were argued about in texts and discussions, stolen and fought over, translated within and between locales and occasionally brought out to demonstrate their power and sanctify their surroundings. The major reason for all of this fuss and the attention of the hagiographers was the social fact of intercession. Saints could perform miracles for worthy people, and their power was awesome. This chapter focuses on the supplication which was thought to lead to a dead saint interceding on a supplicant’s behalf. Whilst there is certainly evidence of miracles within a saint’s lifetime, the majority of the events recorded were post-mortem miracles, as a saint’s cult could last far longer than their natural life.1 Additionally the compiler of post-mortem miracles was much more likely to have direct experience of this process of intercession, whether they had witnessed the particular miracles they wrote down or not. As demonstrated in the previous chapter, whilst saints could effect miracles anywhere, their shrines acted as a nexus for their power.2 Therefore, we will begin with shrines as the most typical venue for post-mortem miracles and the petitions for them.
A shrine petition could be as straightforward as visiting a saint and praying for help. For example, Geoffrey of Burton records the visit of a man to Modwenna at her shrine:
I know a man who suffered from a wart that had grown for some reason under his eye. When he felt this daily increasing in size, he showed it to the blessed virgin before her shrine, saying ‘My lady, if you so wish, you can take this disfigurement from me.’ The wart immediately disappeared in a wonderful way and to the astonishment of all who had seen it before, since it went away immediately and without leaving a trace.’3
Here the man’s health was only improved by going to visit Modwenna at her shrine and asking the saint for help. Such a simple act is at the heart of all miracle petitions, a person choosing to ask for help. Yarrow has outlined how descriptions of curative miracles conform to a structure and show how ‘illness [was] charged with ritual significance’.4 We can explore this structure using the cure of the man with the wart as a guide. Firstly the wart’s growth was acknowledged as a problem. A ‘ritual strategy’ was decided upon, to go and tell his problem to Modwenna and ask for help. The saint was asked with confidence in her power, and she was engaged through prayer. The culmination of this episode is the man’s cure, which was witnessed by the people present and by Geoffrey himself, who made a record of the miracle. According to Yarrow, we have a description of a patterned ‘communal event’, which makes up the ‘social reality of a cure’.5
This social aspect is central to an understanding of the everyday workings of the cult of the saints. As Mayr-Harting has pointed out, the ‘cure needed the crowd’, and all shrine miracles were embroiled in a ‘three-cornered relationship’ of saint, supplicant and crowd.6 I would reformulate this description slightly by substituting ‘community’ for ‘crowd’. Such an understanding of a saint’s community must include Mayr-Harting’s ‘crowd’ but also includes the custodians of a saint as well as denoting the communality of all those gathered in supplication to and praise of a saint. It includes the hagiographers, too, as participants in and observers of the cult who selected the miracles which were written down. This had implications for the cult as the hagiographer’s output could be incorporated into future liturgy, storytelling and hagiography.
Building on the work of Mayr-Harting and Yarrow, then, I propose a basic structure of miracle petitions which helps to demonstrate the agency of the saint, the supplicant and the community. Firstly a moment of crisis was experienced. In the case of the man with the wart, this was the daily worsening of his disfigurement. Secondly a knowledge of the saint in question was called upon. The man obviously knew of Modwenna and her power, and he also knew he could call upon her for help at her shrine. Thirdly the supplicant acted by asking for help from the saint, often in the form of a prayer like the one spoken by the man with the wart. Finally a miracle was solicited. In this case, Geoffrey and the supplicant made it clear that Modwenna was capable of such a miracle but that she had the agency to choose not to intercede. As noted in the previous chapter, access to a shrine was contested amongst different parts of the community of a saint. The successful miracle petition obfuscates a deal of negotiation and naturalises the idea of a layman simply approaching a saint and asking for help in the confines of a sacred and nominally controlled space. But ultimately a man was cured by his saintly patron after going to her and asking for help, and this idea of the shrine petition proved popular in medieval England.
Shrine and tomb cures are found throughout our period in saints’ lives and miracle collections. For example, Lantfred records the healing of a hunchbacked cleric named Æthelsige. The cleric had been led by a dream to Swithun’s tomb, which was located near the great door of the Old Minster among the graves of the people of Winchester. There Æthelsige prayed and fell asleep. The cleric awoke cured, and when his guide came back, he took Æthelsige inside the church, where the miracle was explained to the monks.7 Amongst Goscelin’s miracles of Augustine is the cure of a man from Thanet who had been blind for fifteen years. A great crowd of common people were in attendance of a Mass to Augustine celebrated by Abbot Wulfric (1044/47–1059/61). Among those present was the blind man who had come at the behest of a dream and who prayed for a cure from Augustine. The blind man was cured during the Gospel reading and at the end of the Mass he stood and demonstrated to those around him how he had been cured by Augustine.8 The mid-twelfth-century anonymous collection of Oswine’s miracles is one of the latest texts considered here and includes a similar cure. A pilgrim on his way to visit St Andrew in Scotland had fallen ill in Newcastle. In his illness, he had a vision of Aidan informing the pilgrim of the power of Oswine at nearby Tynemouth. Unable to make his way by foot the pilgrim explained himself to some locals, and one of them agreed to transport him by boat. They arrived during the feast of Oswine’s invention, and the pilgrim prayed at the saint’s tomb and was cured before the crowds present for the feast. The pilgrim got up, proclaimed the cure to those present and continued his journey north to Scotland.9
These examples show the persistence of the shrine petition as a means of fostering a miracle. They also show the ubiquity of the dream-vision as a means of gaining knowledge of a saint. Visions could inform people of a saint’s power or direct them to their shrine specifically, but they were not a necessary step in all shrine cures. Most recorded miracle petitions skip over how the supplicant obtained their knowledge of the saint, but some narratives do include details. The paralysed and deformed man from London heard of Swithun’s reputation and instructed his family to take him to Winchester, where he was cured on the day of his arrival.10 In another story, a boy from York who had become dumb was taken to the shrine of John of Beverley by his father, who had heard of the miracles of the saint.11 Likewise, people heard of the reputation of Oswald of Worcester, Edmund and Ivo by word of mouth.12 At Ely a serving girl was only brought to Æthelthryth’s shrine for healing when she came to the attention of some clerics who were visiting her master. The clerics refused to eat their dinner until they had carried the girl to the saint’s shrine, where she was cured.13 A vision from the saint may have been a more personal interaction, but people were cured regardless of how they came to hear of the miraculous potential of their patron.
Whilst the majority of shrine miracles involved healing, there are many instances of supplicants seeking aid with other misfortunes. Penitents and prisoners made their way to saints in hope of being freed of iron bonds, chains and fetters. Such miracles began to be documented in England in the pre-Conquest collections, with Lantfred recording three people released at Swithun’s shrine and Byrhtferth including the miracle of a penitent whose final iron bond was removed by Ecgwine at Evesham.14 Such accounts are also found in much of the later material, making them the second most frequent problem solved by the intercession of a saint at their shrine. The saints freed penitents in the work of Goscelin, Osbern, Eadmer, Dominic and Arcoid as well as in an additional miracle added to Geoffrey’s Modwenna collection and in the anonymous passio of Edward the Martyr.15 Penitents bound in iron were generally foreigners who had been exiled to a life of permanent pilgrimage for a serious crime.16 Penitential pilgrimage predates the English miracle collections and was sanctioned in canon law, although binding in iron was not.17 Penitential pilgrimage as punishment for the murder of an ordained man can be found in the Penitential of Pseudo-Egbert.18 The confining of penitents with iron chains, fetters and collars, perhaps including the metal of a murder weapon, originates in Merovingian Europe, with most individual penitents originating from Scotland, France and Germany.19 The surviving evidence largely comes from hagiography, and it is difficult to trace the practice. Whether a reflection of genuine punishment or a hagiographical invention, the freeing of penitents and prisoners indicates that saints could become involved in legal and penitential processes. It is also emblematic of the biblical inheritance of the saints as they were equipped with the power of binding and loosing.20 Less common but still found throughout the corpus are cures of possession, malefic visions, insanity and related illnesses.21 A variety of other misfortunes could be addressed by praying to a saint at their shrine, including lawsuits, lost property and problems with livestock.22
At its most basic, the engagement of a saint at their shrine took the form of petitionary prayer, but the majority of cures involved a degree of elaboration. As such, elaboration is an optional step which may be added to our structure of miracle petitions. Usually elaboration occurred as a part of asking a saint for aid or immediately before or after the request. A common elaboration was to prostrate oneself before the relics of the saints. Examples abound throughout the evidence, with people prostrating themselves at the shrines of Modwenna, Æthelburh, Guthlac, Ivo, Augustine, Mildrith, Ithamar, Edmund, Swithun, Dunstan, Anselm, Oswald, Ecgwine, Erkenwald and the saints of Hexham.23 Another element of many supplications were tears, cries and groans. These expressions of emotion and pain would come naturally to people coping with life crises and are recorded by hagiographers throughout the period.24 Whilst these tears could be spontaneous expressions, they could also allow the supplicant to emphasise their humble piety.
In B’s version of the Vita S. Dunstani, Dunstan is portrayed as weeping in the performance of his pastoral duties. According to B, this signified the unseen power of the Holy Spirit in Dunstan.25 In the medieval West, the ‘gift of tears’ marked a spiritual transformation of an individual, cleansing the person of sin in a similar way to baptism or penance.26 The desirability of Christian weeping goes back to the Bible and continued throughout the medieval era.27 Along with prostration, tears and cries also helped supplicants to demonstrate their position in relation to the saint in a conspicuous manner. Prostration and other demonstrative behaviour like weeping were practised in political contexts in early medieval England, seemingly expressive of subservience, humility or contrition.28 As a part of the petitionary process, this behaviour demonstrated subservience of the supplicant to the saint and God and the seriousness of their condition. These supplicants showed that they were desperately in need of a miracle as well as being spiritually ready for a miracle. Sometimes tearful prayers made bowed before a saint were not deemed sufficient. On these occasions, a supplicant might conduct a vigil at the saint’s shrine.
Spending a night in vigil before a saint was another of the most common forms of elaboration in shrine miracles. Lantfred records eleven vigils in his Translatio et Miracula S. Swithuni, one of which includes a dream-vision of the saint during the vigil.29 Goscelin includes fourteen vigils in his corpus, of which only three feature a visitation of the saint as part of a miracle.30 With or without a direct encounter with the saint, vigils seem to have been popular. Later examples can be found in the work of Dominic of Evesham, Arcoid, Geoffrey of Burton, Aelred and William Ketell,31 as well as anonymous collections for saints, including Ithamar, Waltheof and Oswine.32
Vigils are evident from the beginning of the Christian period onwards and have been linked to the pagan practice of incubation at gods’ temples in the Graeco-Roman world.33 In the pagan and early-Christian evidence, the dream itself was the goal and the key to healing, either through a dreamed interaction or the instructions received in the dream.34 These dreams were ideally sought out at shrines, although dreams experienced at other locations could be incorporated into a healing experience.35 The most extensive records of Christian incubation healing are from the shrine of Cosmas and Damian at Constantinople, but they are also found quite widely elsewhere. Gregory of Tours included incubations in his writing, and some 7% of the miracles in his Libri de virtutibus S. Martini episcopi were dream based.36 There appears to be a continuity between the pagan Mediterranean and the experiences of saints’ supplicants in medieval western Europe. Incubation has been documented in the Mediterranean world since the classical period, but this continuity does not presuppose an unchanging ritual. Christians did not understand their practices as inherited from pagans, and they ‘re-crafted’ the practice of cultivating healing dreams with a similar structure but a transformed meaning.37 For our purposes, it is difficult to distinguish incubation precisely. Dream-visions of saints are common in the English hagiography, but the active seeking of saintly dreams through specific action is harder to trace. Individuals could have a vision day or night at a shrine, be instructed in a dream to visit a shrine or be otherwise admonished by a saint in a dream.38 As sources of information, dream-visions were taken seriously, and sometimes the actions of saints in dreams had immediate physical consequences upon waking.39 But as a systematic approach to miracle seeking, the vigil itself rather than the dream appears to have been much more reliable in medieval England.
Conducting a vigil allowed an extension of the time an individual spent in proximity to a saint. It granted a supplicant more of a chance to feel part of the community of the saint and to witness, and perhaps participate in, the liturgical life of the church in question. Vigils also showed a degree of commitment to the miracle-seeking process, a sacrifice of time and potentially income. People could be instructed to perform a vigil,40 but it seems likely some people just extended their shrine visit until they were granted a miracle. Whilst most people found a vigil of a single night sufficient, some extended their stay with the saint. The man injured by furies was cured by Swithun on the third night of vigils, prayer and fasting, whilst a paralysed man from Rochester was cured after three nights of prayer and vigil.41 The Saxon man Leodegar, who was crippled by deformity, had been told in a dream to go to Augustine. Once admitted into the shrine he spent three nights in prayer and vigil, and towards dawn of the third night, he had a vision of Augustine, Mellitus and Laurence, who healed him.42 Erkenwald cured a doctor, who was unable to heal himself, after three days and nights of prayers, fasting and vigils.43 Fasting accompanied two of these extended vigils and was also used by a crippled woman named Brihtgyfa when she sought a cure from Edmund in a single night’s vigil.44 Like a vigil, a fast was a sacrifice of sorts, an outward display of an inward commitment. Like tears and prostration, a fast was a sign of contrition and humility showing that the person was abasing themself before the saint and relying on them in their extremity. Beyond prayers, vigils and fasting, a few individuals were able to physically interact with the trappings of a saint’s shrine.
Goscelin includes four such physical interactions in his work. A cleric was cured of a swollen hand by praying prostrate at Ivo’s shrine for a long time and eventually wrapping his hand in the covering of the shrine.45 Two shrine cures from the miracles of Hadrian also include such physical interaction. A young man was cured of an eye carbuncle by wiping the protuberance on the cloth covering and bare stone of Hadrian’s tomb. After a few years, the same man came back with the same complaint but worse. He remembered his old cure, rubbed his eye on the stone of the tomb again and was cured.46 Lastly, the recluse Seitha was healed of a finger tumour by touching Edmund’s bier and asking for the saint’s help.47 Osbern records that a young man who was mute and unable to walk was carried to Dunstan’s tomb, and when he got there, his friends held him aloft and prayed aloud to Dunstan on his behalf. When the young man touched the saint’s tomb, he was healed instantly.48 Eadmer notes the story of a bound penitent who came to the shrine of Oswald of Worcester. This penitent pressed himself to Oswald’s tomb, prayed and was set free from his bindings.49
Several examples of physical interaction are also found in the later material. The anonymous collection of miracles of Ithamar includes two such examples. A man was cured of fever having kissed the saint’s feretory, and a monk of Rochester was relieved of extreme anxiety by kissing Ithamar’s shrine and praying to the saint.50 In the anonymous collection of Swithun’s miracles, a visitor kissed the feet of a statue of the saint in the Old Minster.51 In order to be cured of his blindness, Raven was led to the church of Hexham Abbey on Acca’s feast and went to the shrine. There he prayed, kissed the altar, cried and held vigil. Raven fell asleep and saw Acca in a dream; when he awoke, he was cured.52 There are three such physical interactions in the anonymous Oswine collection. A man blinded by a festering head wound interrupted his vigil at Oswine’s shrine and felt his way to the saint’s casket itself. There the man embraced and kissed the statue of Oswine that decorated the casket and, following tearful prayer, he was cured. A monk called Symeon was cured of a toothache which was not responding to medicine by kissing Oswine’s casket and praying at the shrine. Finally, Prior Ruelendus was cured of a paralysed hand by praying and touching the stone support of Oswine’s shrine.53 These physical interactions were about getting as close to the saint as possible whilst they reposed in their coffins and feretories. Kissing a statue, embracing the tomb or touching your face to a shrine cloth were acceptable alternatives to kissing, embracing and touching the saint. These practices help to emphasise the desire for proximity, and their relative rarity in the corpus highlights the potential problems of every pilgrim fiddling with the shrine and its accoutrements. Five of the twelve supplicants detailed previously were religious rather than laypeople and could perhaps have expected preferential access. But people, regardless of rank or religious status, were willing to go to any length in order to engage the saint of their choice in helping them solve their crises. Such a commitment was not limited to attendance at the main shrine of a saint. Where they were available, people also visited alternative sites to petition their patrons.
As noted previously, alternative sites could be subject to pilgrimage and a place for supplication. These could include sites associated with the life, death and burial of a saint and seem to have been as miraculously potent, if not as popular, as the main shrine.54 Other nexuses for miracle petitions included churches, altars and statues dedicated to the saint in question.55 Behaviour at these alternative sites was much the same as at the main shrines. For example, a paralysed man on the Isle of Wight had a vision of two youths who led him to Swithun, who admonished the man to imitate Christ. On awaking the man told his wife, who suggested he go to St Swithun’s church on the Isle of Wight to seek a cure. The paralysed man did this, prayed at the church for intercession and was healed.56 Where these holy places were within the precinct of a religious foundation access must have been similarly negotiated as at a shrine. Those places which were away from clerical control would presumably have been more open to the laity. When people visited shrines and alternative sites, they often took away some token to help effect a miracle at a distance. This practice can be understood in relation to the ‘holy radioactivity’ of saints and their relics,57 much like the touching of the shrine and its trappings. Places in which a saint had lived, died or been buried were infused with their power and presence. The contagious nature of the saints is perhaps not best displayed through their tombs and shrines but through the earth and water their remains came into contact with.
Taking away relics from places associated with the saints was established in Bede’s work. Soil, dust and splinters could all be used in the search for miraculous cures, particularly when suspended in water.58 Lantfred and Wulfstan are silent on these uses of relics and water, but the thread was picked up by Goscelin. Juthwara’s bones were washed in the same water as Wulfsige’s when they were both placed in a new shrine under Bishop Osmund (1078–1099), and Goscelin frames further miracles at Sherborne as joint efforts between the two saints. A monk of Sherborne was cured of fever by drinking some of this water on the feast of Juthwara. This miracle led to the water being used to cure several sick people at Sherborne. A mother of one of the monks was cured of a serious illness by this water, and she began to feel better as soon as the water entered her home. The mother’s ailment was judged to have been beyond the skill of doctors, and all who heard of this miracle praised the two saints. Similarly a priest named Wulfric was cured on his death bed by drinking some water into which some relics of Juthwara had been dipped, which Wulfric had sent for by messenger.59
Here we see a differentiation between water used for ablution and relic water created for the purpose of healing. Washing is found in the acts of baptism, burial, translation and the consecration of churches.60 As part of this Christian tradition of ablution, it made sense to wash bodily relics whenever they were removed from their shrines, as well as the shrines themselves. Water in which relics had been dipped, however, is not a by-product of washing but a substance created with the sole purpose of more easily transmitting the power of a saint. These are the two major facets of water in the Christian context, as purifier and ‘transmitter of spiritual power’.61 Relic water could be substituted by abundant miraculous water which came forth from saint’s springs and wells. The water from Ivo’s spring at Slepe was used to cure various ailments, including leprosy, blindness, gout, toothache and injuries sustained by falling off a horse. It also helped a girl with a pin stuck in her throat and a rich woman who had swallowed a snake.62 A novice of Ramsey was exorcised by drinking a tonic of water and scrapings from Ivo’s shrine. The exorcism of the novice was found to be too difficult for the monks of Ramsey, and this is why they resorted to their patron.63 Perhaps such a difficult task required scrapings from the saint’s tomb as a more potent or specific remedy than the water from Ivo’s spring.
People used relic water from several other saints. A woman from Perkley who vomited up a worm was cured by drinking some water which the relics of Mild-burh had been washed in.64 The relics of St Augustine’s were also effective in a healing tonic. Following the translations of the saints, a dying girl was cured by drinking water in which one of the handlers of the relics had washed his hands, and her family gave thanks. Elements from around the old tomb were retained as secondary relics, including tiles and bricks which were placed in water and the draught drunk as a curative. A Frenchman came from Essex to gain some of this water for his wife. A priest was cured of a long illness in the same manner, and so, too, a sick merchant staying in Canterbury who had gone to St Augustine’s in search of medicine. The merchant gave thanks for his cure and presented the saint with a large candle. A girl was cured of a persistent stomach complaint after praying before Hadrian’s relics just after his translation and drinking water which had washed the hands of the brothers who had touched the saint.65 The sacristan at St Augustine’s was also cured of fever by drinking the water used to wash Hadrian’s tomb. This water was then used to cure others.66 Again at St Augustine’s there seems to have been a combination of using relic water created as a by-product and using tailor-made relic water.
The use of water as a transmitter of sanctity is found in the later material as well. Eadmer concludes his collection of Dunstan’s miracles by referring to the saint’s staff, which was adorned with a tooth of St Andrew. Countless people were healed by drinking water that the staff had been dipped into, and a vessel of this water was kept on hand at Christ Church as there was an almost daily need for it.67 A woman whose child had died in her womb drank water which had washed the arm of Ecgwine, and her belly burst, the child’s remains were extracted and she recovered.68 Following the translation of Erkenwald, a student was healed after he had been sickening for half a year. His teacher, Canon Theoldus of St Martin-le-Grand, took some dust from Erkenwald’s old tomb, gave it to the boy in some water and burnt some incense which had been found at the tomb. This drove the sickness from the boy, and he was completely healed.69 A woman was cured of fever by drinking the water used to wash the feet of a statue of Ithamar which decorated his feretory. This same liquid was then used to cure sufferers in an outbreak of fever.70 During Wenefred’s translation from Gwytherin to Shrewsbury, a man was cured by being given some dust from Wenefred’s head in a tonic made with holy water.71 A blind woman was healed after regular visits to the saints at Hexham when Canon Edric took pity on her. Edric took a bone from Acca’s reliquary and prayed, then dipped it in some water. He asked the woman to trust in Acca, she bowed her head and bent her knee, then Edric anointed her eyes with the water, signed her with the cross and asked Acca to help. Immediately she was cured, and both of them rejoiced. A craftsman of Hexham was also healed with relic water given to him by Edric. He suffered with a serious throat problem and was cured by drinking the water.72
The use of saints’ water was common in England during our period, whether from springs, as a by-product of ablution or as a specifically created tonic. Again we come back to the contagious power of the saints. Frazer first posited the ‘law of contact or contagion’ in his analysis of magic and religion. He pointed out that ‘things which have been in contact with each other continue to act on each other at a distance’.73 In the Christian context, the idea that holy power could be transmitted through inanimate objects goes back to the Bible. When Jesus healed the woman of the issue of the blood, the woman touched Jesus’ clothes rather than his person. Paul is also said to have been able to transmit his healing power through cloth which had previously touched him.74 This ‘chain of contact’ led to early relics including the dust from tombs of the martyrs and the brandea mentioned by Gregory the Great.75 If power could radiate from a saint’s body through a tomb and into dust or cloth, it is not a great leap to include water. Water, as a necessity of life and a solvent, is commonly understood as a ‘repository or medium of a kind of spiritual power’.76 These natural and cultural characteristics of water lend it to democratising the direct consumption of saintly power, especially where the source of saintly power was freely available. Relic water as by-product would have been in limited supply, but dust and relic dipping could have filled the gap. People and animals could be healed of all manner of ailments even if they could not engage in prolonged petitions at the saint’s shrine. It is worth considering that water from these sources in other contexts would be understood as polluted and perhaps dangerous. At best we are presented with a spring rising from a grave. The deliberate muddying of water with dust, dirt and other detritus would also be preferable to the second-hand water used for washing corpses, bones and the hands of those who had handled them. If the bodies behind such water were not saints, this used water might be considered polluted or ‘dead’. Instead the special position held by the saints resulted in a ‘living’ water, a medium of ‘transformation and regeneration’.77 Water used in this way might more properly have been disposed in a relic grave or drained near the altar, elements which had developed into the purpose-built piscina by the thirteenth century.78 But such were the benefits of saints’ water that it was created, retained and distributed widely.79
Interactions with primary and secondary relics by supplicants themselves were less common. Once a year, on Maundy Thursday, a woman named Oswen would open the tomb of Edmund and trim his hair and nails, the clippings of which were kept in a separate reliquary which was placed on the altar of the church at Bury.80 Presumably these relics were kept separate from Edmund himself for ease of access, requiring only the opening of a small reliquary rather than the elevation of the saint and all the ceremony that would entail. More commonly retained outside of a saint’s tomb were relics like burial shrouds, clothing and other possessions. Wulfthryth’s ring of office healed those with eye complaints if they looked on it with faith.81 Erkenwald’s litter was said to cure those who touched or kissed it, and splinters were taken away for use elsewhere.82 Edmund’s secondary relics also had miraculous properties. A layman named Norman was charged with bringing a phylactery containing some of Edmund’s relics across the sea to Normandy, where Abbot Baldwin was attending King William I. Whilst crossing the Channel, Norman’s ship was beset by a storm and was in dire straits for three days. In a vision, Norman was told to touch the phylactery around his neck and pray. He awoke and called out to the steersman, and they both prayed to God and Edmund, the sea calmed and they arrived that day. On landing in Normandy, Norman lost his travelling bag. He went into a church and prayed to God and Edmund for help and was directed to his bag by an old lady he encountered on leaving the church. Finally, Norman crossed a previously unforded section of river under the protection of Edmund.83
Dunstan’s possessions were used as curative relics as well. First, as described by Osbern, Dunstan’s processional cross was used as a part of an exorcism of Æthelweard, a young monk of Christ Church. At the climax of a long petition a monk placed Dunstan’s staff on to Æthelweard and then tearfully prayed to the saint. This worked and Æthelweard thanked Dunstan and the monks of Christ Church for saving him from so strong a demon.84 Eadmer notes the healing of a woman in London. This woman was deathly ill and had a vision of Dunstan in which the saint told her to send for and decorate his chasuble, which was kept at St Peter’s Abbey, Westminster. In the morning, she sent for the chasuble. The woman kissed it and decorated it with gold, and she was healed straight away.85
Eadmer also records Anselm’s cure of a well known knight called Humphrey, who was suffering from dropsy. Throughout his illness, Humphrey constantly prayed to Anselm. As he ailed, the knight called for his friend Haimo, a monk of Christ Church, to visit him. Haimo brought with him a belt of Anselm’s which he had been left in charge of by Eadmer himself. On seeing his friend, Haimo gave the belt to Humphrey, who prayed, took the belt, kissed it and put it around himself. Humphrey’s swelling began to subside, and as he felt the curative power, he moved the belt over his swollen limbs. After recovering, Humphrey went to Anselm’s tomb and told his story to the brethren, asking that they would give thanks on his behalf to God and Anselm. When Eadmer went to collect the belt, he cut off a section for Humphrey to keep. Later Humphrey suffered from dropsy again and was able to cure himself through the use of his strip of Anselm’s belt. Whilst Eadmer was Bishop of St Andrews (1120–1121), an English woman named Eastrilda was unwell. Eadmer had Anselm’s belt with him and put it around her. Eastrilda recovered after a few days, and all who saw this miracle gave thanks to God. Back at Canterbury, Anselm’s belt was used to cure a Christ Church monk of fever by placing it around his neck. He recovered quickly, and those present gave thanks to God for Anselm’s help. The belt of Anselm was later called for by women having difficulty giving birth, and all who asked for the belt with proper intention and faith were helped.86
In his miracles of Oswald, Eadmer relates the story of Eadwacer, a monk of Worcester who suffered from a tumour in his jaw and lived in self-imposed exile. Eadwacer came to the monastery on Oswald’s feast and, in a secluded spot, marked the Mass for the day and prayed. The other monks noticed Eadwacer and also prayed for him. The monks asked him to rest with them, and he agreed. The monks sat down to dine and afterwards drank from a cup which Oswald had used in his lifetime. A prayer was said, and the brothers took turns to drink from the cup. When it came to Eadwacer, he prayed, as did the other monks, and then drank his draught and placed the cup against his jaw. When he took the cup away, he was healed, and all who witnessed it or learnt of it praised God.87 Finally, William of Malmesbury records that Wulfstan of Worcester’s inner tunic was worn by a recluse who had been harassed by the Devil in his solitude. The tunic proved effective in easing the troubled monk’s solitary life.88
The application of relics in any form allowed direct access to a saint and often resulted in a truncated petition. Whilst some of these relics could be finite and consumed on use the source of their power, the saint themself was effectively infinite. The touching of a relic, the consumption of saint’s water or even just looking upon Wulfthryth’s ring was enough to facilitate a cure. This is not to say that these simple actions were not proper petitions. The manipulation of a relic required a person experiencing a crisis to have knowledge of a relevant saint. They then engaged with the relic in order to gain the aid of the saint and in the belief that the saint could help. The saints seem not to have differentiated between supplicants praying at their shrines and those who interacted with them through their relics. Acceptable petitionary actions all resulted in the same ends, a miracle. In fact, the use of relics was not necessarily divorced from other means of supplication. Several miracle petitions used a combination of various methods. A woman who swallowed a snake enacted a convoluted strategy, including first visiting Edmund at Bury, then being redirected to Ivo at Ramsey, where she conducted vigils, prayers and fasting, combined with the drinking of Ivo’s water, which led to her cure.89 Æthelweard’s exorcism came at the end of a long process, with the placing of Dunstan’s cross on the young monk as the decisive act.90 When Norman was in trouble at sea, he was instructed in a vision and, on waking, touched his reliquary and called on the steersman to pray with him to Edmund.91 Many of these miracles were performed at a distance from the shrine or other locations associated with the saints, with the relics helping to forge a connection between saint and supplicant. Of course, not all distance miracles required the application of relics.
Post-mortem miracles which took place at a distance from a saint’s shrine first appear in Lantfred’s miracles of Swithun. A slave girl who had been shackled and was to receive a beating in the morning escaped her punishment through spending the night beseeching Swithun, who granted her intercession. Her shackles fell off, and she fled to Swithun’s shrine, where her master found her but, on account of the saint, did not proceed with any other punishments.92 This entry is followed by another distance miracle. A paralysed man from Hampshire was cured in his sickbed after having stated his intention to visit Swithun and having had the preparations begun. He jumped up from his bed and outpaced his friends on horseback on their way to Winchester, perhaps to give thanks having already been cured.93 These two miracles are quite different in content, with one based on an invocation of the saint and the other an early reward for a promised shrine visit. Lantfred only records two other instances of an early reward. In one instance, a blind man was cured by Swithun on his way to Winchester. When he arrived at the Old Minster, he told the monks what had occurred, and they gathered in the church and praised God and chanted hymns. In the other instance, a boy of noble birth was injured falling from a horse, and it was thought that he might die. Upon seeing this, the ealdorman who led the horseback procession prayed to Swithun and promised to carry the boy to his tomb. After the ealdorman’s prayer was finished, the boy sprang up and the ealdorman gave thanks to God. Related to these examples is the case of the rich woman who was healed after promising to visit Swithun with gifts, only to be struck down again with the same illness when she did not fulfil her vow.94 The majority of distance miracles documented by Lantfred – and in the corpus more generally – were like the invocation of Swithun by the imprisoned girl.
Lantfred records the miraculous liberation of prisoners and slaves on three other occasions. In each case the supplicant prayed to Swithun for help and secured their release. One slave girl praying for release looked on the Old Minster as she prayed, whilst a criminal in France could only pray to God and the famous Swithun to be saved from execution the following day.95 The most extensive escape miracle saw a man abscond from prison equipped only with a small knife, given to him for trimming his fingernails, and prayers to Swithun. The man faced execution for stealing four wheat sheaves, and once he had escaped, he made his way to the Old Minster to give thanks and tell his tale.96 Related to these miracles was the intercession of Swithun in a judicial ordeal. A slave belonging to the merchant Flodoald was apprehended for a crime and was to go through an ordeal of carrying a bar of red-hot metal to determine his guilt. The slave’s hand burnt and swelled up as would be expected, a sign that he was guilty. But Flodoald and his companions prayed to Swithun, stating that they would hand the slave over to Swithun’s service if he would help him. When the hand was examined to determine guilt, Flodoald and his supporters saw the burn and blisters, but the others saw only an unharmed hand, and so the slave was let go. Flodoald and his companions gave thanks to God, and the slave was given over to the service of Swithun at the Old Minster.97 The only other distance miracle found in Lantfred’s collection involved the author himself, helping a friend’s wife in France, as noted previously.98
The supplicants in these distance miracles all had a compelling reason that they could not visit the saint’s shrine. In Lantfred’s work, these reasons include imprisonment, severe illness and great distance. These supplicants knew of Swithun’s power and asked the saint for help as best as they could away from his shrine. The deliverance of prisoners is a common form of distance miracle performed by Æthelwold, Augustine, Mildrith, Ithamar, Bege, Modwenna, Wilfrid, Oswine and John of Beverley as well.99 The late-eleventh-century collection of Swithun’s miracles also includes the account of a slave girl escaping incarceration and going to Swithun’s shrine, where her chains fell off.100 Another major example of a supplicant unable to visit the shrine were those detained at sea due to storm, becalming or other problems. Augustine was incredibly potent as an intercessor at sea. The saint was invoked to save King Cnut, Abbot Æthelwine of Athelney (c. 1020–1025), a man raised at St Augustine’s named Elfnoth, a boat carrying stone for St Augustine’s from Normandy, boats carrying goods for St Augustine’s from the Continent and even a boat containing Greek and English passengers in the Aegean Sea. The survivors of these incidents enriched St Augustine’s with gold, cloth and even a new tower, and they thanked God and Augustine.101 Other saints who saved their supplicants at sea include Edith, who also helped Cnut and Archbishop Ealdred of York (1061–1069), Swithun, who saved Ealdred when he was Bishop of Worcester (1046–1061), Hadrian, Edmund and John of Beverley.102
Saints saved their supplicants from a variety of other problems away from their shrines, including wolf attack, an angry mob and falling from a cliff on an ox-cart.103 The usual form of a petition for a distance miracle was the invocation of the saint or a short prayer, such as the quarry worker Burchard’s invocation of Augustine to save him from bandits.104 Such invocations and prayers could be supplemented with vows to visit the saint and present gifts. When Swithun saved Ealdred from shipwreck, he was returning from an embassy to Emperor Henry III (1046–1056) in 1054. Caught in a storm, Ealdred prayed to Swithun and promised to donate to him a silver dish he had received from the Emperor and other gifts if he were to make it home. The other people on the boat, having heard Swithun’s name, took up the prayer, and the sea calmed. Ealdred made his donation in person at Winchester, and the monks used the proceeds to adorn a statue of Swithun.105
Some distance miracles made use of more elaborate petitions, as when Goscelin, or perhaps Goscelin’s source, was cured of gout by Ivo through offering thirty Masses and a rendition of the psalter to the saint.106 The men stranded in the Aegean Sea on Augustine’s feast day performed praises and vigils as best they could on a vessel at anchor, waiting out a storm. By the evening of that day, they were sailing easily, and they shouted and sang for joy and thanked Augustine. As soon as they had escaped from the storm, a festive Mass was sung for Augustine. When the ship made harbour for the evening, the bad weather resumed, and a favourable breeze returned upon their setting out again.107 When a fire spread through Bury, a former servant of Anselm who had moved there was encouraged to recite the Our Father, kneeling and keeping Anselm in mind. The fire was blown away from the servant’s house whilst those around it were ravaged.108 Before her translation to Shrewsbury, Wenefred was responsible for the cure of a monk of Shrewsbury. The subprior of Chester sang the seven penitential psalms, prayed and, after falling asleep, had a vision of Wenefred, in which he was told to send someone to celebrate Mass in a chapel near Wenefred’s Well. After a short delay, this was carried out, the monk was cured and the monks of Chester and Shrewsbury became devoted to Wenefred.109 Some elaborations involved material components other than the saints’ relics.
A woman from Antwerp named Maenzindis had visited Rome in hopes of aiding her pregnancy but lay ill and afraid of dying in childbirth. Maenzindis had a vision in her exhausted state, telling her that Augustine would intercede on her behalf due to the tearful petitions of her friends and she was to undo her belt and send it as proof of her healing to England. Maenzindis and her friends wondered at this request but were joyous and gave thanks. Struck with divine inspiration, Maenzindis had a silver girdle made quickly, wrapped it around herself and invoked Augustine. She was healed in this manner and sent the belt on as requested to St Augustine’s, where it remained at the time of composition. Another woman of Antwerp, Emma, was also having difficulties with her pregnancy. Emma had a vision instructing her to have a candle made in honour of Augustine, as long as the circumference of her belly, and to offer it in the nearest church. Having done these things, Emma gave birth quickly and easily.110 A French businessman named William was taken ill in London with a catalepsy-like affliction. William lay in bed for three days until it occurred to one of his compatriots to seek the help of Erkenwald. This Frenchman took a pair of eyes made of wax, touched them to William’s eyes and carried them to St Paul’s, where they were placed above the altar. Before the Frenchman could leave St Paul’s, William stirred in his bed and awoke to tell of Erkenwald visiting him in his sleep and touching his eyes. He proved his sight by taking out and replacing a pin used to hold a cross on a staff, and then rumour spread of the cure.111
These stories include an early form of ‘measuring’ as a part of a petition. In later sources this ‘measuring’ generally involved making a thin wax taper called a trindle, which was as long as the afflicted body part or person. This trindle was then offered to the saint, usually burnt as a candle, and directly linked the person and their problems to the saint.112 These practices of measuring and moulding person-alised the miracles to the supplicants. These items could only relate to themselves and their bodies, and thus, the miracle would be tailored to their needs. A more abstract connection could also be made to a saint. For example, a monk named Henry was visiting Tynemouth Priory and had been suffering from a severe eye complaint. One of his companions found a book of Oswine’s passion, invention and miracles in the priory school. Henry touched the book to his eyes, believing in the power of the saint, and was cured.113
Despite these miracles occurring away from the saint’s main shrine, they largely conform to the pattern of a shrine cure. The major difference was the performance of the petitionary acts at a distance. They still required knowledge of a saint, which was put to use in the face of a crisis by asking for help. They could include elements of elaboration but could be as simple as a hurried prayer, not unlike that of the man suffering from a wart who went to Modwenna for help. Burning a candle to Swithun at a church in France was much like offering one to the saint in the Old Minster.114 Both simple and complex petitions were rewarded with miracles by the saints, and people often continued to the shrine eventually in fulfilment of a vow or to present a promised offering. This is not only how these miracles ended up being recorded in a collection; it was also a means of (re)incorporating the supplicant into the saint’s community. If you did not report your miracle or attend the shrine, your petition would be between you and the saint, mollifying a potential failed petition but isolating oneself from other supplicants. Such private devotion must have occurred but remains invisible to us. The petition at a distance highlights the two tendencies of a saint’s cult, which cause an underlying tension. The tendency towards universality includes the saint within the heavenly choir and sees them approachable anywhere to help with anything. The further away a miracle occurred, the more powerful a saint would seem. The tendency towards specificity sees an individual saint with a home, a body and relics who could be met in person and who formed relationships between and with their communities. The compromise is the miracle petition, a heterodox collection of actions which simply required a knowledge of the saint, a problem to solve and a cry for help.
Making miracles was what the cult of the saints was about. It was why pilgrimages happened beyond Rome and the Holy Land, the reason people fought over saints’ bodies and why they conducted translations and relic processions. Altars, statues, chapels and churches could act as miraculous centres, as could old burial places, death sites, wells and springs. The contagious nature of sanctity could infest the basest material: ‘charisma [could be] concretized and sedimented in objects’.115 These items could be monitored and controlled by a saint’s custodians to a degree, but our reliance on the ‘official discourse’ of the custodians may conceal the extent of unofficial miracles and underground trade in holy dust and saint’s water. Either way, engagement with a saint had much the same effect at or away from a shrine. Those cured elsewhere often felt compelled to visit the saint in person to offer thanks. Even if you could be helped at a distance, there was some importance to the ‘being there of pilgrimage’.116 Perhaps it was because a shrine, or other cult site, gave an opportunity to perform your misfortune publicly. Through appropriate action, you could demonstrate the life crisis you were embroiled in and your belief that this saint could help you. It was a way to show your piety and an action you could take to solve your particular problem through your relationship with a spiritual patron. Through ‘gesture and performance’, one could present their ‘virtuous self’ to others117 and enjoy the ‘tangible benefits’ of ‘appropriate rituals’.118 Making miracles relied on all parties to continue: on the saints and their intercession, on the custodians in their facilitation and recording and on the supplicants’ petitions. All groups played a role, people moved between groups and all witnessed the miracles of the saints. But without the miracle petition, the whole process fails. There would be far fewer miracles to document, no means to solicit them and, therefore, no need to maintain a relic cult of this sort. If people stopped asking the saints for miraculous help, miracles would not be forthcoming.
This is not to deny the saints agency, and some unsolicited miracles are recorded in the evidence. Lantfred’s Translatio et Miracula S. Swithuni begins with a vision sent by the saint to a smith. The smith had not prayed for aid, and his role was to tell the cleric Eadsige to inform Bishop Æthelwold that Swithun was a saint and should be translated. The smith worried about being thought insane and so delayed action, and he was urged on by further dreams and threats from Swithun. Eventually word reached Æthelwold, but in the meantime, other supplicants were led to Swithun’s grave by visions from the saint.119 There was a delay of over a century between Swithun’s death and the revelation that he was a saint, so such an intervention proved necessary. Swithun was not alone in initiating his own cult. If a saint’s remains had been lost, forgotten or otherwise concealed, a miracle could help to locate the body and indicate sainthood.120 An unexpected or undetected problem could also lead to an unsolicited miracle. The major example would be an unattended candle left burning which when later discovered had caused little or no damage to a shrine and importantly had not caused an inferno.121 Unsolicited miracles could equally indicate the saint’s anger or disapproval at their treatment or the treatment of their community.122 The unsolicited miracles show the saint as an active agent in a community who could make their presence known and step in to prevent potential disasters when they went unnoticed. Once a cult was established, however, if you wanted help, it seems you generally had to ask for it.
Asking for help from the saints was never a sure thing, but unsuccessful petitions are rare in the source material.123 An extended petition or one involving promises of gifts and vows of service could become expensive, but a visit to a local shrine or a prayer in extremis was open to anyone. This gave people a set of actions they could call upon to get out of a crisis. A person had to decide to become a supplicant, they had to act like a supplicant and behave in a certain way towards their patron. In cases of property, incarceration and penance, a person could attempt to sway an earthly authority to help them. In cases of health, the same could be said of a doctor or perhaps the sufferer’s family and friends. Each person’s ‘hierarchy of resort’ would differ based on their circumstances.124 Often in miracle collections, the hagiographer describes how appeals to other authorities had been exhausted before the supplicant approached the saint.125 Other problems were so difficult that medical or legal authorities could not even be consulted. When all seemed lost, a person could engage in the practical action of calling upon a saint and could reasonably expect aid of some kind. They could also show to the community that they were in a state of crisis and knew how best to deal with that crisis. A petition was an opportunity to ask for help and to be seen to be asking for help. Of course, the cult of the saints in medieval England was not only predicated on beneficent miracles. When people misbehaved, the saints acted against them, and these punitive miracles and the reactions to them helped to delimit the cult of the saints.
Notes
· 1 The best example of an epoch-spanning saint would be Alban, who was martyred in the third or fourth century and seems to have been consistently given cult in medieval England. Another less well-documented example could be Liudhard, who was already in Kent to witness the Augustinian mission and has a cult recorded by Goscelin in the eleventh century.
· 2 Thacker, ‘Loca Sanctorum’, p. 2.
· 3 ‘Scio hominem cui forte – ob quam causam nescio – uelut quedam uerruca surrexerit sub oculo, quam cum sensisset cotidie crescere et sepius ostendisset beate uirgini coram feretro eius et dixisset, quasi loquens ad eam, ‘Domina mea, potes si uis hoc uicium auferre a me’, uerruca eadem miro modo confestim euanuit et, mirantibus cunctis qui ante uiderant, nullo prorsus remanente uestigio, tota simul absque ulla dilatione abcessit.’ Geoffrey, Miracula S. Modwenne, pp. 210–11.
· 4 Yarrow, p. 18.
· 5 Ibid., pp. 18–19.
· 6 Henry Mayr-Harting, ‘Functions of a Twelfth-Century Shrine: The Miracles of St Frideswide’, in Studies in Medieval History: Presented to R. H. C. Davis, ed. by Henry Mayr-Harting and R. I. Moore (London: Hambledon, 1985), pp. 193–206 (p. 205).
· 7 Lantfred, Miracula S. Swithuni, pp. 270–5.
· 8 Goscelin, Miraculis S. Augustini, p. 406.
· 9 Miracula S. Oswini, pp. 45–6.
· 10 Lantfred, Miracula S. Swithuni, pp. 296–7.
· 11 William Ketell, Miracula S. Johannis, pp. 284–7.
· 12 Eadmer, Miracula S. Oswaldi, pp. 298–9; Herman, Miracula S. Edmundi, pp. 80–5; Miracula S. Yuonis, p. lxxxii.
· 13 Miracula S. Ætheldrethe, pp. 120–1.
· 14 Lantfred, Miracula S. Swithuni, pp. 306–7, 330–3; Byrhtferth, Vita S. Ecgwini, pp. 280–7.
· 15 Goscelin, Vita S. Edithe, p. 293; Goscelin, Miracula S. Yuonis, pp. lxvii–lxviii; Goscelin, Translationis S. Augustini, p. 437; Osbern, Miracula S. Dunstani, pp. 153–4; Eadmer, Miracula S. Oswaldi, pp. 294–7; Dominic, Miracula S. Ecgwini, pp. 94–7; Arcoid, Miracula S. Erkenwaldi, pp. 116–19; Geoffrey, Miracula S. Modwenne, pp. 216–19; Passio S. Edwardi, p. 15.
· 16 Love, Eleventh-Century, pp. 82–3.
· 17 Sarah Hamilton, The Practice of Penance, 900–1050 (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2001), pp. 173–4.
· 18 B. Thorpe, ed., Ancient Laws and Institutes of England, 3 vols (London: Eyre & Spot-tiswoode, 1840), II, 204–5.
· 19 Jonathan Sumption, Pilgrimage: An Image of Mediaeval Religion (London: Faber, 1975), pp. 153–5.
· 20 See Matthew 16, pp. 13–20.
· 21 Early examples can be found in Lantfred. A man was cured by Swithun after a horrifying encounter with furies, and a woman was cured of a dislocated jaw having been possessed, Lantfred, Miracula S. Swithuni, pp. 280–3, 322–3. The latest example is of Arkillus, a builder at Tynemouth Priory, who was cured of diabolic visions by Oswine in the mid-twelfth-century collection of the saint’s miracles, Miracula S. Oswini, pp. 29–30.
· 22 For an example of a lawsuit see Osbern, Miracula S. Dunstani, pp. 158–9. Lost property recovered by the saints could range from the sacristan’s keys, Goscelin, Vita S. Vulfhilde, pp. 433–4; Goscelin, Virtutibus S. Adriani, Vespasian B.xx, fol 240v, Harley 105, fol 211v, to a penny intended for donation, Herman, Miracula S. Edmundi, pp. 340–1. On issues with livestock, see Miracula S. Ithamari, p. 434; Goscelin, Miraculis S. Augustini, p. 408.
· 23 Geoffrey, Miracula S. Modwenne, pp. 186–9, 200–5; Goscelin, Translatione S. Ethel-burge, pp. 435–52; Miracula S. Guthlaci, p. 56; Goscelin, Miracula S. Yuonis, pp. lxix, lxxx–lxxxi; Goscelin, Miraculis S. Augustini, p. 406; Miracula S. Ithamari, p. 432; Goscelin, Miracula S. Mildrethe, pp. 192–7; Herman, Miracula S. Edmundi, pp. 340–1; Miracula S. Swithuni, pp. 688–91; Osbern, Miracula S. Dunstani, pp. 138–9; Eadmer, Vita S. Anselmi, pp. 157–58; Eadmer, Miracula S. Oswaldi, pp. 294–95; Dominic, Miracula S. Ecgwini, pp. 92–93; Arcoid, Miracula S. Erkenwaldi, pp. 102–9; Aelred, De sanctis Hagustaldensis, pp. 177–81.
· 24 Tearful prayer is found in some of the earliest English hagiography as well as the latest. For example, from Wulfstan, Narratio de S. Swithuno, pp. 462–3, to the anonymous twelfth-century miracles of Oswine, Miracula S. Oswini, p. 31.
· 25 Michael Winterbottom and Michael Lapidge, eds and trans, The Early Lives of St Dunstan (Oxford: Clarendon, 2012), pp. 104–5.
· 26 Piroska Nagy, ‘Religious Weeping as Ritual in the Medieval West’, Social Analysis, 48.2 (Summer 2004), 119–37 (pp. 126–7).
· 27 Raymond A. Anselment, ‘Mary Rich, Countess of Warwick, and the Gift of Tears’, The Seventeenth Century, 22 (2007), 336–57 (pp. 336–8).
· 28 See Julia Barrow, ‘Demonstrative Behaviour and Political Communication in Later Anglo-Saxon England’, Anglo-Saxon England, 36 (2007), 127–50; Levi Roach, King-ship and Consent in Anglo-Saxon England, 871–978: Assemblies and the State in the Early Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), pp. 187–8.
· 29 Lantfred, Miracula S. Swithuni, pp. 280–3.
· 30 Those three vigils can be found in Goscelin, Vita S. Edithe, pp. 300–2; Miracula S. Kenelmi, pp. 86–9; Miraculis S. Augustini, p. 398.
· 31 Dominic, Miracula S. Ecgwini, pp. 106–9; Arcoid, Miracula S. Erkenwaldi, pp. 144–7; Geoffrey, Miracula S. Modwenne, pp. 198–219; Aelred, De sanctis Hagustaldensis, pp. 177–87; William Ketell, Miracula S. Johannis, pp. 263–4.
· 32 Miracula S. Ithamari, pp. 428–30; Vita et Passio S. Waltheofi comitis, in J. A. Giles, ed., Vita Quorundum Anglo-Saxonum (London: Smith, 1854), pp. 24–30; Miracula S. Oswini, pp. 31–3.
· 33 Mary Hamilton, Incubation: The Cure of Disease in Pagan Temples and Christian Churches (St Andrews: Henderson, 1906), pp. 111–14.
· 34 Gábor Klaniczay, ‘Dream Healing and Visions in Medieval Latin Miracle Accounts’, in The “Vision Thing”: Studying Divine Intervention, ed. by William A. Christian Jr and Gábor Klaniczay, Collegium Budapest Workshop Series, 18 (Budapest: Collegium Budapest, 2009), pp. 37–64 (pp. 37–8).
· 35 Charles Stewart, ‘Ritual Dreams and Historical Orders: Incubation Between Paganism and Christianity’, in Archaeology, Anthropology and Heritage in the Balkans and Anatolia, ed. by David Shankland, 2 vols (Istanbul: Isis, 2004), I, pp. 31–53 (p. 36).
· 36 Klaniczay, ‘Dream Healing’, pp. 40–2.
· 37 Stewart, pp. 31–2.
· 38 Goscelin records many visions of the saints as instructors, healers and admonishers. In Goscelin, Miracula S. Kenelmi, pp. 68–89, the saint cured three people with daytime visions at his shrine as well as guiding two cases to his shrine with visions. In the Vita et Miracula S. Yuonis, Goscelin records many visions of Ivo, including the saint admonishing two monks for their behaviour, Goscelin, Miracula S. Yuonis, pp. lxiv–lxvi. In Goscelin, Miraculis S. Augustini, pp. 397–8, Leodegar was sent to Canterbury from Westminster at the behest of a vision of St Peter. At Canterbury he was healed in a vision of Augustine, Mellitus and Laurence which occurred on the third night of his vigil.
· 39 The most important advice given by saints was where a person could go to receive healing. The most obvious physical interaction was the cure of a specific ailment, but in anger saints could beat people or cause their hair to fall out. See Arcoid, Miracula S. Erkenwaldi, pp. 158–61; Goscelin, Miracula S. Mildrethe, pp. 180–5.
· 40 Like the man without a tongue who was told to spend a night in vigil at Edith’s shrine, Goscelin, Vita S. Edithe, pp. 300–2. Also of note is the story of Leodegar, who seems to have been instructed on where to go and what to do before his three nights vigil, Goscelin, Miraculis S. Augustini, p. 398.
· 41 Lantfred, Miracula S. Swithuni, pp. 280–3, 298–301.
· 42 Goscelin, Miraculis S. Augustini, p. 398.
· 43 Arcoid, Miracula S. Erkenwaldi, pp. 144–7.
· 44 Herman, Miracula S. Edmundi, pp. 340–3.
· 45 Goscelin, Miracula S. Yuonis, p. lxix.
· 46 Goscelin, Virtutibus S. Adriani, Vespasian B.xx, fols 238v-39r, Harley 105, fols 209v- 10r.
· 47 Goscelin, Miracula S. Edmundi, pp. 276–7.
· 48 Osbern, Miracula S. Dunstani, p. 133.
· 49 Eadmer, Miracula S. Oswaldi, pp. 298–9.
· 50 Miracula S. Ithamari, pp. 432–5.
· 51 Miracula S. Swithuni, pp. 692–3.
· 52 Aelred, De sanctis Hagustaldensis, pp. 186–7.
· 53 Miracula S. Oswini, pp. 32–6.
· 54 Examples include Wulfhild’s former oratory, the site of Kenelm’s death and Mildrith’s old tomb at Thanet. Goscelin, Vita S. Vulfhilde, pp. 430–1; Love, Eleventh-Century, pp. cii–cvi, 68; Goscelin, Miracula S. Mildrethe, pp. 144–5.
· 55 For example Swithun’s statue at Sherborne, the churches of Augustine and Edmund’s altar at Lucca. Miracula S. Swithuni, pp. 680–1; Goscelin, Translationis S. Augustini, pp. 427–9; Herman, Miracula S. Edmundi, pp. 80–5.
· 56 Lantfred, Miracula S. Swithuni, pp. 324–7.
· 57 Finucane, p. 26.
· 58 Bede records the blood of saints transmitting miraculous power into dirt, wood and even moss. Bede also shows how such power could pass through water that came into contact with a saint or their relics. See for example Bede, HE, I.18, pp. 58–61; III.2, pp. 214–19; III.9, pp. 242–3; III.13, pp. 252–5; III.17, pp. 264–5; V.18, pp. 512–15; III.11, pp. 246–7; IV.3, pp. 346–7.
· 59 Goscelin, Vita S. Wlsini, pp. 84–5.
· 60 Thacker, ‘Making a Saint’, pp. 65–6; Gittos, pp. 220–30.
· 61 James Rattue, The Living Stream: Holy Wells in Historical Context (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1995), p. 35.
· 62 Goscelin, Miracula S. Yuonis, pp. lix–lxxv; Miracula S. Yuonis, p. lxxxii.
· 63 Goscelin, Miracula S. Yuonis, p. lxxiv.
· 64 Miracula S. Mylburge, pp. 567–8.
· 65 Goscelin, Translationis S. Augustini, pp. 414–17, 435–6.
· 66 Goscelin, Virtutibus S. Adriani, Vespasian B.xx, fols 239r-39v, Harley 105 fols 210r-10v.
· 67 Eadmer, Miracula S. Dunstani, pp. 208–11.
· 68 Dominic, Miracula S. Ecgwini, pp. 114–15.
· 69 Arcoid, Miracula S. Erkenwaldi, pp. 150–5.
· 70 Miracula S. Ithamari, p. 432.
· 71 Robert, Translatio S. Wenefrede, pp. 730–1.
· 72 Aelred, De sanctis Hagustaldensis, pp. 187–8.
· 73 James Frazer, The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion, abr. edn (London: Macmillan, 1980), p. 1.
· 74 Matthew 9, pp. 20–2, Mark 5, pp. 25–34, Luke 8, pp. 43–8, Acts 19, pp. 11–12.
· 75 Bartlett, Why Can the Dead, pp. 245–9.
· 76 Rattue, p. 10.
· 77 Veronica Strang, The Meaning of Water (Oxford: Berg, 2004), pp. 76, 91–6.
· 78 David Parsons, ‘Sacrarium: Ablution Drains in Early Medieval Churches’, in The Anglo-Saxon Church, ed. by L. A. S. Butler and R. K. Morris, (London: Council for British Archaeology, 1986), pp. 105–20 (pp. 112–14).
· 79 Perhaps the most famous example of a saint’s water comes from after our period. On the widespread use and importance on St Thomas’s water in the cult of Thomas Becket, see Pierre-André Sigal, ‘Naissance et Premier Développement d’un Vinage Exceptionnel: L’eau de Saint Thomas’, in Cahiers de Civilisation Médiévale, 52 (2001), 35–44.
· 80 Abbo, Passio S. Eadmundi, pp. 82–3.
· 81 Goscelin, Vita S. Edithe, p. 277.
· 82 Vita S. Erkenwaldi, in Whatley, Erkenwald, pp. 88–9.
· 83 Herman, Miracula S. Edmundi, pp. 88–92.
· 84 Osbern, Miracula S. Dunstani, pp. 144–51.
· 85 Eadmer, Miracula S. Dunstani, pp. 204–7.
· 86 Eadmer, Vita S. Anselmi, pp. 159–65.
· 87 Eadmer, Miracula S. Oswaldi, pp. 308–13.
· 88 William of Malmesbury, Saints’ Lives, ed. and trans. by M. Winterbottom and R. Thomson (Oxford: Clarendon, 2002), pp. 450–1.
· 89 Miracula S. Yuonis, pp. lxxix–lxxx.
· 90 Osbern, Miracula S. Dunstani, pp. 144–51.
· 91 Herman, Miracula S. Edmundi, pp. 88–92.
· 92 Lantfred, Miracula S. Swithuni, pp. 288–9.
· 93 Ibid., pp. 288–91.
· 94 Ibid., pp. 318–21, 290–1.
· 95 Ibid., pp. 302–3, 324–5.
· 96 Ibid., pp. 314–17.
· 97 Ibid., pp. 308–11.
· 98 Ibid., pp. 320–3.
· 99 Wulfstan, Vita S. Æthelwoldi, pp. 66–9; Goscelin, Miraculis S. Augustini, pp. 405–6, 425; Goscelin, Miracula S. Mildrethe, pp. 188–90; Miracula S. Ithamari, p. 435; Miracula S. Bege, pp. 516–19; Geoffrey, Miracula S. Modwenne, pp. 214–15; Aelred, De sanctis Hagustaldensis, pp. 176–7; Miracula S. Oswini, pp. 33–5; William Ketell, Miracula S. Johannis, pp. 276–8.
· 100 Miracula S. Swithuni, pp. 684–5.
· 101 Goscelin, Miraculis S. Augustini, pp. 400–4.
· 102 Goscelin, Vita S. Edithe, pp. 278–80; Miracula S. Swithuni, pp. 678–9; Goscelin, Virtutibus S. Adriani, Vespasian B.xx, fols 234v, 235v-36r, Harley 105, fols 206r-06v, 207r; Goscelin, Miracula S. Edmundi, pp. 300–3; William Ketell, Miracula S. Johannis, pp. 287–91.
· 103 Miracula S. Swithuni, pp. 678–9; Goscelin, Translationis S. Augustini, p. 424; Miracula S. Oswini, p. 38.
· 104 Goscelin, Miraculis S. Augustini, p. 408.
· 105 Miracula S. Swithuni, pp. 678–9.
· 106 Goscelin, Miracula S. Yuonis, pp. lxiii.
· 107 Goscelin, Miraculis S. Augustini, pp. 403–4. For the more regular liturgical celebration of a feast day see Appendix I.
· 108 Eadmer, Anselm, pp. 168–70.
· 109 Robert, Translatio S. Wenefrede, p. 727.
· 110 Goscelin, Translationis S. Augustini, pp. 425–6.
· 111 Arcoid, Miracula S. Erkenwaldi, pp. 135–41.
· 112 C. S. Watkins, History and the Supernatural in Medieval England, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought: Fourth Series, 66 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), p. 123.
· 113 Miracula S. Oswini, pp. 46–7.
· 114 Lantfred, Miracula S. Swithuni, pp. 320–3.
· 115 Stanley Jeyaraja Tambiah, The Buddhist Saints of the Forest and the Cult of Amulets, Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology, 49 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), p. 335.
· 116 James F. Hopgood, ‘Introduction: Saints and Saints in the Making’, in The Making of Saints: Contesting Sacred Ground, ed. by James F. Hopgood (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2005), pp. xi–xxi (p. xx).
· 117 Talal Asad, ‘Towards a Genealogy of the Concept of Ritual’, in Vernacular Christianity: Essays in the Social Anthropology of Religion Presented to Godfrey Lienhardt, ed. by Wendy James and Douglas H. Johnson (Oxford: Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford, 1988), pp. 73–87 (pp. 80–4).
· 118 Carole Rawcliffe, ‘Curing Bodies and Healing Souls: Pilgrimage and the Sick in Medieval East Anglia’, in Pilgrimage: The English Experience from Becket to Bunyan, ed. by Colin Morris and Peter Roberts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 108–40 (pp. 139–40).
· 119 Lantfred, Miracula S. Swithuni, pp. 260–85.
· 120 Miracula S. Oswini, pp. 11–17; Goscelin, Miracula S. Kenelmi, pp. 60–7; Eadmer, Miracula S. Oswaldi, pp. 286–9; Goscelin, Miracula S. Edmundi, pp. 134–7.
· 121 This unattended candle miracle seems to have been a particular concern of Goscelin. See Goscelin, Miracula S. Kenelmi, pp. 85–6; Goscelin, Translationis S. Augustini, pp. 413, 422–3; Goscelin, Visio de S. Ethelburge, in Marvin L. Colker, ‘Texts of Jocelyn of Canterbury Which Relate to the History of Barking Abbey’, Studia Monastica, 7 (1965), 383–460 (p. 454). Byrhtferth records two unsolicited miracles of Ecgwine, the miraculous appearance of a seal and the survival of the relics after the church collapsed. See Byrhtferth, Vita S. Ecgwini, pp. 286–91, 296–303. Geoffrey also includes four unsolicited miracles. In two cases, workmen were saved from falling, a bell rope was miraculously strengthened and a child and mother were saved from a collapsing roof beam by Modwenna, Geoffrey, Miracula S. Modwenne, pp. 210–13.
· 122 See chapter IV.
· 123 Finucane, p. 77. The closest we come in our evidence are two men denied reconciliation following a punitive miracle, Herman, Miracula S. Edmundi, pp. 64–7; Goscelin, Miracula S. Yuonis, pp. lxix–lxx. Sometimes people were redirected to other saints, for example, Goscelin, Vita S. Wlsini, pp. 77–8; Lantfred, Miracula S. Swithuni, pp. 276–85, 298–9, 328–31; Goscelin, Miraculis S. Augustini, p. 405; Goscelin, Miracula S. Yuonis, pp. lxix, lxxix–lxxx; Arcoid, Miracula S. Erkenwaldi, pp. 128–33, 160–3.
· 124 Peregrine Horden, ‘Saints and Doctors in the Early Byzantine Empire: The Case of Theodore of Sykeon’, in The Church and Healing, ed. by W. J. Sheils, Studies in Church History, 19 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1982), pp. 1–13 (pp. 12–13).
· 125 For examples of medics confounded by illness and injury, see Arcoid, Miracula S. Erkenwaldi, pp. 144–7, 162–5; Miracula S. Yuonis, pp. lxxx–lxxxi; Goscelin, Miraculis S. Augustini, p. 405; Osbern, Miracula S. Dunstani, pp. 151–3; Eadmer, Vita S. Anselmi, pp. 159–65. On the interaction between saints and legal authorities, see Lant-fred, Miracula S. Swithuni, pp. 308–11; Herman, Miracula S. Edmundi, pp. 14–25, 67–81; Arcoid, Miracula S. Erkenwaldi, pp. 116–19; Miracula S. Ithamari, p. 435.