A Companion to Medieval Miracle Collections 9004465405, 9789004465404

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A Companion to Medieval Miracle Collections

Reading Medieval Sources volume 5

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/​rms

A Companion to Medieval Miracle Collections Edited by

Sari Katajala-​Peltomaa, Jenni Kuuliala and Iona McCleery

LEIDEN | BOSTON

Cover illustration: The Miracle of Emelie la Brete: Vie et miracles de monseigneur saint Louis (1480–​88). ms Français 2829, f. 96v. With kind permission of Bibliothèque Nationale de France. © Bibliothèque Nationale de France. The Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data is available online at http://​catalog.loc.gov lc record available at http://​lccn.loc.gov/2021940345​

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/​brill-​typeface. issn 2589-​2 509 isbn 978-​9 0-​0 4-​4 6540-​4 (hardback) isbn 978-​9 0-​0 4-​4 6849-​8 (e-​book) Copyright 2021 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill nv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Hotei, Brill Schöningh, Brill Fink, Brill mentis, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Böhlau Verlag and V&R Unipress. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Requests for re-​use and/​or translations must be addressed to Koninklijke Brill nv via brill.com or copyright.com. This book is printed on acid-​free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

Contents  Acknowledgements vii  Contributors viii  Introduction: Miracle Collections in Their Contexts 1 Sari Katajala-​Peltomaa, Jenni Kuuliala and Iona McCleery 1  Writing Miracle Collections 15 Louise Elizabeth Wilson 2  Miracles in Monastic Culture 36 Emilia Jamroziak 3  The Canonization of Saints in the Middle Ages: Procedure, Documentation, Meanings 54 Roberto Paciocco 4  Practical Matters: Canonization Records in the Making 78 Sari Katajala-​Peltomaa and Jenni Kuuliala 5  Heretics, Hemorrhages, and Herrings: Miracles and the Canonizations of Dominican Saints 102 Donald S. Prudlo 6  Miracula and Exempla –​A Complicated Relationship 125 Jussi Hanska 7  Rituals and Spaces of Devotion in Cistercian Everyday Religion 144 Marika Räsänen 8  Pilgrimage as a Feature of Miracles 164 Leigh Ann Craig 9  Physical Disability and Bodily Difference 186 Jenni Kuuliala 10  Madness, Demonic Possession, and Methods of Categorization 206 Sari Katajala-​Peltomaa

vi Contents 11  Death in a Birth Chamber: Birth Attendants as Expert Witnesses in the Canonization Process of Bernardino of Siena 226 Jyrki Nissi 12  Escaping Justice?: The Politics of Liberation Miracles in Late Medieval Portugal 249 Iona McCleery 13  Protection Miracles as Evidence for the Shifting Political Landscape of Fourteenth-​Century Provence 274 Nicole Archambeau 14  The Mobilization of Thought: A Narratological Approach to Representations of Dream and Vision in Late Medieval Miracle Collections in the Low Countries 299 Jonas Van Mulder 15  Miracle Types and Narratives: The Case of Saint Margaret of Hungary 327 Ildikó Csepregi  Selected Bibliography 355 Index 369

Acknowledgements A volume of a scope as wide as this is truly a joint collaboration that could not be completed without the help and support of various people and organizations. As often happens, this has been a longer road than what we anticipated at the beginning, but the process has been rewarding. We would like to thank all contributors for investing their time and effort into the project, and of course Brill for all the hard work and help in bringing the book to its final form. We are also grateful for Melanie Brunner, Lori Jones and Sara Elin Roberts for checking the grammar and to Ida Korppineva for her assistance in compiling the bibliography and the index. The volume has received financial support from the Centre of Excellence in the History of Experiences, Tampere University.

Contributors Nicole Archambeau Associate Professor of History, Colorado State University Leigh Ann Craig Associate Professor of History, Virginia Commonwealth University Ildikó Csepregi Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University Jussi Hanska University Lecturer, Faculty of Education and Culture, Tampere University Emilia Jamroziak Professor of Medieval Religious History, University of Leeds Sari Katajala-​Peltomaa Senior Research Fellow, Centre of Excellence in the History of Experiences, Faculty of Social Sciences, Tampere University Jenni Kuuliala Senior Research Fellow, Centre of Excellence in the History of Experiences, Faculty of Social Sciences, Tampere University Iona McCleery Associate Professor in Medieval History, University of Leeds Jyrki Nissi Junior Researcher, Faculty of Social Sciences, Tampere University Roberto Paciocco Professor, Department of Humanities, Art and Social Science, Università degli Studi “G. d’Annunzio” Chieti –​Pescara Donald S. Prudlo Warren Professor of Catholic Studies, Department of Religion and Philosophy, University of Tulsa

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Contributors

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Marika Räsänen University Teacher, University of Turku Jonas Van Mulder Postdoctoral Fellow, kadoc Documentation and Research Center on Religion, Culture and Society, KU Leuven Louise Elizabeth Wilson Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge

Introduction

Miracle Collections in Their Contexts Sari Katajala-​Peltomaa, Jenni Kuuliala and Iona McCleery Why do miracles matter? Are they not just a reflection of the imaginary side of Christianity, an emblem of the backwardness of the Middle Ages? It has not been that long a time since these kinds of disclaimers were openly proclaimed, and administrative documents were considered to be most reliable sources in historical research. Obviously, for decades now, it has been clear that miracle narrations, whether recorded in a register at a shrine, in a collection, or in a judicial hearing, are invaluable sources when it comes to questions about daily life, family relations, lay devotion, or healing practices. This list of prolific themes and approaches could be, and indeed has been, continued, since miracles capture a wide variety of crucial elements of medieval society and culture. They were linked to church administration, economic life, patriotic pride and politics, communal coherence and hierarchies, gender and identity, as well as to experiences of illness, health, and healing. In sum, they encapsulate the whole spectrum of life and connect macro and micro levels of society and culture with each other.1 They matter a lot when it comes to our understanding of the Middle Ages. Miracle narrations were also one of the most popular and widespread –​if not the most widespread –​literary genres during the Middle Ages, and were also a crucial part of the oral communication within societies as a common discussion topic and “dinner table” subject. Furthermore, they are often vivid narrations full of colorful details. Considering all this, it is small wonder that miracle narrations in their various forms are increasingly used by medievalists. They are no longer neglected –​quite the contrary, but this proposes another problem. The nature of the sources, that is, how the written narration came into 1 On definitions of the concept of “miracle”, see for example, B. Ward, Miracles and the Medieval Mind. Theory, Record and Event 1000–​1215, London, 1982, pp. 3–​32; also M. Goodich, Miracles and Wonders. The Development of the Concept of Miracle, 1150–​1350, Aldershot, 2007; M. van Uytfanghe, “La controverse biblique et patristique autour du miracle, et ses répercussions sur l’hagiographie dans l’Antiquité tardive et le haut Moyen Age”, in É. Patlagean and P. Richè (eds), Hagiographie, Cultures et Sociétés IVe–​XIIe siècles. Actes du Colloque organisé á Nanterre et à Paris (2–​5 mai 1979), Paris, 1979, pp. 205–​33, and L. Smoller, “Defining the Boundaries of the Natural in Fifteenth-​Century Brittany: the Inquest into the Miracles of Saint Vincent Ferrer (d. 1419)”, Viator 28 (1997), pp. 333–​60.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2021 | DOI:10.1163/9789004468498_002

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being, what is written and why, is occasionally not afforded enough attention. Miracle narrations do shed light on all the themes mentioned above –​as well as hitherto unstudied ones –​but not at face value. A profound methodological awareness is due in order to fully deploy the potential of the material. This is the aim of the volume at hand: to offer practical tools for the methodological understanding of miracle narrations. We analyze the background rationale of this material as well as deconstruct the structure of the collections and rhetorical elements within the narrations. Our focus is both on miracle collections and canonization processes, and we aim to offer a comparative perspective, to scrutinize links, similarities, and differences within these sets of sources. In addition to the evolution of the genre and contextualizing the collections, the chapters of the volume at hand offer a synthesis of some recent themes within this field and suggest new directions. Before introducing the themes and structure of the volume at hand, a review of the earlier scholarship is due. There are many types of miracles, some of which, such as healing miracles, liberation miracles, and visions, receive special attention in this volume. There have been numerous studies of miracles over the decades, ranging in approach and theme from theological discussions and folkloric treatments, through to more recent histories of daily life and social practices. Although there have been historiographical reviews previously, and there are several important essay collections on miracles and their contexts, they perhaps focus more on the early Middle Ages, on the period 1000–​1200, or on a single country. There is a great deal of scholarship on twelfth-​century miracles, in particular, especially for England.2 As for other geographical areas, French and Italian miracle collections have also been extensively analyzed.3 Similarly, Scandinavian miracle collections and canonization processes have been analyzed for the study of the region.4 In the scholarship, there has been relatively little methodological or critical analysis of miracle genres and miracle-​recording practices, and what there is tends to focus on an earlier period than that covered by this volume.5 There 2 3 4 5

See the work of Louise Wilson, Claire Trenery, Rachel Koopmans, Véronique Thouroude, Anne Bailey and others. See, for example, the work of Alessandra Bartolomei Romagnoli, Sofia Boesch Gajano, Didier Lett, Pierre-​Andrè Sigal, Roberto Paciocco, Donald Prudlo. See the work of Anders Fröjmark, Sari Katajala-​Peltomaa, Christian Krötzl, Tryggve Lundén, Diana Whaley, Haki Antonsson. Key historiographical and methodological studies include: G. Signori, “The miracle kitchen and its ingredients: a methodical and critical approach to Marian shrine wonders (10th to 13th centuries)”, Hagiographica 3 (1996), pp. 277–​303; D. Lett, L’enfant des miracles. Enfance et société au Moyen âge (xiie-​xiiie siècle) Paris, 1997; P. Geary, “Saints, Scholars and Society: the Elusive Goal”, in idem, Living with the Dead in the Middle Ages, Ithaca and London, 1994, pp. 9–​20 (originally written for and also published in S. Sticca (ed.),

Introduction

3

are also limited comparisons across different regions of Europe; where these exist they tend to be focused on canonization processes rather than shrine collections.6 Shrine collections and canonization processes are usually studied separately, often for fairly narrow or discrete time periods with little opportunity to look at wider patterns. There are few late medieval studies of shrine collections. Even the miracles of the Virgin Mary, a truly universal transnational phenomenon, and usually studied as such, have not received the comparative attention they deserve for the Late Middle Ages.7 When it comes to late medieval saints, it is often their mysticism, devotional practices and asceticism or

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Saints: Studies in Hagiography, Binghamton, 1996, pp. 1–​22); G. Klaniczay, “Healing with certain conditions: the pedagogy of medieval miracles”, Cahiers de recherches médiévales et humanistes 19 (2010), pp. 235–​48; R. Koopmans, Wonderful to Relate: Miracle Stories and Miracle Collecting in High Medieval England, Philadelphia, 2011; S. Katajala-​Peltomaa and C. Krötzl, “Approaching twelfth-​to fifteenth-​century miracles: miracle registers, collections and canonization processes as source material”, in C. Krötzl and S. Katajala-​ Peltomaa (eds.), Miracles in Medieval Canonization Processes: Structures, Functions and Methodologies, Turnhout, 2018, pp. 1–​39. Important essay collections include: M. Balard (ed.), Miracles, Prodiges et Merveilles au Moyen Âge, Paris, 1995; D. Aigle (ed.), Miracle et karāma: hagiographies médiévales comparées, Turnhout, 2000; K. Cooper and J. Gregory (eds), Signs, Wonders, Miracles: Representations of Divine Power in the Life of the Church (Studies in Church History 41), Woodbridge, 2005; G.H. Twelftree (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Miracles, Cambridge, 2011; M. Mesley and L. Wilson (eds), Contextualizing Miracles in the Christian West, 1100–​1500: New Historical Approaches, Oxford, 2014; S. Boesch Gajano and M. Modica Miracoli (eds), Miracoli. Dai segni alla storia, Rome, 2000 and L. Andreani and A. Paravicini Bagliani (eds.), Miracolo! Emozione, spettacolo e potere nella storia dei secoli XIII-​XVII, Florence, 2019. For an important European-​wide overview of patterns, see R. Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things? Saints and Worshippers from the Martyrs to the Reformation, Princeton, 2013, ­chapter 9. Recent examples include: S. Katajala-​Peltomaa, Gender, Miracles and Daily Life: the Evidence of Fourteenth-​Century Canonization Processes, Turnhout, 2009; L.A. Smoller, The Saint and the Chopped-​Up Baby: the Cult of Vincent Ferrer inMedieval and Early-​Modern Europe, Ithaca, 2014 (although focused on one saint, it compares inquiries in Naples and Brittany); J. Kuuliala, Childhood Disability and Social Integration in the Late Middle Ages: Constructions of Impairments in Thirteenth-​and Fourteenth-​Century Canonization Processes, Turnhout, 2016. D. Lett, Un procès de canonisation au Moyen Âge: essai d’histoire sociale, Paris, 2008; M. Wittmer-​Butsch, Maria and C. Rendtel, Miracula. Wunderheilungen im Mittelalter. Eine historisch-​psychologische Annäherung, Cologne, 2003; S. Andrić, The Miracles of St John Capistran, Budapest, 2000. For a rare late medieval study, see J. Van Mulder, “Miracles and the Body Social: Infirmi in the Middle Dutch Miracle Collection of Our Lady of Amersfoort”, in K. Mustakallio, C. Krötzl and J. Kuuliala (eds.), Infirmity in Antiquity and the Middle Ages: Social and Cultural Approaches to Health, Weakness and Care, Aldershot, 2015, pp. 241–​53. See also A.W. Boyarin, Miracles of the Virgin in Medieval England: Law and Jewishness in Marian Legends, Cambridge, 2010; G. Signori, “Bauern, Wallfahrt und Familie: Familiäres Verantwortungsbewußtsein im Spiegel spätmittelalterlicher Marienwallfahrten. Die

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their political influence which has attracted interest.8 Legal and theological aspects of the cults and canonization process have also been extensively studied.9 Both of these are established fields of study, but do not particularly focus on miracles. Following from the biblical example of Christ and his apostles, healing has always been the archetypical miracle, favored in all kinds of miracle collections. Resulting from this, where miracles are the focus of attention, it is usually healing that has received most scrutiny. Studies of childbirth,10 madness and possession,11 blindness,12 and resuscitation have been prominent in recent

8

9

10

11

12

Wunderbücher ’Unserer Lieben Frau’ im Gatter im Münster von St. Gallen (1479 bis 1485)”, Zeitschrift für Schweizerische Kirchengeschichte 86 (1992), pp. 121–​58. On the political connections of the saint or his/​her cult, see C. Heβ, Heilige machen im spätmittelalterlichen Ostseeraum. Die Kanonisationsprozesse von Birgitta von Schweden, Nikolaus von Linköping und Dorothea von Montau, Berlin, 2008; P. Salmesvuori, Power and Sainthood. The Case of Birgitta of Sweden, New York, 2014, Lett, Un Procès de canonization; R. Bartlett, The Hanged Man; D. Webb, Patrons and Defenders. The Saints in the Italian City-​ states, London, 1996; A. Vauchez, “Canonisation et politique au xive siècle: Documents inédits des Archives du Vatican relatifs au procès de canonisation de Charles de Blois, duc de Bretagne († 1364)”, in Miscellanea in onore di Monsignor Martino Giusti, prefetto dell’Archivio Segreto Vaticano II, Vatican City, 1978, pp. 381–​404. R.C. Finucane, Contested Canonizations: the Last Medieval Saints, 1485–​1523, Washington DC., 2011; T. Wetzstein, Heilige vor Gericht. Das Kanonisationsverfahren im europäischen Mittelalter, Köln, 2004; C. Krötzl, “Kanonisationsprozess, Socialgeschichte und Kanonisches Recht im Spätmittelalter”, in M. Korpiola (ed.), Nordic Perspectives on Medieval Canon Law, Helsinki, 1999, pp. 19–​39; R. Paciocco, Canonizzazioni e culto dei santi nella christianitas (1198–​1302), Assisi, 2006; O. Krafft, Papsturkunde und Heiligsprechung, Die päpstlichen Kanonisationen vom Mittelalter bis zur Reformation. Ein Handbuch, Archiv für Diplomatik, Beiheft 9, Köln, 2005, and D. Prudlo, Certain Sainthood. Canonization and the Origins of Papal Infallibility in the Medieval Church, Ithaca, 2015. H. Powell, “The ‘miracle of childbirth’: the portrayal of parturient women in medieval miracle narratives”, Social History of Medicine 25 (2012), pp. 795–​811; A. Fröjmark, “Childbirth miracles in Swedish miracle collections”, Journal of the History of Sexuality 21 (2012), pp. 297–​312. C. Trenery, Madness, Medicine and Miracle in Twelfth-​Century England, London, 2019; L.A. Craig, “The Spirit of Madness: Uncertainty, Diagnosis and the Restoration of Sanity in the Miracles of Henry VI”, Journal of Medieval Religious Cultures 39: 1 (2013), pp. 60–​93; S. Katajala-​Peltomaa, “Demonic Possession as Physical and Mental Disturbance in the Later Medieval Canonization Processes”, in S. Katajala-​Peltomaa & S. Niiranen (eds), Mental (Dis)Order in Later Medieval Europe, Leiden, 2014, pp. 108–​27, and N. Caciola, “Mystics, Demoniacs, and the Physiology of Spirit Possession in Medieval Europe”, Comparative Studies in Society and History 42/​2 (2000), pp. 268–​306. J. Hawkins, “Seeing the light? Blindness and sanctity in later medieval England”, in P. Clarke and T. Clayton (eds.), Saints and Sanctity (Studies in Church History, 47), Woodbridge, 2011, pp. 148–​58; E. Wheatley, Stumbling Blocks Before the Blind: Medieval Constructions of a Disability, Ann Arbor, 2010, especially chapter six.

Introduction

5

years.13 Sustained studies of broken bones, hernias, cancers, fevers, plague, and occupational injuries are very rare even though there are many examples of these conditions recorded in processes and collections across Europe and individual cases have attracted the interest of medical historians. For example, Luke Demaitre and Joseph Ziegler both study the cure of a woman with breast cancer attributed to Pierre of Luxembourg in 1387,14 and Nancy Siraisi describes how parents took their child with a hernia to the tomb of Chiara of Montefalco in 1308 rather than resorting to surgery.15 The problem of belief in these cures is often completely side-​stepped by researchers, even those who study doubt and skepticism. Belief in healing has, to a certain extent, been avoided as a research topic in recent years. Either scholars have to consider that the injury or lesion was really there and healed miraculously; or that the miraculé was too ignorant to recognize that it was not a serious condition (unlikely in these very obvious cases); or that it just healed “naturally”; or that it was a textual construct that did not “really” happen (but then why describe the conditions if they had no bearing on experience?). Although we have come a long way from the reductionism of the 1970–​80s that tried to explain holy intercessors and miracle cures using modern rationalizations, there are still some fundamental issues that need to be addressed in the field of miracle studies for the late Middle Ages.16 In some respects, the key difficulty for scholars coming into this field is that there are so many archival sources for late medieval politics and society that the specificity of what can be achieved through the study of miracles becomes 13 14

15 16

For resuscitation miracles, see the references in the chapters by Nissi and McCleery below. L. Demaitre, “Medieval notions of cancer: malignancy and metaphor”, Bulletin of the History of Medicine 72 (1998), pp. 609–​37 (634–​7); J. Ziegler, “Practitioners and saints: medical men in canonization proceedings in the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries”, Social History of Medicine 12 (1999), pp. 191–​225 (202–​05). Ziegler also considers miraculous cures of fever, hernias, broken bones and plague, amongst other things. N. Siraisi, Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine, Chicago, 1990, p. 153. Particularly critiqued for reductionism is R.C. Finucane, Miracles and Pilgrims: Popular Beliefs in Medieval England, New York, 1995 (1st edn, 1977). A more recent attempt at finding medical and psychological explanations for miracles is R.A. Scott, Miracle Cures. Saints, Pilgrimage, and the Healing Powers of Belief, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 2010. Explaining away cures as vitamin deficiency or remissive illness is not always a helpful way to understand medieval beliefs. See I. McCleery, “Christ more powerful than Galen? The relationship between medicine and miracles”, in M. Mesley and L. Wilson (eds), Contextualizing Miracles in the Christian West, 1100–​1500: New Historical Approaches, Oxford, 2014, pp. 127–​54. As written by Raymond Van Dam, attempting to find biological explanations for miraculous cures depreciates “people’s own experiences, as if they were consistently unable to cope with their times or their lives”. R. Van Dam, Saints and Their Miracles in Late Antique Gaul, Princeton, 1993, p. 84.

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lost. For example, it has been noted recently by a number of social historians that the great mortality that resulted from plague in the late Middle Ages (currently it is estimated that on average 50% of the population of Europe, the Middle East and North Africa died in the late 1340s) did not lead to nearly the amount of archived commentary that we would expect, used as we are to outpourings of grief in modern letters and diaries. Scholars instead point to changing patterns in late medieval art and literature or archaeological disruptions, but the archive is often annoyingly silent.17 Relatively few historians have tried to fill this silence by reading late medieval miracles for evidence of emotional and practical concerns connected to caring for the sick. The pioneer in this area is Nicole Archambeau in her close study of traumatic experience as expressed in the late fourteenth-​century miracles of Delphine of Puimichel.18 We should consider that more late medieval miracle narratives could be studied in this light as a glimpse of the anxieties of their age, although it may not be as transparent as was previously assumed. One of the major issues that this field of research faces is that there are relatively few monographs, but a profusion of essay collections and articles, some of which are isolated or quite difficult to access. Perhaps as a result, there is, as Robert Bartlett put it in a book review, “the continued dominance of the classic studies of thirty-​five years ago (Sigal, Vauchez, Brown, Finucane, Schmitt)”.19 This critique does not denigrate the sterling work of those scholars, some of whom are still active, and most of whom Bartlett also uses at length in his own very influential research. However, it is a reminder that it is time for scholarship to move on to new methods and insights, especially for the late Middle Ages, while still recognizing pioneering earlier scholarship. It will be clear from the pages of this volume that all of these scholars remain fundamental for the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries, especially Sigal, Finucane and Vauchez. 17

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For this silence, see J. Roosen and D. Curtis, “The ‘Light Touch’ of the Black Death in the Southern Netherlands: an Urban Trick?” Economic History Review 72 (2019), pp. 32–​56; C. Lewis, “Disaster Recovery: New Archaeological Evidence for the Long-​term Impact of the ‘Calamitous’ Fourteenth Century”, Antiquity 90 (2016), pp. 777–​97. N. Archambeau, “Healing options during the plague: survivor stories from a fourteenth-​ century canonization inquest”, Bulletin of the History of Medicine 85 (2011), pp. 531–​59. R. Bartlett, “Book Review: Contextualizing miracles in the Christian West, 1100–​1500. New historical approaches”, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 67 (2016), pp. 413–​14 (p. 414). The main works of the scholars mentioned are: Finucane, Miracles and Pilgrims; P.-​A. Sigal, L’Homme et le miracle dans la France medieval, XIe-​XIIe siècles, Paris, 1985; A. Vauchez, Sainthood in the Middle Ages, trans. J. Birrell, Cambridge, 2005 (first published in French in 1988); P. Brown, The Cult of the Saints: its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity, Chicago, 1981; J.-​C. Schmitt, The Holy Greyhound: St Guinefort, Healer of Children since the Thirteenth Century, trans. M. Thom, Cambridge, 1982 (first published in French in 1979).

Introduction

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However, it is also clear that as far as reading miracles today is concerned, two other names are now repeated much more regularly and deserve special recognition for their influence on a younger generation of researchers: Michael Goodich and Gábor Klaniczay. Michael Goodich’s research focused on the study of miracles: their narrative form and what they say about medieval society. He pioneered the use of miracles for social history, unusually using both canonization processes and shrine collections across a broad sweep of time and space. Goodich very much first advocated the idea that miracles could be used as evidence for daily life, social status, emotions, violence, childcare and gender studies, without ever losing sight of the need to pay close attention to the manuscript contexts of the original record.20 Gábor Klaniczay was originally known as a specialist on royal saints, part of his far broader interest in supernatural power.21 His major monograph on dynastic saints was ground-​breaking in its attention to gender and the distinctive monarchies of central Europe.22 Klaniczay then turned his attention from dynastic politics to canonization processes, especially the miracles they recorded. His many studies and translations seek to make miracles from a much broader range of cults much more accessible.23 As noted earlier, the study of miracle collections, and especially canonization processes are both lively historical fields. This means that new themes are emerging. While the first studies focused largely on quantitative analysis, especially on the classification of various conditions cured, qualitative close reading has been a core approach for some time now. The study of miracle 20

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M. Goodich, Violence and Miracle in the Fourteenth Century: Private Grief and Public Salvation, Chicago, 1995; Idem, Lives and Miracles of the Saints: Studies in Medieval Latin Hagiography, Burlington, 2004; “Mirabilis deus in sanctis suis: social history and medieval miracles”, in Cooper and Gregory (eds), Signs, Wonders, Miracles, pp. 135–​56; Idem, Miracles and Wonders: the Development of the Concept of Miracle, 1150–​1350, Aldershot, 2007. G. Klaniczay, The Uses of Supernatural Power: the Transformation of Popular Religion in Medieval and Early-​Modern Europe, trans. S. Singerman, Princeton, 1990. G. Klaniczay, Holy Rulers and Blessed Princesses: Dynastic Cults in Medieval Central Europe, trans. E. Pálmai, Cambridge, 2002. This book also represents a slow movement away from focusing on French, English and Italian cults, although they still predominate. See also C. Krőtzl, Pilger, Mirakel und Alltag. Formen des Verhaltens im skandinavischen Mittelalter, 12.-​15. Jh., Helsinki, 1994. G. Klaniczay, (ed.) Procès de canonisation au Moyen Âge, Rome, 2004 ; Idem, “Speaking about miracles: oral testimony and written record in medieval canonization trials”, in A. Adamska and M. Mostert (eds.), The Development of Literate Mentalities in East Central Europe, Turnhout, 2004, pp. 365–​95; Idem, “Using saints: intercession, healing, sanctity”, in J. Arnold (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Medieval Christianity, Oxford, 2014, pp. 217–​ 37; Idem, “The inquisition of miracles in medieval canonization processes”, in Krötzl and Katajala-​Peltomaa (eds.), Miracles in Medieval Canonization Processes, pp. 43–​74.

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narrations has also taken a turn to more theoretical approaches following the lead of scholars studying vitae, who are largely literary scholars. Their theory-​ oriented gender approach and queer reading of sources, for example, has also inspired scholars focusing on miracles.24 Similarly, the theoretical framework of social and cultural models of disability have been used and discussed in the study of hagiographical sources.25 Correspondingly, other theories borrowed from the social sciences have been utilized in the study of daily life and family relations. Miracle narrations offer excellent potential for the study of childhood socialization, for example.26 24

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See, for example, G. Ashton, The Generation of Identity in Late Medieval Hagiography: Speaking the Saint, London, 2000; K. Locherie, “Mystical Acts, Queer Tendencies”, in K. Locherie, P. McCracken, and J.A. Schultz (eds), Constructing Medieval Sexuality, Minneapolis, 1997, pp. 180–​200; A. Hollywood (ed.), Gendered Voices. Medieval Saints and Their Interpreters, Philadelphia, 1999; P. Cullum and K.J. Lewis (eds), Holiness and Masculinity in the Middle Ages, Toronto, 2005. See K.-​P. Horn and B. Frohne, “On the fluidity of ‘disability’ in Medieval and Early Modern societies. Opportunities and strategies in a new field or research”, in Sebastian Barsch, Anne Klein, and Pieter Verstraete (eds), The Imperfect Historian. Disability Histories in Europe, Frankfurt am Main, 2013, pp. 17–​40; Kuuliala, Childhood Disability and Social Integration; J. Kuuliala, “Disability and Religious Practices in Late Medieval Prussia: Infirmity and the Miraculous in the Canonization Process of St Dorothea of Montau (1404–​1406)”, in S. Katajala-​Peltomaa & R.M. Toivo (eds), Lived Religion in the Baltic Sea Region during the Long Reformation, Leiden, 2016, pp. 46–​74; I. Metzler, Disability in Medieval Europe. Thinking about Physical Impairment during the High Middle Ages, C.1100–​1400, London and New York, 2006; L.E. Wilson, “Hagiographical Interpretations of Disability in the Twelfth-​ Century Miracula of St Frideswide of Oxford”, in W.J. Turner & T. Vandeventer Pearman (eds.) The Treatment of Disabled Persons in Medieval Europe. Examining Disability in the Historical, Legal, Literary, Medical, and Religious Discourses of the Middle Ages, Lewiston, 2010, pp. 135–​65. On childhood socialization, see Kuuliala, Childhood Disability and Social Integration, S. Katajala-​Peltomaa, “Learning by Doing: Pilgrimages as a Means of Socialisation in the Late Middle Ages”, in K. Mustakallio & J. Hanska (eds), Agents and Objects. Children in Pre-​Modern Europe, Acta Instituti Romani Finlandiae 42, Rome, 2015, pp. 133–​46, and S. Katajala-​Peltomaa, “Diabolical Rage? Children, Violence, and Demonic Possession in the Late Middle Ages”, Journal of Family History 41:3 (2016), doi: 10.1177/​0363199016644593. On miracles and the study of childhood more generally, see R. Finucane, The Rescue of the Innocents. Endangered Children in Medieval Miracles, New York, 2000; Lett, L’enfant des miracles; Idem, “Adult Brothers and Juvenile Uncles: Generations and Age Differences in Families at the End of the Middle Ages”, The History of the Family 6 (2001), pp. 391–​ 400; D. Lett, “Brothers and Sisters. New Perspectives on Medieval Family History”, in K. Mustakallio, J. Hanska, H.-​L. Sainio & V. Vuolanto (eds), Hoping for Continuity. Childhood, Education and Death in Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Acta Instituti Romani Finlandiae, 33) Rome, pp. 13–​23; and C. Krötzl, ‘Parent Child Relation in Medieval Scandinavia According to Scandinavian Miracle Collections,’ Scandinavian Journal of History 14 (1989), pp. 21–​37.

Introduction

9

In addition to a more profound theoretical frame utilized in the analysis, a more pronounced focus on methodology has recently become relevant within studies of miracle narrations. For example, deconstruction of elements of hagiographic genre and analysis of different topoi, like the oral and literate elements in the depositions, as well as analysis of various versions of the same case at different levels of the process (local shrine, canonization process, curial evaluation, papal bull, sermons on a feast day) are scrutinized.27 Recently, the rhetorical elements in depositions have been deconstructed.28 Miracle narrations as a source material are not easily exhausted and they have demonstrated their ability to conform to new approaches within historical studies. A recent “turn” that affects academia widely, not only historians or medievalists, is the return of religion in its various forms. Theology or church institutions are no longer deemed as the most essential elements. Focus has shifted to religion’s intermingling with society and culture, which can be defined as “lived religion”, meaning a focus on devotional practices, such as rituals, symbols and gestures, and their connection to the community and culture. Even if the laity’s devotional practices have long been a core element in the study of miracle collections and canonization processes, the “lived religion” approach contests the hierarchy between the “learned” and the “popular” within religion, as well as the existence of a strict polarity between individual and collective religious participation, and enables scholars to take seriously the experience of religion.29 Recently, topics like disbelief or demonic presence in 27

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F. Lifshitz, “Beyond Positivism and Genre: ‘Hagiographical’ Texts as Historical Narrative”, Viator 25 (1994), pp. 96–​113; G. Philippart, “Hagiographes et hagiographie, hagiologes et hagiologie: des mots et des concepts”, Hagiographica 1 (1994), pp. 1–​16; L.A. Smoller, “Miracle, Memory, and Meaning in the Canonization of Vincent Ferrer, 1453–​1454”, Speculum 73 (1998), pp. 429–​54. On changes in a miracle story on various levels of the process, see D. Lett, “De la dissemblace à la ressemblance: construction sociale et métamorphoses des récits de miracles dans le procès de canonisation et l’abbrevatio maior de Nicolas de Tolentino (1325–​1328)”, in M. Goullet & M. Heinzelmann (eds), Miracles, vies et réécritures dans l’occident médiéval, Ostfildern, 2006, pp. 121–​47; G. Klaniczay, “Speaking about Miracles”, and J. Hanska, “From Historical Event to Didactic Story. Medieval Miracle Stories as a Means of Communication”, in C. Krötzl and M. Tamminen (eds), Changing Minds. Communication and Influence in the High and Later Middle Ages (Acta Instituti Romani Finlandiae, 39) Rome, 2013, pp. 87–​106. S. Katajala-​Peltomaa, “Narrative Strategies in the Depositions: Gender, Family and Devotion”, in Miracles in Medieval Canonization Processes, 227–​56; J. Kuuliala, “Proving Misfortune, Proving Sainthood. Reconstructing Physical Impairment in Fourteenth-​ Century Miracle Testimonies”, in Miracles in Medieval Canonization Processes, pp. 197–​226. On lived religion, see J.H. Arnold, “Histories and Historiographies of Medieval Christianity”, in J.H. Arnold (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Medieval Christianity, Oxford, 2014, pp. 23–​ 41; S. Katajala-​Peltomaa and R.M. Toivo, “Religion as experience,” in S. Katajala-​Peltomaa

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daily life have also been addressed by analyzing miracle narrations.30 The non-​ typical miracles that do not fit into the accustomed pattern, revealing fractures in the genre and in recording practices, are also attracting increasing attention.31 The chapters of this volume contribute to the aforementioned themes and aim to open new possibilities for scrutiny. As methodological questions are a core rationale for the volume at hand, both the very concrete methods of recording as well as specific thematic analytical concepts emerge. 1

Structure of the Volume

The chapters included in this volume have been divided into two parts. The first of them concerns the evolution and contexts of miracle collections and canonization processes. In this section, the authors analyze and discuss the practical and juridical backgrounds and principles for recording miracles at shrines, in monastic settings, as a part of canonization processes, as well as how they could be used and re-​used later on. These aspects are of crucial importance for any analysis of miracle narratives, as they provide the background for

30

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and R.M. Toivo (eds), Lived Religion and Long Reformation in Northern Europe c. 1300–​1700, Leiden, 2017, pp. 1–​18. On this approach in studying miracles, L.A. Smoller, ‘ “Popular” religious culture(s),’ in The Oxford Handbook of Medieval Christianity, ed. by J.H. Arnold, Oxford, 2014, pp. 340–​56, and G. Klaniczay, ‘ “Popular Culture” in Medieval Hagiography and in Recent Historiography,’ in P. Golinelli (ed), Agiografia e culture popolari –​ Hagiography and Popular Cultures. In ricordo di Pietro Boglioni, Bologna, 2012, pp. 17–​44. On demonic presence and lived religion, see S. Katajala-​Peltomaa, Demonic Possession and Lived Religion in Later Medieval Europe, Oxford, 2020; A. Boureau, Satan Hérétique. Histoire de la Démonologie. Naissance de la démonologie dans l’Occident médiévale (1280–​ 1330), Paris, 2004, and L.A. Smoller, “Dominicans and Demons: Possession, Temptation, and Reform in the Cult of Vincent Ferrer”, Speculum 93:4 (2018), pp. 1010–​47. For examples of disbelief, see D. Lett, “Des miracles incroyables: doutes ou intérêt social et politique dans le process de canonisation de XIIIe-​XIVe siècles”, in Miracles in Medieval Canonization Processes, pp.177–​93; C. Watkins, “Providence, experience and doubt in medieval England”, in Y. Batsaki, S. Mukherji and J.-​M. Schramm (eds), Fictions of Knowledge: Fact. Evidence, Doubt, Basingtoke, 2012, pp. 40–​60; S. Justice, “Did the Middle Ages believe in their miracles?” Representations 103 (2008), pp. 1–​29; on punishing miracles, see G. Klaniczay, “Miracoli di punizione e maleficia,” in Miracoli. Dai segni alla storia, pp. 109–​35. D. Harrison, “Quod magno nobis fuit horrori… Horror, power and holiness within the context of canonization”, in Procès de canonization au Moyen Âge, pp. 39–​52; J. Kuuliala, “Heavenly Healing or Failure of Faith? Partial Cures in Later Medieval Canonization Processes”, in K. Salonen & S. Katajala-​Peltomaa (eds), Church and Belief in the Middle Ages. Popes, Saints, and Crusaders, Amsterdam, 2016, pp. 171–​99.

Introduction

11

source-​critical aspects that the researcher needs to take into consideration in order to be able to examine and dissect the sources fruitfully. Louise Elizabeth Wilson’s chapter, “Writing Miracle Collections”, starts the first part of the book. In her chapter, Wilson examines the producing of collections of miracles in twelfth-​and thirteenth-​century England, Scotland, and France. She discusses the importance and variance in the reports of the oral report given by the beneficiaries as well as the methods and principles of the hagiographers. Wilson demonstrates the importance of knowing the individual situation of each collection in analyzing them, as the writers utilized different methods and rhetorical techniques depending on their purposes and the cults’ situations, as well as on the cultural, societal, and theological changes over time. Emilia Jamroziak’s chapter, “Miracles in Monastic Culture”, examines the importance of miracles for late medieval monastic culture, focusing particularly on the Benedictine and Cistercian orders. Despite their significance for any monastic community and its memories, a systematic analysis of miracles and monastic culture is still lacking. Monastic communities were often the guardians of shrines, in communication with their local communities, but miracles also played a role in remembering the vagaries of monastic life. In her chapter, Jamroziak also demonstrates the different purposes and audiences of miracle-​recording in monastic settings, as well as the topoi they produced. With the chapter “The Canonization of Saints in the Middle Ages: Procedure, Documentation, Meanings”, written by Roberto Paciocco, the volume moves to the discussion about the practicalities and principles of canonization processes. Paciocco provides a thorough overview of the legal/​theological developments which led to the establishment of the process in the thirteenth century, and demonstrates the growing needs and increased volume in the production of the required documents. The chapter covers the whole period of medieval canonizations, ending with the developments of the fifteenth century, and shows how the developing and changing legal requirements influenced the types of documents preserved for a modern scholar. In their chapter “Practical Matters: Canonization Records in the Making”, Sari Katajala-​Peltomaa and Jenni Kuuliala continue the discussion on the requirements and preferences of those conducting canonization inquests, this time focusing on the recording of miracle testimonies. They show how the same legal and theological principles could be put into practice in very fluctuating and differing ways, depending on the situation of individual processes and the preferences of those conducting them. Their article demonstrates that comparisons between different processes and the knowledge about their characteristics is vital for any fruitful analysis of these sources.

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Donald S. Prudlo also elaborates on the significance of miracles in canonization processes and the cults of the Friars Preachers in his chapter “Heretics, Hemorrhages, and Herrings: Miracles and the Canonizations of Dominican Saints”. With miracle collections and papal bulls as a source, Prudlo shows how the Dominicans as well as the popes emphasized different aspects of the lives of their three major saints, St Dominic himself, St Peter of Verona, and St Thomas Aquinas, to formulate and strengthen the order. The choice of miracles played an important role here, and may point to the many different purposes and reasons for their selection in various types of hagiographic sources. The final chapter of the first part of the book, “Miracula and exempla –​a Complicated Relationship” by Jussi Hanska, proceeds to examine later usages of miracle narratives. Exempla were used in later medieval preaching to prove a point or teach a valuable lesson, and often miracle narratives were their core material. Hanska shows how the writers of exempla collections and preachers’ manuals re-​used and re-​modelled existing miracle narratives to fit their genre, and also how preaching itself shaped the laity’s views about the miraculous. Miracle narratives and exempla thus offer an interesting opportunity for research on the transferring of religious influences. The second part of the book turns the focus to the ways miracle narratives can be and have been used in the study of lay piety, lived religion, communal religious practices, and the social history of medicine. The case-​studies presented here provide examples of the potential of this material, highlighting source-​critical aspects which need to be taken into consideration, as well as offering windows onto new possible research topics. In the first chapter in this part, “Rituals and Spaces of Devotion in Cistercian Everyday Religion”, Marika Räsänen analyses the ways the cult of St Thomas Aquinas was born, developed, and practised in the daily lives of his devotees. By dissecting Thomas’s canonization process in particular, her focus is on the rituals and practices that tied the cult to the local communities and made it touchable for them, discussing also how the practicalities of this particular process intermingle with and enable a historical analysis. Furthermore, Räsänen shows how the dossiers can be used to study the interaction between the monastery and the surrounding villages in the sphere of lived religion. Also focusing on the religious practices of the laity and their interaction with the sacred, in her chapter “Pilgrimage as a Feature of Miracles” Leigh Ann Craig examines the concept and practice of pilgrimage. A crucial element in the veneration and invocation of saints, pilgrimage however received different levels of emphasis in miracle narrations. Craig discusses the usage of miracle reports included in miracle collections as well as canonization processes as

Introduction

13

sources for pilgrimage, analyzing the interplay of travel, the transfer of ideas, and lived religion. Thaumaturgic cures have always formed the largest group of recorded miracles. In her chapter “Physical Disability and Bodily Difference” Jenni Kuuliala discusses the uses of miracles, especially those examined in canonization inquests, as a source for medieval disability history. As a rare source type recording the laity’s views about illness, impairment, and health, these texts provide an exceptional window onto medieval communities’ ideas about bodily deviance. The article examines the ways physical disability was reconstructed in canonization inquests and what that states about the everyday life of the disabled. The topic of miraculous healing continues in Sari Katajala-​Peltomaa’s chapter “Madness, Demonic Possession and Methods of Categorization”, where she shows that the categorization of different mental conditions was always a result of communal negotiations. Instead of proposing one simple line between demonic possession and mental illnesses, she shows how such categorizations varied from one context, that is one set of source material –​a miracle collection or a canonization process –​to the next. Demonic possession was an affliction but also a social phenomenon arising from, and therefore also revealing, the needs of the community. The study of communal roles and social realities is also in focus in Jyrki Nissi’s chapter “Death in a Birth Chamber. Birth Attendants as Expert Witnesses in the Canonization Process of Bernardino of Siena”. Nissi examines childbirth based on testimonies about miracles, where a newborn infant was resurrected from death, analyzing how a community functioned and what the birth attendants’ strategies for survival were. The chapter demonstrates how the requirements of a canonization inquest produced statements and information that are of great value for a modern scholar studying everyday events. Not all miracles were healings, however, as Iona McCleery discusses in her chapter “Escaping Justice? The Politics of Liberation Miracles in Late Medieval Portugal”. This chapter first of all identifies “non-​healing” miracles such as shipwrecks and escapes from prison, and some of the methodological difficulties of studying them. Then the chapter focuses on liberation from prison or execution in the context of the late medieval Portuguese cult of the saints. Such miracles are guides to and critiques of behavior, as well as performances of power. They shed light on a less well understood system of criminal justice. Continuing with the theme of “non-​ healing” miracles, in her chapter “Protection Miracles as Evidence for the Shifting Political Landscape of Fourteenth-​Century Provence”, Nicole Archambeau examines in more detail types of protection in miracle narratives in miracle collections and

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Katajala-​P eltomaa, Kuuliala and M c Cleery

canonization processes. Saints were asked to help in various vagaries of everyday life, protecting the petitioners from different types of danger. Archambeau shows that miracle testimonies can be used for the study of social and political ties, and how the veneration of saints intermingled with political events and tensions of a given area. In addition to larger-​scale quantitative analyses, the focus again on a strictly defined geographical area also produces illuminating results. Jonas Van Mulder’s chapter titled “The Mobilization of Thought. A Narratological Approach to Representations of Dream and Vision in Late Medieval Miracle Collections in the Low Countries” analyses miracles that report dreams and visions as narratological constructions. He examines the ways these narratives could be used in instructing the cultic community, and how they simultaneously transfer information about the laity’s access to the divine through visions. With a certain miracle type in his focus, Van Mulder demonstrates the ways those recording miracles re-​modelled a religious experience to fit an established cultural script. The narratological methods of miracles are also in focus in the last chapter of this volume “Miracle Types and Narratives: The Case of Saint Margaret of Hungary”. Using various typologies in the different miracle collections of St Margaret, Ildikò Csepregi discusses the ways a lived event receives a form as a miracle story, and is then recounted to a shrine keeper or at a canonization inquest, and how the established pattern of a miracle narrative functioned in this process. At the same time, she shows how the particular nature of Margaret’s canonization process, compared with many other inquest documents of the time, influences the narrative tone and therefore also the researcher’s possibilities and challenges.

­c hapter 1

Writing Miracle Collections Louise Elizabeth Wilson 1

Introduction

With pen, pointer and parchment, the writers of medieval miracle collections studiously recorded the heavenly interactions of the saints with living souls. The surviving manuscripts fix these miraculous experiences into enduring accounts, which continue to offer valuable resources for our understanding of medieval cultures. This chapter will examine the process of writing these texts, from the initial oral reporting of miracles to the completed manuscript collection. In creating these works hagiographers grappled with a similar set of requirements: to gather the details of miracles; to organize this material into a written collection; and to convince a reader that these accounts were truly miraculous. The writers of miracle narratives were bound by the conditions under which they wrote, which led them to adopt different organizational methods and structures when presenting their material. Authors made specific decisions about the purpose of their works, adapting the content and structure of their collections to best achieve these aims. Examining the process of writing miracle collections offers both a way to explore the variety inherent in miracle accounts, and an explanation for the varying forms these collections take. Historians have often focused on comparative studies of miracle accounts identifying broader trends within hagiographical writings.1 Additionally, the sheer size of some miracle collections and the incredible amount of data they contain generates ideal material for statistical study.2 Historians utilizing these approaches have added considerably to our knowledge of the social, cultural, political, religious, legal, and medical experiences of medieval lives. Yet, these

1 B. Ward, Miracles and the Medieval Mind: Theory, Record and Event, 1000–​1215, Pennsylvania, 1987; R. Koopmans, Wonderful to Relate: Miracles Stories and Miracle Collecting in High Medieval England, Philadelphia, 2011. Also see: P-​A. Sigal, “Le travail des hagiographes aux XIe et XIIe siècles: sources d’information et méthodes de redaction”, Francia 15 (1987), pp. 149–​82 and T. Head, Medieval Hagiography: An Anthology, New York, 2001. 2 Early studies utilizing this approach include R. Finucane, Miracles and Pilgrims: Popular Beliefs in Medieval England, London, 1977 and P-​A. Sigal, L’Homme et Le Miracle: dans La France Médiévale (XIe-​XIIe siècle), Paris, 1985.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2021 | DOI:10.1163/9789004468498_003

16 Wilson works have a tendency to overlook individual differences between texts in favor of focusing on broader currents and comparable insights into past societies. Historians have also produced studies of individual miracle collections, micro-​historical explorations of a single cult, often accompanied by valuable translations of miracle collections and saints’ lives. These works delve deeper into the practical aspects of the creation of miracle accounts and the local social, cultural, economic and political situation existing at their inception.3 These detailed studies fill a gap within the historiography; though, by their very nature, they rarely offer wide-​ranging comparisons with other cults. This chapter’s methodology contributes to hagiographical research by attempting to bridge the gap between these two types of study, by examining multiple miracle collections while also focusing closely on the production methods of these texts. Investigating the writing of miracle collections, which were created in different geographical locations, at different times, and by members of different religious orders, offers an opportunity to look for general trends within these works, as well as the chance to explore individual differences between collections. Of course one brief chapter cannot reveal all the nuances that exist between different miracle collections. What it does show is that many of the similarities and differences that exist between collections result from the conditions under which writers composed their texts, and authorial decisions about the purpose of their works. Before we pursue this analysis it is necessary to situate the miracle accounts selected for study within their historical setting. The miracle collections utilized here were created in England, France and Scotland between the early twelfth century and the last quarter of the thirteenth century.4 This period witnessed 3 R. Bartlett, The Miracles of Saint Æbbe of Coldingham and Saint Margaret of Scotland, Oxford, 2003; E.G. Whatley, The Saint of London: The Life and Miracles of St Erkenwald, Binghampton, New York, 1989; M. Bull. The Miracles of Our Lady of Rocamadour: Analysis and Translation, Woodbridge, 1999. 4 Goscelin of Saint-​Bertin, Miracles of St Edmund, ed. T. Licence, Herman the Archdeacon and Goscelin of Saint-​Bertin, Miracles of St Edmund, Oxford, 2014; Arcoid, Miracula, ed. E.G. Whatley, The Saint of London: The Life and Miracles of St Erkenwald, Binghampton, New York, 1989; Bull, Miracles of Our Lady of Rocamadour; Benedict of Peterborough, Miracula Sancti Thomae Cantuariensis, ed. J.C. Robertson, Materials for the History of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury (vol. 2), London, 1876; William of Canterbury, Miracula S. Thomae Cantuariensis, ed. J.C. Robertson, Materials for the History of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury (vol. 1), London, 1875; Thomas of Monmouth, The Life and Miracles of St William of Norwich, ed. A. Jessop and M.R. James, Cambridge, 1896; Miracula quaedam Sancti Willelmi, ed. J. Raine, The Historians of the Church of York (vol. 2), London, 1886; Prior Philip, De miraculis Sancte Frideswide, ed. J. Van Kacke et al., Acta Sanctorum (Octobris viii), Brussels, 1853 and Oxford, Bodleian Library, Digby 177; Vita et miracula sancte Ebbe Virginis, ed. R. Bartlett, The Miracles of Saint Æbbe of Coldingham and Saint Margaret of Scotland, Oxford, 2003; Abbot

Writing Miracle Collections

17

a surge in hagiographical writing, coinciding with profound cultural and societal changes. Demographic expansion and increased urbanization coexisted with an era of monastic reform and a flourishing of intellectual interest in the workings of the natural world, in pastoral and sacramental theology, and in the fields of law and medicine.5 Hagiographers positioned their narratives of heavenly intervention within these social, cultural, legal, and theological conditions, responding to the blossoming intellectual climate of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Hagiographical writing also reflects contemporary societal and cultural changes: some authors attempted to propagate a particular identity for their community, while others looked outward, beyond the cloister, seeking to foster ties with local communities, forging relationships with the political and economic elite in the towns and cities surrounding their saint’s shrine.6 Yet, miracle narratives do not simply emerge within a particular historical setting, reflecting patterns of societal change, but they also offer an interpretative restructuring of this setting, in accordance with shared ideas between the author and the intended audience.7 The authors of miracle collections also responded to intellectual developments propounded by scholars of theology and natural philosophy, developing and disseminating these ideas through their tales of saintly deeds. Theologians, Samson, De miraculis sancti Aedmundi, ed. T. Arnold, Memorials of St Edmund’s Abbey (vol. 1.), London, 1890; The Book of St Gilbert, ed. R. Foreville and G. Keir, Oxford, 1987; Miracles of St Wulfstan, ed. R.R. Darlington, The Vita Wulfstani of William of Malmesbury, London, 1928; Miracvla sancte Margarite Scotorvm Regine, ed. R. Bartlett, The Miracles of Saint Æbbe of Coldingham and Saint Margaret of Scotland, Oxford, 2003; Miracula Sancti Edmundi and Albert of Armagh, Vita et Miracula Sancti Edmundi, in Auxerre, Bibliothèque Municipale d’Auxerre, 123G. 5 For general surveys of these developments see: J.D. Cotts, Europe’s Long Twelfth Century: Order, Anxiety, and Adaptation, 1095–​1229, Basingstoke, 2013; J.H. Mundy, Europe in the High Middle Ages, 1150–​1300, 3rd ed., London, 2000; R.L. Benson, G. Constable, and C.D. Lanham, Renaissance and Renewal in the Twelfth Century, Cambridge, Mass., 1982; R.N. Swanson, The Twelfth-​Century Renaissance, Manchester, 1999; I.P. Wei, Intellectual Culture in Medieval Paris: Theologians and the University, c.1100–​1330, Cambridge, 2012. 6 K.M. Ashley and P. Sheingorn, Writing Faith: Text, Sign and History in the Miracles of Sainte Foy, Chicago, 1999; S. Farmer, Communities of Saint Martin: Legend and Ritual in Medieval Tours, Ithaca, New York, 1991; S. Yarrow, Saints and their Communities: Miracle Stories in Twelfth-​Century England, Oxford, 2006. 7 P. Strohm, Hochon’s Arrow: The Social Imagination of Fourteenth-​ Century Texts, New Jersey, 1992, pp. 1–​6. For studies with particular emphasis on the cultural setting of miracles see: Ashley and Sheingorn, Writing Faith; A. Williams Boyarin, Miracles of the Virgin in Medieval England: Law and Jewishness in Marian Legends, Cambridge, 2010; Farmer, Communities of Saint Martin; Yarrow, Saints and their Communities.

18 Wilson resident at the schools and universities of twelfth-​and thirteenth-​century Europe, became increasingly concerned with the spiritual lives of the lay faithful, developing the theological concept of sacramental care and cultivating an interest in the pastoral wellbeing of lay parishioners. This coincided with the development of a network of parish churches, religious communities and the popularity of new mendicant orders capable of disseminating these ideas and administering this spiritual regimen to the masses.8 As these ideas spread, hagiographers began to negotiate an expanded role for the saints as the providers of spiritual, as well as physical, care to the laity and clergy.9 Miracle narratives do not present a fully formulated response to the complex, and often competing, discourses debated by theologians, but provide evidence of a reworking of established themes in clerical literature for an audience interested in the miraculous during a period of intellectual change. Developments within the field of law, along with the establishment of papal canonization, during the thirteenth century provided further impetus for change within the hagiographical genre.10 The study of law as a critical discipline flourished at the schools and universities of Bologna and Paris.11 Canon lawyers drew on Roman Law and canonical procedures to develop the inquisitorial method of investigation, which emphasized written instruments and eyewitness evidence as a means of establishing proof.12 The gradual consolidation of papal power during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries resulted in the dissemination of this system of canon law, with its associated

8 9 10

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J.W. Baldwin, Masters, Princes and Merchants: the Social Views of Peter Chanter and his Circle (vol. 1), Princeton, 1970, pp. 47–​59; C.S. Watkins, History and the Supernatural in Medieval England, Cambridge, 2007, pp. 170–​201. A. Murray, “Confession before 1215”, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 6th Series 3 (1993), pp. 51–​81. For detailed studies on the development of canonization procedures see: A. Vauchez, Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages, trans. J. Birrell, Cambridge, 1997; R.C. Finucane, Contested Canonizations: The Last Medieval Saints, 1482–​1523, Washington DC, 2011; G. Klaniczay, Procès de canonization au moyen âge: aspects juridiques et religieux, Budapest, 2004. J.A. Brundage, Law, Sex, and Christian Society in Medieval Europe, Chicago, 1987, pp. 178–​79; J.A. Brundage, “The teaching and study of canon law in the law schools”, in W. Hartmann and K. Pennington (eds.), The History of Medieval Canon Law in the Classical Period, 1140–​ 1234, From Gratian to the Decretals of Pope Gregory IX, Washington DC, 2008, pp. 98–​120. J.W. Baldwin, “The intellectual preparation for the canon of 1215 against ordeals”, Speculum 36 (1961), p. 617. M.E. Goodich, Miracles and Wonders: The Development of the Concept of Miracle 1150–​1350, Farnham, 2007, p. 72.

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courts and legal processes, across Europe.13 It was in this context that the early thirteenth-​century papacy reserved the right to decide who could be venerated as a saint.14 The development of the canonization process resulted in the crystallization of the concept of the miraculous, the codification of methods to verify the occurrence of a miracle, and the production of lengthy canonization dossiers recording the sworn statements of witnesses about miracles. Nonetheless, this new type of documentation did not supplant traditional miracle collections, and hagiographers continued to produce narrative accounts of miracles, often absorbing and adapting the legal ideas and requirements sanctioned by the papacy into their works. What is central to all of these miracle collections, whether produced before or after the advent of formal canonization procedures, is communication: conversations between those who claimed to have experienced a miracle and those engaged in investigating and recording these stories. Miracles were heard before they were written. 2

Hearing of Miracles: “He related all this in order before the monks”15

The precise details of the interactions between miracle recipients and the literate communities of clerics resident at medieval shrines are forever shrouded from the historical record. Yet, miracle accounts provide tantalizing glimpses of these encounters, hinting at the possible ways that information was gathered from those reporting miraculous events. The oral nature of miracle recording, in the form of conversations between those who claimed to have experienced divine intervention and the keepers of the saints’ relics, is attested in many collections.16 Miracle recipients travelled to medieval shrines in order to seek a cure but many also made the journey simply to report miracles that had occurred at a distance and to deliver offerings to their heavenly benefactor.17

13

R.N. Swanson, “ ‘Et examinatus dicut …’ oral and personal history in the records of English ecclesiastical courts”, in M. Goodich (ed.), Voices from the Bench: the Narratives of Lesser Folk in Medieval Trials, New York, 2006, p. 204. 14 Vauchez, Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages. 15 Omnia ista coram monachis referens ordinate. Miracvla sancte Margarite, pp. 112–​13. 16 Koopmans, Wonderful to Relate, pp. 5–​17; Bull, Rocamadour, pp. 34–​37; Sigal, “Le travail des hagiographes”, 152–​55. 17 For useful maps of the geographical origins of miracle recipients attending the shrines of St William of Norwich and St Frideswide of Oxford see Yarrow, Saints and their Communities, pp. 168, 189.

20 Wilson The initial decision to report a miracle was made by miracle recipients or by their family and friends. Biblical precedents against reporting miracles may have discouraged some from relating their experiences.18 Nonetheless, many individuals chose to communicate their stories widely even before reaching the shrine, including one man who announced the miraculous recovery of his cattle at the intervention of St Mary of Rocamadour “everywhere he went”.19 Hagiographers and chroniclers report that news of contemporary miracles was spread verbally by recipients and by clerics at shrines.20 Indeed, according to Benedict of Peterborough, the news of one miracle, spread by word of mouth, actually reached the monks of Christ Church Canterbury before the recipient did.21 Some pilgrims were so concerned to report their accounts that they brought translators with them, including one visitor to St Thomas Becket’s tomb who journeyed from Ireland accompanied by monks who were able to interpret his words to the Canterbury brethren.22 The earliest miracle collection examined here, that of St Edmund of Bury by Goscelin of Saint-​Bertin, written around 1100, describes encounters between miracle recipients and individual monks resident in the monastery, including a warden of the church named Toli.23 Interactions with clerics at shrines continues to feature in later twelfth-​century collections including the Life and Miracles of Saint Æbbe of Coldingham, and also in mid thirteenth-​century collections like that of St Margaret of Scotland.24 In most accounts the author simply reports that pilgrims “recounted the miracle”, without elaborating further on the communication processes involved.25 Significantly though several hagiographers describe themselves directly interacting with visitors to their shrines. Thomas of Monmouth, the indefatigable advocate of St William of 18

Christ forbade several recipients of thaumaturgic miracles from speaking of their cure. Mk. 1:44, 5:43, 7:36, Lk. 8:56, Matt. 12:16. 19 Bull, Rocamadour, p. 186. 20 Sigal, L’homme et le miracle, pp. 182–​88; C. Given-​Wilson, Chronicles: The Writing of History in Medieval England, London, 2004, p. 37; Miracula Sancti Edmundi, Aux. 123G, fols. 141v-​142r. 21 Benedict of Peterborough, Miracula Sancti Thomae, p. 180; Koopmans, Wonderful to Relate, p. 9. Medieval chroniclers also noted the spread of miracles according to popular rumour, “Prout vulgus praedicat”, see: Given-​Wilson, Chronicles, p. 37. 22 William of Canterbury, Miracula S. Thomae, p. 431. 23 Goscelin of Saint-​Bertin, Miracles of St Edmund, pp. 197, 223–​25. 24 Vita et miracula sancte Ebbe Virginis, p. 65; Miracvla sancte Margarite, p. 109. Occasionally we are informed that pilgrims imparted their stories to ecclesiastical dignitaries, some of whom were themselves visitors to the shrine. Goscelin of Saint-​Bertin, Miracles of St Edmund, p. 235 and Miracvla sancte Margarite, pp. 89, 145. 25 Miraculum retulit. Bull, Rocamadour, pp. 35, 104, 111, 142, 171, 190.

Writing Miracle Collections

21

Norwich’s sanctity, portrays himself actively seeking out the beneficiaries of St William’s aid. Thomas describes how, hearing of the cure of a woman named Godiva, he “ran up and enquired diligently into the facts”.26 The author of the French miracle collection of Our Lady at Rocamadour similarly claimed to have spoken personally with pilgrims.27 We must maintain at least a moderate amount of suspicion about an author’s claim to have spoken directly with witnesses. This assertion may have operated as a rhetorical device designed to convince an audience of a writer’s trustworthiness. This is apparent in the repeated retellings of St Edmund of Bury’s miracles. Goscelin, whose account was written around 1100, claims that three men rescued at sea by the Bury martyr asked him personally to include their narrative in his collection.28 Abbot Samson, writing a hundred years later, offers his account of this same miracle, asserting that he promised the men that he would record their tale, presenting himself as the person hearing this tale first-​hand.29 The readiness of Abbot Samson to absorb this testimony, without qualifying it as second-​hand, perhaps demonstrates his belief in the trustworthiness of the text from which he copied the passage, though suspicion about the accuracy of the Abbot’s subsequent claims to have spoken with witnesses remains justified. Nevertheless, many of the details contained in miracle accounts, such as the names of high-​ranking witnesses, indicate that conversations between miracle recipients and shrine-​ keepers occurred in practice. It is worth noting that, while some miracle recipients were anxious to advertise their experience, others were either unable or unwilling to communicate with shrine keepers. In his miracles of St Thomas Becket, Benedict of Peterborough complained that some visitors to Canterbury left without speaking to the monks about their miraculous experiences. His successor William of Canterbury lamented that several pilgrims’ stories could not be written down since they spoke languages that the resident clergy were unable to understand.30 Furthermore, women’s opportunities to speak to monks about their 26

Nobis uero accurrentibus et rei geste diligentius inquirentibus negotium. Thomas of Monmouth, Life and Miracles of St William of Norwich, p. 207. Also see: pp. 133, 150, 152, 156, 196, 228, 253, 259, 294 and Abbot Samson, De miraculis sancti Aedmundi, p. 192. 27 Bull, Rocamadour, p. 154. 28 Goscelin of Saint-​Bertin, Miracles of St Edmund, p. 303. 29 Abbot Samson, De miraculis sancti Aedmundi, p. 178. 30 Benedict of Peterborough, Miracula Sancti Thomae, p. 138. William of Canterbury, Miracula S. Thomae, p. 422. For pilgrims leaving without speaking to shrine attendants also see: Thomas of Monmouth, Life and Miracles of St William of Norwich, p. 162. For nuanced studies of multilingualism in miracle testimony see: M. Richter, “Collecting miracles along the Anglo-​Welsh border in the early fourteenth century”, in D.A. Trotter

22 Wilson miraculous encounters may have been limited by their exclusion from certain monastic sites.31 Though at many sites both male and female pilgrims were permitted to stay the night in the church, some institutions restricted access for lay women. The Miracles of St Margaret report that a female English pilgrim to the heavenly Queen’s Dunfermline shrine was denied permission to enter the precincts alone by the church guardian, who claimed that she would be permitted entry only on specific nights along with the accustomed crowd.32 The keepers of St Cuthbert’s mortal remains were renowned for denying his female devotees entry to the holy man’s shrine.33 Similarly, the late thirteenth-​ century miracles of St Edmund of Abingdon suggest that at least some women were refused access to the saint’s body, forbidden to pass beyond the gatehouse of the Cistercian abbey of Pontigny.34 Obviously, these women’s stories garnered the attention of shrine keepers and hagiographers, though how many more recipients left monastic pilgrimage sites unheard is impossible to tell. Those who were willing and able to communicate their experiences often had to do so more than once. Incidental details within these records reveal an intermediary written stage in recording miracles. Written notes documenting the details of new miracles were produced at several shrines while new miracles were being reported. The author of the Rocamadour collection accounts for the brevity of a handful of accounts by explaining that the notary was unwell and so unable to record these miracles “in the correct manner and with the proper headings”.35 Written notes were also produced at Christ Church Canterbury for the hundreds of miracles ascribed to St Thomas Becket. William of Canterbury described a group of pilgrims at St Thomas Becket’s tomb who were anxious to have their miracle written in a matricula roll –​a list of miracles reported at

(ed.), Multilingualism in Later Medieval Britain, Bury St Edmunds, 2000, pp. 53–​61 and M. Richter, Sprache und Gesellschaft im Mittelalter: Untersuchungen zur mündlichen Kommunikation in England von der Mitte des elften bis zum Beginn des vierzehnten Jahrhunderts, Stuttgart, 1979. 31 For more on the experiences of female pilgrims see: L.A. Craig, Wandering Women and Holy Matrons: Women as Pilgrims in the Later Middle Ages, Leiden, 2009. 32 Miracvla sancte Margarite, p. 75. 33 Ward, Miracles and the Medieval Mind, p. 81. 34 Miracula Sancti Edmundi, Aux. 123G, fols. 115r, 116r, 138r, 142r, 142v. For later medieval examples of women’s exclusion from shrines and holy sites see: Craig, Wandering Women, pp. 159–​161. On Cistercian gatehouses see: T.N. Kinder, Cistercian Europe: Architecture of Contemplation, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2002, pp. 367–​71 and M. Sternberg, Cistercian Architecture and Medieval Society, Leiden, 2013, pp. 135–​47. See also Marika Räsänen’s chapter in this volume for the shrine of St Thomas Aquinas. 35 Bull, Rocamadour, p. 137.

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23

the shrine.36 Additionally, in his Vita of St Thomas Becket, William alludes to earlier notes (schedula) on the miracles that he considered to be both incorrect and imperfect for compiling his work.37 The initial recording of miracles in this way served several purposes, both as material for the writings of hagiographers and preachers and, from the later twelfth century onwards, as records for those conducting the formal investigations associated with canonization. Miracle recipients and witnesses were also called on to retell their tale to the brethren in a more formal setting, often in an institution’s chapter house. Goscelin’s Miracula of St Edmund provides a sense of how word of these events spread within the Benedictine abbey at Bury St Edmunds. Brother Toli, who heard of a miracle directly from the recipient, informed Abbot Baldwin who then called for the account to be repeated before the brethren and some of the laity.38 This tradition continued into the time of Abbot Samson, who described how a clerk from Lichfield, rescued by St Edmund from a storm at sea, related his story in the chapter house.39 Many thirteenth-​century collections followed suit, with that of St Wulfstan of Worcester recording that a priest from Melchesham offered his testimony before the brethren of Worcester priory, while the Miracles of St Edmund of Abingdon report how a formerly blind man told the tale of his healing both to the Cistercian convent at Pontigny and to the people.40 Hosting the discussion within the chapter house –​a location used for important meetings, councils and preaching –​conferred authority on the event, and was perhaps believed likely to elicit a more truthful account.41 From the later twelfth century onwards many hagiographers describe miracle recipients and witnesses testifying on oath during these discussions, a phenomenon that becomes much more common in thirteenth-​century narratives. The author of St Æbbe’s miracles assured his readers that the parents of a girl healed by the saint offered their statements on oath.42 The slightly later miracle collection of St Hugh of Lincoln provides further insight into the setting 36 37 38 39 40 41 42

William of Canterbury, Miracula S. Thomae, p. 396. William of Canterbury, Miracula S. Thomae, p. 484; William of Canterbury, Vita, passio et miracula, ed. J.C. Robertson, Materials for the History of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury (vol. 1), London, 1875, p. 2; Koopmans, Wonderful to Relate, pp. 146, 181. Goscelin of Saint-​Bertin, Miracles of St Edmund, p. 235. For a comparable incident see Bull, Rocamadour, p. 126. Abbot Samson, De miraculis sancti Aedmundi, pp. 195–​96. See also: pp. 199, 200–​201. William of Malmesbury, Miracles of St Wulfstan, p. 134; Miracula Sancti Edmundi, Aux. 123G, fol. 115r. See also: Miracvla sancte Margarite, p. 113. J. Kerr, Monastic Hospitality: The Benedictines in England, c.1070-​c.1250, Woodbridge, 2007, pp. 172–​73. Vita et miracula sancte Ebbe Virginis, p. 33. Also see: pp. 35, 63.

24 Wilson in which witnesses were questioned. Examinations into the Bishop’s miracles were conducted in the chapter house at Lincoln Cathedral where witnesses publicly swore to the truth of their accounts with their hand on the Gospel.43 Similarly Hambyria, a witness to one of St Wulfstan’s early thirteenth-​century miracles, swore an oath on the high altar and sacred relics.44 The trustworthiness of witness testimony was heightened by a willingness to swear on something sacred: oath-​takers were compelled by a higher authority to tell the truth.45 This emphasis on sworn witness testimony in later twelfth-​and thirteenth-​ century hagiographical works was informed both by papal requirements for canonization enquiries and by an increased awareness of legal traditions among clerics.46 Monks and clerics participated in canonization enquiries, preparing the documentation required and acting as witnesses to the virtuous life of their saintly candidate, absorbing an awareness of the processes and procedures involved. Furthermore, experience of legal processes would have been familiar to many religious who participated in ecclesiastical courts and engaged in the study of canon law. From the early Middle Ages oaths had been sworn on relics, the Eucharist, and the Gospels, and by the twelfth century the requirement for oaths to be taken on the Gospels is found in Gratian’s Decretum, the foremost collection of canon law statutes.47 These legalistic methods of verifying testimony may have been considered particularly effective for validating the statements of miracle recipients, since these people were drawn from the entire social spectrum. Several authors of miracle collections exhibit a preference for the testimony of clerics or those of high social standing.48 Yet, when reporting the vast majority of miracles, hagiographers relied on the testimony of the laity, since these were often the only people present. Conversations with recipients were molded by the brethren’s 43

Gerald of Wales, Life of St Hugh, ed. R.M. Loomis, The Life of St Hugh of Avalon: Bishop of Lincoln, 1186–​1200, New York, 1985, p. 51. 44 William of Malmesbury, Miracles of St Wulfstan, pp. 179 and p. 167. Also see: Albert of Armagh, Vita et Miracula Sancti Edmundi, Aux. 123G, fol. 112r and Miracula Sancti Edmundi, Aux. 123G, fols. 132r, 141r-​v, 154r. On clerical oath-​taking see G.J.C. Snoek, Medieval Piety from Relics to the Eucharist: A Process of Mutual Interaction, Leiden, 1995, pp. 134–​141. 45 G.R. Evans, Law and Theology in the Middle Ages, London, 2002, pp. 148–​49. 46 Ward, Miracles and the Medieval Mind, pp. 81–​82; Snoek, Medieval Piety, pp. 134, 141. For an analysis of contemporary ecclesiastical cases see: N. Adams and C. Donahue, Select Cases from the Ecclesiastical Courts of the Province of Canterbury c.1200–​1301, London, 1981, pp. 43, 45–​46. 47 Snoek, Medieval Piety, pp. 134, 141. 48 William of Canterbury, Miracula S. Thomae, p. 524; Albert of Armagh, Vita et Miracula Sancti Edmundi, Aux. 123G, fol. 110r-​v.

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knowledge of legal criteria and their willingness to integrate legal standards of proof into their dialogue with miracle recipients. This dialogue was further molded during the process of writing miracle collections. 3

Writing Miracles: “For something to endure until the ends of time it must be committed to writing”49

These initial conversations generated the material hagiographers used to write miracle collections. Miracle accounts may be the product of negotiation and conversation, but overall control of the final narrative fell to the author or authors of the written text, whose editorial and stylistic decisions dictated their content, fixing these reports into a single, enduring record.50 When compiling miracle collections, authors were faced with a series of choices dictating how they wrote about miracles. Early medieval collections supplied templates for hagiographers.51 Yet, in spite of the apparent uniformity of many miracle collections, authors adopted different production methods and organizational structures in their works. Writers were influenced both by the different conditions under which they wrote and by the envisaged function and purpose of their texts. Some hagiographers were tasked with revising existing miracle accounts, others with recording the heavenly interventions of newly active saints. The following subsection will explore the constraints these writers faced and the influence these had on the content and structure of their miracle collections. Several of the hagiographers whose writings are examined in this chapter elected to revise the existing miracle collections of long dead saints, adopting current styles and updating these works to include the saint’s more recent posthumous activities. St Edmund of Bury’s miracles were rewritten and expanded first by Goscelin of Saint-​Bertin, who composed a reworked version of Herman the Archdeacon’s miracles of St Edmund around the year 1100, and second by Abbot Samson, who in turn revised Goscelin’s work a hundred years

49

Ut duret in evum apicibus commendandum est litterarum. Bull, Rocamadour, p. 177; Les Miracles de Notre-​Dame de Roc-​Amadour au XIIe Siècle, ed. E. Albe, Paris, 1907, p. 265. 50 Bull, Rocamadour, p. 55. For a detailed analysis of this see: Koopmans, Wonderful to Relate, pp. 9–​46; J.M.H. Smith, “Oral and written: saints, miracles, and relics in Brittany, c.850–​ 1250”, Speculum 65, 2 (1990), pp. 309–​343. Ashley and Sheingorn, Writing Faith, p. 112. 51 St Augustine, The City of God Against the Pagans, trans. R.W. Dyson, Cambridge, 1998; Gregory of Tours, Life of St Martin, trans. E. James, Gregory of Tours: Life of the Fathers, 2nd ed., Liverpool, 1991, pp. 90–​94.

26 Wilson later, adding to these earlier narratives accounts of the miracles occurring during his own lifetime.52 The scope for originality within these texts may have been limited by a desire to work within an established canon which provided expectations about the content of hagiography detailing St Edmund of Bury’s miracles.53 Interestingly, not only did hagiographers append contemporary miracles to their reworked accounts, but later generations of writers in possession of these texts amended and expanded miracle collections to include contemporary miracles.54 St William of York’s and St Edmund of Abingdon’s miracle collections, both of which were originally compiled as distinct works, were expanded by later authors.55 Though miracle narratives are fixed in a written form within a collection, the manuscript texts themselves were considered malleable enough to endure adaptation and addition by later generations. Other writers were tasked with writing the miracles of newly active saints. Several of these authors wrote their collections some time after the stories they narrated actually occurred. The miracles of St William of Norwich by Thomas of Monmouth were written a quarter of a century after the deeds they described.56 Similarly, the miracles of St Wulfstan of Worcester, composed around 1240, describe incidents dating from the first two decades of the thirteenth century.57 The authors of these collections lacked opportunities to reinvestigate the events they describe or to gather new details. These writers may have relied on written notes composed when the events were initially reported and on oral reports memorized by those resident at the shrine during the time when the events had originally taken place. It is no surprise then that many hagiographers, including Thomas of Monmouth, confessed to having forgotten particular details.58 52

Goscelin of Saint-​Bertin, Miracles of St Edmund, p. cx; Abbot Samson, De miraculis sancti Aedmundi, pp. 107–​208. 53 Goodich, Miracles and Wonders, p. 5; Ward, Miracles and the Medieval Mind, pp. 3–​32. 54 Goscelin of Saint-​Bertin, Miracles of St Edmund; Abbot Samson, De miraculis sancti Aedmundi. 55 A number of thirteenth-​and fourteenth-​century miracles are appended to William of York’s twelfth-​century miracle collection. C. Norton, St William of York, York, 2006, pp. 151, 169. For the text see: Miracula Sancti Willelmi, pp. 531–​43. Also see: Miracula Sancti Edmundi, Aux. 123G, fol. 154v. 56 Thomas of Monmouth, Life and Miracles of St William of Norwich, p. liii. 57 William of Malmesbury, Miracles of St Wulfstan, p. xlvii. The first book of St Wulfstan’s miracles details events that occurred around 1202, while the second book, written by a different author, focuses on the miracles dated to the 1220s. 58 Thomas of Monmouth, Life and Miracles of St William of Norwich, pp. 174, 228 and 266. For other failures to recall details see: Goscelin of Saint-​Bertin, Miracles of St Edmund, p. 303 and Benedict of Peterborough, Miracula Sancti Thomae, p. 138; Bull, Rocamadour, p. 192. For the use of miracle accounts in the study of memory see: L. Smoller, “Memory,

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In contrast many twelfth-​and thirteenth-​century collections were composed immediately or soon after reports of new miracles were gathered, or even while new miracles were still being reported. The Miracles of St Erkenwald, written c.1141 by Arcoid, a canon at St Paul’s monastery in London, were compiled in such fashion, as were the miracles of Our Lady of Rocamadour.59 Benedict of Peterborough, St Thomas Becket’s earliest miracle collector, began his work in 1171, less than a year after the archbishop’s untimely demise, finally laying down his pen in 1173, though miracles continued to be reported at the Archbishop’s tomb. These new miracles, along with a selection of the narratives already described by Benedict, were thereafter chronicled by William of Canterbury whose Miracula was composed between 1172 and 1177.60 Other stand-​alone collections of new wonders proliferated during the later twelfth century, including those of St William of York and St Frideswide of Oxford, composed shortly after the occurrence of miracles at their tombs in 1177 and 1180 respectively.61 This type of collecting method affected the content and structure of the collections themselves. Marcus Bull has proposed that the speed at which reports were compiled into the miracle collection at Rocamadour was responsible for the relative lack of organization of the material.62 Benedict of Peterborough and William of Canterbury, in contrast, made considerable efforts to arrange and select their material more carefully, often structuring their accounts according to specific themes or organizing them chronologically.63 The sheer number of accounts reported at the Canterbury shrine may have generated a need for a more explicit organizational structure.

miracle, and meaning in the canonization of Vincent Ferrer, 1453–​54”, Speculum 73, 2 (1998), pp. 429–​454; K. Quirk, “Men, women and miracles in Normandy 1050–​1150”, in E. van Houts (ed.), Medieval Memories: Men, Women and the Past 700–​1300, Harlow, 2001, pp. 53–​71; E. van Houts, Memory and Gender in Medieval Europe 900–​1200, Toronto, 1999, pp. 41–​62; R. Bartlett, The Hanged Man: A Story of Miracle, Memory, and Colonialism in the Middle Ages, Princeton, 2004, pp. 106–​116; S. Katajala-​Peltomaa, Gender, Miracles and Daily Life: The Evidence of Fourteenth-​century Canonization Processes, Turnhout, 2009, pp. 247–​287. 59 Arcoid, Miracula, p. 37; Bull, Rocamadour, pp. 30–​31. 60 Koopmans, Wonderful to Relate, pp. 159 and 126. 61 Miracula Sancti Willelmi, pp. 531–​43; Prior Philip, The Miracles of St Frideswide, Oxf. Digby 177. 62 Bull, Rocamadour, pp. 30–​31. 63 Bull, Rocamadour, p. 30; Koopmans, Wonderful to Relate, pp. 147–​54. For more on the organizational themes adopted by hagiographers see: Sigal, “Le travail des hagiographes”, 177–​82.

28 Wilson Authors tasked with writing the miracles of newly active saints were faced with a need to prove that their saint truly resided among the Church Triumphant. These writers molded their authorial narratives of miracles to promote their patron’s heavenly credentials and shield their saint from the censure of sceptics. Hagiographers were critical of those who dismissed miracles as dreams, hoaxes, or even as the results of clerical sorcerers counterfeiting miracles for temporal gain.64 Some authors were particularly sensitive to those who doubted the truth of their narratives. Thomas of Monmouth described those who mocked the miracles performed by his beloved boy-​martyr William, defending the saint vigorously on at least five occasions from the opinions of such detractors.65 Prior Philip, the author of St Frideswide’s miracles, described in gruesome detail the brutal fate of a Jewish boy who ridiculed St Frideswide with blasphemous words and who mockingly falsified a miraculous cure.66 These denials functioned as a rhetorical device underlining the eventual affirmation of the saint’s status.67 Authors engaged in writing the miracles of a newly active saint also connected their saint with other established miracle workers both as rivals and as collaborators. Hagiographers depicted their saints as rivals to other miracle workers, healing where other saints failed and completing the unfinished cures performed at other shrines.68 Even so, elements of competition coexisted with narratives of cooperation between heavenly healers. The Virgin of Rocamadour labored with St George to heal a physically impaired pilgrim.69 St Erkenwald kept it in the family, working with his sister St Ethelburga to heal a nun from Barking.70 St Æbbe twice united with her fellow Scotswoman St Margaret to heal pilgrims to her own Coldingham shrine.71 Thomas of Monmouth conjectured that St Edmund of Bury wished to have St William of Norwich as an associate (comparticipem) in the healing of a toothache,

64

Goscelin of Saint-​Bertin, Miracles of St Edmund, p. 229; Miracula Sancti Edmundi, Aux. 123G, fol. 146v; Benedict of Peterborough, Miracula Sancti Thomae, p. 91; William of Malmesbury, Miracles of St Wulfstan, p. 141. 65 Thomas of Monmouth, Life and Miracles of St William of Norwich, pp. 85, 86, 203, 235–​ 36, 272. 66 Prior Philip, The Miracles of St Frideswide, Oxf. Digby 177, fol. 13r. For another example of the punishment of doubters see Goscelin of Saint-​Bertin, Miracles of St Edmund, p. 209. See also Ildikò Cspregi’s chapter in this volume. 67 Vauchez, Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages, pp. 481–​82. 68 Ward, Miracles and the Medieval Mind, pp. 63–​64, 105–​109. 69 William of Malmesbury, Miracles of St Wulfstan, pp. 142, 170; Bull, Rocamadour, p. 126. 70 Arcoid, Miracula, p. 163. 71 Vita et miracula sancte Ebbe Virginis, pp. 55, 61.

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clearly linking the boy martyr with St Edmund’s long-​established and famed East Anglian cult.72 Similarly, William of Canterbury described how St Thomas Becket worked together with the Suffolk-​based St Edmund to cure Roger from Middleton (Suffolk).73 With the phenomenal and rapid success of Becket’s cult it was not long before parallels were drawn between the slain Archbishop and other saints. The Warwickshire-​born bishop, St Wulfstan of Worcester (d. 1095), was described as the Canterbury martyr’s equal in a miracle collection composed around the 1240s.74 By detailing these partnerships between accepted saints and their own candidates for sainthood, hagiographers attempted to demonstrate that both of these individuals were confirmed saints, dispelling doubts about a newly active saint’s beatific qualifications and the veracity of their miracles. The need to promote a newly active saint was not the only function of miracle narratives. An author’s intended purpose for a collection influenced decisions about the content of miracle collections. Of course, it is quite possible that each collection was designed by its author with multiple purposes in mind, and was imbued with additional functions by later owners and copyists.75 Many authors claimed to be simply documenting miracles to glorify God, the saint, and their community.76 Prior Philip, the author of the Miracles of St Frideswide, declares his intent to record the miracles occurring in his time so that “the sanctity of the blessed Virgin is more strictly imprinted for the memory of posterity”.77 Goscelin of Saint-​Bertin similarly praised earlier hagiographical texts, those that “skilled writers left as memorials to future generations”, lamenting the dearth of miracle records in his own day.78 Hagiographers’ protestations about a scarcity of contemporary miracles clearly functioned as a literary device. Any suspected shortage of miracles was soon transformed 72 73 74 75

76 77 78

Thomas of Monmouth, Life and Miracles of St William of Norwich, p. 241. William of Canterbury, Miracula S. Thomae, p. 185. In glorioso Cantuariensi archiepiscopo et martyre Thoma et nunc nostris temporibus in eque comparabili Wigorniensi confessore. William of Malmesbury, Miracles of St Wulfstan, p. 168. Marginal notations within medieval manuscripts provide evidence for the use of manuscripts by their communities. B. De Gaiffier, “L’hagiographie et son public au XIe siècle”, in Miscellanea Historica in Honorem Leonis Van Der Essen, Brussels and Paris, 1947, pp. 141–​42. Patrick Geary, “Saints, scholars and society: the elusive goal”, in S. Sticca (ed.), Saints: Studies in Hagiography, Binghamton, 1996, p. 15. Beate virginis sanctitas posteriorum memorie arcius inprimatur. Prior Philip, The Miracles of St Frideswide, Oxf. Digby 177, fol. 2v. Also see Bull, Rocamadour, p. 177. Goscelin of Saint-​Bertin, Miracles of St Edmund, p. 129; Miracula Sancti Edmundi, Aux. 123G, fol. 113r. Also see Koopmans, Wonderful to Relate, pp. 97–​98.

30 Wilson into abundance as twelfth-​century writers fashioned their own tales of saintly miracles. The increased activity of hagiographers, particularly during the late twelfth century, has been situated by historians within a broader contemporary trend as writers hastened to compile chronicles, histories and records of marvels attesting to divine intervention among the living.79 Yet authorial concern simply to catalogue and commemorate saintly endeavors existed alongside more utilitarian aims. Miracle accounts were compiled or modified for use as liturgical readings and as material for sermons. The miracles of both St Frideswide at Oxford and Our Lady of Rocamadour were used for liturgical recitation. The text of the surviving manuscript of the Oxfordshire Abbess’s miracles is divided into nine lectiones, or lessons, which were each accompanied by marginal notations of the phrase “tu autem” –​the versicle sung at the completion of a lesson of the office.80 Similarly, the Rocamadour collection was partitioned into sections, each ending with a liturgical formula and the word “amen”.81 The use of collections as material for sermons is more difficult to ascertain from examination of the manuscripts alone.82 Copies of some miracle collections were kept at medieval shrines. A manuscript of the Miracles of St Edmund of Bury composed by Herman was marked “de feretrario”, of the shrine-​keeper, and could very well have been recited to clerics at the shrine and to visiting pilgrims, though any assumption that the laity alone were the intended audience for this Latin collection is perhaps unwarranted.83 More concrete evidence that miracle collections were envisaged as sermon material is provided by the

79

C. Watkins, “Memories of the marvellous in the Anglo-​Norman realm”, in E. van Houts (ed.), Medieval Memories: Men, Women and the Past 700–​1300, Harlow, 2001, pp. 92–​112; G. Spiegel, The Past as Text: The Theory and Practice of Medieval Historiography, Baltimore, 1997; Given-​Wilson, Chronicles, p. 57. 80 Prior Philip, The Miracles of St Frideswide, Oxf. Digby 177. D. Hiley, Western Plainchant: A Handbook, Oxford, 1995, p. 248. 81 Ward, Miracles and the Medieval Mind, p. 146. There is some evidence that Thomas Becket’s miracles were read in the chapter house at Christ Church Canterbury, though their use as liturgical readings or as sermon material is doubtful. Koopmans, Wonderful to Relate, pp. 127, 132; William of Canterbury, Miracula S. Thomae, p. 138. These subdivisions can also be found in the Life of St Dunstan which, in its earliest form, was separated into twelve lessons, and also in the Vita of William of York, a text that included descriptions of the Bishop’s miracles. De Gaiffier, “L’hagiographie”, pp. 141–​42; Vita Sancti Willelmi, ed. J. Raine, The Historians of the Church of York (vol. 2), London, 1886, pp. 270–​91; Norton, St William of York, p. 200. 82 For more on this topic see Ward, Miracles and the Medieval Mind, pp. 26–​30. 83 R.M. Thompson, “The library at Bury St Edmunds’ Abbey in the eleventh and twelfth centuries”, Speculum 47 (1972), p. 626.

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Benedictine historian and theologian Guibert of Nogent, who specifically claims to have recorded only the miracle stories that he felt were most “useful for sermons”.84 The miracle collections of Osbern of Canterbury, Osbert of Clare, Ithmar of Rochester, and Richard of Chichester provide indications that their miracles were preached before the people.85 Yet, the majority of miracle accounts examined here survive in such small numbers of manuscripts that their circulation as material for sermon-​writers is doubtful.86 Miracle collections designed with a liturgical function in mind incorporate scriptural quotations, moralizing digressions and illustrations of contemporary theological discussions –​ideal material for monastic deliberation.87 Prior Philip’s miracles of St Frideswide contain numerous scriptural quotations and analogies between the miracles of Christ and those of St Frideswide, including an account of a woman petitioning St Frideswide to resurrect her dead son, which included a reference to Jesus’ revival of Lazarus.88 In another account Prior Philip described how the faith of a woman named Mabilia was invigorated by the Gospel story of the woman cured from an effusion of blood after 84

Guibert of Nogent, Memoirs, trans. P.J. Archambault, A Monk’s Confession: The Memoirs of Guibert of Nogent, University Park, PA. 1996, p. 178. For more on the use of miracles in sermons see: Boyarin, Miracles of the Virgin; A. Simon, The Cult of Saint Katherine of Alexandria in Late-​Medieval Nuremberg: Saint and the City, London, 2012, p. 133; Goodich, Miracles and Wonders, pp. 29–​46, P.B. Roberts, Thomas Becket in the Medieval Latin Preaching Tradition: An Inventory of Sermons about St Thomas Becket c.1170-​c.1400, The Hague, 1992, pp. 57, 124, 150, 176, 204; see also Jussi Hanska’s chapter in this volume. 85 Koopmans, Wonderful to Relate, pp. 132, 267. Ralph Bocking, The Life of St Richard, trans. D. Jones, Saint Richard of Chichester, The Sources for his Life, Lewes, 1995, p. 224. 86 Whereas St Thomas Becket’s miracles were widely copied, with five surviving manuscripts identified for William of Canterbury’s collection and thirty for that of Benedict of Peterborough, to date many of the other twelfth-​century collections examined here survive in only one manuscript: St Frideswide (Oxford, Bodleian Library, Digby 177); St William of Norwich (Cambridge, University Library, Additional 3037); Goscelin’s Miracles of St Edmund of Bury (New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, M. 736); and St Æbbe (Oxford, Bodleian Library, Fairfax 6). Collections dating to the thirteenth century fair little better. Three surviving copies of the Vita and canonization dossier of St Gilbert of Sempringham have been identified (London, British Library, Cotton Cleo. B. I and Harl. 468 and Oxford, Bodleian Library, Digby 36). The miracles of St Margaret of Scotland are preserved in a single codex (Madrid, Biblioteca del Palacio Real, ms ii 2097) and those of St Edmund of Abingdon survive in an unabridged form in Auxerre (Auxerre, Bibliothèque Municipale, 123G) and in an incomplete copy in Oxford (Oxford, Bodleian Library, Fell 2). 87 See, for example, St Erkenwald: Arcoid, Miracula, pp. 141, 163; St Frideswide: Oxf. Digby 177, fols. 18r, 19r, 21r, 22v, 29v; St Æbbe: Vita et miracula sancte Ebbe Virginis, pp. 35, 43; St Wulfstan of Worcester: William of Malmesbury, Miracles of St Wulfstan, pp. 115, 120, 122, 139. 88 Prior Philip, The Miracles of St Frideswide, Oxf. Digby 177, fol. 8v. See Jn 11:17.

32 Wilson touching Christ’s cloak.89 Philip also included in his work several fascinating discussions of the roles of confession, penitence, and purgatory for spiritual and physical healing –​apt reading for a community of Augustinian canons in the university city of Oxford.90 Similarly, the miracles of Our Lady of Rocamadour include lengthy discussions of the value of confession, penitence and the value of priestly absolution obtained before approaching a saint.91 These authors chose to emphasize doctrinal themes within their works based on their expected audience and the intended function of their collection. Miracle collections also served a purpose beyond the immediate clerical community’s liturgical needs, operating to foster ties with the local laity by establishing a saint as their powerful patron and protector. Historian Marcus Bull has identified the influence of contemporary economic, social and political pressures on hagiographers in his study of the miracles at Rocamadour.92 Simon Yarrow, focusing on the Oxford-​based cult of St Frideswide, has similarly argued that Prior Philip’s Miracula was intended to establish an amicable bond between the religious and secular authorities of Oxford, promoting the saint as the patron of the local mercantile elite.93 Philip consistently reported the names and place of origin for pilgrims, the majority of whom travelled less than forty miles to the shrine.94 The Prior also featured numerous miracles involving Oxford’s wealthiest and most influential citizens, including a lengthy account of the miraculous healing of Lawrence Kepherim, the first mayor of Oxford, from both a kidney stone and the over-​zealous ministrations of an incompetent surgeon.95 Needless to say recording the involvement of the laity as recipients or participants in the Miracula would most effectively establish ties only if those involved were exposed to the work and knew of their inclusion. 89

Prior Philip, The Miracles of St Frideswide, Oxf. Digby 177, fol. 12v. For the biblical precedent see Lk 8:43. For further examples of the use of scriptural parallels in miracle collections see: Goscelin of Saint-​Bertin, Miracles of St Edmund, p. 197; Arcoid, Miracula, pp. 141, 163; Vita et miracula sancte Ebbe Virginis, pp. 35, 43; William of Malmesbury, Miracles of St Wulfstan, pp. 115, 120, 122, 139, 140, 148–​49, 157, 158, 173, 175. 90 For confession see: Prior Philip, The Miracles of St Frideswide, Oxf. Digby 177, fol. 16r. For purgatory see fols. 5v and 22v. 91 Bull, Rocamadour, pp. 104–​105, 162, 190, 199. For a detailed and insightful study of confession in miracle accounts see Murray, “Confession before 1215”, pp. 51–​81. 92 Bull, Rocamadour, pp. 19–​20. Also see: Ashley and Sheingorn, Writing Faith and Farmer, Communities of Saint Martin. 93 Yarrow, Saints and their Communities, pp. 183, 216. 94 Yarrow, Saints and their Communities, p. 178. 95 Yarrow, Saints and their Communities, pp. 181–​183; Prior Philip, The Miracles of St Frideswide, Oxf. Digby 177, fol. 29r.

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Miracle collections written during the thirteenth century also functioned as documents supporting formal papal canonization processes. These works frequently adopt a less literary style than their twelfth-​century predecessors, employing fewer rhetorical flourishes and scriptural references.96 The author of St Margaret of Scotland’s miracles cites the Gospels, though not to describe the miracle narratives directly, while the miracle collection of St Gilbert of Sempringham references scripture infrequently.97 Collections utilized as part of a canonization bid also display a tendency to record the details of witnesses with greater precision. This is clearly displayed in St Gilbert’s formal collection of miracles, which was utilized as part of the Lincolnshire holy man’s canonization process. This collection identifies eyewitnesses by name, place of origin, and status, and asserts that witnesses offered their accounts on oath.98 The author also attempts to analyze witness evidence, noting where deponents’ statements contradict or confirm other accounts and distinguishing between deponents who had witnessed the moment of the cure itself, and those who had only seen the recipient before and after the professed miracle –​highlighting the limits of their knowledge as eyewitnesses.99 This method of analyzing evidence conforms to legal standards where the weight of testimony, in both civil and criminal trials, was considered to lie in the source of a witness’s knowledge.100 By the mid thirteenth century the evidential standards of the canonization procedure had even filtered into miracle collections that were not used as part of formal canonization procedures. Albert of Armagh’s mid thirteenth-​century miracles of St Edmund of Abingdon, written after the Archbishop’s canonization, records named witnesses, such as Henricus and Ysabella, testifying “upon danger of their souls” to their son’s cure at Pontigny abbey.101 This miracle collection also directly cites evidence from the canonization process detailing the exact number of witnesses produced for several miracles, including the cure of a woman called Sara from leprosy, which was corroborated by twenty-​nine witnesses, while no less than thirty-​one witnesses provided sworn declarations to the cure of a mute man named Walter.102 Albert also included evidence from

96 Ward, Miracles and the Medieval Mind, pp. 81–​82. 97 Miracvla sancte Margarite, pp. 73, 91, 93, 109, 117; The Book of St Gilbert, p. 289. 98 Book of St Gilbert, pp. 274, 275 and 267, 277, 285. 99 Book of St Gilbert, pp. 267, 277, 285. 100 W. Ullmann, “Medieval principles of evidence”, Law Quarterly 62 (1946), pp. 78–​80 and Evans, Law and Theology, pp. 149–​150. 101 Miracula Sancti Edmundi, Aux. 123G, fol. 141r-​v. 102 Albert of Armagh, Vita et Miracula,. Aux. 123G, fols. 111v, 110r.

34 Wilson the canonization procedure describing the physical examination of three miracle recipients by papal physicians as part of the canonization enquiry.103 Albert of Armagh was in the unusual position of having participated in St Edmund’s canonization process as one of three papally-​appointed commissioners for the Burgundian canonization enquiry. Yet his noticeable use of evidence from the enquiry in his miracle collection hints at more than just his own experience. The hagiographical genre already incorporated legalistic methods of assessing evidence into miracle narratives, Albert simply utilized the latest legal conventions when writing miracles. 4

Conclusions

Conversations between miracle recipients and the clerics in charge of medieval cults were crucial to the recording of miracles. This dialogue provided the material from which written miracle narratives were molded and shaped. The initial decision to report a miracle, to bring witnesses, and to speak before the brethren in the chapter house was made by the miracle recipients themselves. Yet, not all of those reporting miracles were heard. Some were hindered by barriers of language, limited access for women and, for some shrines, the absence of the appropriate notary to record these interactions. Those writing miracles were aware of the significance of these oral reports, describing their own conversations with miracle recipients in their hagiographical works. Whether we can trust these claims as more than a rhetorical device is open to debate. Yet, the level of detail included by writers in their collections, their propensity to name contemporary dignitaries as witnesses, along with a general need for credibility in hagiographical writings about miracles, indicates that some form of conversational interaction took place. Though miracle accounts are the product of this interaction, the privilege of overall control of the final narrative lay with the hagiographer. Miracle collections were written for a variety of reasons, and in a variety of ways, all of which influenced their content and structure. Some writers utilized evidence gathered many years before, or rewrote older miracle collections, while others were faced with great quantities of recently collected material detailing the posthumous activities of a newly active saint. These differences in available material affected the organizational methods employed by hagiographers and to an extent the content of their miracle narratives. 103 Albert of Armagh, Vita et Miracula, Aux. 123G, fols. 106v-​107r, 109v-​110r, 111r-​112r.

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The content and organization of narratives was also governed by their author’s intended purpose for a collection. Writers who envisioned their miracle collections as liturgical works or sermon materials frequently included scriptural quotations, moralizing digressions and discussions of contemporary pastoral and sacramental theology among their narratives. Those who sought to promote their saint and their religious community as a way to foster political and social bonds made references to other established saints and members of the local lay and ecclesiastical elite. Miracle collections composed during the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, particularly those written to promote a saint’s canonization campaign, reflect a greater emphasis on legal processes, naming witnesses and analyzing the quality of witness evidence. Of course, miracle collections may have had multiple purposes from their inception and have gained additional functions over time. These findings pertain to miracle collections from England, France and Scotland. A much wider study, utilizing miracle collections from other regions, would be necessary to discover whether these trends are reflected in writings produced in other locations. Yet, each hagiographer grappled with a similar set of basic requirements when writing about miracles: how to gather the details of miracles; how to organize these; how to convince a reader that these accounts were truly miraculous.

­c hapter 2

Miracles in Monastic Culture Emilia Jamroziak 1

Introduction

Miracles were deeply rooted in medieval monastic culture on several levels. They were part of the tradition, a defense against internal and external threats, and an important medium to which to attach different connotations. Within the institutional memory of monastic communities, miracles were important markers of meaning. Whilst there is a vast body of evidence for the presence of the concept of miracles, and frequent descriptions of the experience of miracles and their interpretations within the sources associated with the monastic communities, it has not been a subject of any systematic study. Whilst there is historiography devoted to different aspects of miracles in medieval culture –​ which is discussed in other chapters of the present volume –​the relationship between them and the monastic culture tends to be part of the context within other areas of investigation rather than a central question of research.1 Within cenobitic monasticism –​Benedictine tradition being the main focus of the present work –​in the high and late middle ages, ideas and practices associated with miracles were both part of the deeply-​rooted traditions going back to the Desert Fathers, as well as an important part of the accumulated customs linked to the individual institutional histories, localities and connections with the outside world. Benedicta Ward has argued for a certain ambiguity in their presence: “[t]‌his monastic sense of the interiority of miracle remained as a central theme in medieval literature”.2 To wish to perform miracles was dangerously close to pride, and therefore the Desert Fathers were, according to their hagiographies, careful not to wish to appear as miracle-​workers to others, whilst wishing to alleviate suffering and injustice through miraculous interventions.3 Fundamentally, miracles provided divine approval of the monks and 1 The best detailed overview of the medieval western monasticism and its historiography see The Cambridge History of Medieval Monasticism in the Latin West, A. Beach and Isabelle Cochelin, Cambridge, 2020, 2 vols. 2 Benedicta Ward, “Monks and miracles”, in John C. Cavadini (ed.), Miracles in Jewish and Christian Antiquity: Imagining Truth, Notre Dame, 1999, pp. 127–​37 (p. 132). 3 Ward, “Monks and miracles”, pp. 130–​31.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2021 | DOI:10.1163/9789004468498_004

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their actions. In the collection Ἡ κατ’ Αἰγυπτον των μοναχων ἱστορια/​Historia monachorum in Aegypto (Lives of the Desert Fathers), the miracles were essential to establish the holiness of the hermits and monks.4 In the hagiography of Shrenoute (385–​465), abbot of a large community of monks and nuns in the desert bordering the Nile Valley on the west, his destruction of pagan temples was aided and validated by miracles.5 Miracles needed to be treated with care as their power could be highly disruptive for the monastic communities. Their interpretation could be contested within the community, as well as signifying particular aspects of connection to and conflict with the external world. Fundamentally, the role of the monks and nuns as intercessors on behalf of others, as well as the guardianship of highly-​charged holy spaces, imbued monastic culture with different aspects of miracle phenomena. For medieval monastic communities miracles were both a theological concept, a theme of reflection, and a point of encounter with the divine and with fellow humans. Whilst the presence of miracles can be easily explored though functionalist approaches –​to see what roles the belief in miracles played in the life of monastic communities –​it is somewhat reductionist. The idea of miracles in the monastic context permeated spirituality, ritual, communal and individual practices. It has intersected with the theological debates about the nature of the miraculous and its role in upholding and deepening faith. It was also central to the worldview that monks and nuns shared with the rest of the society. Production and consumption of hagiography, memorialization, intercession and various forms of remembering were all platforms of engagement with miracles. Dealing with crisis, attack or conflict –​especially in terms of memorializations of such events –​frequently involved miracles as a solution. Monastic communities were habitually guardians of shrines that produced miracles encompassing both members of the community as well as outsiders. Without trying to create some sort of rigid typology of miracles in the texts produced in the monastic context, l shall first discuss the types of texts in which miracles appeared and what that tells us about the monastic culture. Secondly, I will explore the place of the miracles in the life of monastic communities –​though

4 André-​Jean Festugière (ed.), Ἡ κατ’ Αἰγυπτον των μοναχων ἱστορια, (Brussels, 1971); Tyrannius Rufinus, Historia monachorum sive de Vita sanctorum partum, ed. Eva Schulz-​ Flügel, Berlin,1990; Norman Russell (ed.), Lives of the Desert Fathers, Kalamazoo, 1980; Benedicta Ward, “Signs and wonders: miracles in the desert tradition”, Studia Patristica 18 (1982), pp. 539–​42. 5 Heike Behlmer, “Visitors to Shenoute’s monastery”, in David Frankfurter (ed.), Pilgrimage and Holy Spaces in Late Antique Egypt, Leiden, 1998, pp. 341–​61 (p. 358).

38 Jamroziak texts and material evidence –​to show the possibility of understanding “a lived experience” of miracle for monks and nuns on the individual and communal level. An important dimension in the monastic context is the role of the miracles in the construction of identity: of the community, of the institution, and as an important facet of the connection to the outside world. The monastic “ownership” of miracles frequently signified not just the presence of strategies but also ideas about the role of monks in relation to the external authorities, the notions of space and their meaning, as well as asserting intercessory powers of monastic communities to a variety of audiences. 2

Remembering Miracles

The foundation narratives, a story of the foundation of a monastery, and various forms of recording of later history is often a context within which a variety of miracles can be recorded –​these relate to the fortunes of the abbey, its patron saint, and other important figures in its history. Miracles can function in the foundation narratives and in chronicles within Benedictine and Cistercian traditions in different ways. Rhetorically, they often provide a turning point in a particular story, a resolution to a crisis and a solution to a situation that cannot be resolved by ordinary means. In the chronicle narratives, miracles often signal elements that are deemed to be of particular value to the community and/​or the chronicler, emphasizing particular “lines” of development and sanctifying various elements of the institutional history. Frequently they are associated with specific individuals as well as a deep past that essentialized the “golden past” and “perfect origins”. In the Cistercian chronicles, miraculous exempla were frequently inserted in order to give more profound meaning to a series of events. It helped to create “learning from history” for the community and individual monks.6 The idea of the abbot-​saint goes back to the Desert Fathers’ tradition and was often reused in exempla and preaching. The abbots capable of performing miracles were a fairly frequent theme in the Cistercian narratives and such stories were often about divine assistance in times of difficulty, or bringing down these who oppressed monks. In themselves these stories were not new but formed part of established imagery. In the Historia Fundationis of Byland and Jervaulx Abbeys, Abbot John of Jervaulx

6 Elizabeth Freeman, Narratives of a New Order: Cistercian Historical Writing in England, 1150–​ 1220, Turnhout, 2002, pp. 163–​65.

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(1149/​50-​c.1185), the founding leader of the community, traveling with a group of monks, got lost in the woods. It was a terrible situation. “While they stood like this for a long time, at a loss what to do, they despaired of their lives, and each one with great distress of heart appealed to and challenged the other to help”.7 The abbot recommended that they should perform the canonical hours and gospel lections. Seeking solution in observance and liturgical obligation is what brings the miraculous conclusion to this crisis. The monks were rescued by the miraculous appearance of the Virgin Mary and Christ, who showed them the right path: they followed him [Christ who appeared in the forest] along hard and difficult paths, but they were not harmed. For small white birds without number, like sparrows, of a radiance that cannot be imagined, alighted on the branch that he carried in his hand, and there they sang repeatedly the entire hymn, “Bless the Lord all the works of the Lord”. This hymn so restored them that they experienced no hardship on their journey.8 The dialogue between the monks and the holy figures was not only about finding the way out of oppression but also signaled validation of their monastic endeavor and the fellow Cistercian foundations in Rievaulx and Byland in the same region.9 The miracle in this narrative operated on several levels. It is a resolution of the dangerous situation, a lesson about the importance of proper liturgical observance, an allegorical explanation of the monastic life as a journey of following Christ as well as remembering the founding abbot of Jervaulx as a holy figure. In short, miracles in the foundation narratives were an essential element of the idealized past that can be held up to the present. In narrative terms, miracles were also frequently evoked in the monastic chronicles in an unspecific way to assert the validity of the monastic vocation and the whole institution. In the introduction to the second part of The Henryków Book, written by an anonymous monk from the Silesian abbey of the same name c.1310, the section that described the foundation and arrival of the original group of monks (who came from the mother house in Lubiąż) ends with the following statement: Oh copious mercy of divine goodness, which has in the beginning taken care to bring hither such reverend fathers, powerful in virtue, happily 7 Janet Burton, The Foundation History of the Abbeys of Byland and Jervaulx, York, 2006, p. 58. 8 Burton, The Foundation History, p. 59. 9 Burton, The Foundation History, pp. xxxiii–​xxxv, 58–​59.

40 Jamroziak speaking the Word of God, so as to sustain in this place a pediment of so famous an observance [as the Cistercian Order], and whom a humble and glad obedience in Christ propelled to this: that, with God’s cooperation, signs and miracles have truly followed that obedience! About the holiness and the reverence of such and so distinguished men, I decline to write more, out of humble fear that the indignity of the writer may not disfigure the dignity of the saints.10 Having a miracle-​working abbot in the early history of the monastic community had multiple implications. Such figures validated the spiritual and redemptive power of the community, embodied holiness within the monastic space, were ultimate role-​models for the later abbots and a focus of the cult –​both internally and externally. Moreover, it was usually the early abbots who were cast in such a role, frequently, within the first fifty years or so of the institutional existence and thus adding an important element to what was considered to be “the roots”. After holding the office of the prior, Jocelin was elected abbot of Melrose on 22 April 1170. One of the most important of his acts in this office was the translation of the body of Abbot Waltheof (d. 1159) from a simple grave inside the chapter house of Melrose to a fine marble shrine at the entrance to the chapter house.11 His body was found incorrupt in full vestments. After the translation “all who were present raised their voices and said ‘Truly this was a man of God’.”12 The second time when the tomb was opened, which was in 1206, the rediscovery of the incorrupt body was followed by the commissioning of a hagiographical text from Jocelin of Furness that reinforced the holiness of Abbot Waltheof with visions and miracles.13 However, as Helen Birkett has argued, the posthumous healing miracles in his vita indicate a growing uneasiness about access to the shrine within the claustral space by the lay people seeking miracles during the abbacy of William. In Jocelin’s text Abbot William is portrayed negatively –​through a series of allusions –​as a harsh abbot that tried to suppress the cult of his predecessor and treated those coming to Melrose to seek healing miracles as a nuisance. But the miraculous

10 Piotr Górecki (ed.), A Local Society in Transition: the Henryków Book and Related Documents, Toronto, 2007, p. 148. 11 “Chronicle of Melrose”, in Joseph Stevenson (transl.) Church Historians of England, London, 1885, vol. 4 (1), pp. 133–​34. 12 “The Chronicle of Melrose”, p. 134. 13 Helen Birkett, The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness: Hagiography, Patronage and Ecclesiastical Politics, Woodbridge, 2010, p. 201.

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healings were also granted to the monks of Melrose who were allowed prolonged contact with the saint’s tomb.14 The next time that Waltheof’s tomb was opened occurred in 1240 during the rebuilding of the chapter house when the remains of the abbots buried there were moved “with great solemnity” to the eastern part of the building. Waltheof’s shrine was not moved, but opened. His body was no longer incorrupt and had been reduced to dust. However, this episode provided a further opportunity for miracles because these who were present carried off a few of the smaller bones, and the residue remained in peace. One of those who was a witness of this was a knight of good reputation, called William, the son of the earl, the nephew of our lord the king. By his enterprise he secured one of the teeth, by which (as he afterwards stated) many sick persons were cured.15 The transfer of relics between the lay world and the monastic one is most frequently documented because they were gifts from patrons, benefactors, and friends of the monasteries. Here is a very good example of the movement in the opposite direction that is centered on the experience of miracles. That desire to experience miracles on the part of the lay people brings to the fore the questions of space and access and the negotiating of the monastic-​lay interface. For the Benedictine communities, guardianship of relics was a major part of their custom and practices. Churches of numerous early-​medieval communities of black monks were pilgrimage destinations in their own right. The monks were guardians of the shrines, produced hagiographies and kept records of the miracles. The recording of the miracles by the monks was also a way of asserting the validity of the cult they were guarding. It is very striking in the case of the disputed location of St Benedict of Nursia’s relics between Monte Cassino and Fleury Abbey. The collection, one of the largest surviving of this kind, records miracles performed by Benedict for Fleury and its dependent houses. Its oldest book was composed in the late 860s, and the last section in the first quarter of the twelfth century. It affirms the role of Benedict as patron and protector of Fleury Abbey. Not just the monks, but also the serfs living on the land belonging to the abbey, were the subject of protective miracles as familia sancti Benedicti.16 In their role as fathers and protectors of their 14 Birkett, The Saints’ Lives, pp. 205–​06. 15 “Chronicle of Melrose”, pp. 182–​83; Birkett, The Saints’ Lives, pp. 215–​16. 16 Anselme Davril, ‘Un monastère et son patron. Saint Benoît, patron et protecteur de l’abbaye de Fleury’, Cahiers de recherches médiévales et humanistes 8 (2001), 43–​55 (p. 4).

42 Jamroziak communities, saintly abbots also performed healing miracles that ensured the essential economic well-​being of their abbeys. Stephen of Obazine (d. 1154), venerated by his community as a saint according to his twelfth-​century life, bestowed various miracles on the members of the Obazine community. Among them was also a “young brother”, perhaps a lay brother, who was involved in heavy physical work, and as a result he developed a hernia that prevented him from working further and caused him anguish. After praying, he lay prostrated on the floor in front of the saint’s tomb. Stephen communicated with the afflicted member of the community and promised healing. After a while he appeared to him in another vision and the cure was completed. The anonymous hagiographer added that that as a result “the brother, who for a long time was pale and looked like one about to die, now is strong and active; he carries out his work very vigorously”.17 Robert of Newminster, a former monk of Fountains and the founding abbot of Newminster Abbey, was venerated as a saint by his community. His vita refers to the fact that after many miracles occurred at his tomb in the chapter house it was moved to the monastic church where it continued to produce miracles.18 In some cases, the miracles that monks were subject to were included in a canonization dossier. This was the case with the Dominican Thomas Aquinas who died in 1274 during a stopover at Cistercian Fossanova Abbey, where he was buried and venerated. A lay brother from the abbey Manuel de Piperno testified in 1321 that his paralyzed arm was made well again in 1321 after he promised Thomas Aquinas 20 solidi yearly on his feast if the miracle was granted.19 Many of the saints whose cults were supported by the monastic communities were not just its former members or important visitors and supporters of the communities, as discussed above, but also other figures who were vested with an obligation to protect their “communities”. The connection was sometimes historical and sometimes more tenuous, but recording their miracles was central to the institutional identity. The miracles of the saints whose cults were centered on monastic houses were frequently both a typical manifestation of the efficacy of the shrine –​that is, healings of pilgrims coming to it –​but also acts of protection over “their” communities. Very striking examples of such figures were St Alban or St Cuthbert. A large collection of miracles complied in 17 18 19

Hugh Feiss, Maureen M. O’Brien, and Ronald Pepin (eds.), The Lives of Monastic Reformers, 1: Robert of La Chaise-​Dieu and Stephen of Obazine, Collegeville, 2010, pp. 239–​40. Paul. Grosjean (ed.), “Vita Sancti Roberti Novi Monasterii in Anglia Abbatis”, Analecta Bollandina 56 (1938), pp. 334–​60 (p. 356). Marika Räsänen, Thomas Aquinas’s Relics as Focus for Conflict and Cult in the Late Middle Ages, Amsterdam, 2017, pp. 96–​97.

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St Albans, perhaps by Thomas Walsingham between c.1390 and c.1415, added a large number of new stories to those collected in the previous century. Among the miracles that allegedly happened in 1380 was a miraculous intervention of St Alban, who saved monastic bells from a lightning strike.20 The Chronica Maiora of Thomas Walsingham incorporates some of the miracle stories that present St Alban as a defender saint protecting the monastic community with his miracles. In the description of the Peasants’ Revolt, St Alban is credited with preventing the sealing of the charter of liberties for the inhabitants of the town, “it was as though the wax knew assuredly that the martyr did not wish the villeins to be the masters, but wished himself to be lord over them as had been so up till then”.21 In a much earlier collection of miracles of St Cuthbert by Reginald (second half of the twelfth century), one of the miracles directly claimed the efficacy of Durham’s saint over that of Thomas Becket when a Norwegian boy was given a choice of pilgrimage destination, and having selected Durham he was cured by St Cuthbert.22 For Cistercians, the protective role of the Virgin Mary was very frequently reiterated in miracle stories, both in relation to individual monks as well as to whole communities. It culminates in the famous image of Cistercians sheltering under Mary’s cloak included by Caesar of Heisterbach (see below) in the epilogue to his chapter devoted to Marian miracles bestowed on Cistercian monks and nuns.23 3

Living with Miracles

The texts that monks and nuns read and heard in refectory readings provided not only a stock imagery of miracles, and numerous examples of supernatural

20

21 22 23

James G. Clark, “The St Albans Monks and the Cult of St Alban: the Late Medieval Texts”, in Martin Henig and Philip Lindley (eds.), Alban and St Albans: Roman and Medieval Archaeology, Art and Architecture, Leeds, 2001, 218–​30 (p. 222); bl Ms Cotton Claudius E iv, fol. 69r. John Taylor and Wendy R. Childs (eds.), Leslie Watkiss (trans.), The St Albans Chronicle: the Chronica maiora of Thomas Walsingham, Oxford, 2002–​11, p. 473 (Latin text p. 472). Dominic Marner, St Cuthbert: his life and cult in medieval Durham, Toronto, 2000, p. 33; Reginaldi monachi Dunelmensis libellus de admirandis beati Cuthberti virtutibus, J. Raine (ed.) Surtees Society vol. 1, Durham, 1835, chapter. 62, pp. 248–​254. Gabriela Signori, “ ‘Totius ordinis nostril patrona et advocate’: Maria als Haus-​und Ordensheilige der Zisterzienser”, in Claudia Opitz, Hedwig Röckelein, Gabriela Signori, and Guy P. Marchal (eds.), Maria in der Welt: Marienverehrung im Kontext der Sozialgeschichte 10.-​18. Jahrhundert, Zürich, 1993, pp. 253–​77 (p. 258).

44 Jamroziak intervention, but also the theological thinking that underlined the concept of miracles –​especially Vitae Patrum, and the Dialogues of Gregory the Great. Collections of miracles were kept at shrines, but they were also gathered as volumes of edifying reading and sources for preaching exempla. Collections of miracles as edifying stories were frequently assembled in monasteries since the second half of the eleventh century and in the twelfth and thirteenth century. The collections combine local traditions with popular stories that were known across many regions. Marian miracles were particularly popular in this format. In Austria such collections with rich and extremely complex traditions were shared across different communities, from the Benedictine communities of Admont and Melk to the Cistercian houses of Zwettl and Heiligenkreuz.24 The desire to ensure that miraculous events were preserved for future generations by writing them down lay behind, as Mirko Breitenstein argues, “numerous collections of Marian miracles of the High and Late Middle Ages or the Cistercian miracle books that came into being in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, in which the factual precision of the miracles accounts was also used for historiographic purposes”.25 The oldest collection of miracles, Liber visionum et miraculorum, was created c.1175 in Clairvaux, and it was soon followed by another collection attributed to Goswin of Clairvaux. Herbert of Clairvaux’s De Miraculis libri tres (1178); Engelhard of Langheim’s book of exempla (1188); Konrad of Eberbach’s Exordium magnum (1190 and 1200); the anonymous Beaupré collection (around 1200); and the miracle book from Himmerod were further collections of this kind. The early collections from Clairvaux, as Gabriela Signori has argued, containing various miracles involving the Virgin Mary and monks, set the ground for the centrality of Mary’s cult in Cistercian communities.26 These texts played a role in preaching, the training of novices, and the theological training of the monks. Whilst the monastic, especially Cistercian, collections contained ideas about the history of the order and individual communities, stories of transgressions made explicit statements about the role of observance as a cornerstone of monastic life, as well as theological ideas about the nature of miracles and their place in the world.27 Among the texts that engaged with miracles as central to monastic culture on several levels is the much-​studied Dialogus Miraculorum by Caesar 24 25 26 27

Christina Lutter, Zwischen Hof und Kloster. Kulturelle Gemeinschaften im mittelalterlichen Österreich,Wien, 2010, pp. 78–​79. Mirko Breitenstein, “Miracles”, in Gert Melville and Martial Staub (eds.), Brill’s Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages, Leiden, 2017, vol. 1, pp. 463–​68 (p. 467). Signori, “ ‘Totius ordinis’ ”, pp. 256–​57. Breitenstein, “Miracles”, p. 467.

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of Heisterbach (d. c.1240). Its richness in terms of information on the lived experiences of monastic life, the place of nuns in the Cistercian order, and spirituality as well as ideas about heresy, boundaries of transgression, and its socio-​political context have all been much explored.28 The Dialogus built on the existing tradition of Cistercian exempla collections and, in turn, it had significant influence beyond the communities of white monks. It was extensively reused by the Dominicans, who famously took over the image of the Virgin Mary sheltering monks and nuns under her mantel in heaven.29 The experience of miracles and visions in them were deliberately anonymized and universalized to address all the monks and nuns in order to teach a moral lesson when incorporated in a sermon.30 Dialogus Miraculorum is a particularly fine example of the rich genre of miracle collections produced and used by the Cistercian communities. Brian Patrick McGuire was the first to explain these texts in the context of monastic

28

For recent publications on the Dialogus that explore different aspects of the text see for example: William Purkis, “Memories of the preaching for the Fifth Crusade in Caesar of Heisterbach’s Dialogus miraculorum”, in Megan Cassidy-​Welch and Anne E. Lester (eds.), Crusades and Memory. Rethinking Past and Present, London, 2014, pp. 329–​45; Juanita Feros Ruys, “Sensitive spirits: changing depictions of demonic emotions in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries”, Digital Philology 1 (2012), pp. 184–​209; Victoria Smirnova, “Le Dialogus miraculorum de Césaire de Heisterbach: le dialogue comme axe d’écriture et de lecture”, in Marie Anne Polo de Beaulieu (ed.), Formes dialoguées dans la littérature exemplaire du Moyen Age, Paris, 2012, pp. 195–​218; Mirko Breitenstein, “ ‘Ins Gespräch gebracht’: der Dialog als Prinzip monnastischer Unterweisung”, in Steven Vanderputten (ed.), Understanding Monastic Practice of Oral Communication (Western Europe, Tenth-​ Thirteenth Centuries), Turnhout, 2011, pp. 205–​29; Marek Tamm, “Communicating crusade. Livonian mission and the Cistercian network in the thirteenth century”, Ajalooline Ajakiri 3–​4 (2010), pp. 341–​72; Catherine Rider, “Agreements to return from the afterlife in late medieval exempla”, Studies in Church History 45 (2009), pp. 174–​83. 29 Sonja Reisner, “Konkurenz auf dem ‘geistigen Markt’. Dominikanische Wunder-​ und Mirakelberichte des 13. Jahrhunderts im Licht neuer motivgeschichtlicher Forschungen”, in Heidemarie Sprecht and Ralph Andraschek-​Holzer (eds.), Bettelorden in Mitteleuropa: Geschichte, Kunst, Spiritualität, St Pölten, 2008, pp. 663–​ 81; Sonja Reisner, “ ‘Sub tuum praesidium configimus’: Zur Instrumentalisierung von Visionen und Wunderberichten in der dominikanischen Ordenshistoriographie am Beispiel Schutzmantelmadonna”, Acta Antiqua Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 43 (2003), pp. 393–​405; Andrea Winkler, “Building the imagined community: Dominican exempla and theological knowledge”, Quidditas 19 (1998), pp. 197–​226; Elisa Brilli, “The making of a new Auctoritas: The Dialogus miraculorum read and rewritten by the Dominican Arnold of Liège”, in V. Smirnova, M. A. Polo de Beaulieu and J. Berlioz (eds.),The Art of Cistercian Persuasion in the Middle Ages and Beyond, Leiden, 2015, pp. 163–​82. 30 Stefano Mula, “Twelfth-​and thirteenth-​century Cistercian exempla collections: role, diffusion, and evolution”, History Compass 8:8 (2010), pp. 903–​12 (p. 906).

46 Jamroziak practice and culture. He examined the oral and textual transmission in and among the monastic communities, and a deliberate policy of transmission of stories that was embedded in Cistercian culture. The central point of “distribution” was the General Chapter with the aim of “providing a lesson for all monks”.31 An important aspect of the construction of Dialogus Miraculorum is the strong evidence for the role of oral culture in monastic communities. It means that the key experience of miracles by the monks and nuns was to hear stories about them, being told about the experiences of others, their visions and interventions of saints in the individual and communal life. Religious experience was, as McGuire argued, influenced by the content of the stories that monks and nuns told each other.32 Miracles were not only something that was recorded in the collections, an intrinsic part of the hagiographic reading, but also a part of communal interactions. Remembering these miracles was a vehicle to “actualize the past on the emotional level” –​as explained by Victoria Smirnova –​to create the sense of belonging to the monastic community across time and space.33 Whilst discussing the ways in which monastic communities framed their experience of miracles, it is important to consider how it was played out in the actual physical spaces. Miracles that had only monastic audiences happened in the spaces restricted to the members of the community or in the spaces that were also accessible to the outsiders. This was sometimes an issue of contention –​who was allowed to be the audience. The dynamics of the community or its relationship with the outside world changed as a result of the miraculous event, which could also undermine or strengthen the authority of the abbot. Benedictine churches as spaces of miracles are particularly well exemplified by several English cathedrals that had monastic (Benedictine) chapters. Durham was the custodian of the shrine of St Cuthbert and the efforts of the community to promote the cult have been much studied. A twelfth-​century collection of miracles of St Cuthbert, recording cases from 875 to the 1170s, was made by Reginald of Durham, who was a monk there. In this text, he firmly placed the cathedral and the shrine at the center of the cult, as a place where the miracles happen.34 The same author has been also credited with the 31 32 33 34

Brian Patrick McGuire, “Written sources and Cistercian inspiration in Caesarius of Heisterbach”, Analecta Cisterciensia 35 (1979), pp. 227–​82 (pp. 280–​81). McGuire, “Written sources”, p. 241. Victoria Smirnova, “ ‘And nothing will be wasted”: Actualisation of the past in Caesarius of Heisterbach’s Dialogus Miraculorum’, in Lucie Doležalová (ed.), The Making of Memory in the Middle Ages, Leiden, 2010, pp. 253–​65 (p. 258). J. Raine (ed.), Reginaldi monachi Dunelmensis libellus de admirandis beati Cuthberti virtutibus,Surtees Society, 1, London, 1835; V. M. Tudor, “The cult of St Cuthbert in the twelfth

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“softening” of the “misogynistic” attitudes of the older tradition of the Cuthbert cult, especially the exclusion of women from the cathedral and the cemetery, in order to attract more female pilgrims to Durham. In Reginald’s collection a number of miracles where women were healed happened in the area of the Galilee Chapel, a section of the building completed in c.1175 where female pilgrims were allowed.35 The understanding of miracles as an “interior sign” rather than an external marvel, as expressed in the early monastic culture of the Late Antiquity, continued to be an important part of the monastic attitude to miracles. The Carthusian monk Hugh, who became bishop of Lincoln (d. 1200) and later a saint himself, was an avid collector of relics and famously procured them whilst staying as a guest in other monastic communities, by cutting or dislodging small sections. But the collection that Hugh of Lincoln amassed was not an arsenal for securing miracles; rather he wanted them because “by this commemoration of them I increase my reverence for them”.36 The guardianship of relics and miracle-​producing images by monastic communities was also frequently a focus of miracles –​experiencing, remembering and maintaining the cult. A Dominican observant nunnery in Unterlinden (Rhineland) was a major center of the observant reform and its spirituality. The community owned a miraculous depiction of the Virgin Mary, a central image in a triptych, which was a very significant element of the community’s identity since it was given to the nuns in the mid-​thirteenth century. A Liber miraculorum related to this image was created in c.1465. This manuscript depicted the image itself and nuns’ interaction with it –​it stood in the nuns’ gallery –​and thus recorded the role which this miracle-​working object played in the life of the community. There are several depictions in the Liber miraculorum of miracles that occurred due to the powers of the image, and they are divided into two groups: miracles from before the cult was established in the nunnery, and those after the image was placed on the altar. A list of indulgences assigned to it followed that section. The reasons given in the Liber miraculorum for why the nuns elevated the image were intrinsically bound with the community too. A nun who had a paralyzed arm touched the image and was instantly cured.

century: the evidence of Reginald of Durham”, in G. Bonner, D. Rollason, and C. Stancliffe (eds.), St Cuthbert, his Cult and his Community to AD 1200, Woodbridge, 1989, pp. 447–​67 (p. 449); Sally Crumplin, “Modernizing St Cuthbert: Reginald of Durham’s miracle collection”, Studies in Church History 41 (2005), pp. 179–​191. 35 Marner, St Cuthbert, pp. 32–​33. 36 D.H. Farmer and D.L. Douie (eds.), Life of St Hugh of Lincoln, Oxford, 1961, vol. 1, p. 170; Ward, “Monks and Miracles”, pp. 134–​35.

48 Jamroziak The nuns were then instructed by a miraculous voice to establish a small altar, dedicated to the Virgin, on which this panel was to be placed.37 Who experienced miracles within monastic space was closely linked to the issue of access and control. It is a particularly prominent theme in the Cistercian context. The monastic observance of white monks was closely tied with the exclusiveness of the monastic spaces and the separation of the monks and nuns from contact with outsiders. Hospitality was organized in such a way as to minimize contact between the community and the guests. The pressure that a productive shrine within a monastic enclosure could potentially put on a community is famously exemplified by case of Bernard of Clairvaux’ posthumous miracles. The abbot of Cîteaux, who had come to the funeral of the man of God, along with many other abbots of his Order, pondering the rude insistence of the tumultuous crowd of common people, and deducing the future from the present, began to be deeply afraid that, as miracles multiplied, such an intolerable throng of common people would flock together that the discipline of the Order would succumb to their wickedness and the fervor of holy religion in that place would grow cool. So, after taking advice, he went reverently and prohibited him from performing any more miracles, under obedience … the holy and truly humble spirit of our father was obedient to mortal man even after the death of the flesh. For the miracles that had, at that time, begun to shine forth ceased, so that, from that day on, never was he seen to perform any miracles in public, although he could not fail certain of the faithful, especially the brethren of his Order, who have invoked him for various misfortunes, up to the present day. For it is clear that the abbot of Cîteaux only wished those miracles to stop which might threaten the discipline of the Order through crowds of common people coming together.38 The Exordium Magnum Cisterciense that became a central source of models and topoi for the Cistercian family outlines the issue of miracles as a problem for maintaining strict observance, whilst not undermining the place of 37 38

Jeffrey F. Hamburger, The Visual and the Visionary: Art and Female Spirituality in Late Medieval Germany, New York, 1998, pp. 280–​87. Conrad of Eberbach, Exordium magnum Cisterciense 2. 20, pp. 97–​98 (pl 185: 448); see Adriaan Bredero, Bernard of Clairvaux: Between Cult and History, Grand Rapids, 1996, pp. 65–​73; Robert Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things? Saints and Worshippers from the Martyrs to the Reformation, Princeton, 2013, p. 308.

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miracles spiritually and theologically for the monks. Conrad of Eberbach reassured his audience that despite a “polite request” by the abbot of Cîteaux to St. Bernard to cease performing miracles, it did not diminish the special intercessory role of the holy abbot for the white monks.39 The uncontrollable effects of miracles happening in the monastic space that actually endangered proper monastic observance became a topos in Cistercian chronicles. It appeared in the Melrose case discussed above and resurfaced again in Cistercian Signy Abbey where the burial of a monk particularly known for holiness caused an influx of lay people into the monastic space because they were seeking miracles: What is this, brother? We do not doubt the sanctity of your life and conduct. Why then these miracles? Do you not see that laymen coming to your tomb disturb the quiet of the monastery? In the name of our lord Jesus Christ, we order you to stop performing miracles. Otherwise, we will bury your body outside the monastery.40 The topos of “suppressing” miraculous powers in the interest of observance was also used by Caesar of Heisterbach in his Dialogus Miraculorum in a story of a saintly lay brother of Eberbach Abbey whose miracles were attracting a very large number of lay people, which was disturbing the community. In order to protect the observance, the abbot of Eberbach requested the lay brother to stop these miracles, which he duly did.41 A very similar topos can be found in the Benedictine text of the monastery of La-​Chaise-​Dieu, the head of a large Benedictine congregation. The Life of Abbot Robert (d. 1067) by Marbod of Rennes has a passage describing the fame of Robert as a holy miracle-​worker, and the effect this had on the monastery:

39

40 41

E. Rozanne Elder (ed.), and Benedicta Ward and Paul Savage (trans.), The Great Beginning of Cîteaux: a Narrative of the Beginning of the Cistercian Order: The Exordium Magnum of Conrad of Eberbach, Collegeville, 2012, pp. 156–​59, this has been most recently discussed in Georgina Fitzgibbon, “For fear of the multitudes: disruptive pilgrims and appropriate audiences for Cistercian relics in the twelfth century”, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Birmingham, 2019, pp. 48–​66. Léopold Delisle (ed.), “Chronique de l’abbaye de Signy”, Bibliothèque de l’Ecole des Chartres 55 (1894), pp. 644–​60 (p. 649). Trans. in Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things?, pp. 336–​37. C.C. Bland and Henry Scott (eds.), The Dialogue on miracles: Caesarius of Heisterbach (1220–​1235), London, 1929, vol. 2, pp. 175–​6.

50 Jamroziak In the monastery the clamor and tumult of the sick, who arrived and then recovered their health and left, praising the power of blessed Robert and filling the ears of the inhabitants, was such and so great that only with difficulty could they hear each other and –​what was unbearable –​they could not render the divine service devoutly.42 The passage that follows is a request to the saint to cease the miracles, and that is conventional enough. But it also reveals the dynamics of relationship between monastic communities and “their” saints, especially if they had been members of that community in life, and continued to be so when they became members of the heavenly court. There was an intense bond between the communities and “their” saints, and the miracles were seen as one of the ways in which communication between them was performed. So those senior by birth and more fervent in spirit came to the tomb of the blessed man and conversed with him as follows. They said “Lord, father, following your lead we chose the squalor of this deserted place and we entered it gladly so that we might gain pardon for our sins and the grace of the Redeemer. Because of the great number of miracles now, our divine services are growing more deficient; we can neither weep for our sins nor fittingly complete the divine services. We ask, therefore, that your merits would grant us that all these disturbances be laid to rest so that here we may serve Christ the Lord in peace and in the future find forgiveness for our sins”.43 The issue of protection of observance in the face of lay desire to experience miracles was even more pronounced in the case of female houses. This is exemplified by the case of Benedictine Soissons Abbey which possessed a slipper of the Virgin Mary, a powerful healing contact relic. It first emerged during an outbreak of a contagious disease in 1128. While it is not exactly known how the ritual display of this object was organized, its importance for the community of nuns and the locality is documented in the collection of miracles composed by Hugh Farsit after 1143, who was a regular canon at Saint-​Jean des Vignes, also in Soisson. It is clear that nuns allowed crowds of lay people, especially during the epidemics, to enter the monastic church and receive blessings administered

42 43

Hugh Feiss, Maureen M. O’Brien and Ronald Pepin (eds.), The Lives of Monastic Reformers, 1: Robert of La Chaise-​Dieu and Stephen of Obazine, Collegeville, MI, 2010, p. 85. Feiss, O’Brien and Pepin (eds.), The Lives of Monastic Reformers, pp. 85–​86.

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with the miraculous slipper.44 The collection of miracles gives some hint as to the tension between allowing access and the obligation to protect the community. As Anne L. Clark suggests, an attempted bite at the holy object by a woman from the locality who was granted healing via the slipper might have prompted the nuns to restrict access to the relic.45 Being the guardian of relics obliged above all their proper protection. Nuns had to make sure that their observance was not compromised, the relics were properly venerated and not in danger, whilst the great power they contained was properly handled. The presence of miracles, as a consequence of the monastic guardianship of relics was also, textually, a powerful tool to assert the validity of various claims, authority and even jurisdiction. Ebrach Abbey in Franconia, the center of a large filiation network and a very prosperous Cistercian monastery, is an excellent case study of how asserting miraculous meanings over events that are not necessarily easily presented in these terms can be an exercise of monastic authority. Burgwindheim shrine in the care of Ebrach developed as a place of cult in the second half of the fifteenth century.46 Its origins were linked to the existing role of the Cistercian community in the pastoral care of the lay people. During the Corpus Christi procession in the market town of Burgwindheim in 1465, led by the parish priest and monk of Ebrach John Dolder, an event took place that was interpreted as miraculous and thus created the foundation for the subsequent cult. The Cistercian celebrants were flanked by a group of noblemen from the area. After passing through the town the procession moved through a path on the northern outskirts. As it reached the third station, the officiating priest left the monstrance with the sacrament on a small altar. At this point, according to the witnesses present, without even the slightest wind, and completely without human interference, the monstrance fell on the ground, opened, and the host fell out and it was not possible to lift it. This was witnessed by a terrified crowd. The Abbot Burkhard ii of Ebrach was immediately informed of what had happened and he ordered eight days of communal prayers and fasting. On the Octave of Corpus Christi, the abbot and the monks of Ebrach proceeded in solemn procession to Burgwindheim. There Abbot Burkhard took the host –​another miracle –​from the ground and carried it back to the church accompanied by the monks and the inhabitants of Burgwindheim. It is most 44 45 46

Anne L. Clark, “Guardians of the Sacred: the nuns of Soissons and the slipper of the Virgin Mary”, Church History 76: 4 (2007), pp. 724–​49. Clark, “Guardians of the Sacred”, p. 731. Elke Goez (ed.), Codex Diplomaticus Ebracensis I: Die Urkunden der Zisterze Ebrach 1127–​ 1306, Neustadt, 2001, vol. 1, nr 324.

52 Jamroziak likely that the letter testifying to the miraculous events, written three years later by the noblemen present at the procession, was produced at the request of Ebrach Abbey.47 Several cases of the Eucharist accidentally falling during processions have been recorded in various cases, especially in urban contexts. The accidental dropping of the Eucharist to the ground was technically an act of desecration and was normally understood as a bad omen.48 What happened in Burgwindheim shows how the Cistercian community, and especially the abbot, were able to take control of the situation and turn it to their own advantage. The emphasis on the complete lack of natural forces (wind or human error) affecting the fall of the monstrance creates the core condition of the miraculous event. The speedy intervention of the Cistercian abbot, who was immediately informed about the event, provided an instantaneous control by religious authority and thus control of the meaning too. The expiatory prayers were intended to erase any sense of transgression and establish firm monastic control over the situation. Securing a written account of the miraculous version of the events was also an element of creating a solid structure for the development of the cult and to discourage any contesting versions. Burgwindheim is a case in which Cistercian interest in the cult of the Eucharist is present, but also shows the agency of the abbey in establishing an event as a miracle and the subsequent cult in a context that was not entirely straightforward. 4

Conclusions

Monastic culture, in its Benedictine forms, cannot be fully understood without seeing miracles –​in their different forms and functions –​as an integral part of the monastic world. It was part of the world-​view of the monastic communities 47

48

Bruno Neudorfer, Burgwindheim und seine Wallfahrt. Zum 500jährigen Jubiläum des eucharistichen Gnadenortes im Steigerwald 1465–​1965, Bamberg, 1965, pp. 12–​15; Bruno Neundorfer,“Zur Entstehung von Wallfahrten und Wallfahrtspatronzinien im mittelalterlichen Bistum Bamberg”, Bericht des Historischen Vereins für Bamberg 99 (1963), pp. 1–​133 (p. 52); Edgar Krausen, “Zisterziensertum und Wallfahrtskule im Bayerischen Raum”, Analecta Sacri Ordinis Cisterciensis 12 (1956), pp. 115–​29 (p. 123); Staatsarchiv Bamberg, Rep. A 95/​, nr 342. Karoly Goda, “Metamorphoses of Corpus Christi: eucharistic processions and clashes in fifteenth-​ and sixteenth-​century Vienna”, Theatrum Historiae 15 (2014), pp. 9–​50 (pp. 25–​ 28); Natalia Nowakowska, “Poland and the crusade in the reign of King Jan Olbracht, 1492–​1501”, in Norman Housley (ed.), Crusading in the Fifteenth Century: Message and Impact, New York, 2004, pp. 128–​47 (p. 134).

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and present in many of the texts and images with which the monks and nuns interacted daily. In both the circular time of liturgy and commemorations as well as the linear time of institutional history, miracles were an important validatory tool, a desirable and shared experience as well as a powerful force that needed to be interpreted and thus effectively controlled. The presence of miracles in the monastic precincts created potent spaces, a tool for acculturation for novice monks and nuns and an element of the institutional myths of origins, a marker of early abbots as well as an important link to the outside world. In their strong desire to experience miracles, especially healing miracles, lay people, especially as a large, uncontrollable crowd –​as monastic texts such as chronicles often describe them –​could endanger observance and had to be controlled by practical means of restricted access and supernatural means of requesting the saint in question to cease their miraculous activities. This points to an important dimension of miracles in the monastic context: as a complex force that both endowed monastic spaces with particular meanings and power, as well as a forceful link to the world beyond the walls of the precinct.

­c hapter 3

The Canonization of Saints in the Middle Ages Procedure, Documentation, Meanings Roberto Paciocco Translation by Lauren Jennings 1

High-​Medieval Customs

Up until the first half of the twelfth century, it is not possible to reconstruct an unambiguous and stable procedure for the canonization of saints. Liturgical aspects predominated, which means that for the entire chronological period now in question canonizatio and translatio can be considered synonymous. The term canonizare appears for the first time in Simon of Polirone’s Miracula, written before 1024, when the Apostolic See received a request to approve the translation of his relics. In a council in Arras (1025) during these same years, the term sanctificationes was used to refer to canonizations.1 The necessity of officially validating a sainthood was revealed decisively in the Carolingian period.2 Returning to the perceived standards of late antiquity, Charlemagne ordered the bishops to impede the veneration of false martyrs and saints “of uncertain memory” first in the Admonitio generalis of 789 and later in a letter to the archbishop of Salzburg.3 Moreover, the Council of Mainz (813) and the Capitulary of Thionville (805–​806) established that the translation of saints’ bodies required the approval of lay authorities, the bishops and the permission of a synod.4

1 E.W. Kemp, Canonization and Authority in the Western Church, Oxford, 1948, pp. 1, 58; J.D. Mansi, Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio, Florence, 1759–​1798, vol. 19, col. 452. For a more complete discussion, also in terms of the historiographical debate on the merit of the arguments dealt with here, see the contributions listed in the General Bibliography. The footnotes to this chapter provide (basic and simplified) references to sources. For papal documents, I offer mostly only mentions of reference tools. 2 Kemp, Canonization and Authority, pp. 36–​38. 3 Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Leges, vol. 2/​1, p. 56: “ut falsa nomina martyrum et incertae sanctorum memoriae non venerentur”; see also ibid., vol. 3, 2/​1, p. 214. 4 Ibid., p. 272; Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Capit., vol. 1, p. 125.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2021 | DOI:10.1163/9789004468498_005

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In this context, hagiographic writings fulfilled a primary role in the validation of sainthood, especially the Vitae, which enjoyed a true and innate authority, capable of authenticating saints and their relics. In 791, after the Second Council of Nicaea (787) had re-​established the cult of images in 787, which had previously been suppressed by the Emperor Leo iii the Isaurian, pope Adrian i wrote a long letter to the Carolingian sovereign, in which he asked him neither to give credence to nor confirm information contained within texts “which ignored the auctores”, and to “avoid having them read in church”, where it was proper to “read the Passiones of the martyrs registered in the sacred canons” instead.5 A regulation of the Council of Frankfurt (794), also used by canonists in the eleventh century, was rather explicit: only the martyrs and saints validated by the authority of the Passiones and the Vitae could be venerated, invoked and remembered.6 The Vita of the abbot Othmar (d. 759), written by Walafrid Strabo, offers a good example, among many, of the role hagiography played in the validation of sainthood. When the monks wanted to transfer the body of this abbot into the monastery of St Gall, they proceeded autonomously and carried the Vita of their saint to bishop Solomon of Constance so that it could be read in his presence. The prelate, although in favour of the translation, refused to proceed on his authority alone and called a diocesan synod at Constance, during which the case would have to be debated. During the council’s assembly, the prelate got up and commanded silence. After he read from the Vita, the synod unanimously confirmed the episcopal verdict.7 So far, we have encountered two elements that remained largely constant: an approved Vita and a discussion of the case at hand by a council, not necessarily called for that purpose. This was true also for the canonizations carried out by the Apostolic See, as the text of the document for the canonization of Ulrich of Augsburg (993) illustrates, unanimously held to be the first of its kind.8 Another constant element concerns the reporting of miracles, not always inserted in hagiographic stories. Among the sources that illustrate this 5 Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Epistolae, vol. 5, pp. 48–​49: “quorum auctores ignorantur”; “Vitas enim patrum sine probabilibus auctoribus minime in ecclesia leguntur”; “passiones sanctorum martyrum sacri canones censuentes, (…) liceat etiam eas legi”. 6 Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Leges, vol. 2/​1, p. 77: “Ut nulli novi sancti colantur aut invocentur (…) sed hii soli in ecclesia venerandi sint qui ex auctoritate passionum aut vitae merito electi sunt”. 7 Patrologia Latina, vol. 121, coll. 781–​82. 8 See P. Jaffé, Regesta Pontificum Romanorum, 2nd edition, Leipzig, 1885–​1888 (repr. Graz, 1956), nr. 3848. This document’s authenticity has long been debated, an issue that is not yet resolved.

56 Paciocco additional custom (also not exclusively papal), is a letter written before 1123 and addressed to Calixtus ii, accompanying the Vita of Conrad of Constance: the bishop Ulrich asked for information from Rome on how to have his predecessor canonized, and in response he was told that it was necessary to have a Vita read and approved in a general council and to have “suitable witnesses” of his miracles.9 This procedure is confirmed by the Historia canonizationis of Godehard of Hildesheim, written shortly after the recognition of his sainthood (1131). Even in this case, a hagiographic writing approved “by influential men” was requested, so Godehard’s successor, Bertold, went from Liège to Innocent ii and read it in his presence. However, the canonization was postponed until the council of Reims (1131), because it was “the custom of the Church of Rome to canonize the saints of God during a general council”. When the case was discussed, the pope had to personally guarantee Godehard’s sainthood, since the bishop of Tarragona noted a comprobatio from “legitimate sworn witnesses” was lacking.10 In this case, as in others, witnesses were not heard. Likewise, this could happen with synodal procedure, such as in 1139, when this same pope, Innocent ii, did not wait for any council to examine the request addressed to him for the canonization of Edward the Confessor, king of England (d. 1066), and he limited himself to consulting the bishops and cardinals before refusing it.11 Moreover, it was also possible for a canonization to occur without a Vita of the saint being available. An example comes, again, from the years of Innocent ii’s papacy. The sainthood of Hugh, bishop of Grenoble (d. 1132), was achieved despite the absence of a hagiography, and the pope communicated to the prior of the Grande Chartreuse, who started the canonization, that it would be necessary to write one, at least after the event, to remedy the lack.12 Thus, a Vita, a council, and testimonies of the saint’s miracles were the definite recurring elements in canonizations, but with some exceptions. Meanwhile, the fame of the Apostolic See and of papal judgment were destined to grow, and already by the beginning of the twelfth century, the bishop of Rome’s pronouncement was highlighted to the detriment of local

9

Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Scriptores, vol. 4, pp. 430–​1: “hoc (…) responsum accepi, vitam eius in concilio recitandam et comprobandam fore generali, et testes insuper ydoneos signorum (…) ibidem adhybendos”. 10 Ibid., vol. 12, pp. 641–​42: “per viros auctorabiles”; “cum consuetudo sit Romanae ecclesiae in generali concilio sanctos Dei canonizare”; “per legitimos testes ac iuramento”. 11 Jaffé, Regesta Pontificum Romanorum, nr. 8182. 12 Ibid., nr. 7742.

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translations, although these continued to serve as official recognition of a cult.13 It bears noting that after Emperor Henry ii’s canonization (1146), carried out by Eugene iii (1145–​1153), it was not the saint’s dies natalis that was celebrated in Bamberg, but rather 12 March, the day on which the pope declared the verdict of his sainthood. 2

Law and Centralization

For Henry ii’s sainthood, Eugene iii recognized the synod’s expertise but reserved the decision for himself.14 Both this pope and Alexander iii (1159–​ 1181) affirmed only in principle that canonizations needed to be dealt with in a council, for during their terms a new practice was inaugurated which became widespread. In fact, from this point on, the bishops of Rome implemented canonizations after listening to the opinions of the College of Cardinals, whose authority stood in for that of the council. Therefore, starting from Alexander iii’s papacy, the formula “with the unanimous opinion (consilium) of our brothers”, the cardinals, appears in canonization documents.15 While the central role of the Apostolic See continually grew, requests for canonizations increased at the papal curia. Ecclesiastical law, as it developed after the Decretum Gratiani (1140), was also profoundly transformed by the rediscovery of Roman jurisprudence, and canonization developed in a reciprocal relationship with legal procedures connected to other issues. One form they assumed allowed for the decision to be delegated to a prelate from the place requesting the canonization that is in accordance with his iurisdictio delegata, or by the authority and the mandate of the pope who, as holder of the highest judicial power, could transfer it to others. Canonizations termed “in forma commissoria” were linked with this delegated jurisdiction. In these canonizations, the delegation of the full powers of the law was very similar to contemporary mandates of delegation for the management of justice. The highest concentration of this type of canonization –​later definitively abandoned from the time of Celestine iii (1191–​98) –​corresponds to the first decades in which delegated papal jurisdiction was used. Meanwhile, different customs persisted for the approval of sainthood. In the last quarter of the twelfth century, during the papacy of Lucius iii 13 See, for example, Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Scriptores, vol. 15, p. 902. 14 Jaffé, Regesta Pontificum Romanorum, nr. 8882. 15 Ibid., nr. 10653 (for Edward the Confessor, 1161): “de communi (…) fratrum nostrorum consilio”.

58 Paciocco (1181–​1185), canonizations started to be transformed into legal processes. In 1185 in Montesiepi (in Tuscany), three papal delegates conducted an inquisitio into Galgano of Chiusdino’s sanctity, which stands as the first clear hint of the initial application of the Roman-​canonical procedure for canonization.16 In these same years, attention to the testes increased, as is shown, for example, by the canonization of Anno of Cologne (1183), although it was conducted in forma commissoria.17 During this period, the Roman See’s attitude towards sainthood also changed. Alexander iii highlighted the pope’s role in supervising the cult of saints in his letter Eterna et incommutabilis (1171) sent to King Kol of Sweden, the document from which the decretal Audivimus was drawn. This decretal was then inserted –​as we will see in the next section –​in the Gregorian collection of 1234 to establish the reservation of the right to canonization to the Apostolic See.18 Likewise in the letter Qui vice beati, he directed bishop Gualterius of Aversa to celebrate the cult of Thomas Becket, canonized in 1173.19 With Clement iii (1187–​1191), such statements became more incisive, clear and explicit in connection with the canonizations of Stephen of Muret (1189) and Malachy of Armagh (1190). The arenga Ideo sacrosanctam Romanam appears in papal documents relating to these canonizations –​the first formulary of the papal chancery in which the pope pronounced the jurisdiction and the teachings of the Apostolic See in connection with sainthood.20 Celestine iii’s papacy (1191–​1198) was important not only because within the span of only a few years there were six canonizations: Peter of Tarentaise (1191), Ubald of Gubbio (1192), Bernward of Hildesheim (1193), John Gualbert (1193), Rudesind of Dumio (1195) and Gerald of Sauve-​Majeure (1197). It was also significant because in their canonization documents the Church of Rome stated the theological-​salvific explanations that laid the foundations for the cult of saints based on biblical passages from the Old and New Testaments (Psalms 67:36, 150:1–​2, 87:36; Matthew 10:40, 25:40; John 12:26, 17:24).21 Moreover, a significant concept borrowed from the Book of Revelation appeared at this time –​ the intercession of saints (“golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of

16

See also A. Vauchez, La sainteté en Occident au derniers siècles du Moyen Age d’après les procès de canonisation et les documents hagiographiques, 2nd edition, Rome, 1988, pp. 41–​42. 17 Jaffé, Regesta Pontificum Romanorum, nr. 14890. 18 Ibid., nr. 13546. 19 Ibid., nr. 12219. 20 Ibid., nrr. 16395, 16514; see also nr. 16412. 21 Ibid., nrr. 17328, 17527.

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saints”, Rev. 5:8). Subsequently, this concept was re-​adopted by Gregory ix for the canonizations of Francis of Assisi and Virgil of Salzburg and was expanded upon by other popes in documents published by the Apostolic See to grant indulgences. The case of Bernward of Hildesheim demonstrates the procedure that was followed when the forma commissoria was abandoned, and after that a verbal process was followed for Galgano, a few years before the definitive affirmation of the Roman-​canonical process. When he arrived at the monastery of St Michael of Hildesheim, the cardinal and papal legate Cintius of San Lorenzo in Lucina organized a collection of evidence at the local level. The saint’s Vita was read to him and to bishop Bernon of Hildesheim and, under oath, some miracles were declared to be true, which the cardinal recorded in a document that was then authenticated both with his own seal and that of the bishop: all this because, according to the cardinal, it was impossible for the Church of Rome to grant its approval in these kinds of “affairs” before the veritas was instructa.22 In fact, at least according to the report that has come down to us, no witness interrogations took place, while great significance was placed on the Vita. Thus, the monastery’s abbot brought Bernward’s veritas to Rome as “pre-​packaged” at Hildesheim: the hagiographic texts still performed a primary role.23 The responsibilities regarding canonizations were defined with greater clarity. As we have just seen with Bernward’s sainthood, the role of Cintius, the papal legate, was merely preliminary. In fact, unlike in the past, legates were no longer able to make a judgement about canonization, not even in the name of the pope. The example of St Rudesind is particularly instructive. During his third legation in Spain, cardinal Hyacinth Bobo canonized this saint on papal authority (1173) after listening to a relatio veridica from several witnesses and a recitatio of the saint’s Vita. When he became pope under the name Celestine iii, however, he published a document confirming on apostolic authority what he had granted as legate in order to validate it, turning to the practice of incorporating the legate’s documents into papal documents, which was customary until the papacy of Alexander iii.24 In the context of a total lack of homogeneity in canonization procedures, there were also other signs (in addition to the inquisitio of Montesiepi mentioned above) that announced with clarity the forthcoming application of a processual framework to canonizations. During the papacy of Celestine iii, 22 Acta Sanctorum, Oct. vol. 11, p. 1025. 23 Ibid., p. 1027. 24 Jaffé, Regesta Pontificum Romanorum, nr. 17287 (with incorrect date).

60 Paciocco at the opening of the process for the sainthood of the empress Cunigunde, for the first time the papal chancery published a littera in the diplomatistic form of the commissiones. The letter was designed to appoint officially a local commission of inquiry, following the Roman-​canonical model used for other processes of different types.25 In the Vita of St Wulfstan of Worcester (d. 1095), William of Malmesbury affirmed that in the past this saint would have already been canonized and noted that the difficulty of obtaining a canonization had increased due to the “incredulity that modern times celebrate in the name of caution”.26 He was partially right, seeing as the traditional criteria for the sacral validation of sainthood were already beginning to be considered insufficient when he wrote Wulfstan’s Vita (who was then canonized by Innocent iii). We are mistaken, however, to think that all of this was the result only of new trends in terms of logic and rationality or, if one prefers, a new legal climate. The growth in the jurisdiction and authority of the Church of Rome was implicated in these transformations, which reached their height in the first half of the thirteenth century. If during the fifty years examined in this section, various methods were experimented with and the responsibilities regarding sainthood were refined, total clarity in this regard began to manifest itself only when, during the papacy of Innocent iii, canonizations were de facto equated with the causae maiores, reserved to the Apostolic See. 3

Roman-​canonical Procedure

Only once medieval society and the papacy had taken on a more juridical nature, and once the centrality of the Apostolic See had been accepted, did the judgement of the bishop of Rome become dominant in the matter of sainthood. The application of the Roman-​canonical procedure to canonizations marks a decisive step in this regard.27 This new ordo iudicii, developed by different types of power and with the contribution of legal experts connected to various cultural centers, was used for numerous and diverse matters by both ecclesiastical and lay institutions.28 An evidence of the increased flexibility of 25

R. Paciocco, Canonizzazioni e culto dei santi nella “Christianitas” (1198–​1302) (Medioevo francescano. Saggi, 11), Assisi, 2006 (repr. Spoleto, 2019), p. 23. 26 William of Malmesbury, The Vita Wulfstani, ed. R.R. Darlington (Camden Society, s. 3., 40), London, 1928, p. 67: “Sed nostrorum incredulitas, quae se cautelae umbraculo exornat”. 27 T. Wetzstein, Heilige vor Gericht. Das Kanonisationsverfahren im europäischen Spätmittelalter, Cologne, 2004. 28 M. Vallerani, “Procedura e giustizia nelle città italiane del basso medioevo (XII-​XIV secolo)”, in J. Chiffoleau, C. Gauvard and A. Zorzi (eds.), Pratiques sociales et politiques

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this processual model in the ecclesiastic world was precisely its application to the canonization of saints, essentially a liturgical matter. Apart from the tentative signs of its initial use, discussed in the preceding section, the papal curia began to avail itself exclusively of the Roman-​canonical process for canonizations with Innocent iii. The first commissio to come down to us with a complete text (we have only mentions of prior ones, as in the already mentioned case of Cunigunde) dates to the third year of his papacy.29 It was this pope who devised a system of inquiry in which veritas was such an essential concept that it became wedded to the term inquisitio, so that processual inquiry assumed the significance of a search for truth, an inquisitio veritatis.30 It is therefore no coincidence that, from Innocent iii on, this expression also appears frequently in papal documentation regarding canonizations. The “political” weight of the new Roman-​canonical procedure is more evident from a historiographical point of view, in terms of the territorial powers that employed the procedure, for example the Italian communes. However, this is the result of scholarly approaches that perhaps tend usually to differentiate too much between the aims of lay institutions and those of ecclesiastical ones. We must not forget that this new processual model became established in the context of a crisis of old Germanic forms of justice, opposed not only in the central-​northern territories on the Italian peninsula, but also at the top of the ecclesiastical hierarchy by the papacy itself. From this point of view, the judgement on canonization, once incorporated into Roman-​canonical procedure, transformed into a “fact of power”. Embedding canonizations into the new procedures corresponded to a need to incorporate decisions about sanctity into the “public” law of the Roman Church and implied the superiority of the Apostolic See, which had long worked to assert its primacy. Innocent iii manifested the intent to take advantage of the new processual iter in canonizations when recognizing the sanctity of Gilbert, the founder of the Canons Regular of Sempringham. With his Licet apostolica sedes (1201), the pope refused to pronounce on Gilbert’s holiness on the basis of the material instructed by the archbishop of Canterbury and sent by him to Rome along with hagiographic writings, because he believed this material to contain only background information. He asked that the local process be repeated –​injunctions of this type were common in the thirteenth century –​and demanded

29 30

judiciaires dans les villes de l’Occident à la fin du Moyen Âge, Rome, 2013, pp. 439–​94 (pp. 4–​5). A. Potthast, Regesta Pontificum Romanorum, Berolini, 1874–​1875 (repr. Graz, 1957), nr. 1047. M. Vallerani, “Modelli di verità. Le prove nei processi inquisitori”, in C. Gauvard (ed.), L’enquête au moyen âge, Rome, 2008, pp. 123–​42 (pp. 123–​24).

62 Paciocco that this time the depositions of the testes be faithfully reported in writing and then included in envelopes bearing the seals of the papal delegates.31 A few years later, during the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), he released the constitution Quoniam contra falsam, later included in the Liber Extra (x 2.19.11), which required judges to record the various procedural stages as well as the verbal process in writing by means of a “public person, if possible” (that is, a notary or any other such person), or “two suitable men”.32 This procedural method also carried with it a change in the significance of Vitae: starting from this moment, the space allotted to hagiographic mediation and literary texts was drastically reduced. This type of material continued to be sent to the papal curia, but it would be suitable only to substantiate a petitio (a request for canonization). If the request was accepted, from this point on the material presented to the Apostolic See and submitted to curial examination consisted of witnesses’ depositions faithfully recorded in writing at the local level by commissions of inquiry, and it was on this material that papal pronouncements on sainthood would be based. The hagiography of canonized saints adapted to the changes introduced and reserved ample space for the meticulous reporting of the modus canonizationis. For example, in the Liber sancti Gileberti, following the saint’s Vita there is a long section dedicated to his canonization, which offers a detailed account of the process.33 The hagiographers, who sometimes also reworked the writings presented for the petitio, often used sources from the processual sphere, above all the records of the inquiry into the saint’s miracles. This is particularly evident in the hagiographic tradition of Elizabeth of Hungary, especially in the two editions of the Libellus de dictis quatuor ancillarum that originated from the testimonies made by the saint’s handmaidens in the course of the process.34 The years straddling the twelfth and thirteenth centuries are pivotal for other aspects as well. In fact, they mark the beginning of a period in which the Apostolic See held in high consideration saints whom we can define as “new”, 31 32 33 34

The Book of St Gilbert, eds. R. Foreville and G. Keir, Oxford, 1987, pp. 234–​36. A. Friedberg, Corpus iuris canonici, vol. 2: Decretalium collectiones, 2nd edition, Leipzig, 1881 (repr. Graz, 1959), coll. 313–​14; “aut publicam, si potest habere, personam, aut duos viros idoneos” (ibid., col. 313). The Book of St Gilbert, pp. 168–​78. For other cases, see Paciocco, Canonizzazioni e culto dei santi, passim, as well as M. Goodich, “The Use of Direct Quotation from Canonization Hearing to Hagiographical Vita et Miracula”, in G. Jaritz and M. Richter (eds.), Oral History of the Middle Ages. The Spoken Word in Context (Medium Aevum Quotidianum. Sonderband, 12 –​ceu Medievalia, 3), Krems, 2001, pp. 177–​87.

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that is, recently deceased. It is also possible to find a similar tendency in some earlier authors (even as far back as late antiquity), for example in Jerome, or later, Gregory of Tours or Gregory the Great. Now, however, these new saints took on greater importance due to the Apostolic See’s enhanced role in the recognition of sainthood. It is indicative that the first canonization carried out by Innocent iii was that of the Cremonese merchant Omobono, a saint clearly connected to the lay pattern of the ideal of evangelical poverty, which was supported by the Church of Rome in this period as a counter to heresy and to reconnect with the faithful.35 This new climate inspired greater consideration of a saint’s moral virtues; from the pontificate of Innocent iii, this involved (a largely theoretical) delimitation of the value of miracles which had been of the highest consideration during the high Middle Ages. This can be seen in the documents for the canonizations of Omobono (1199), the empress Cunigunde (1200), Gilbert of Sempringham (1202) and Wulfstan of Worcester (1203).36 In these documents, two types of sainthood are mentioned. The first (individual) resulted from exercising one’s faith constantly up until death, which guaranteed entrance into the “Celestial City”. The second type of sainthood, which did not coincide with the first, was an ecclesiastical one and called for a proclamation on the part of the “Militant Church”. To be saints within the community of the faithful led by the Vicar of Christ (the pope), both moral virtues and miracles were indispensable, and their truthfulness had to be mutually established not to be a deceit of Satan (2 Cor 11:14) –​the first took precedence and was a condition for the second (see Mark 16:20).37 The importance attributed to this idea is attested not only by its presence in documents published for canonizations in the first half of the thirteenth century and beyond, but also by its appearance in contemporary writings on canon law. In fact, the decretalist Ambrosius accepted it in his Summa super titulis decretalium (1210–​1215), borrowing it from Bernard of Compostela’s Collectio Romana (1208), which he collected from the letter for Cunigunde’s canonization.38 It also appears in Innocent iv’s important commentary on the decretal Audivimus –​which I will discuss in the next section –​as well as in

35 Vauchez, La sainteté en Occident, pp. 121–​29. 36 Potthast, Regesta pontificum Romanorum, nrr. 573, 1000, 1612, 1900. 37 See the following note. 38 See J. Petersohn, “Die Litterae Papst Innocenz III. zur Heiligsprechung der Kaiserin Kunigunde (1200)”, Jahrbuch für fränkische Landesforschung 37 (1977), pp. 1–​25 (21–​2).

64 Paciocco subsequent years, but it later declined and was rarely applied in canonizations during the fifteenth century.39 The significance of miracles in canonizations, however, did not diminish. On the one hand, when it was necessary to order that the local processes be repeated, Honorius iii and Gregory ix focused their attention primarily on depositions regarding miracles. On the other hand, it should be noted that starting from Honorius iii’s papacy, all the commissiones for the opening of local investigations, terminological differences aside, called for an investigation of the saint’s life, conversatio, merits and always miracles.40 The creation of the Testes legitimi (or legitimos) –​an important form for interrogating witnesses published for the first time by Gregory ix during the process for the canonization of Elizabeth of Hungary (1232), which has been used for many other processes –​also bears witness to the lasting significance of miracles. In fact, commissions of local inquiry used these so-​called interrogatoria above all to describe circumstances relating to depositions of miracles in detail.41 In 1234, Gregory ix published a decretals collection that was, and still is, held to be one of the pillars of medieval ecclesiastical law, the Liber Extra. The decretal Audivimus (x 3.45.1), through which the papacy assumed exclusive authority over canonizations, also found a place in this collection. Under the “titulus” De reliquiis et veneratione sanctorum of the collection’s third “Liber”, in which the decretal Audivimus appears, there was also the decretal Cum ex eo, which derived from one of the constitutions of the Fourth Lateran Council. It established that saints’ relics could only be shown to the faithful for free and within the capsa that contained them and, furthermore, that “recently rediscovered” relics could only be publicly displayed with permission from the pope (x 3.45.2).42 It should be noted that a decision extrapolated from a letter by Honorius iii, which was originally published for the canonization of Maurice of Carnoët, also appears in the Liber Extra: the decretal Venerabili (x 2.20.52), which required that each testimony be heard separately (sigillatim) from the others.43 This decision was used for all types of processes, a fact which

39

See T. Wetzstein, “Virtus morum et virtus signorum? Zur Bedeutung der Mirakel in den Kanonisationsprozessen des 15. Jahrhunderts”, in M. Heinzelmann, K. Herbers and D.R. Bauer (eds.), Mirakel im Mittelalter. Konzeptionen, Erscheinungsformen, Deutungen (Beiträge zur Hagiographie, 3), Stuttgart, 2002, pp. 351–​76. 40 On the records, see Paciocco, Canonizzazioni e culto dei santi, pp. 195–​96. 41 L. Auvray, Les registres de Gregoire IX, Paris 1896–​1955, vol. 1, nr. 913. 42 Friedberg, Corpus iuris canonici, vol. 2, col. 650. 43 Ibid., col. 339–​40.

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indicates how the canonization of saints participated in the more general revision of processual procedures. 4

Promotion of Cults

Around 1234, the year of publication of the Liber Extra, in which the right to canonization confined to the pope was established, there were important canonizations. In 1228, Gregory ix recognized the sainthood of Francis of Assisi, the founder of the Friars Minor, and in 1232 he canonized another Minorite, Antony of Padua. In 1234, he canonized the founder of the Dominican Order, Dominic of Caleruega. We shall return shortly to these canonizations. It is first necessary to note, however, that the “universal” significance of papal canonizations during the Middle Ages cannot be generalized. It begins to appear in connection with saints of the Franciscan and Dominican Orders and is evident observing the cultic dynamics triggered by papal documentation; dynamics that developed further because they were supported by these two religious Orders, centralized and widely diffused at the European level. To understand these dynamics, it is necessary to start by noting that until the first half of the twelfth century, popes were able to announce canonizations viva voce.44 Later, however, written publication became indispensable due to the progressive juridification of the papacy, the increase in the Church of Rome’s centralizing characteristics and the enhanced role of writing in medieval society. Until the fifteenth century, canonization was continually communicated via the form of the litterae. The diplomatistic characteristics of these litterae are not consistent, aside from the use of certain specific textual formulas. We can observe, for example, an alternation in the use of seals with a silk string and seals with a hemp string, which implies a shift in the classification of these documents as, respectively, litterae de gratia and litterae de iustitia.45 When the letter was sealed with a hemp string, the judicial aspect of canonization was prevalent –​an act that we know was reserved for the Church of Rome’s jurisdiction –​such that the pope’s command to honor the cult of the new saint clearly stood out to the document’s addressees.

44

For example, see F. Ughelli, Italia Sacra, 2nd edition, Venice, 1717–​1722, vol. 7, col. 901; Jaffé, Regesta pontificum Romanorum, nr. 5677. 45 O. Krafft, Papsturkunde und Heiligsprechung. Die päpstlichen Kanonisationen vom Mittelalter bis zur Reformation. Ein Handbuch, Cologne, 2005, pp. 210, 507, 548–​49, 789, 1003.

66 Paciocco This is particularly clear in the case of Francis of Assisi. After a unique process, both because of the lack of a petitio and because the pope himself guaranteed Francis’s sanctity, his canonization was announced via Sicut fiale auree, a document sealed in lead with a hemp string. It was used both by the Apostolic See and the Friars Minor to impose the cult of Francis on local churches. The number of originals preserved –​sent with encyclical addresses but with regional delimitations and “universally” with headings to all prelates –​is quite high.46 Around twenty now remain, a number that is very high compared to those for other canonizations. Gerard of Sauve-​Majeure’s canonization document was used as a model for the text, but with some variations: the prelates to whom the document was sent were required to celebrate the cult of Francis on 4 October and to pronounce this to their subjects.47 In essence, local churches and some religious orders were required to add Francis’s name to their calendars.48 For Antony of Padua and Dominic of Caleruega the wide diffusion of the canonization document, as for Francis, is also present, with some differences. The cult of Antony was initially characterized by a marked civic dimension, in that his swift canonization even served to strengthen Padua’s political fidelity to the Church of Rome against the Ezzelini family.49 The document Fons sapientiae for Dominic was also sent via litterae with encyclical addresses and, again, a good number of exemplars were sent to important clergy in European urban centres.50 Even in the cases of Antony and Dominic, the pope wanted the two saints to be inserted into the liturgical calendars of local churches.51 The sending of these documents, including that for Francis, continued well beyond the date of the canonization’s ceremony.

46 Krafft, Papsturkunde und Heiligsprechung, pp. 335–​36. 47 Vatican City, Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Reg. Vat. 14, f. 75v. 48 A copy of the Sicut fiale auree addressed to the Master General and to the chapter of the Dominicans was inserted in a Franciscan manuscript containing also papal privileges (Perugia, Biblioteca Augusta, codex 1046, f. 21v). On the Cistercians, see Paciocco, Canonizzazioni e culto dei santi, pp. 271–​72. 49 A letter in which Antony’s canonization was presented to the pope as repayment for Paduan fidelity was also published (Potthast, Regesta pontificum Romanorum, nr. 8937). 50 Krafft, Papsturkunde und Heiligsprechung, pp. 369–​77. 51 Other details can be found in R. Paciocco, “Le canonizzazioni papali nei secoli XII e XIII. Evidenze a proposito di ‘centro’ romano, vita religiosa e ‘periferie’ ecclesiastiche”, in Die Ordnung der Kommunikation und die Kommunikation der Ordnung im Mittelalterlichen Europa, vol. 2: C. Andenna, G. Blennemann, K. Herbers and G. Melville (eds.), Zentralität: Papsttum und Orden im Europa des 12. und 13. Jahrhunderts, Stuttgart, 2013, pp. 277–​99.

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An important new development lies in the synergy of the papal injunctions, the massive number of the documents sent and the friars’ actions to impose the respect of papal decisions.52 The friars used the coercive capacity of the canonization documents and those published by the papacy to the advantage of saints of the Mendicant Orders in general, even in their controversy with secular clergy, as the insertion of such documents in their manuscript collections of papal privileges demonstrates.53 The resulting impact was noteworthy both in terms of affirming papal authority and in terms of strengthening the nascent Mendicant Orders and their cura animarum. The latter was encouraged via the use of indulgences, the concession of which was linked to canonizations for the first time during the papacy of Honorius iii, ushering in a practice that would become a constant in the years to come. In fact, simultaneously with the canonizations of saints from the Mendicant Orders –​and Elizabeth of Hungary (1235), a notable case for various reasons54 –​the papacy began to grant huge penitential remissions in the same canonization documents (for Francis on the occasion of the translation of the saint’s body in 1230). It is noteworthy that the amount of these remissions surpassed the norms dictated by Innocent iii during the Fourth Lateran Council (1215).55 These indulgences, which could be obtained from the faithful at the tombs of canonized saints, contributed to the birth of new “sanctuaries” which stood alongside traditional places of pilgrimage in the thirteenth century. Hereafter, the indulgences were managed by the Mendicant Orders themselves. The activity of the Friars Minor stands out in particular, for they became involved in an intense activity of falsification of their rights to grant remissions, which already by the thirteenth century had started the process of inflation of practices related to indulgences, criticized by Martin Luther at the beginning of the Modern Era.56 Regarding the promotion of the cult of saints of the Mendicant Orders, popes Innocent iv (1243–​1254) and Alexander iv (1254–​1261) continued the practices of Gregory ix. For the sainthood of the inquisitor Peter of Verona, the 52

For the opposition that manifested itself at the local level against the cult of the canonized saints, see ibid., pp. 288–​91. 53 R. Paciocco, Frati minori e privilegi papali tra Due e Trecento (Centro Studi Antoniani. Fonti e studi francescani, 16), Padua, 2013, passim. 54 The initial anti-​heretical significance of the cult of Elizabeth bears emphasizing, as does the subsequent role her sainthood assumed in the context of the transfer of the Teutonic Order to Terrasanta in Germany. 55 Friedberg, Corpus iuris canonici, vol. 2, coll. 888–​89 (x 5.38.14). 56 Paciocco, Canonizzazioni e culto dei santi, passim; É. Doublier, Papsttum, Ablass und Bettelorden im 13. Jahrhundert (Papsttum im mittelalterlichen Europa, 6), Cologne, 2017.

68 Paciocco dispatches of Innocent iv’s letter of canonization, Magnis et crebris (1253),57 did not continue because the Dominicans were able autonomously to disseminate the cult of their saints, while also soliciting the same pope to intervene against those who did not respect papal injunctions. At the height of this period, the Franciscans were also active, committing themselves to promoting the sainthood of their founder in 1255 with the help of the papacy, in conjunction with a global re-​launching of the cult of all the Mendicant saints while the struggle between the friars and the lay clergy raged.58 5

Some Documentary Practices

The norms connected to documenting the local phase of the process became more rigorous and recourse to notaries became ever more necessary, at least in the areas in which their activity had already been established. At the beginning of his papacy, Innocent iv wanted the oral testimony for the process on Lawrence of Subiaco to be transcribed “by the hand of a notary” (1243). Subsequently, for Clare of Assisi, he ordered that the acts be delivered to the Apostolic See after being written “by public hand” (1253).59 In this context, the case of the Franciscan saint Ambrose of Massa is particularly suggestive. In Grata nobis admodum (1250), with which Innocent iv ordered that the process held at Orvieto be re-​done, the pope sustained that a “defect of solemnity” was found in the documentation already sent to the curia, which invalidated the “integrity of the truth”. The notary Rayner, entrusted with compiling the processual acts, was not a publica persona in full title, but rather only a “local” notary, not recognized by the universal authority of the pope or the emperor. The documentation he produced was thus not valid outside the territory of Orvieto: this was the reason behind the pope’s words.60 57 Potthast, Regesta pontificum Romanorum, nr. 14926; Krafft, Papsturkunde und Heiligsprechung, pp. 474–​89. 58 Paciocco, Canonizzazioni e culto dei santi, pp. 265–​76. 59 W. Gnandt, Vita s. Cleridonae virginis, b. Laurentii anachoretae … necnon et servi Dei Hippolyti Pugnetti monachi, Innsbruck, 1902, p. 67 (“scripta rescribi denuo per manum notarii facientes”); Potthast, Regesta pontifica Romanorum, nr. 15158 (“publica manu conscripta”). 60 Ibid., nrr. 14124 e 14125. Vatican City, Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Reg. Vat. 22, f. 29r: “ob sollempnitatis in quibusdam omisse defectum, illam auctoritatem plenarie non preferunt publice notionis”; see R. Paciocco, Il “negotium imperfectum” per Ambrogio da Massa (1240–​1257). Con l’edizione del rotolo processuale per la canonizzazione (Medioevo francescano. Saggi, 20), Spoleto, 2019, pp. 59–​61 (with further bibliography). It should be noted that the canonization of Margaret, the queen of Scotland, is attributed to Innocent iv,

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Processes of canonization grew more onerous from the financial point of view.61 The increase in necessary documentation at both the local and curial levels contributed to the growth in processual expenses. The process for Philip of Bourges’ canonization is a good example. It took place during the papacies of Urban iv (1261–​1264) and Clement iv (1265–​1268). It was not finalized during the thirteenth century, but was re-​opened in the fourteenth century, again without any result. According to chancery conventions established by John xxii with the apostolic constitution Ratio iuris (1321), it was necessary to write a register that included inventories of the thirteenth-​century documentation.62 The register informs us that the documentation was guarded in two trunks, one conserved in Italy in the church of the Dominicans in Orvieto and the other in France, in Bourges. The Italian trunk even held curial materials, unlike the French one that contained only local documents. This documentation, in its entirety, offers an overview of the writings necessary for these types of processes. It also allows us to gather points of contact between canonizations and the procedural framework of regular judiciary practices, well described around the 1280s in William Durand’s Speculum iudiciale.63 We have already seen the commissiones and the litterae for canonizations. Aside from non-​official processual documentation,64 the writings produced at the curial level remain to be discussed. It will be helpful to address rubrication, above all, as it was this that offered the cardinals and the pope material necessary for a decision. Rubrication served to make the investigation’s material searchable, identifying the contents by themes that facilitated evaluation and judgement. Rubrication was probably carried out as described in Egidius de Fuscarariis’s Ordo iudiciarius, written before 1266.65 From the depositions were excerpted the articuli, also called capitula, which were considered proven when several statements agreed. The texts were marked in the margins via different signs, including alphabetical ones; the letter “A”, for example, could mean that the although he did not carry it out; see Paciocco, Canonizzazioni e culto dei santi, pp. 295–​ 309, where other “falsified” canonizations are also discussed. 61 Vauchez, La sainteté en Occident, pp. 71–​78. 62 Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. lat. 4019. 63 William Durand, Speculum iudiciale, Basel, 1574 (repr. Aalen, 1975). 64 Among the non-​official processual documentation, we should above all remember the letters aimed at winning the cardinals’ benevolence and the missives of the latter to communicate to petitioners that a canonization has been carried out; a few cases are cited in Paciocco, Canonizzazioni e culto dei santi, pp. 99 note 2, 303. 65 Aegidius de Fuscarariis, Der Ordo iudiciarius, ed. L. Wahrmund, Innsbruck, 1916 (repr. Aalen 1962), pp. 112–​13.

70 Paciocco “article” or “chapter” was “proven”. One then continued by using the rubrication, which consisted of a short description of the articles believed to be “proven” on other parchment cedulae, with the addition of references to the points where, in the texts of the depositions, signs were placed in connection to the article in question.66 Apart from a few references in the sources, there is not much surviving thirteenth-​century material connected to the curial analysis of the depositions. One text conserved for Stanislaus of Szczepanów’s canonization, probably connected to James of Velletri’s activity as a legate, bears remembering. James brought a copy of the depositions with him to Poland, which were already rubricated in the papal curia, to rectify defects locally and to allow the canonization of the Polish saint to go ahead.67 Moreover, for the incomplete canonization of the Franciscan Simon of Collazzone, a parchment roll was created, consisting of three cedulae sewn together; this roll contains 49 capitula on the friar’s vita and conversatio, probably inspected by a cardinal who labelled some of the capitula, believed by the first examiner (perhaps his chaplain) to be proven, with a “non probatur”.68 The records of the consistorial discussion of the problematic canonization proceedings for the hermit Peter of Morrone (Celestine v) offers one later example of how discussion about the miracles of a saint to be canonized unfolded in the curia.69 In 1297 King Louis ix of France was canonized by Boniface viii, who offered the King’s canonization in exchange for reconciliation between the Apostolic See and the kingdom of France after the publication of Clericis laicos (1296).70 When the pope gave the sermon Reddite quae sunt Caesari at the canonization, he stated that the documentation produced for this process –​which lasted for a quarter century, from the papacy of Gregory x to that of Boniface viii –​was so enormous that not even a donkey’s back could bear its weight.71 Another type of curial document also remains for this negotium: a cardinal’s consilium, written by Peter Colonna in connection with a miracle attributed to Louis ix. It is an examination of the testimonies organized in Scholastic 66 67 68 69 70 71

This activity would later be called recollectio in the fourteenth century; see Vauchez, La sainteté en Occident, pp. 562–​63. Monumenta Poloniae Historica, Lwów, 1884, vol. 4, pp. 292–​318 (Miracula VII-​XLVI). The canonization was then celebrated by Innocent iv in Assisi (1253). E. Menestò, Simone da Collazzone francescano e il processo per la sua canonizzazione (1252), Spoleto, 2007, pp. 64–​74. A. Bartolomei Romagnoli and A. Marini (eds.), Il processo di canonizzazione di Celestino V, i (Corpus coelestinianum, i/​i ), Florence, 2015, pp. 263–​78. G. Digard, Les registres de Boniface VIII (1294–​1303), Paris, 1907–​1939, nr. 2309. Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France, Paris, 1738–​1876, vol. 23, pp. 151–​52.

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manner, with biblical citations and arguments of a legal nature, including references to Gratian’s Decretum, the Liber Extra, the Codex Justinianus and the Digest.72 Consilia reflect the practice indicated in the formula “de fratrum nostrorum consilio”73 that recurs in canonization letters and refer to the opinions that the pope requested from the cardinals, which were not always recorded in writing. To this formula was added the phrase “and of all the prelates now present in the Apostolic See”, and which was already used by Eugene iii (1146) for the Emperor Henry II:74 after the secret consistory, in which the decision had already been taken by the pope and the cardinals, other eminent ecclesiastics could publicly express their opinion on the canonization. Consilia of this sort are preserved for the canonization of Clare of Assisi (1255), in addition to that of Louis ix (1297).75 6

Between Rome and Avignon

Boniface viii’s decretal Gloriosus Deus (vi 3.22.un.) was inserted in the titulus De reliquiis et veneratione sanctorum of the Liber Sextus (1298), an update to the Liber Extra requested by Boniface viii (1298) and part of the Corpus Iuris Canonici. Starting with Johannes Andreae, medieval jurists subsequently commented on this document in connection with canonizations. It ordered that the anniversaries of the apostles, the four evangelists, the doctors of the Church (especially pope Gregory i, Augustine, Ambrose and Jerome) be celebrated “sub officio duplici”: feasts celebrated with “double rites” were more solemn. This injunction, which should be interpreted in the same way as Boniface viii’s other initiatives (such as the Jubilee of 1300) as a return to tradition, was motivated by the pope’s intent to conform to the decisions made by his predecessors in relation to the feast days for “certain saints”.76 What significance can be attributed to this rule? The fervor of the cultic initiatives linked to canonized saints, above all those belonging to the Mendicant Orders, profoundly marked devotion and the liturgy, unbalancing the hierarchy 72

L. Carolus-​Barré, “Consultation du cardinal Pietro Colonna sur le miracle de saint Louis”, Bibliothèque de l’École des Chartes 117 (1959), pp. 57–​72. 73 See above, p. 57. 74 See above, p. 57. 75 P. Linehan and F.J. Hernández, “Animadverto: A Recently Discovered consilium concerning the Sanctity of King Louis IX”, Revue Mabillon n.s. 5 (1994), pp. 83–​105; Z. Lazzeri, “Consilium Friderici vicecomitis archiepiscopi Pisani ut ad canonizationem sanctae Clarae deveniatur”, Archivum franciscanum historicum 11 (1918), pp. 276–​79 (p. 277). 76 Friedberg, Corpus iuris canonici, vol. 2, coll. 1059–​60.

72 Paciocco between new and traditional saints. For example, in the Clare of Assisi’s canonization document (1255), Alexander iv indicated that the cult of the saint should be celebrated “sollemniter” and, according to the customs of the time, the general chapter of the Friars Minor in Narbonne (1260) understood this to mean a double rite feast.77 The majority of the cults promoted by Boniface viii’s decretal Venerabili were in fact surpassed in solemnity by the cult of the new saints, above all those for whose canonizations the pope’s intentions were in line with the interests of the religious orders, as we have already seen. Due to this papal injunction, the two main Mendicant Orders, the Franciscans and the Dominicans, were forced to raise the cultic solemnity of their liturgical celebrations for a good number of the apostles, some evangelists and, aside from Augustine for the Dominicans, all of the doctors of the Church. When the papal curia moved to Avignon, it became more necessary to record ceremonial texts in writing. Ordines specifically dedicated to canonizations were written on the occasion of some processes. The first two pertain to the antecedents of the negotium for Peter of Morrone, and to the methods via which his canonization was realized in 1313.78 Two other ceremonials, connected to the Friar Minor and bishop of Toulouse Louis of Anjou, canonized in 1317, offer an account of the final part of the curial process and of the public ceremony.79 Another records the curial process for the canonization of Thomas Cantilupe, the bishop of Hereford (1323).80 The most famous ceremonial of this period is the c­ hapter 115 of the so-​called Ordo xiv –​composed using sources of the thirteenth century, specifically the ordo canonizationis of Henry of Segusio (d. 1271) –​because it was revised and completed with more detail during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.81 When these ceremonials were first recorded, the Apostolic See’s approval of a saint was an established activity. Nearly a century had passed since the

77 Potthast, Regesta pontificum Romanorum, nr. 16069; S.J.P. Van Dijk, Sources of the Modern Roman Liturgy. The Ordinals by Haymo of Faversham and Related Documents (1243–​1307) (Studia et documenta franciscana, 1–​2), Leiden, 1963, vol. 2, p. 419. 78 B. Schimmelpfennig, Die Zeremonienbücher der Römischen Kurie im Mittelalter (Bibliothek des Deutschen Historischen Instituts in Rom, 40), Tübingen, 1973, pp. 167–​70, 170–​73. 79 Ibid., pp. 166–​67. 80 Ibid., pp. 164–​66. 81 M. Dykmans, Le cérémonial papal de la fin du moyen âge à la Renaissance (Bibliothèque de l’Institut historique belge de Rome, 24–​27), Brussels 1977–​1985, vol. 2, pp. 460–​66. B. Schimmelpfennig, “Die Berücksichtigung von Kanonisationen in den kurialen Zeremonienbüchern des 14. und 15. Jahrhunderts”, in G. Klaniczay (ed.), Procès de canonisation au Moyen Âge: aspects juridiques et religieux (Collection de l’École française de Rome, 340), Rome, 2004, pp. 245–​57.

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inclusion of the decretal Audivimus in the Liber Extra and the papal reservation of canonizations was without doubt widely accepted. However, even in the case of recent saints, a cult could be established independently of canonization or papal permission. Let us examine one particularly instructive case. In 1320, the bishop of Cefalù, James of Narni, carried out the translation of a Franciscan, Gandolphus of Binasco. The author of the Inventio et translatio was careful to use terms that prevented a comparison with the papal processes of canonization, as if to indicate that this translation was an extra ius procedure.82 The outcome was the translation of the saint’s body, after the recitation of the Te Deum, and the establishment of the celebration of the anniversaries of his dies natalis and his translation. In addition to episcopal institutions, religious orders also often managed the cult of their saints. The Friars Minor, for example, were particularly active in this way.83 For the Roman See’s tendency to “monopolize” the approval of the cult of saints, we must look to the reforms of Urban viii (1623–​1644), following the founding of the Sacred Congregation of Rites (1588). On the other hand, it is helpful to remember that sometimes the Apostolic See even expressed its opinion against some saints. Urban v, for example, intervened against the cults of Giacomo and Franceschino of Ravenna, as well as that of Charles of Blois, and Sixtus iv expressed his opinion against the cult of Simon of Trent.84 7

Late Medieval Outcomes

During the Western Schism (1377–​1417), activity related to canonizations was fairly significant for both sides and, in principle, it aimed to consolidate the two factions. In his Consilium pacis (1381–​1382), Henry of Langenstein expressed doubts about the appropriateness of recognizing other saints, noting that as there were already too many further canonizations this would be out of place.85 We can glimpse through this position an awareness of the problem of the excessive inflation of the cult of saints, which later exploded during the Protestant Reformation together with the issue of indulgences. During

82 See Acta Sanctorum, Sept. vol. 5, pp. 709–​10 (p. 709). 83 R. Paciocco, “Ordini mendicanti e culto dei santi”, in G. Vitolo (ed.), Pellegrinaggi e itinerari dei santi nel Mezzogiorno medievale (Europa mediterranea. Quaderni, 14), Naples, 1999, pp. 129–​63. 84 Vauchez, La sainteté en Occident, pp. 103–​104. Wetzstein, Heilige vor Gericht, p. 237, note 92. 85 Vauchez, La sainteté en Occident, p. 161, note 3, also notes an affirmation of Franco Sacchetti (†1400).

74 Paciocco the Schism, only the canonizations of Birgitta of Sweden (1391) and John of Bridlington (1401) were successful, both carried out by the Roman obedience. The first had greater appeal, even if various doubts were raised about the legitimacy of the canonization procedure. The second, meanwhile, would have been forgotten if, in 1913, Jesse Alfred Twemlow had not presented in an essay the documents he discovered in the papal registers of Boniface ix.86 After John of Bridlington’s canonization, nearly half a century passed before the Apostolic See expressed its judgement on another saint. However, this happened without any process being carried out, because the canonization of the Augustinian Nicholas of Tolentino (1445–​1446) was based on a process held during the period of Avignon papacy (1325), for which no verdict was issued. During this period of more than one hundred years, Nicholas’s religious order continued to invest enormous sums of money into his sainthood.87 This renewed interest in canonizations was not free from procedural confusion and uncertainty, which were reflected both in the processes and the related documentation. For Bernardino of Siena, belonging to the Observant branch of the Friars Minor, the citizens of Siena and L’Aquila set to work immediately after his death (1444). The Sienese ambassador Conte Cacciaconti, the proctor sent to Rome for his canonization, declared that he had with him the proceedings and records for the cause of Nicholas of Tolentino, documentation that he believed to be of great utility for knowing how one ought to proceed “because in truth, due to the rarity of similar things, few would find themselves knowledgeable about this material”.88 Catherine of Siena’s canonization (1461) was realized without a local process. It is therefore not an accident that we must reach the middle of the fifteenth century before witnessing the birth of a new type of literature centered on canonizations. The first writing of this sort was Martino Garati’s Tractatus de canonizatione sanctorum, written between 1445 and 1448, in the context of the process for Bernardino’s canonization. This fairly modest work was then followed by another –​more extensive but not particularly accurate –​published in 1487 by the Bolognese jurist Troilo Malvezzi. With Giovanni Francesco de 86 87 88

J.A. Twemlow, “The Liturgical Credentials of a Forgotten English Saint”, in Mélanges d’histoire offerts à M. Charles Bémont, Paris, 1913, 365–​71; see Krafft, Papsturkunde und Heiligsprechung, p. 919. Letizia Pellegrini, “Agiografia e santità dei Mendicanti: il caso di Nicola da Tolentino”, in E. Menestò (ed.), Agiografia e culto dei santi nel Piceno, Spoleto, 1998, pp. 153–​72 (pp. 158–​59). Letizia Pellegrini (ed.), Il processo di canonizzazione di Bernardino da Siena (1445–​1450) (Analecta Franciscana, 16. ns, 4), Grottaferrata, 2009, p. 69 (“perché in verità, per la rarità di simili cose, pochi se ne trova pratichi in essa materia e dotti”).

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Pavinis this type of treatise assumed greater weight; the most significant was Giacomo Castellano’s Tractatus, dedicated to Leo x and published in 1521.89 The documents for the canonization of Nicholas and Bernardino also demonstrate that this was a period of transition. Although they were published only a few years apart from each other, they are very different. In the document for Nicholas, procedural information is more extensive than usual, which can be explained by the fact that, as has already been noted, the process was conducted much earlier. Nevertheless, it is significant that the canonization letter for Bernardino lacks any quotation from past papal canonization documents. Moreover, for the first time, a bull dated to the day of the canonization was published for this occasion, made in a luxurious fashion with an illuminated initial. This document disregards the most basic rules of papal chancery production and is instead similar, from a diplomatistic point of view, to documents sealed with a string of silk. For Catherine of Siena (1461), a canonization document published in the form of a quaternus appeared for the first time, a form that resurfaced with Francis of Paola (1519).90 In addition to canonizations, papal authorizations of cults increased, something that had already been the case in preceding centuries, although with different characteristics.91 In this vein, Sebaldus of Nuremburg (1425) particularly bears mention as do the Five Franciscan Martyrs of Morocco –​Berardus, Peter, Accursius, Adiutus and Otto –​who were approved via a document with a rather unusual textual form (1481). Moreover, we should remember John Bonus of Mantua (1483), whose process was not completed by Innocent iv. In the letter for his canonization, he was called “blessed”, a word that began to strengthen the difference between sanctus and beatus, two terms that were synonyms during the High Middle Ages.92 The final canonizations of the Middle Ages were realized between 1482 and 1523: Bonaventure of Bagnoregio (1482), Leopold of Austria (1485), Francis of Paola (1519), Antoninus of Florence and Benno of Meissen (1523). None of these were without opposition from individuals or social groups, nor were 89 See Wetzstein, Heilige vor Gericht, pp. 286–​313, 316–​20. 90 Krafft, Papsturkunde und Heiligsprechung, pp. 956–​57, 964, 988, 1003, 1014–​015. 91 Around the middle of the thirteenth century, for example, both the translation of relics –​as happened for Ambrose of Massa and, perhaps, for Rose of Viterbo (see Paciocco, Il “negotium imperfectum” per Ambrogio da Massa, pp. 25–​26) –​were authorized, as was the celebration of feast days: see É. Berger, Les registres d’Innocent IV (1243–​1254), Paris, 1884–​1911, nr. 247. 92 C. Baronius, Annales ecclesiastici, Paris 1864–​1883, vol. 21, p. 399: “possit pro beato (…) venerari”. On sancti and beati, see Vauchez, La sainteté en Occident, pp. 99–​120; Krafft, Papsturkunde und Heiligsprechung, pp. 1011–​012.

76 Paciocco they without procedural obstructions. Their processes did not adhere to the theoretical descriptions of contemporary canonists.93 For example, one peculiarity with respect to earlier centuries can be seen in the fact that Adrian vi approved the sainthoods of Antoninus and Benno with a ceremony that was valid for both, a first that astonished contemporaries.94 The remission granted for a canonization, which in the thirteenth century –​in principle, aside from a few exceptions –​corresponded to a year and a quadragena (penitential period of forty days), later expanded to seven years and seven quadragenae. For the sainthoods of Francis of Paola and Antoninus this was further increased to forty years and forty quadragenae, and for the translation of the latter a plenary indulgence was even granted.95 In canonization documents, information that was processual in nature, usually always provided in previous centuries, was replaced in the sixteenth century by exhaustive descriptions of the ceremonies, while attitudes ever more critical towards saints and canonizations grew.96 8

Conclusions

In canonizations, the pressures exerted by social structures did not always carry great weight,97 as is demonstrated by the fact that they were sometimes realized motu proprio by the pope himself, as in the case of Francis of Assisi. Neither can it be said that affirming the processual structure led to a unified and standardized production of saints; the birth of an industrial “fabrique des saints”.98 Moreover, it is not entirely appropriate to speak of a papal “indolence” regarding the cult of saints, nor is it necessary to wait for the criticisms of Luther to see the Apostolic See gain awareness of a canonization’s significance.99 From the facts, it is not possible to evaluate medieval canonizations in a singular fashion. Perhaps only Ronald C. Finucane’s statement is totally

93

R.C. Finucane, Contested Canonizations. The Last Medieval Saints, 1482–​1523, Washington D.C., 2011, pp. 241–​256. 94 Krafft, Papsturkunde und Heiligsprechung, p. 1019. 95 Ibid., pp. 1024, 1028–​129. 96 Ibid., p. 1030. 97 P. Delooz, Sociologie et canonizations, La Haye, 1969. 98 J.-​C. Schmitt, “La fabrique des saints”, Annalès. Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations 39 (1984), pp. 286–​300. 99 Wetzstein, Heilige vor Gericht, p. 239.

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correct, as well as applicable to the entire medieval era and beyond: “Holiness, in and of itself, was never enough” for a canonization.100 Each canonization conceals various motives, different every time: pastoral and spiritual significances melded with others that were “practical” in nature, which help to explain procedural peculiarities. Moreover, in some processes, even in those that remained incomplete, it is possible to glimpse largely political motives and even the opportunity for control, which the Apostolic See gathered to facilitate the secular government of the territories of the Patrimonium Sancti Petri. In reality, levels of understanding mix and can be united in a coherent figure only if papal desire for control is contextualized within a hierarchy of knowledge entirely different from our own. All judgement must thus cease. Today we can only contemplate –​as I have already written but I want to write it right here again –​the impossible harmonization of salvific purposes with aims of political domination. 100 Finucane, Contested Canonizations, p. 256.

­c hapter 4

Practical Matters

Canonization Records in the Making Sari Katajala-​Peltomaa and Jenni Kuuliala 1

Introduction: Standard Procedure for a Canonization

The basic, or could one even say ideal, canonization process is well known. First, there was a saintly candidate, a special individual who had died in the odor of sanctity and who was considered to possess divine power. The potential saint’s charisma had been manifested already during his or her lifetime, but was reflected especially in post mortem miracles. Second, there needed to be an existing cult and pilgrims already had to be flocking to the potential saint’s shrine before the pope would agree to open a judicial inquiry into the life, merits, and miracles of the candidate to the altars. The opening of a process was often the result of active lobbying by local agents, both secular and clerical. When the pope decided to open a process, he nominated commissioners, usually three, to conduct the hearings and to take charge of the interrogation, which occurred at the site of the cult. Local proctors or cult promoters handled the local practicalities, organized hearing sites, and summoned witnesses. Canon law dictated the basic principles according to which the hearings were organized in general, but there were few rulings about the canonization process itself. “Ordo iudiciarius”, shaped by models of the Roman civil process and used in the so-​called Romano-​canonical processes, also regulated canonization hearing interrogations.1 Canon law was not explicit concerning the practicalities of a hearing or the selection of witnesses, however: the major compilations or rulings –​Audivimus, Venerabilii, and Testes legitimos

1 T. Wetzstein, Heilige vor Gericht: Das Kanonisationsverfahren im europäischen Spätmittelalter, Köln, 2004, pp. 25–​33; R. Paciocco, Canonizzazioni e culto dei santi nella christianitas (1198–​ 1302), Assisi, 2006, pp. 15–​16, 20–​21, 31. On the ordo iudiciarius more generally, see also J. Brundage, Medieval Canon Law, London, 1995, pp. 129–​50. On the judicial side of canonization processes, see also S. Katajala-​Peltomaa & C. Krötzl, “Approaching Twelfth-​to Fifteenth-​ Century Miracles: Miracle Registers, Collections, and Canonization Processes as Source Material”, in C. Krötzl & S. Katajala-​Peltomaa (eds.), Miracles in Medieval Canonization Processes. Structures, Functions, and Methodologies, Turnhout, 2018, pp. 1–​39.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2021 | DOI:10.1163/9789004468498_006

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(Interrogatorium) –​offered no clear rules or norms, but only overall guidelines. Each of these rulings was issued during the first half of the thirteenth century.2 The first of these rulings, Audivimus, proclaimed papal authority over canonizations and forbade the veneration of unofficial saints. It was originally issued in a letter of Pope Alexander iii (r. 1159–​81), but became more influential when it appeared in Pope Gregory ix’s Liber Extra in 1234. Venerabilii was likewise added to the Liber Extra; it declared that witnesses had to be questioned diligently and one at a time. The third ruling, Testes legitimos, was also known as Interrogatorium or Forma examinandi testes. This formulary was used for the first time in the canonization hearing of Elizabeth of Hungary in 1232.3 Interrogatorium contained the list of questions that were used to validate the quality of witness knowledge; it was used and proposed by the commissioners. In addition to being financially responsible for the process, promotors advanced the enterprise: they collected the initial evidence of sanctity, such as recorded miracles that took place at the tomb or another cult place, and gathered supporting letters from ecclesiastical and secular authorities. This documentation was then given to the pope, who was requested a process to be opened and a commissio to be issued. If the process was opened, the promoters –​or occasionally the proctors –​formulated articuli, the detailed questions about the candidate’s life and miracles. The proctor often worked in close collaboration with promotors. He or they took care of the actual practical organization, for example finding suitable and knowledgeable people to testify.4 Another required group of officials were the notaries, who recorded the testimonies on an official form, formam publicam. At times they were also in charge of interrogating witnesses and collecting information about miracles that had occurred elsewhere.5 They took notes at the interrogation and later transcribed the full depositions; these were later read to the witnesses for 2 Katajala-​Peltomaa & Krötzl, “Approaching Twelfth-​to Fifteenth-​Century Miracles”, pp. 17–​21 with footnotes. 3 G. Klaniczay, “Proving Sanctity in the Canonization Processes: Saint Elizabeth and Saint Margaret of Hungary”, in G. Klaniczay (ed.), Procès de canonisation au Moyen Âge: Aspects juridiques et religieux /​Medieval Canonization Processes: Legal and Religious Aspects (Collection de l’École française de Rome, 340) Rome, 2004, pp. 117–​48, here pp. 123–​24; A. Vauchez, La Sainteté en Occident aux derniers siecles du Moyen Âge, Rome, 1981, pp. 58–​59; Wetzstein, Heilige vor Gericht, pp. 538–​39. 4 Wetzstein, Heilige vor Gericht, pp. 419–​23; O. Krafft, Papsturkunde und Heiligsprechung: Die päpstlichen Kanonisationen vom Mittelalter bis zur Reformation. Ein Handbuch (Archiv für Diplomatik, 9) Köln, 2005, p. 734. 5 For examples of this, see A. Vauchez, “Canonisation et politique au xive siecle: Documents inédits des Archives du Vatican Relatifs au proces de canonisation de Charles de Blois, duc de Bretagne († 1364)”, in Miscellanea in onore di Monsignor Martino Giusti, prefetto dell’Archivio

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confirmation and validation. Sometimes other kinds of help were required as well, such as the messengers and interpreters who assisted during interrogations. Witnesses were typically local people who had either known the candidate during his or her lifetime, and/​or who had witnessed or experienced a miracle following the saint’s death. After the inquiry in partibus, the canonization documents were sent to the papal curia.6 An abbreviated version of the records, summarium or relatio, were often made for the curia’s use. The cardinals considered the pros and cons of the case, including whether the candidate had manifested divine virtus and if the reported miracles were genuine. On occasion, this pondering was also recorded and a written version of the analysis survives.7 If the curia was favorable to the candidate, the entire process concluded with the production of an official canonization bull and the candidate was added into the litany of saints. The existence of an actual cult –​and the number and fervor of devotees and reported miracles –​did not necessarily depend on this process. It is well known that many saints’ cults flourished in medieval Europe without official papal approval.8 Furthermore, the archetypal canonization procedure as described above took many different forms in its actual implementation. It is important to recognize that since canon law did not meticulously address the practical organization of canonization hearings, each canonization process applied the “official” rulings and regulations in an individual manner. As a result, the methods of questioning, the role of the Interrogatorium, and the number and content of articuli varied from one inquest to another. The techniques of recording also varied from one process to another. Finally, the quality and quantity of records and other texts of canonization procedures varied greatly in both their production and preservation.9

6

7 8 9

Segreto Vaticano II (Collectanea Archivi Vaticani, 6) Vatican City, 1978, pp. 381–​404, here esp. p. 387. The amount of this material could be vast: in the case of the canonization of Louis ix of France, the records reportedly exceeded what a single ass could carry. M.C. Gaposchkin, The Making of Saint Louis: Kingship, Sanctity, and Crusade in the Later Middle Ages, Ithaca, 2008, p. 37. On curial negotiations, see R. Finucane, Contested Canonizations. The Last Medieval Saints, 1482–​1523, Washington, 2011, pp. 13–​32. A. Kleinberg, “Canonization without a Canon”, in G. Klaniczay (ed.), Proces de canonisation au Moyen Âge: Aspects juridiques et religieux /​Medieval Canonization Processes: Legal and Religious Aspects (Collection de l’École française de Rome, 340) Rome, 2004, pp. 7–​18. André Vauchez noted in his seminal La sainteté, p. 5, that ‘le caractère stéréotypé et le conformisme des dépositions ont été nettement exagérés’.

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This chapter scrutinizes the relationship between the ideal model of canonization and its actual implementation, illuminating the multifaceted nature of actual practices. By analyzing numerous examples, and by focusing especially on how the practicalities varied from one canonization inquest to another, the chapter shows that the inquiry into miracles was neither a standardized process nor a monolithic one. One of our main arguments is that it is crucial to be aware of the entire context in which individual canonizations took place before focusing on a specific theme, such as a particular kind of miracle. If researchers are unaware of how each process differed from the others, or what kind of quantitative and qualitative role selected testimonies played within any given process, they may easily reach simplistic, even misguided, conclusions. 2

Selecting the Cases –​Selecting the Witnesses

Judicially, canonization processes were a form of inquisitio. This means that the investigated matter already needed to have general fame; in cases of canonization, this general fama was about the saintly life of an individual and the miracles that he or she had performed. This requirement was also built into the witness accounts, since most, although not all, depositions included questions about the fama of the saintly candidate’s life in addition to their miracles. Despite this principle, some cults were strongly emphasized and even manipulated to get an inquiry going. Two illuminating examples of this are the processes of the French king Louis ix and Charles of Blois, the Duke of Brittany. When Louis ix died in 1270 during the Eighth Crusade, his son Philip iii immediately released a letter asking for prayers for the soul of the king, who, according to him, many believed to be saintly. M. Cecilia Gaposchkin, who has studied Louis’s cult extensively, writes that the royal entourage’s actions and the depictions of Louis’s death in distinctly hagiographic tones show that a plan to prompt his canonization were in play immediately after his death; Louis’s brother, Charles i of Anjou, was the most active promoter of this movement. Louis’s saintly life, and especially his role as a Crusader king and even as a “martyr”, were the key arguments that underlay the push for canonization. The first miracles were attested the moment when Louis’s heart and intestines were buried in Monreale, and they then continued to occur when his bones were transferred to France.10

10 Gaposchkin, The Making of Saint Louis, esp. pp. 25–​28.

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The earliest miracles recorded in the canonization inquest of 1282–​1283 had occurred while Philip iii was bringing Louis’s bones back to Paris.11 Northern French clerics’ petitions to canonize Louis show that the movement extended beyond the borders of the royal entourage.12 However, the cult’s intensity level within the wider public is difficult to deduce from what is known of the canonization dossier, since it records no miracles in vita and witnesses to Louis’s life come only from his own household or from those otherwise close to the court.13 Then again, public reports of miracula in vita do not preclude a fierce campaign being waged by those closest to the deceased holy person, as was the case with Charles of Blois. Charles’s canonization proceedings from 1371 record occasional miracles in vita,14 but his cult appears to have been most strongly promoted by his widow, daughter, and son-​in-​law to shake the fragile authority of John iv of Montfort, who had beaten Charles at the battle of Auray in 1364. Their attempts were facilitated by the rapid development of the cult, supported by the Franciscans and especially their convent at Guingamp, where Charles’ body lay, and where miracles were reported to have occurred.15 In inquisitio-​type hearings, the responsibility for pursuing the cases lay with officials, and the witnesses to the saintly candidate’s miracles did not have any say in the organization of the process to which they were summoned to testify. The call for witnesses could have been general, a citatio generalis, by which information about the hearings was proclaimed in the church and by leaflets nailed to the church door.16 In this instance, people with something to say knew to appear at the hearings and offer their testimony, and the selection of witnesses was likely more liberal, rather than strictly premeditated by the inquisitorial committee. This does not mean that everyone could appear as a witness, however, as only the most trustworthy witnesses and most convincing cases were selected for interrogation.

11

Guillaume de Saint-​Pathus, Les Miracles de Saint Louis, ed. Percival B. Fay, Paris, 1931, pp. 193–​95. 12 Gaposchkin, The Making of Saint Louis, pp. 30–​31. 13 The witnesses to the saintly king’s vita were almost exclusively elite and male. Of the thirty-​nine witnesses to his life, thirty-​six were men, including members of the royal household, clerics, and noblemen, many of whom had fought beside him during the Crusades. Guillaume de Saint-​Pathus, Vie de Saint Louis, pp. 7–​10; M.P. O’Tool, Caring for the Blind in Medieval Paris (Unpublished doctoral thesis, University of California), 2007, pp. 92–​93. 14 For examples, see Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. lat. 4025, fols. 104v, 168r-​69v. 15 Vauchez, “Canonization et politique au XIVe siècle”, pp. 383–​84, 387. 16 Wetzstein, Heilige vor Gericht, p. 429.

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In many processes, however, the selection and summoning of witnesses was clearly controlled by the inquisitorial committee. For example, at the beginning of the canonization process of Nicholas of Tolentino in 1325, the procurator presented a long list of people from Tolentino to be interrogated. The commissioners were favorable to this suggestion but did not fully follow it through. The commissioners’ list of witnesses to be summoned was recorded for each day of the duration of the hearing.17 In Delphine of Puimichel’s 1363 inquest, thirty-​two witnesses were both listed and interrogated, whereas nineteen witnesses were listed but not interrogated, and another thirty-​six not listed but interrogated.18 Since all were, nevertheless, usually mentioned as having been produced as a witness by the procurator, it seems that the final selection process occurred during the inquest itself. Many of these witnesses belonged to the region’s secular elite. Sending messages to the witnesses, getting in touch with them, and making them come to the interrogation was the task of nuntius, a messenger specially appointed for the job. The witnesses were obliged to appear at the interrogation, and faced the penalty of excommunication if they did not. It is likely, then, the summons was taken seriously. An illuminating example of this is recorded in the canonization dossiers of Charles of Blois. An armiger named Roulandus Taillari fell ill with gutta and was unable to walk or ride a horse for three weeks. According to his testimony, this happened in 1371, when he had been summoned to testify in the saintly duke’s canonization inquest. His potential inability to attend the hearings made him very distressed because he feared “indignation and the sentence of excommunication”. After praying to Charles, however, he was cured and arrived in front of the commission, where he testified about the duke’s virtuous life and his own miraculous cure.19 All the same, it is interesting that many of the people included in the list of witnesses in Nicholas of Tolentino’s records cannot be found as witnesses in the final dossier. Some of them apparently never appeared at the hearing, as not all of the summoned persons were present at the interrogation and took an oath. It is possible that some never received the message or decided not to appear, regardless of the consequences. Others did appear, as they are

17 18 19

For the list of witnesses, see Il Processo per la canonizzazione di S. Nicola da Tolentino, ed. N. Occhioni, Rome, 1984, pp. 22–​26; for the “Citationes testium”, see pp. 26–​70. Enquête pour le procès de canonisation de Dauphine de Puimichel Comtesse d’Ariano, Apt et Avignon, 14 mai –​30 octobre 1363. Édition critique, ed. J. Cambell, Turin, 1978, pp. 597–​99. Vat. lat. 4025, fol. 153r: “Quod audiens iste testis, videns quod equitare non poterat, super hoc multum tristis et dolens, timens indignacionem aliquorum, et sentenciam excommunicacionis incurrere, ipsum Dominum Carolum humiliter invocavit”.

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listed among those constituti coram supradictis dominis episcopis –​people who came to the scene of the interrogation and took an oath –​but they were never interrogated. It is also possible that their testimony did not, for one reason or another, qualify for inclusion in the final dossier. The reasons for people’s absence or disqualification are not explicated in the records. In addition to missing testimonies from those who were summoned and appeared at the scene, there are also witnesses whose names were not pre-​ listed but whose depositions appear in the final dossier.20 Comparing lists of persons is not facilitated by the facts that the depositions are not found in a clear chronological order in the final records, and that there is considerable variation of how names are spelled. The identification of witnesses is thus not unproblematic. In some instances, the witnesses could have chosen not to appear in front of the inquisitorial committee for political reasons. For example, in Charles of Blois’s hearing, some Bretons, especially clergymen, did not want to anger the new duke John iv and sent written testimonies about Charles’s sainthood instead of appearing in person; these were exceptionally included in the canonization dossiers.21 Even if the commissioners gave the final orders to summon a person to the interrogation, it is clear that local authorities had a strong say in the actual selection of witnesses. Didier Lett has studied the practicalities of Nicholas’ process and found that preference was given to the local political elite, that is, the wealthy Guelph faction of Tolentino and other nearby cities of the Marches of Ancona. “Guelfi” were loyal to the pope and rivals of the “Ghibellini”, who supported the emperor. The Guelph families were given the privilege to be summoned as witnesses and to testify about their miraculous experiences and the articuli of the life of Nicholas. Furthermore, their testimonies tend to be longer than those given by witnesses of more modest backgrounds.22 Different approaches to the selection and summoning of witnesses were adopted during the canonization process of Thomas Cantilupe, which was conducted in 1307. Here, the proctor presented the witnesses for the case. The entire process was structured differently to that of Nicholas of Tolentino. Whereas in Nicholas’s case the testimonies of life and miracles were recorded amidst each other and depositions related to particular cases can be found 20 21 22

Il Processo per la canonizzazione di S. Nicola da Tolentino, pp. 22–​70. Vauchez, ‘Canonization et politique au XIVe siècle’, p. 385. D. Lett, “La parole des humbles comme ressource. L’utilisation de la procédure inquisitoire par les postulateurs de la cause dans la procès de canonisation de Nicolas de Tolentino (1325)”, in P. Golinelli (ed.), Agiografia e culture popolari. Hagiography and Popular Cultures, Bologna, 2012, pp. 233–​40.

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quite far apart in the final dossier, the Cantilupe process was distinctly organized into pars prima, on his life and merits including some (mainly in vita) miracles, followed by pars secunda, on post mortem miracles. The second part was similarly organized very clearly. All the witnesses for one case were interrogated at once, and their depositions can be found one after the other in the records. Where the need arose, the commissioners could call for extra witnesses. For example, a total of twelve witnesses were summoned to testify about the drowning and miraculous resurrection of William le Lorimer. Ten were summoned initially by the proctor, while two additional witnesses, Roger, the local chaplain, and Alicia, the mother of the drowned child, were called in by the commissioners. The rationale for these extra summonses was likely the valuable information these persons possessed. Roger acknowledged that all persons testifying in the case were of good status and reputation, while Alicia knew important facts about the timing of the accident.23 The canon law regulations were taken seriously and followed meticulously during the Cantilupe hearing. For example, the oath that the witnesses had to swear was recorded accurately, taking up half a folio.24 Unfortunately, the dossier does not note exactly who was to be interrogated following these clear, pre-​established guidelines. It nevertheless seems that canon law regulations –​ such as the preference given to male witnesses –​were followed. There were only forty-​four female witnesses among the 205 who testified. In Nicholas’s process, by contrast, the gender ratio was much more equal, with forty-​seven per cent of the witnesses being women.25 In the hearings of religious women such as St Clare of Assisi or St Clare of Montefalco, the majority of witnesses were women from their monasteries.26 The same holds true for the mid fifteenth-​century hearing of St Frances of Rome, despite her status as a laywoman.27 The cult of Frances, as represented in the records, appears to be very

23 24 25 26

27

Depositions to this case are in Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. lat. 4015 fols. 146v-​57v. Vat. lat. 4015 fol. 3r. S. Katajala-​Peltomaa, Gender, Miracles, and Daily Life: The Evidence of Fourteenth-​Century Canonization Processes (Studies in the History of Daily Life, 1) Turnhout, 2009, pp. 29–​30. See also K. Park, “Relics of a Fertile Heart. The “Autopsy” of Clare of Montefalco”, in A.L. McClanan and K. Rosoff Encarnación (eds), The Material Culture of Sex, Procreation, and Marriage in Premodern Europe, New York, 2002, pp. 115–​33, here p. 120; E. Menestò, “Introduzione”, in E. Menestò (ed.), Il processo di canonizzazione di Chiara da Montefalco, Spoleto, 1991, pp. xxi–​lxix. A. Esch, “Die Zeugenaussagen im Heiligsprechungsverfahren für S. Francesca Romana als Quelle zur Sozialgeschichte Rom im frühen Quattrocento”, Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken, 53 (1973), pp. 93–​151, here p. 102.

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feminine in other ways as well. The majority of the miracle beneficiaries in the process, about sixty per cent, were women and girls.28 One should be careful, however, about making explicit claims of gendered phenomena in canonization processes. The gender ratio of witnesses does not directly reflect the participation of women in a given cult, but rather the level of importance that the inquisitorial committee gave to their participation. Furthermore, one may ponder whether the consistently smaller number of women beneficiaries of a miracle testifies to the lesser importance medieval culture put on their health and healing or rather signifies the lesser value the inquisitorial committee gave to their testimonies as evidence of the miraculous.29 In Nicholas’s process, the witnesses’ social status –​members of an elite Guelph family, for ­example –​was more important than gender alone. The social status of witnesses was not overlooked in the Cantilupe process, either. Clerics were favored when evaluating the quality of the witnesses’ knowledge, and quite often the commissioners asked them to validate the information given by other witnesses. There was also the ruling that, as witnesses, the wealthy were given primacy over the poor.30 This is clear in the case of a witness called Hugo le Barber. He was interrogated about the life of Thomas Cantilupe and his own personal miraculous recovery from blindness by Thomas’ merits. At the end of his deposition, it is stated that despite his poverty there was no reason to suspect his deposition, as he was of advanced age and seemed devout.31 Already these examples suffice to show that the basic principle of the proctor presenting selected witnesses to the commissioners who then summoned them could in practice take many forms –​the principle did not mean the same thing in all medieval canonization hearings. The selection criteria affected, 28 29

30

31

G. Boanas and L. Roper, “Feminine Piety in Fifteenth-​century Rome: Santa Francesca Romana”, in J. Obelkevich and L. Roper (eds.), Disciplines of Faith: Studies in Religion, Politics and Patriarchy, London, 2006/​1987, pp. 177–​93, at p. 180. Cf. C. Walker Bynum, Fragmentation and Redemption: Essays on Gender and the Human Body in Medieval Religion, New York, 1992, pp. 188–​89; I. Metzler, Disability in Medieval Europe: Thinking about Physical Impairment during the High Middle Ages, c. 1100–​1400 (Routledge Studies in Medieval Religion and Culture, 9) London, 2006, p. 48. S. Farmer, Surviving Poverty in Medieval Paris: Gender, Ideology, and the Daily Lives of the Poor, Ithaca, 2002, pp. 50–​56; M. Goodich, Miracles and Wonders: The Development of the Concept of Miracle, 1150–​1350, Aldershot, 2007, p. 82; C. Krötzl, “Prokuratoren, Notare und Dolmetscher: Zu Gestaltung und Ablauf der Zeugeneinvernahmen bei spätmittelalterlichen Kanonisationsprozessen”, Hagiographica, 5 (1998), pp. 119–​40, here pp. 122–​23. “Et licet dictus testis esset pauper ex devotione tamen quam videbatur habere et ex eius etate et condicione persone non fuit visum dominis comissariis ut dixerunt et preceperunt redigi in processu quod racione paupertatis vel condicionis persone sit contra eius depositionem aliquam suspicionem colligenda.” Vat. lat. 4015 fols. 28v-​29r.

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and on occasion even dictated, what kinds of cases and which witnesses can be found in the records. Therefore, the selection criteria is a crucial methodological question to be sorted out prior to further investigation –​even for those themes and research questions that do not focus on the practicalities of the interrogation process. The questions of which witnesses were selected and which cases were investigated were interrelated, but the causality between them is not self-​evident. Prevalence was given to miracles that had biblical models, and therefore resurrections and certain types of cures are the most commonly recorded category of miracle.32 At the same time, there was variation between different processes concerning the actual cases selected. Since the poor were generally considered to be less trustworthy, their miracles were rarely recorded; when they were noted, they usually happened at a shrine and had several witnesses. There is, however, variation; not just between the different weight given to individuals, as demonstrated by Hugo le Barber’s case mentioned above, but also across different processes. The canonization inquest of St Louis ix of France is exceptional in that it investigated a relatively large number of miracles among the “working poor” who suffered from long-​term disabilities.33 Most of these beneficiaries also testified themselves.34 This can be no coincidence, and the cult promoters and commissioners must have consciously enhanced Louis’s reputation as a great benefactor of the poor, already demonstrated during his lifetime in the various hospitals he founded. Laura Ackerman Smoller’s studies of the mid fifteenth-​century processes of St Vincent Ferrer provide an illuminating example of how the selection of cases influenced a saint’s image. Three separate hearings were organized: in Brittany, Toulouse, and Naples. In the northern inquiry carried out in Brittany, witness selection was quite inclusive and they were not interrogated following a premediated list of articuli. Vincent Ferrer appears essentially as a thaumaturge: nearly all the witnesses mention at least one miracle, and the proctors apparently actively recruited witnesses amongst pilgrims throughout the

32 33

34

See R. Finucane, Miracles and Pilgrims: Popular Beliefs in Medieval England, London, 1977, pp. 49–​50; Goodich, Miracles and Wonders, pp. 8–​12; B. Ward, Miracles and the Medieval Mind: Theory, Record and Event, 1000–​1215, London 1982, pp. 20–​24. See S. Farmer, “Manual Labor, Begging, and Conflicting Gender Expectations in Thirteenth-​ Century Paris”, in S. Farmer and C. Braun Pasternack (eds.), Gender and Difference in the Middle Ages, Minneapolis, 2003, pp. 261–​87, at p. 266, who writes about Guillaume de Saint-​Pathus’s text’s importance as a source for the disabled poor. See Farmer, Surviving Poverty, pp. 50–​55.

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duration of the process.35 The selection was not, however, without some level of premeditation, since various kinds of resurrection miracles predominate the cases. Furthermore, many of the cases were supported by elite witnesses, which may be explained in part by the close ties of the candidate and his cult to the local Ducal family, that of the Montforts. Both features, if anything, strengthened the case for canonization case and the likelihood that it would pass curial scrutiny. The situation was quite different in the southern inquests for Ferrer’s canonization: in Toulouse and Naples, witnesses were carefully selected beforehand, interrogated following a list of articuli, and the number and type of miracles investigated were strictly limited.36 A similar selection of cases is visible in other processes as well. In the 1235 hearing of St Elizabeth of Hungary (or Elizabeth of Thuringia), around two thirds of all the miraculously cured people were children under the age of fifteen. This accords with her cult’s emphasis on afflicted children.37 At the same time, although she was also widely recognized for her charity towards lepers, no leprosy miracle was investigated during the hearing.38 In the Cantilupe process, recovery miracles from the beginning of the cult and public accidents –​that is, resurrection miracles with many eyewitnesses –​were favored. The Breton inquest of St Yves of Tréguier, held in 1330, also favored resurrection miracles and includes a relatively large number of shipwreck-​related miracles. This partly reflects the shrine’s geographical location on the coast, and the commissioners reported that there were approximately twenty-​seven silver ships hanging above the shrine as well as more than ninety wax ships.39 Most likely, these particular miracles were consciously selected for investigation due to their importance for the cult and local circumstances. In Birgitta of Sweden’s case, the miracles were chosen and their content shaped by the local clergy to fit into the preferred image of Birgitta. She was depicted as a 35 36 37 38

39

This appears to have been the case with St Louis ix as well, judging from Guillaume de Saint-​Pathus’s narrative. L.A. Smoller, “Choosing Miracles for Vincent Ferrer”, in Miracles in Medieval Canonization Processes and L.A. Smoller, The Saint and the Chopped-​Up Baby: The Cult of Vincent Ferrer in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, Ithaca, 2014. Klaniczay, “Proving Sanctity”, p. 134. L. Demaitre, Leprosy in Premodern Medicine. A Malady of the Whole Body, Baltimore, 2009, p. 247; K. Baxter Wolf, The Life and Afterlife of St. Elizabeth of Hungary: Testimony from her Canonization Hearings, Oxford, 2010, p. 48. For the rarity of leprosy miracles in general, see also P.-​A. Sigal, L’Homme et le miracle dans la France médiévale (xie–​xiie siecle) Paris, 1985, pp. 251–​52. Processus de vita et miraculis Sancti Yvonis, in Monuments originaux de l’histoire de Saint Yves, ed. by A. de La Borderie, J. Daniel, R.P. Perquis and D. Tempier, Saint-​Brieuc, 1887, pp. 1–​299, at p. 5.

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saint fighting against evil: bad people, various kinds of sinners, and malign spirits. As a result, a considerable number of punishment miracles and cases of demonic possession were recorded in her proceedings.40 Even when the selection of miracles was quite liberal, the cases investigated in canonization processes do not reflect only the social needs of the surrounding community. Even the most fervent prayers could have been left unanswered. Moreover, a considerable number of cases that the participants deemed as miraculous were never recorded in an official hearing. This is finely illustrated in the surviving miracle registers recorded at the shrines of Thomas Cantilupe, Louis of Toulouse, and Peter of Luxembourg.41 These registers include quite a large number of miracles involving animals, but aside from one miracle in which Saint Thomas healed a horse,42 the commissioners of the three inquests were not interested in investigating them.43 The selection of cases reflects the inquisitorial committee’s needs, which were grounded on social as well as theological needs and requirements. The final dossiers always represented a conscious selection, not a random collection. The criteria were variable and multiple, but do not only reflect the requirements of canon law or theology. Rather, the selection reflects the social, cultural, and spiritual needs of the surrounding community, including its lay and clerical participants.

40

S. Katajala-​Peltomaa, “Devotional Strategies in Everyday Life Laity’s Interaction with Saints in the North in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries”, in S. Katajala-​Peltomaa and R.M. Toivo (eds.), Lived Religion and the Long Reformation in Northern Europe, c. 1300–​1700, Leiden, 2017, pp. 21–​45 and C. Heβ, Heilige machen im spätmittelalterlichen Ostseeraum Ostseeraum: Die Kanonisationsprozesse von Birgitta von Schweden, Nikolaus von Linköping und Dorothea von Montau (Europa im Mittelalter, 11) Berlin, 2008, pp. 99–​204. 41 Vat. lat. 4015, fols. 267r–​ 310v; Liber miraculorum S. Ludovici Episcopi, in Analecta Franciscana sive chronica aliaque varia documenta, Tomus VII. Processus Canonizationis et Legendae variae Sancti Ludovici O. F. M. Episcopi Tolosani, ed. by Collegio S. Bonaventur, Florence, 1951, pp. 275–​331. For Peter of Luxembourg’s miracle register, see Y. Prouvost, “Les miracles de Pierre de Luxembourg (1387–​1390)”, in Hagiographie et culte des saints en France méridionale: XIIIe-​XVe siècle. Cahiers de Fanjeaux, Collection d’Histoire religieuse du Languedoc au Moyen Âge, 37 (2002), pp. 481–​506, esp. p. 499. 42 Vat. lat. 4015, fol. 17v. 43 This does not mean, however, that the commissioners always ignored miracles involving animals. Rather, the investigations into such miracles are rare, sporadic cases. For other examples, see e.g. Il processo per la canonizzazione di S. Nicola da Tolentino, pp. 320–​21; Vat. lat. 4025, fols. 175r–​v. See Iona McCleery’s chapter in this volume for further discussion of “non-​healing” miracles.

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The Various Forms of articuli in an Inquest

The detailed questions about the candidate’s life and miracles that were asked of the witnesses were called articuli. A particular question, an articulus, could have been about a detail from the candidate’s life, or about a specific miracle, such as articulus 222 in Clare of Montefalco’s dossier: “Item, she freed domina Amata, the wife of Petriolus from Castro Bono, from four demons that had possessed her for a long time”.44 Clare’s process is exceptional with its 222 articles, of which 191 detail aspects of her vita and the objects of Christ’s passion found in her heart.45 The articles on miracles were based on a diocesan hearing conducted before the canonization inquest. In other cases, like that of Peter of Luxembourg, the articuli were drawn from an earlier miracle register. Peter’s cult rose rapidly after his death, and a miracle book with 1200 testimonies was compiled before the official canonization inquest: sixty-​eight, that is, forty-​ three per cent, of the 159 miracles listed in the hearing’s articuli were based on them. However, less than seven per cent of the miracles recorded in the miracle book were actually used in the articuli. This manifests the strict selection process that took place while the articles were formed and chosen.46 In general, there were large differences in the number and form of articles from one process to another. Nicholas of Tolentino’s canonization process contains twenty-​two articuli, all of which were about the candidate’s life; for the miracles, the witnesses were free to construct their narrative without a pre-​set list of questions. The same applied to the hearing of St Louis of Toulouse, in which the fifty-​five articuli seu capituli recording his life are detailed but the miracles are only listed as various saving incidents and cures with no further details, under the headline Hic incipit capitula miraculorum in genere.47 The basic formulary of the Testes Legitimos or Interrogatorium, that is, the status of 44

“Item quod liberavit dominam Amatam uxorem Petrioli castellani de Castro Bono, a quatuor demonibus qui tenuerant eam diu obsessam”. Il processo di canonizzazione di Chiara da Montefalco, p. 33. Unfortunately no deposition of the case survives. 45 The process only survives in fragments, containing c.two-​third of the articles, that is, numbers 13–​222, the depositions of witnesses 1 (partly) and 38–​238 (the total number of witnesses was 486), and the beginning of the relatio. See E. Menestò, “The Apostolic Canonization Proceedings of Clare of Montefalco, 1318–​1319”, in D.E. Bronstein and R. Rusconi (eds.), Women and Religion in Medieval and Renaissance Italy, Chicago, 1996, pp. 104–​29, pp. 107–​08. 46 Prouvost, “Les miracles de Pierre de Luxembourg (1387–​1390)”, pp. 484–​85, 487, 498. 47 The capituli of Louis’s process are on Processus Canonizationis et Legendae variae, pp. 11–​ 20, and the miracles listed on pp. 19–​20. The most comprehensive study on Louis’s canonization is still M.R. Toynbee, S. Louis of Toulouse and the Process of Canonisation in the Fourteenth Century, Manchester, 1929. See also Goodich, Miracles and Wonders, pp. 52–​54.

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eye-​witnessing, the person invoking the saint and the words of invocation, the people present, the witness’ relationship with the beneficiary, the duration of the illness and timing and place of the cure, the duration of their relationship, and the duration of healthy state after the cure, were all proposed to all witnesses following their free testimony.48 In some other inquests, details about the miracles were already recorded in the articuli, and this had an impact on the form of the testimonies. For example, for Delphine of Puimichel’s inquest, the procurator Nicolaus Loarenchi49 collected fifty articuli detailing her life and forty-​one detailing her miracles.50 However, although most witnesses to her miracles testified to the ready-​made articles, some witness accounts also include reports of miracles not mentioned in the articles; apparently these testimonies were relatively spontaneous. Interestingly enough, in Delphine’s hearing there was quite a large number of articuli, concerning both her life and miracles, which no witness could confirm.51 The idea of a proctor formulating the articuli for the commissioners and these detailed questions being backed up and validated through an interrogation of witness’ knowledge (Interrogatorium) seems simple enough as a principle. The practice was, yet again, quite colorful. Although the proctor’s role during the process was always significant, it also varied. One famous case is that of St Clare of Montefalco. After her death in 1308, the nuns of the convent famously found objects of Christ’s passion in her heart.52 When the news spread, the nuns were suspected of fraud, and the podestà of Montefalco and soon afterwards Bérenger of Saint-​Affrique, vicar of the bishop of Spoleto in 1308–​1310, traveled to the location to investigate the matter. When no fraud could be found, Bérenger started a diocesan inquiry into Clare’s life and miracles, and went to present his results to the pope in 1316. After a verification of this inquiry, the pope opened the canonization inquest, for which Bérenger 48

These questions survive in their basic form, for example, in the beginning of the 1240–​41 hearing of Ambrose of Massa: aass Nov iv, 572; the 1251–​1254 hearing of John Buoni: aass Oct ix, p. 772, in the 1265/​66 canonization inquiry of Philip Bourges: Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. lat. 4019, fols. 9r–​v. 49 Interestingly enough, he had already acted as the procurator for the canonization inquest of Delphine’s husband St Elzéar of Sabran: Enquête pour le procès de canonisation de Dauphine de Puimichel, p. 4 n. 2. Elzéar’s process has not survived. Questions listed in Interrogatorium can also be found in the beginning of her process, pp. 7–​8. 50 Sigal, “Les Témoins et les Témoignages au Procès du Canonisation de Dauphine de Puimichel (1363)”. 51 Vauchez, La Saintété, p. 5; the articles are on Enquête pour le procès de canonisation de Dauphine de Puimichel, p. 73 (art. 59), p. 75 (art. 63), pp. 87–​88 (art. 80–​82). The first two are miracles in vita. 52 For this incident, see Park, “Relics of a Fertile Heart. The “Autopsy” of Clare of Montefalco”.

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compiled the articuli based on the diocesan inquiry and the vita he had already written. It is also possible that the first inquiry’s results were included in the canonization inquest.53 An even more influential procurator was Johannes Marienwerder, largely responsible for the cult and inquest of the Prussian mystic and anchorite Dorothea of Montau, to whom he was a confessor. He gave a sermon after her death, wrote vernacular and Latin vitae, and acted as the proctor of the canonization inquest held in 1404. He also penned the articuli and even gave a long witness account at the hearing, whose documents include his own Libellus de vita, virtutibus et miraculis of Dorothea.54 Although the proctor/​procurator was, in principle, responsible for preparing the articuli, and for shaping the saintly candidate’s memory to fit the existing pattern of saintly life, this did not always come into practice. All inquests undertaken prior to 1260, except the hearing of St Dominic, lack the articuli.55 Of the later hearings, the inquiry of Saint Thomas Aquinas held in Naples in 1319 was completed without them, and no articuli were used in the three Breton hearings, namely those of Yves of Tréguier, Charles of Blois, and Vincent Ferrer. Laura Ackerman Smoller suggests this absence may have been a local custom.56 The commissioners of the Charles of Blois process, for example, were criticized for failing to make clear whether the witnesses were interrogated following a certain questionnaire, or only in a general manner. In this case, the list of questions was formulated after the hearing by the proctor Raoul de Kerguiniou, and can be found in a later shortened version of the process.57 This does not mean, however, that the witnesses were allowed to recite freely their memories about the saint’s life or miraculous events. The testimonies to the former duke’s sanctity quite clearly show that the commissioners raised certain topics and questions. The same can be said about the hearing of St Yves. As for the formalities, despite the lack of articuli, the witness statements are arranged into two groups: the first fifty-​two witnesses testify about Yves’s 53

E. Menestò, “La biografia di Chiara scritta da Bérangar de Saint-​Affrique”, in E. Menestò (ed.), Santa Chiara da Montefalco monaca agostiniana (1268–​1308) nel contesto socio-​ religioso femminile dei secoli XIII–​XIV, Spoleto, 2009, pp. 163–​80, 165–​67. 54 Heβ, Heilige machen, pp. 264–​70; D. Elliott, “Authorizing a Life. The Collaboration of Dorothea of Montau and John Marienwerder”, in C.M. Mooney (ed.), Gendered Voices. Medieval Saints and their Interpreters, Philadelphia, 1999, pp. 168–​91, pp. 168–​69; D. Elliott, Proving Woman: Feminine Spirituality and Inquisitional Culture in the Later Middle Ages, Princeton, 2004, pp. 130–​31. 55 Vauchez, La sainteté, pp. 5, 591. 56 Smoller, The Saint and the Chopped-​Up Baby, pp. 68–​70. 57 Vauchez, “Canonization et politique au XIVe siècle”, p. 388; Vatican City, Archivio Apostolico Vaticano, Collectorie 434, fols. 1r–​35v.

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life and the last 191 spoke about the miracles. The latter testimonies are loosely organized according to the type of miracle, but clearer groupings and categorizations are only done in the relatio. A similar structure was followed in the process of Charles de Blois and its relatio.58 Despite its judicial accuracy, an exception can also be seen in the aforementioned Cantilupe process. At the beginning of the process, the commissioners asked the proctor whether he wanted to give the articuli to the commissioners. Somewhat surprisingly, the answer was no: Henricus Schorne, the proctor, explained that he had been advised by the learned men of the chapter of Hereford (de consilio sapientum … a capitulo Herefordensis) to leave this to the commissioners’ judicial expertise.59 The commissioners then created the articuli et interrogatoria to be posed to the witnesses. If the phrase implies a mixture of traditional articuli and Interrogatorium, so does their content. Since the commissioners were not as intimately acquainted with the details of Cantilupe’s life and miracles as the local proctor may have been, their questions were rather general, focusing on his Christian and episcopal virtues. There were only three main articuli –​life, fama, and miracles –​each having several sub-​questions. The questions about miracles did not focus on details but rather on the ways of knowing and their technical details as proposed in the Interrogatorium ruling.60 For the most part, this list of questions followed the logic of Interrogatorium but was more detailed and one may even say more ambitious. It included, for example, a question about the nature of the miracles (whether they were supra, praeter, or contra naturam), but in the actual interrogation such questions were soon omitted since the witnesses, even those of clerical status, could not answer them meticulously enough. 4

Interpreting, Translating, and Recording

Language is another important aspect to take into account when analyzing canonization records, since it influenced the written testimonies in two manners. First, an interpretation and translation process was often involved when turning the spoken (vernacular) testimony into the written Latin deposition found in the registers. Second, the register or style of language differed between the witnesses and those conducting the inquests. 58 59 60

See “Relatio processus de vita et miraculis Sancti Yvonis”, in Monuments originaux de l’histoire de S. Yves, pp. 301–​435. Vat. lat. 4025; Collectorie 434. Vat. lat. 4015 fol. 3v. See Appendix 1 for details of the questions.

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Many educated and clerical witnesses gave their depositions in Latin, but the majority of the witnesses testified in their vernacular language. In these cases, the testimony was translated as it was written down. A specifically appointed interpreter would have done this if the inquisitorial committee and the witness(es) did not have a common language.61 The interpreters’ task was taken seriously, as is demonstrated by the oath required in St Margaret of Hungary’s hearing. The text states that the interpreters, among other things, “swore to interrogate the ladies of this monastery and other persons in Hungarian, translating the exact words of the aforesaid inquisitors, and to translate back to the inquisitors what they understood the ladies and the others were saying”.62 Delphine of Puimichel’s hearing, in contrast, records that the articles were read and explained to the witnesses in their native language, and that the witness understood their contents well.63 This reflects the principle of faithfully recording the witness accounts, which was crucial for the juridical process. Some of the medieval canonization dossiers give more information about the interpreters and the language of the witnesses, while others do not touch the topic at all. The Cantilupe hearing is one of those in which the witnesses’ languages (Welsh, English, French, and occasionally even Latin) are clearly recorded.64 Similarly, the issue was sometimes mentioned during the testimonies in St Margaret of Hungary’s inquest, wherein the names

61 62

63

64

Krötzl, “Prokuratoren, Notare und Dolmetscher”, pp. 127, 132–​36. The Oldest Legend: Acts of the Canonization Process, and Miracles of Saint Margaret of Hungary, eds. I. Csepregi, G. Klaniczay, and P. Péterfi, Budapest, 2018, pp. 232–​33; the Latin text reads: “iuraverunt interrogare dominas istius monasterii et alias personas in lingua hungarica, sicut eis dicerent predicti inquisitors, et fideliter eis referre ill, que intellexerint ab eisdem”. See ibid. pp. 180–​81 for a similar oath. For the formula, see e.g. Enquête pour le procès de canonisation de Dauphine de Puimichel, p. 279: “In primis dicit, ponit, etc:; lecto eidem testi loquenti et vulgarizato, ac de verbo ad verbum lingua materna explanato, et per eandem testem loquentem plene, ut dixit, intellecto”. Sometimes the witness’s native language was specified, as in the case of a nobleman on p. 299, where it is stated that the article was read by the commissioners in romancio, referring to the Occitan language. As the editor points out (p. 299 n. 2), it was not unusual that the noblemen of the area were lacking in their reading (and consequently Latin) skills. These have been studied especially by Michael Richter; see M. Richter, Sprache und Gesellschaft im Mittelalter: Untersuchungen zur mündlichen Kommunikation in England von der Mitte der elften bis zum Beginn des vierzehnten Jahrhunderts, Stuttgart, 1979; M. Richter, “Collecting Miracles along the Anglo-​Welsh Border in the Early Fourteenth Century”, in D.A. Trotter (ed.), Multilingualism in Later Medieval Britain, Woodbridge, 2000, pp. 53–​62.

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of the interpreter(s) are listed after a group of testimonies they interpreted,65 although the languages are not usually specified.66 Despite the demand for accurate interpretation, the nuances and even choice of words were inevitably modified or altered in the process. Presumably the translations were closer to the original wording when the witness spoke a Romance language, but the testimonies do not give proof of this. Occasionally the records also give hints of the problems with translation; this is visible, for example, in the many diagnoses given to the infirmities that saints miraculously cured. In St Louis of Anjou’s (also known as Louis of Toulouse) inquest, the illness in a Marseillean girl’s leg was called mengassa, which appears to have been the term the witnesses originally used. Judging from the girl’s symptoms –​itching and painful ulcers –​ the condition was something usually labelled as scabies or cancrum. The term itself, however, is most likely a Latinized version of the Occitan term for the illness.67 A vernacular term may have been chosen for the records to encapsulate the meaning or to offer a vivid description when a direct translation into Latin may have been difficult to find.68 On some occasions, the vernacular was used in the form of a direct quotation to offer evidence for the miracle. For example when two-​year-​old Guillamecta urged her parents to invoke Saint Charles of Blois for her cure, her words were recorded in both Latin and French.69 They were considered as important proofs of the miracle and the saint who performed it: the girl was not only out of her mind but so young she did not ordinarily speak this clearly,

65 66

67

68

69

The Oldest Legend, pp. 280, 314, 334, 358, 404, 546, 550, 582. Only in the statement of Andreas de sancto Georgio the text states that “interpretes fuerunt in dicto isto in lingua teutonica”. The Oldest Legend, p. 546. The reason for this remark may be that elsewhere the interpreters are mentioned as having translated from Hungarian. Processus Canonizationis et Legendae variae Sancti Ludovici O. F. M., pp. 226–​ 27; J. Kuuliala, Childhood Disability and Social Integration in the Middle Ages. Constructions of Impairments in Thirteenth-​and Fourteenth-​Century Canonization Processes (Studies in the History of Daily Life, 4) Turnhout, 2016, pp. 37 n. 33, 267, 272. See, for example, D. Lett, Un proces de canonisation au Moyen Âge: Essai d’histoire sociale. Nicolas de Tolentino, 1325, Paris, 2008, p. 268; also Anders Fröjmark, “Telling the Miracle: The Meeting between Pilgrim and Scribe as Reflected in Swedish Miracle Collections”, in Miracles in Medieval Canonization Processes, pp. 131–​56. E.g. Vat. lat. 4025, fols. 99r–​100v: “Et statim dicta filia ingenti apprehensa dolore quasi magno timore perterrita, incepit clamare fortiter, et intelligibiliori sermone quam conseverat, dicens: “Domina mea, domina me nescio quis vult me capere” galice “Madame, madame ne say qui me veult prendre” et gemebat grossiorem anelitum et velociorem emittens”.

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as her parents proclaimed at the interrogation.70 Usually direct quotation was used when reporting a vow made to the saint, but occasionally also other lines relevant to the case. For example, in the testimonies concerning the cure of a nobleman’s son who had burnt his legs badly, the father’s testimony includes a quotation of his vow to the saint and his wife’s statement that the son was cured after the father’s pilgrimage.71 The process of St Yves of Tréguier is relatively similar in the sense that it frequently records seemingly direct quotes of the witnesses’ vows as well as other lines relevant to the miracle. Invocations are often recorded in a mode of direct quotation and first-​person speech, even in cases when the witnesses do not include the beneficiary himself. They could have been hagiographic reformulations and not direct evidence of past speech acts.72 Even emotional and intimate prayers could have been a result of the notary’s standardization of testimonies, as is apparently the case in the records of Urban v. The cases in its third section were all recorded by notary Jean de Thama, and the invocations resemble each other to a remarkable degree.73 This does not mean that the depositions did not contain personal rhetorical choices and statements or lived experiences. However, one should carefully scrutinize 70 71

72

73

On this case, see S. Katajala-​Peltomaa, “Narrative Strategies in the Depositions: Gender, Family, and Devotion”, in Miracles in Medieval Canonization Processes, pp. 227–​56. For other vernacular examples, see Fröjmark, “Telling the Miracle”. Vat. lat. 4025, fol. 94r: “ipsum devovit dicto Domino Carlo per hec verba: ‘Domine sancte Carole, si tu es sanctus, et si tu habes aliquam potestatem cum Deo, placeat tibi Ipsum rogare, quod Ipse amoveat hanc fortunam quod super filium meum venit, et ego promitto tibi, quod sepulchrum tuum visitabo, et offertorium pro ipso ibidem faciam, et quod ibo cinctus corda prope carnem usque ad dictum sepulchrum’. Et statim ivit ad missam in ecclesia Sancti Martini de villa Anglosa dicte diocesis dicte domui sue proxima, quo et ibi missam audivit in magna tristicia et dolore, et post circa horam nonam dicte diei ad domum suam reversus fuit, et de dicto filio suo nova inquisivit, et tunc uxor istius testis, mater dicti filii dixit isti testi: ‘Bene sibi vadit, quia tibie sue modo non sunt inflate, nec aliquid in dictis tibiis apparet exceptis aliquibus modicis pustulis’ ”. On the influence of the hagiographic genre in the depositions, see G. Klaniczay, “Speaking about Miracles: Oral Testimony and Written Record in Medieval Canonization Trials”, in A. Adamska and M. Mostert (eds.), The Development of Literate Mentalities in East Central Europe, Turnhout, 2004, pp. 365–​95. G. Klaniczay, “Ritual and Narrative in Late Medieval Miracle Accounts: The Construction of the Miracle”, in S. Katajala-​Peltomaa and V. Vuolanto (eds.), Religious Participation in Ancient and Medieval Societies. Rituals, Interaction and Identity (Acta Instituti Romani Finlandiae, vol xli) Rome, 2013, pp. 207–​23. “cum Xpisti adjutorio, plura fecerat miracula, vovit eidem sancte memorie humiliter, bono corde, quod si placeret eidem sancte memorie pro ipsa peccatrice in conspectu Altissimi intercedere”. Actes anciens et documents concernant le bienheureux Urbain V pape, ed. by J.H. Albanes and U. Chevalier, Paris, 1897, p. 337; for similar or occasionally exactly the same wording in invocation in pars tertia, see pp. 334–​65. It is not known if the actual canonization hearing of Urban V ever took place. Vauchez, La sainteté, p. 660.

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the entire process and its recording practices before arguing for the presence of individual statements about personal experiences in the depositions. André Vauchez has pointed out that the depositions suggest that the witnesses and the commissioners did not wholly understand each other, or that the witnesses simply did not have the same meaning for the words as did the interrogator.74 Laura A. Smoller writes that the message of the statement belongs to the witness, but the language is that of the notaries who were writing for other civil servants.75 This poses obvious challenges for a historian trying to find the witnesses’ voices and ideas in the testimonies.76 The actual difference between what the witness said and what the notary wrote down is not possible to deduce from the written testimonies. General patterns of a miracle story shaped the content of depositions, but the typical elements could have been expressed and recorded in various ways. A desperate situation beyond human help was a prerequisite for a miracle and a crucial element of the hagiographic genre. The desperation and need for help could have been manifested differently and personal sentiments may actually serve as illuminating examples of notaries’ preferences. In the process of John Buoni, several witnesses stated that someone (usually a parent of the infirm child) grieved the situation “to death” (doleret ad mortem),77 but a similar expression is rarely used in other processes. By contrast, in the hearings of St Yves of Tréguier and John Buoni, quite a few witnesses are reported as having hoped that their child would be healed or die instead of staying severely ill or disabled.78 Although there are sporadic examples in other hearings wherein someone expressed the wish that a seriously ill or disabled child would die, these prayers seem to be unique to the three abovementioned Breton hearings. These examples show

74 Vauchez, La sainteté, pp. 5–​6. 75 L.A. Smoller, “Miracle, Memory, and Meaning in the Canonization of Vincent Ferrer, 1453–​ 1454”, Speculum, 73 (1998), 429–​54, here pp. 430–​31. 76 See M. Goodich, “Mirabilis Deus in sanctis suis: Social History and Medieval Miracles”, in K. Cooper and J. Gregory (eds.), Signs, Wonders, Miracles: Representations of Divine Power in the Life of the Church, Woodbridge, 2005, pp. 135–​56, pp. 143–​44 on finding the witnesses’ voices. For standardization of testimonies done by the notaries to turn the spoken narration into a written judicial deposition, see Lett, Un procès de canonisation, p. 265. Cf. T.V. Cohen and E.S. Cohen, Words and Deeds in Renaissance Rome: Trials before the Papal Magistrates, Toronto, 1993 and P. Mariani, “Racconto spontaneo o memoria construita? Testi a confronto in alcuni processi di canonizzazione del secolo decimoquarto”, Mélanges de l’École Française de Rome. Moyen-​Âge, 108 (1996), pp. 259–​319. 77 For example aass Oct ix, pp. 865, 873, 876, 881. 78 aass Oct ix, pp. 823–​84, 827–​28, 870–​71, 879; Processus de vita et miraculis Sancti Yvonis, pp. 151–​52, 168, 210, 247–​48, 269; Kuuliala, Childhood Disability, pp. 124–​28.

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that the notaries of each process favored certain expressions, and that these expressions were grounded in the local culture. In most canonization processes, the witness statements were recorded as summarized narratives, and the direct questions posed by the commissioners were only sporadically documented. There were, however, differences between various hearings in this regard as well. The canonization protocols of St Margaret of Hungary are the most unique in a sense that the witness accounts were noted down in a very clear question-​and-​answer form, and the frequent instances when the witnesses were unable to answer to the commissioners’ question were also noted. This was not typical, and those conducting Thomas Cantilupe’s meticulous inquest specifically stated that inquiring after matters the witnesses could not answer was a waste of time and parchment.79 The surviving fragments of St Louis ix of France’s inquest show a pattern midway between the two noted above. The surviving depositions first have a summary-​like report of the events, followed by a long list of questions and answers, mostly following the Testes legitimos.80 5

Why All the Fuss with Technicalities?

Focusing on canon law’s influence on canonization processes has thus far been relatively rare among studies of canonization processes, the works of Roberto Paciocco, Thomas Wetzstein, and Ottfried Krafft being the exceptions and flagships in this field.81 It is, however, crucial to understand the basic principles of canon law witness interrogation, as canon law formed the theoretical framework for the canonization inquiries. The aforementioned examples suffice to show, however, that neither was the theory always followed, nor uncritically

79 80

Katajala-​Peltomaa, Gender, Miracles and Daily Life, p. 39; Vat. lat. 4015, fols. 3v–​4r. See e.g. Fragments de l’enquête faite à Saint-​Denis en 1282 en vue de la canonisation de Saint Louis, ed. H.-​François Delaborde, Mémoires de la Société de l’Histoire de Paris de l’Ile-​de-​ France, 23, 1896, pp. 1–​71, at pp. 27–​29, where the commissioners asked the witness the usual questions as well as whether the beneficiary faked her infirmity, whether she used any medicine, as well as the questions about fama and whether the witness was testifying after someone’s instructions, bribery, favors, hate, or love –​all commonly noted in the records. 81 Krafft, Papsturkunde und Heiligsprechung; R. Paciocco, Sublimia negotia: Le canonizzazioni dei santi nella curia papale e il nuovo Ordine dei frati Minori, Padova, 1996; Paciocco, Canonizzazioni e culto dei santi nella christianitas Wetzstein, Heilige vor Gericht; T. Wetzstein, “Iura novit curia: Zur Verfahrensnormierung der Kanonisationsprozesse des späten Mittelalters”, in Procès de canonisation au Moyen Âge, pp. 259–​87.

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accepted in practice. After the onset of papal canonization privilege in the thirteenth century, several hearings were rejected or ordered to be re-​installed due to judicial inaccuracy.82 The rulings were internalized slowly, and the number of rejected processes decreased, but this did not mean that all the hearings followed exactly the same pre-​set schema in their organization. To understand the value and significance of an individual case, it is also critically important to understand the entirety of which it was a part. Therefore, just these questions –​how the basic principles and rulings were put into practice in this particular process –​have crucial methodological significance. The selection of cases and witnesses dictated what kind of material is found in the final dossier. Before making far-​reaching conclusions based on one case alone, then, one should be fully aware of what was typical for the collection and what was a rare exception. Not all the questions posed to the witnesses –​ whether they were recorded in the Interrogatorium or articuli –​were written down during the depositions. Nevertheless, it is a prerequisite to know them, how they were produced, and which parties were involved when reading the depositions and analyzing their content. The method of recording, whether the depositions were written down separately and in full or only in a summarized form or even in a form of synthesis, is also vitally important. Some processes, or even some depositions within a process, contain the original form of the oral narration more fully than others. The summarized and even synthesized versions are equally valuable for research, but they do not answer the same questions as more closely transcribed narrations of the laity. They are important sources for cultural values, the preferences of the inquisitorial committee, and general concepts of the miraculous. In addition to the judicial requirements and language of the officials, canonization processes also reflect the typical pattern of a miracle narrative.83 The hagiographic genre gave shape to the inquisitorial committee’s questionnaire, which in turn affected the responses given by the witnesses. The witnesses, too, knew the basic elements of a miracle narrative and that may have affected their comprehension and memories of the event long before they gave their testimony at an inquiry. Furthermore, hagiographic reformulations could also have been part of the notaries’ interpretation process as they wrote the depositions 82 Vauchez, La Sainteté en Occident, pp. 60–​67; Vauchez, “Les Origines et le développement du procès de canonisation”; Vauchez, “Canonisation et politique au xive siècle”; Wetzstein, Heilige vor Gericht, pp. 250–​59. 83 For the pattern of a miracle, see e.g. Goodich, Miracles and Wonders, pp. 93–​99; G. Klaniczay, “Miracoli di punizione e maleficia”, in S. Boesch Gajano and M. Modica (eds), Miracoli. Dai segni alla storia, Rome, 2000, pp. 109–​36.

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down. Canonization processes are a rich and still relatively unexplored material for various topics within religious, social, cultural, and legal history. The vivid details of daily life, emotions, illnesses and spiritual experiences easily capture the reader. The details contained in the depositions should not, however, be accepted as given. Only by sorting out why and how the material was formed can its prolific use for historical research be enabled.

Appendix 1. List of Articles on the Third Question Formed by the Commissioners and to Be Asked of the Witnesses of the Cantilupe Process84

The third article is about miracles of the said Lord Thomas which should be asked first from witnesses testifying to the miracles: what and what kind of miracles did God operate through him and for him during his lifetime and after his death. Item, if the witness was testifying about the said miracles, the witness should be asked how the deponent knew this. Item thirdly, if the said miracles were above or contrary to the nature. Item fourthly, what kind of words did those who pleaded for the said miracle use and how did they invoke God and the said Lord Thomas. Item fifthly, whether in those miracles herbs, stones or other natural or medicinal things were used and whether incantations or superstitious means or some kind of frauds took place in the course of action of those miracles. Item sixthly, if after the miracle, or for the miracle, the faith or devotion of the beneficiaries (illorum in quorum personas .. dicta miracula accidebant) were enhanced, or that of petitioners or the ones invoking and making the miracle happen or other people learning about the miracle, and whether they worshipped God. Item seventhly, to what kind of persons did the miracle happen; how old were they and of what kind of condition; which place and what kind of parents were they from. Item eighthly, whether the witnesses knew the beneficiaries before the miracle and if they saw them healthy, and for how long. Item ninthly, for how long were the beneficiaries afflicted and from which illness were they suffering before the miracle; for how many days did the

84

Vat. lat. 4015, fols. 4v–​5r. The manuscript has been digitized and is accessible here: https://​ digi.vatlib.it/​view/​MSS_​Vat.lat.4015 (accessed 22 February 2021).

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witnesses see them infirm, and how did they know that they suffered from such an illness. Item 10th, whether after the miracle had taken place the witnesses saw them wholly and perfectly cured and healthy and if they were cured all at once, or in intervals and for how long did they see them after the miracle healthy and liberated from agony. Item 11th, in which year, month, day and place did the miracle take place and who was present then. Item 12th, whether the said miracles were published in the places where they were said to have taken place and if this was done without interruption or after it happened, and if so, for how long afterwards. Item 13th, whether there is and was a public fame of the said miracles and for how long, and when it originated in the places where the miracles were said to have taken place and in other places. Item fourteenth article is about people’s devotion, whether commoners and people held a devotion to the said lord Thomas as to a saint and whether they were resorting to his help as if he were a saint and for how long has this taken place. And they should be asked how they knew this if the witnesses were giving testimony to this. Lastly the said witnesses are to be asked whether they testified out of request, command, fear, hate, love, esteem or to gain profit or to have benefit and whether they were taught or instructed how to testify and whether they collaborated with other witnesses on how to testify.

­c hapter 5

Heretics, Hemorrhages, and Herrings Miracles and the Canonizations of Dominican Saints Donald S. Prudlo 1

Introduction

Around 413 ad, St. Augustine finished his “magnum opus et arduum”, the City of God. In the concluding four books he touched upon the last things: death, judgement, hell, and heaven, plumbing the depths and heights of philosophy, theology, and exegesis. Yet in the middle of the last book we have an astonishing digression, one that seems out of place until one understands his actual aims. There, in the midst of philosophical speculations on resurrected bodies and the condition of the blessed in heaven, he includes an enumeration of miracles performed by saints at local shrines.1 Broken bodies are healed and the possessed are liberated. Indeed one could as easily be reading something from 1413 as from 413; Augustine had set the tenor of a genre for the next thousand years and more. These wonders came to be considered the infallible divine witnesses to the sanctity of a Christian man or woman. Miracle narrations in the middle ages became ubiquitous; they were clearly some of the most popular material both for lay consumption and for preaching exempla. With the streamlining of the discernment of holiness in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries these narratives underwent a professionalization with the development of inquisitiones for papal canonizations. Yet in spite of this development, miracles remained the sine qua non for both popular and official recognition of public sanctity. Recently scholars have approached this wealth of material with a new appreciation, seeing in them unique windows into social and cultural history, with scholars such as Michael Goodich, Pierre-​André Sigal, and Robert Bartlett, among many others, using them fruitfully.2 More than just a window into lived 1 For some discussion of this see the essays in, Les miracles de saint Étienne: recherches sur le recueil pseudo-​augustinien (BHL 7860–​7861), avec édition critique, traduction et commentaire: études du Groupe de recherches sur l’Afrique antique, J. Meyers (ed.), Turnhout, Belgium, 2006. 2 I am thinking particularly of R. Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things?, Princeton, NJ, 2013, as well as his remarkable, The Hanged Man: A Story of Miracle, Memory, and

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religion, these narratives can give a glimpse into a privileged nexus and dialogue between lay and learned culture; indeed they can even demonstrate the facile nature of such a dichotomy. Katherine Ludwig Jansen, for example, has profitably examined this rich conversational blending of the spheres in mendicant preaching about Mary Magdalen.3 I wish to broaden this approach to include cases of miracles used in canonization processes. In studying miracle accounts one can encounter those who otherwise are left with little voice (as Augustine Thompson says, the 95% of medievals who made up the orthodox laity).4 In these narratives we see an astonishing elision between the desires of the laity and the demands of the institutional church. I am also particularly interested in using them as a fruitful source for intellectual and theological development, tracing the concept of the miracle, of the supernatural, of holiness, and of sanctity. From them, one can outline the history of saints and, especially, of the individuals and orders that promoted sanctity, Peter Brown’s “cultic impresarios”.5 In particular such miracle narratives and their methods of collection and presentation offer us a way to understand the evolution of processes of canonization and the experience of sanctity in the broader Church. In this present study I wish to examine the use of miracles in the cults and processes of the early saints of the Friars Preachers.6 There is much to learn about the

3 4 5 6

Colonialism in the Middle Ages. Princeton, NJ, 2013. M. Goodich, Miracles and Wonders: The Development of the Concept of Miracle, 1150–​1350, Aldershot, 2007; and P.-​A. Sigal, L’Homme et le miracle dans la France médiévale, Paris, 1985. See also: B. Ward, Miracles and the Medieval Mind: Theory, Record, and Event, 1000–​1215, Philadelphia, 1982; A. Vauchez, Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages, trans. J. Birrell, Cambridge, 1997, pp. 427–​77; C.W. Bynum, “Miracles and Marvels: the Limits of Alterity”, Vita Religiosa im Mittelalter: Festschrift für Kaspar Elm Zum 70. Geburtstag, Berliner historische Studien 31, F.J. Felten and N. Jaspert (eds.), Berlin, 1999, 799–​817; R.I. Moore, “Between Sanctity and Superstition: Saints and Their Miracles in the Age of Revolution”, The Work of Jacques Le Goff and the Challenges of Medieval History, M. Rubin (ed.), Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1997, 55–​67; R.C. Finucane, “The Use and Abuse of Medieval Miracles”, History 60 (1975), pp. 1–​10; J.A. Hardon, “The Concept of Miracle from St. Augustine to Modern Apologetics”, Theological Studies 15 (1954), pp. 229–​57. K. Jansen, The Making of the Magdalen, Princeton, NJ, 2000, pp. 6–​7. See in particular the introduction to his, Cities of God: The Religion of the Italian Communes 1125–​1325, University Park, PA, 2005. P. Brown. The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity. Enlarged Edition. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 2015, p. xxi. This type of analysis has been done expertly by Roberto Paciocco, particularly for the Franciscans. See his “Miracles and Canonized Sanctity in the ‘First Life of St. Francis,’ ” Greyfriars Review 5 (1991), pp. 251–​74. Greyfriars Review 5, no. 2 (1991), pp. 251–​74, id. “Sublimia Negotia” Le canonizzazioni dei santi nella curia papale e il nuovo Ordine dei frati Minori, Padua, 1996, and id. Canonizzazioni e culto dei santi nella “Christianitas” (1198–​1302), Medioevo Francescano, Saggi 11. Assisi, 2006. Far less work has been done on Dominican saints.

104 Prudlo presentation of sanctity in the stories of Dominican holy men of the first 100 years of the order’s existence. We are in a privileged position in that we can see what Dominicans themselves wrote and thought about their own saints. Parallel to this we can see the way that the institutional church, outside of the friars, thought about the holiness of such figures. The sources for this project come from the Dominicans themselves, and were written within twenty years of the deaths of the saints under consideration. For this study I have used the miracle collections surrounding the three great Dominican saints of the order’s first 100 years: Dominic, Peter of Verona, and Thomas Aquinas. I have been particularly attentive to the collections of inquisitiones in partibus or the inquisitions to depose witnesses for presentation to the pope for eventual canonization. In so doing I have reflected especially on the miracles that eventually found publication in the bulls of canonization of the respective saints. The collections I have reviewed are from several distinct sources. For both Dominic and Thomas Aquinas, actual records of the inquisitiones are still extant, even if not complete, and so they are clear demonstrations of the attempt to verify and understand the miracles that were to lead directly to canonization. For Dominic and Peter of Verona I have used the Vitas Fratrum of Gerald de Frachet (c.1254–​1259) and James of Varazze’s Golden Legend (c.1260–​1267).7 Both distill earlier lives of Dominic from Constantino di Orvieto (c.1247) and the Libellus de Principiis Ordinis Predicatorum (c.1233).8 The Libellus of Jordan of Saxony will be particularly noteworthy for this study because –​like the Vita Prima of Thomas of Celano (c.1228) for Francis –​it represents the first comprehensive hagiography of Dominic. For Peter i also employ the official Dominican life of Thomas Agni of Lentini, written around 1270. I and others are convinced that traces of the original inquisitio in partibus 7 Gerald de Frachet, Vitae Fratrum Ordinis Praedicatorum, ed. B.M. Reichert, O.P., Monumenta Ordinis Fratrum Praedicatorum Historica 1, Louvain, 1896, 3.45.5, afterwards vf, translated in: Lives of the Brethren of the Order of Preachers, 1206–​1259, trans. P. Conway, O.P., London, 1924. Simon Tugwell has made extensive studies of this work, I defer to his opinion that the correct spelling of the name is “Gerald” and the correct title should be “Vitas Fratrum”, see his Miracula Sancti Dominici Mandato Magistri Berengarii Collecta, Petri Calo Legendae Sancti Dominici, Monumenta Ordinis Fratrum Praedicatorum Historica 26, Rome, 1997, p. 29, n. 23. Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend, trans. William G. Ryan. 2 Vols. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 1993, afterwards gl. There is a newer translation of gl by C. Stace, London, 1998, but it includes only selections. 8 Jordan of Saxony, Libellus de Principiis Ordinis Praedicatorum, ed. H.C. Scheeben. Monumenta Ordinis Fratrum Praedicatorum Historica 16, Rome, 1935. Translated in: Saint Dominic: Biographical Documents, ed. and trans. F. Lehner, O.P., Washington, DC, 1964, (hereafter sdbd); and in: Jordan of Saxony, On the Beginnings of the Order of Preachers, trans. S. Tugwell, O.P., Dublin, 1982.

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can be discerned in this work.9 For Thomas Aquinas, I employed William of Tocco’s Vita (c.1325) as contained in the Acta Sanctorum.10 The reasons I used all of these sources as a sample are that: 1) They were written in near proximity to the canonizations, and as such represent early stylizations of the inquisitiones performed for each saint; 2) They were all written by fellow Dominicans, allowing the historian to peer into the order’s conceptions of “miracle” and; 3) They represent the foundations of cultic veneration in the Dominican order, using mostly lay miracle narratives to weave a specifically Dominican story. When compared to the works of the institutional church outside of the Friars, we can come to a better understanding of the ways in which miracle and holiness were negotiated in the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. 2

Dominic of Caleruega

The recognition of the public sainthood of the founder of the Preachers was tardy, at least by thirteenth-​century standards. While those who had known him in life recognized his holiness, in humility he asked the brethren to lay him simply beneath the feet of his friars in the choir. Jordan of Saxony, Dominic’s successor, reported how the early Dominicans effectively quashed a nascent cult around his tomb. He relates also how they neglected to record and publicize miracles, because of what he called a “false notion of piety”.11 Nonetheless, the 1233 Alleluia revival brought his holiness to the fore and Gregory ix instituted inquisitiones in partibus to investigate the life and miracles of Dominic.12 The depositions of the witnesses in this case are a precious testimony. They 9

10 11 12

Michael Goodich, Vita Perfecta: The Ideal of Sainthood in the Thirteenth Century, Monographien zur Geschichte des Mittelalters, 25. Stuttgart, 1982, p. 151. Agni’s life is included in Ambrogio Taegio’s compilation of Peter’s lives, published in Acta Sanctorum, April iii, pp. 679–​719. Agni’s whole life is translated and analyzed in D. Prudlo, The Martyred Inquisitor, Aldershot, 2008, pp. 205–​62. I have used the thirteenth-​century vulgarization of Agni’s life taken from Novara, Biblioteca comunale, ms 10, fols. 44–​74v to determine the corpus of pre-​canonization miracles for Peter of Verona, corroborated with evidence from Agni’s Latin texts and vf. I have recently edited the Agni life, and it should be appearing shortly. Acta Sanctorum, March i. sdbd, p. 75; Jordan, c. 98–​99. The original canonization processes are edited in Acta canonizationis S. Domini, A. Walz (ed.), Monumenta Ordinis Fratrum Praedicatorum Historica 16. Rome, 1935. A. Thompson, O.P., Revival Preachers and Politics in Thirteenth-​Century Italy: The Great Devotion of 1233, Oxford, 1992, p. 59. The Alleluia was a spontaneous outbreak of peace making, heretic hunting, and revivalism spearheaded by the Franciscan and Dominican preachers of northern Italy.

106 Prudlo represent one of the first times that such a dossier has even partly survived. In terms of the current project, it is perhaps to be lamented that the proctors of the cause seemed to be focused on establishing Dominic’s systematic virtue in life. Only very secondarily do they make an effort at recounting miracles (perhaps a carryover of Jordan’s “false piety” and an indicator of their scholasticism). Indeed in the process conducted in Bologna only the religious were interviewed (the ones who, it will be remembered, tried to restrain the cult’s development). None of the laity who had been so eager at first to seek his intercession make an appearance. Indeed the only miracle repeatedly reported to the proctors was the well-​attested heavenly odor at the canonical recognition of his relics.13 There is only one miracle that Dominic performed in life that is even alluded to. Brother Bonvisus reports that the convent ran out of bread. Dominic prayed and two people came in unexpectedly bearing bread.14 Yet even in the absence of reported systematic wonders the notary still claims that the testimony was regarding “the public and private life, the death and the miracles of our blessed father Dominic”.15 It is possible that there were other deponents who more readily admitted miracles (as will be seen in the Toulousan depositions). Perhaps only the testimonies of the friars survived, while those of others were lost. In any case it is interesting that their report to the curia was so heavily weighted towards the virtues of Dominic, especially since the pope had known him personally. One would think that Gregory ix had more need of credible post-​mortem miracles to proceed with the canonization. What it demonstrates is the attempted shift in emphasis from the exposition of extraordinary wonders to an analysis of systematic virtue. The Toulouse process that followed the conclusion of investigations at Bologna was more comprehensive, if often less detailed. More than 300 people, clerics and laypeople of both sexes, testified. They were much less reticent to report wonders worked through Dominic’s intercession. People reported bodily healings for themselves and for others. These wonders were variously worked by Dominic in life or after death. One thing particularly noted among these witnesses was Dominic’s struggles against demonic forces. He is reported

13

14 15

sdbd, pp. 105 (Testimony of Bonaventure of Verona), p. 109 (Testimony of William of Montferrat), pp. 113–​114 (Testimony of Bonvisus), pp. 122–​123 (Testimony of Brother Ralph), p. 128 (Testimony of Brother Stephen), pp. 131–​132 (Testimony of Paul of Venice). The odor sanctitatis was an exceptionally typical story in saint’s lives. For a discussion of topoi, or stereotyped themes, in medieval hagiography see: Thomas J. Heffernan. Sacred Biography; Saints and Their Biographers in the Middle Ages. Oxford, 1988. sdbd, p. 113 (Testimony of Bonvisus). sdbd, p. 135.

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as exorcising people, and one time dispels a demon, described in great detail, that had been possessing heretical women.16 Yet these do not rise to the level of professionalization that the systematic investigation into his life had reached. While it appears that canonization investigations had become exceptionally skilled at teasing out the implications of a life of systematic virtue, it was less developed in discerning the reality of miracles. The “proper” way to depict miracles was still in flux. In spite of this Gregory ix was satisfied by the process and canonized Dominic with the bull Fons sapientiae in 1234.17 The canonization bull itself was pathbreaking and unusual. By far the longest canonization proclamation to date, Gregory ix outlines a linear, apocalyptic theology of Church history. This in itself marks a departure from previous bulls, often terse documents that got right to the point. That said, the picture the pope draws of the saint is a conventional one, with some key differences. Dominic prepared himself by mortifications and the canonical life, while in contemplation he never forgot his role as teacher and pastor in the Church militant. The document lauds this novel “mixed life”, the life of action and contemplation together. Because of this Dominic could become a spiritual father, both to the friars within the convent and the converts without, conforming himself to Christ as the head of the body of preachers of Truth. Such a singular bull added to the apocalyptic tenor of the mid-​thirteenth century, and propelled the presentation of Dominic in the later vitae. Like the Bologna process, this document fixated on Dominic’s vita. Indeed only twice does the pope mention miracles, and then only in generalities. In the first instance he gives a troped list of cures: healing mutes, the blind, the deaf, the paralyzed, and other general illnesses (even going so far as effectively to quote Mark 7:37 “And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, ‘He has done all things well; he even makes the deaf hear and the dumb speak’ ”.). Yet miracles were irreducibly necessary; Innocent iii had been clear that the systematic virtue of one’s life was only confirmed by post mortem wonders. All Gregory ix says about this is that “competent witnesses 16

sdbd, p. 145. James of Varazze would later fix this miracle as the centerpiece of his life of Dominic, embellishing it with entertaining color and details, depicting the Founder especially as someone engaged in ceaseless battle with the forces of darkness. gl, pp. 422–​26. I believe this reflects a turn against the scholastic presentation and back toward a more traditional conception of sanctity. 17 Gregory ix, “Fons sapientiae” [July 13, 1234], Codex constitutionum quas summi pontifices ediderunt in solemni canonizatione sanctorum a Johanne XV. ad Benedictum XIII sive ab A.D. 993. ad A.D. 1729, G. Fontanini (ed.), Rome, 1729, pp. 70–​72 (hereafter Fontanini); Regesta Pontifi cum Romanorum inde ab a. post Christum Natum MCXCVIII ad a. MCCCIV, A. Potthast (ed.), Berlin, 1875, n9487.

108 Prudlo have given us a full certification about the real character of the miracles about which many have spoken”.18 This tells us several things. First the pope, himself an eminent canonist, must have known about Innocent’s teaching, and so was informed about miracles that transpired after Dominic’s death. Second, there was probably a much larger dossier of miracles that has not survived. Further, Gregory ix hewed towards the developing bias towards virtue over miracles, in the context of his apocalyptic vision of Church history. We find further confirmation of this in Jordan’s contemporary life, which lists many miracles, and yet concludes “Though God alone knows the number of miracles, I mentioned only a few that were most authentic and thoroughly examined for his canonization before the Supreme Pontiff”.19 Given the canonization, the Dominicans began to make inroads into a new genre of literature for them: hagiography. For the first time the maturing order began to reflect on its founder and its establishment. The first effort at the creation of a narrative was the Libellus of Jordan of Saxony. As a hagiographical document it is interesting in that Dominic is not always the focus, rather the “hero” of the narrative becomes the order itself, incarnated in various individuals, of course including Dominic.20 Jordan makes the founder into a “mirror” for his followers. To be a Friar Preacher was to follow Dominic, and so the self-​ conceptions of the Preachers become decisive in their appreciation of him. Yet the idea of following Dominic was a concept that sometimes shifted according to historical context. Of course the saint fitted into the traditional hagiographical narrative but different virtues could be emphasized or deemphasized according to the situation at hand. In Jordan’s work from the mid-​1230s, Dominic is a hero because he nearly loses himself in the order. For Jordan, a constituent part of the founder’s heroic virtue is his administrative genius connected with absolute humility and service to the Church. Dominic’s “ ‘miracle”,’ as it were, was the creation of the constitutions of the Friars Preachers, one of the most innovative religious charters in Church history.21 It brilliantly balances both aristocratic and democratic elements, and provides astonishing powers of flexibility, directed to the end of preaching and the salvation of souls.22 The Dominicans of the 1230s could reflect with pride on their 18 19 20 21 22

sdbd, p. 180. sdbd, p. 89, Jordan, c. 130. D. Haseldine, “Early Dominican Hagiography”, New Blackfriars 75:885 (1994), pp. 400–​15. For a commentary see: David Knowles. From Pachomius to Ignatius: A Study in the Constitutional History of the Religious Orders. Oxford, 1966. The “aristocracy” of elite administrators, preachers, and intellectuals was guaranteed, while giving representation to the broad community as well. Any legislation had to be agreed to by both elements. Constitutiones Antiquae Ord. Frat. Praedicatorum, ed. H.C.

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constitution, especially when contrasted with the legal tangles about poverty and possessions in which the Franciscans had found themselves. In addition, Jordan began to deploy the miracles of Dominic to create a more traditional hagiographical presentation. Jordan includes premonitions of Dominic’s sanctity from before his birth, and elaborates his famous miracle about the orthodox and heretical books cast into the fire. It is after Dominic’s death, though, that Jordan provides the normal grist for discerning medieval sanctity. He describes the vigorous lay piety that surrounded Dominic’s tomb, including numerous ex votos. When he gets to actual miracles however, Jordan evinces a certain reticence. Yet it is undeniable that, even during his life, he showed great power and worked miracles, many of which were narrated to me. Due to inconsistencies among those who recounted them, they were not committed to writing, for –​were they published and reported –​they would have only confused the reader. But we can mention a few that we know were related by persons worthy of trust.23 Given all the above, one is in a better position to assess this early Dominican attitude to the miraculous. Several things are clear. The Dominicans in the Bologna deposition focused on virtue in life. The Pope focused on the life of the saint as well, only mentioning miracles in generalities. The Toulouse depositions mentioned miracles in a disorganized manner, mixing ante-​mortem and post-​mortem indiscriminately. Jordan too –​even when confronted with eyewitness evidence –​is slow to publish such wonders. In the first place the Dominicans were always more “low key” than the Franciscans, who relied on open, accessible charisma, which often included wonderworking. It was not until the 1233 Alleluia Revival in Italy that it seems the Friars Preachers began to veer into “enthusiasm” like that. Dominic was always depicted as a private, humble person who drew little attention, choosing rather to immerse himself in his order and mission. In addition, the Dominicans were scholars from the very beginning, scholastic theologians and canonists, with discerning eyes for distinctions and order. While they originated in the medieval milieu that

23

Scheeben, Analecta sacri ordinis fratrum Praedicatorum 2, Rome, 1895. For commentaries see: G. R. Galbraith, The Constitution of the Dominican Order: 1216–​1360, New York, 1925; D. Knowles, From Pachomius to Ignatius: A Study in the Constitutional History of the Religious Orders, Oxford, 1966; and the series by S. Tugwell, “The Evolution of Dominican Structures of Government” in Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum, vols. 69–​72, 75. sdbd, p. 75, Jordan, p. 99.

110 Prudlo valued, sought for, and believed in miracles, their training (like that of those who surrounded the curia) was dedicated to circumspection and assessment. It is perhaps their very scholasticism that made them reluctant to publish miracle accounts. Therefore Jordan seems to limit his reports of wonders in the Libellus to those that were collected, assessed, and presented to the Pope. In addition, he also prefers verifying many of them in person, seeking out situations where he could assess the trustworthiness of the witness himself. Even then it seems he can only bring himself to tell in full the account of the healing of the relative of Cardinal Stephen of Fossa Nuova by Dominic, a miracle that occurred in Rome itself, in the presence of many witnesses, including members of the curia.24 He then briefly runs through a nature miracle in which Dominic quiets a storm, and then recounts the cures of various sick people that were not recorded in the depositions. Seemingly uncomfortable in this new territory he immediately reverses course “But more splendid than the miracles were his sublime character and burning zeal …”.25 Yet it is possible that Jordan has a literary purpose in mind for this restraint. Indeed, a leitmotif of his work is chiding the Dominicans for “burying the talent” of their founder’s holiness (Mt 25:25). He does not cease to remind the reader that “Dominic’s power was trying to sprout, but the negligence of his sons choked it”. Only through a concerted effort of the laity, the pope, and God Himself is the saint’s holiness made manifest. It is only after the public recognition of Dominic’s sanctity by the formal canonization of the pope that Jordan releases the pent-​ up energies of the text. “Almighty God opened his hands from on high and thundered from heaven with a crash of miracles”. Dominic healed a paralytic, dissolved abscesses, and mended “an incurable case of hemorrhoids”. Jordan then elegantly ties these new miracles to those attributed to him in life. All in all, it is a theologically sophisticated climax. Dominic’s miracles only become plain when his holiness is recognized by the institutional Church. After this tour de force Jordan produces a denouement for his entire work by recounting the miracle of the heavenly odor at the translation of Dominic’s relics. Jordan was there, and in the end gives personal testimony, weaving together the holiness of the founder with the continuity of the order under his current leadership by citing the ecclesiastical approbation of the pope and then the divine approval of the miracle of the tomb. Far from being an example of an outdated, two-​tiered model of medieval religiosity, Jordan ended up by confirming that miracles were central to the recognition of holiness at all levels.

24 25

sdbd, p. 75, Jordan, p. 100. sdbd, p. 76, Jordan, p. 103.

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But with this all said, it was still difficult to get people excited about Dominic. The “Patron Saint of Administrative Affairs” did not really attract popular devotion. Further, the order was moving into new territory that Dominic’s life only barely touched upon. They had invaded all the universities of Europe and had become an intellectual juggernaut, and had also expanded the general anti-​ heretical tendencies of the founder into an all-​out struggle against heterodoxy, particularly within the legal context of inquisitions. As seen in the Alleluia of 1233, they had also broadened their efforts into popular, charismatic preaching. In light of this, Dominic’s biographies began to shift into those directions, with increasing emphasis on his intellectual virtues and on his struggles with heretics. Yet even with all the hagiographical skill they could muster, often they could not believably fit Dominic’s square pegs into round holes. It would take another saint to match the contemporary needs of the order and, from their perspective, one was providentially provided for them in the person of Peter of Verona. Dominic’s miracles form the basis for the future efforts of the Friars Preachers at self-​understanding and cultic extension. The first formal lives of Dominic come from the 1240s, when the battle against heresy had become central. Viewed through this lens, Dominic’s foundation of the order as elite anti-​ heretical preachers came to be emphasized, and even the miracle tales about Dominic tend towards the astonishing, with dramatic resurrections and deliverances from danger. This in itself is remarkable, for such sensational miracles really only come to the fore in the fourteenth and fifteenth century hagiography (indeed I would argue it was in part because of Dominic and Peter of Verona that this shift happened).26 This may be explained by something specific to the Order of Preachers. Dominic is depicted as asserting control over nature in the majority of his miracles, particularly those directed against heretics. Facing his dualist enemies, Dominic asserts the goodness of the material world, in bodies, in books, in healings, in the production of food and wine. Such miracles underscore the Catholic theological position of the goodness of the created world. Dominic comes to preach, not only in words, not only in virtuous example, but in the power and testimony of the works of God. Preaching unifies all of these three things, and thirteenth-​century people certainly expected wonders to accompany preaching.27 Preaching through the example of plain living was a great innovation of Dominic and his mentor Diego of Osma, but this merely copied the heretics’ customs. Preaching by word often failed to convince. But 26

See Vauchez, Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages, pp. 427–​77 for this shift. For a statistical analysis of Peter of Verona in particular see: Prudlo, Martyred Inquisitor, pp. 214–​18. 27 Prudlo, Martyred Inquisitor, pp. 110–​35.

112 Prudlo preaching by the testimony of miracles was irrefutable, and had to be a weapon in the hand of the orthodox preacher, something one sees repeatedly in Peter of Verona’s case, and indeed in all of the revivalistic preachers of the early to mid-​1200s. 3

The Martyred Inquisitor: Peter of Verona

During Easter Week of 1252, Friar Peter of Verona had been travelling between Como and Milan, returning from spending the Triduum with his brothers at the lakeside town where he was prior. It was a journey that would result in his violent death. For not only was Peter a prior and a preacher, he was also invested with the office of Papal Inquisitor. For over twenty years Peter had been a tireless preacher and defender of the privileges of the Church against the pretensions of the unorthodox and the political enemies of the papacy. He had been a successful peacemaker, and had assisted in the foundation of many religious congregations both male and female. He was known for his apostolic activity, and for his tireless zeal for souls, particularly those of heretics, and he had led many to conversion. Indeed Peter was so successful that the northern Italian Cathars felt their very existence threatened, so they hatched a conspiracy that would bring about his death. On 6 April in the woods of Barlassina, a hired assassin brutally murdered him. The novelty of a medieval martyrdom, the popular devotion to Peter, and the interests of the curia all came together with shocking rapidity. Eleven months later, Peter became the fastest canonized saint in the history of the Church.28 At first, considerations of Peter’s cultic identity were formed by popular devotion and papal policy. It took a while for the shock of Peter’s death and near-​immediate glorification to sink in for the Dominicans. However, they quickly began to grasp the ways in which they could understand their own vocations through the lens of Peter, and to pioneer and innovate novel approaches to understanding his sanctity. Like Dominic, Peter fitted into conventional models of holiness, considered in the context of systematic virtue and the performance of miracles. Beyond that, the preachers and hagiographers began to mold a unique saint, who would perhaps become even more crucial than Dominic to their self-​conception. The Preachers realized that they had something special on their hands. The Franciscans already had three

28

For Peter, see Prudlo, The Martyred Inquisitor; and A. Dondaine, “Saint Pierre Martyr”, Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum 23 (1953), pp. 67–​150.

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canonized saints, and were about to have a fourth in the person of Clare of Assisi. These saints were popular and beloved. In Peter the Friars Preachers had an extremely well-​known and respected figure, who had been living very much in the public eye for the previous generation. His cult was spontaneously popular and remained that way, becoming a communal patron of Milan, the greatest city in northern Italy, and interestingly, somewhat of a specialist in fertility miracles, outstripping most of his saintly contemporaries, both male and female, in the performance of such wonders.29 Such a short time elapsed between Peter’s death and canonization that it is difficult to parse out the narratives that were put forward for his canonization. Nonetheless, within the space of a couple of months the commune of Milan had sent representatives to the papal court, then resident at Perugia, to petition for Peter’s glorification. Apparently impressed by their proposal, Innocent iv ordered the inquisitio in partibus that had become normative by that time.30 It is apparent that Innocent iv had a personal interest in the canonization of his own inquisitor, indeed it essentially explains the speed of the canonization. Yet the popes could not canonize at will; they knew that an established cult and the evidence of life and miracles was absolutely essential.31 Innocent iv himself had said as much in his commentary on the decretals.32 Therefore he had to await the conclusion of the processus in Milan. Apparently the commission set up by Innocent performed their duties rapidly, for by the turn of the year 1253 Innocent apparently had their report in hand. As has been mentioned above, the original documents have been lost (perhaps as recently as World War Two), however there are some suggestions that help to make a reconstruction possible. Peter’s official life was composed 29 For an extended examination see: D. Prudlo, “Women, Wives, and Mystics: The Unexpected Patronage of a Dominican Martyr” Journal of the History of Sexuality 21.3, May 2012, pp. 313–​24. 30 Innocent iv, “Judicium Ecclesiae de his” [31 August 1252], Bullarium Ordinis Fratrum Praedicatorum, T. Ripoll (ed.), 7 vols., Rome, 1759, vol. 1, p. 216. 31 To take one example, the powerful Innocent iii would have liked to canonize Peter of Castelnau, the papal legate to Languedoc murdered in 1208. He is referred to as martyr in four different papal letters, however Innocent iii himself laments that the unbelief of the people of Languedoc prevented miracles –​a necessary precondition for canonization –​ from occurring. See Vauchez, Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages, p. 37, n. 16. For the papal letters relating to Peter of Castelnau see: A. Villemagne, Bullaire du bienheureux Pierre de Castelnau: martyr de la foi (16 février 1208), Montpellier, 1917. 32 “Non novi vos, vitam tamen sine miraculis credere sufficeret, quo ad virtutem, tamen ecclesia non debet tales canonizare propter hoc, quia in secreto potuerunt laxiorem vitam ducere”. Innocent iv [Sinibaldo dei Fieschi], Commentaria: Apparatus in Quinque Libros Decretalium, Frankfurt, 1570.

114 Prudlo in the 1260s by Thomas Agni of Lentini, a high-​ranking Dominican, who ended his life as the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem. Thomas, who had probably only incidentally known Peter in life, was forced to use existing sources, such as the Vitas Fratrum (c.1259), the Bull of Canonization (1253), and perhaps the Golden Legend (although the dependence of Agni and James upon the other is still a matter of debate). It is also probable that he had the original report of the commissioners to hand, since there are details and miracles in the Agni text that do not come from the above sources. A further problem is that Agni arranged material such as miracle accounts topically, rather than chronologically, a problem that was repeated in the c.1500 compilation of Ambrogio Taegio that became incorporated into the Acta Sanctorum. That said, however, there exists a remarkable document that is a translation done in the latter 1200s of the Agni life into medieval Italian.33 It is an exceedingly early witness to the Agni text, and perhaps represents one of his first efforts before he finally published it in its complete form at the Chapter General of 1276. One of the substantial values of this manuscript is that it includes the original chronological order of miracles, including nineteen wonders that are clearly dateable to the short period between Peter’s death and his canonization. It appears that the Dominicans were not going to make the same mistake that they had with their founder’s cause. From the moment of death, miracles began to spring up around Peter’s body and tomb. The vast majority of pre-​canonization miracles were reported by the laity; indeed, there is only one clerical example: a Dominican who received a vision of Peter on the day of the saint’s death. The other eighteen are all outside of the order. The corpus offers a representative selection of the types of miracles that medieval people sought at tombs, and perhaps demonstrate Peter’s proficiency at a wide variety of cures. Paralytics are healed, cancers are dissolved, hemorrhages are stanched, broken bones are mended, and demons are cast out. In addition, there appear also aggression or punishment miracles, with chastisement meted out to those who impugned the cult.34 It is also clear that these accounts come from the 33 34

Novara: Biblioteca Comunale ms 10, fols. 44r–​74v. This manuscript was edited in: S. Orlandi, O.P., S. Pietro martire da Verona: Leggenda, Florence, 1952. Such miracles have a long pedigree in the Christian tradition (that itself drew from the Jewish scriptural experience of such wonders). One could trace them all the way back to the smiting of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5. Early on, the hagiographical tradition began to incorporate similar aggression miracles, e.g. Gregory of Tours, De gloria confessorum, Patrologia Latina 71, 889. For the medieval period see especially: H. Platelle, “Crime et châtiment à Marchiennes. Etude sur la conception et le fonctionnement de la justice d’après les Miracles de sainte Rictrude (XIIIe s.)”, Sacris Erudiri 24, (1978/​79), pp. 156–​202; P.-​A. Sigal, “Un aspect du culte des saints: le châtiment divin aux XIe et XIIe

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original processus because they are located in the immediate geographical vicinity of the commission’s meeting place in Milan (thirteen wonders come from Milan, in addition to one each from Pavia, Venice, Lugano, and Brescia). When presented to the pope in Perugia, Innocent then had a wide variety of stories about Peter’s life and miracles from which to choose, even in spite of the rapidity of the commission’s work. When Peter was canonized on 9 March 1253, Innocent framed a conventional bull of canonization (much more straightforward than Dominic’s rather strange document).35 This Bull is in in many ways the summation of the anti-​ heretical reorientation of public sainthood that had begun over fifty years earlier with the canonization of St. Omobono and St. Cunigunde by Innocent iii. Peter is deployed as a fully orthodox fighter, now interceding from heaven, against the heretics. Innocent’s bull poetically lauds Peter as the “new martyr”, followed by a substantial recounting of his life and virtues. After assessing his virtuous life, only then does Innocent turn towards the miracles. The pope recounts three wonders that Peter did while still on earth: For neither was he able to hide while alive since he was well known by the renown of miracles. Indeed, one time, a certain nobleman’s son was brought to him, on account of a great and horrible tumor in his whole throat, because of which he could neither speak nor breathe well. Peter raised his hands to heaven, and made the sign of the cross over him, and by the boy grasping his cassock, and by touching it to where he was sick, he was healed. The same nobleman, having been later burdened by violent body pains, thinking and fearing the crisis of death to be imminent, reverently took the cappa, which he had preserved up to that time. Having placed it upon his chest, suddenly he vomited forth a worm which had two heads and was covered in hair, and he was made well. One time a mute youth was brought to Peter and, placing his finger in his mouth, the siècles, d’après la littérature hagiographique du Midi du France”, La religion populaire en Languedoc du XIIIe à la moitié du XIVe siècle, M.-​H. Vicaire (ed.), Cahiers du Fanjeaux 11, (1976), pp. 49–​59; and, B. de Gaiffier, “Les Revindications de biens dans quelques documents hagiographiques du XIe siècle”, Analecta Bollandiana 50 (1932), pp. 123–​38. Also of interest are to G. Klaniczay, “Miracoli di punizione e maleficia”, in Miracoli. Dai segni alla storia, S. Boesch Gajano and M. Modica (eds.) Rome, 2000, pp. 109–​36 and Paolo Golinelli, Il Medioevo degli increduli, Milan, 2009, I thank Jenni Kuuliala for these two references. See also a discussion of the aggression miracles of Peter of Verona in my work, The Martyred Inquisitor, pp. 163–​67. 35 Innocent iv, “Magnis et Crebris”, [24 March 1253], bop 1, pp. 228–​30, translated in The Martyred Inquisitor, pp. 191–​95.

116 Prudlo boy’s tongue was released from its bondage, and the privilege of speech was granted to him. These and many others happened while he was alive, which the Lord deigned to work through him.36 Of many miracles in Peter’s life the pope chose two that happened to noblemen, perhaps because of the increased weight of their testimony. It reinforces Peter as a clerical saint, making a gesture of blessing. Yet interestingly the first two occur through the instrumentality of Peter’s clothing, certainly hearkening back to Christ (similar to Luke 8:44). Indeed, the second miracle happens without Peter’s physical presence at all, merely the contact relic is enough. The physiognomy of the worm is also a detail whose shocking nature is intended to increase credibility. The third miracle again occurs with physical contact. Once again, I contend that the inclusion of such narratives is in order to reinforce the orthodox teaching on materiality. Yet, as the canonists and theologians knew, this was not enough. The Lord had to confirm the saint with miracles after death. From the work of the commission, Innocent selected only a few wonders. First, God Himself worked a wonder in Peter’s honor by spontaneously lighting lamps in front of his tomb, indicating divine approval from the very inception of the cult. Next, a man who mocked the sainthood of the martyr choked on his food, and was not healed until he made a pilgrimage to the place where Peter was killed. The saint effected deliverance of many possessed women (another indicator of a gender imbalance in Peter’s miracles), and cured bodily diseases such as fistulas, cancers, and revivified the lethargic. Perhaps his greatest miracle though, in the eyes of the pope, was the effect that such wonders had on the mocking disbelievers and heretics. Peter, who had successfully preached and converted evildoers while alive, now even more efficaciously preached to them with the sermon of his bodily miracles, confuting the dualists and mockers of his age. For the pope, as well as for the Dominicans and the hagiographers, it was precisely these graphic bodily healings that were critical in dealing with current anti-​material sentiments. The people of the age clamored for healing in a dangerous world. The dualists disdained corporeal life. The orthodox church saw its opportunity. People wanted healing of bodies and souls, they wanted healthy babies and robust livestock. The saints of the orthodox church were pictured as answering this challenge, for they communicate the goodness of

36

Ibid., p. 305.

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the material world though such wonders.37 It is clear that papal and Dominican miracle narratives were fashioned with this intention in mind. Peter’s canonization was significant for the discernment of miracles, for all of the pieces that would go into ecclesiastical investigations in the future had finally fallen into place.38 The legal apparatus had been set up, one that elided the immemorial devotion of the Christian people for holy men and women with the desire of the scholastics and canonists for clarity and certitude. At last, the investigation of miracles had achieved the same level of professionalization as that of the inquisitions into virtue. By the 1250s the process had become streamlined to such an extent that one could perhaps expect “curation” of the dossiers. Clearly there were many miracles reported to the inquisitions. Yet there was no need for a litany of healings of various kinds. Rather the commissioners elected the best wonders, undergirded by the strongest testimonies, to present to the curia. In this they were guided by the strict canonist who occupied the papal chair: Innocent iv. In 1245 he sent the cause of Edmund of Canterbury back to the commissioners in order that the strongest and best attested miracles be reassessed. A shift had taken place from recording a multitude of wonders, to a concentration on the few which were the most juridically unassailable. In the future, dossiers would be sent to the papacy which contained many miracles, but one can see from the careful composition of canonization bulls that their assessment was taken very seriously. 4

The Canonization of the Angelic Doctor

Thomas Aquinas represents the last of the papally-​canonized Dominican saints during the period before the Great Western Schism, yet his cult began very modestly. Quiet devotion appeared spontaneously at the place of his death, the Cistercian abbey of Fossanova.39 This was probably augmented by 37

The works of Peter Brown and Caroline Bynum are exceptionally useful in this discussion, as is the recent: S.M. Ritchey, Holy Matter: Changing Perceptions of the Material World in Late Medieval Christianity, Cornell, 2016, though this work should have discussed the lengthy pro-​material Christian tradition stretching back to Apostolic times. 38 To see how mendicant canonizations were critical for these developments see: D.S. Prudlo, Certain Sainthood: Canonization and the Origins of Papal Infallibility in the Medieval Church, Cornell, 2016. 39 For the original sources see, Fontes vitae Sancti Thomae Aquinatis, D. Prűmmer and M.H. Laurent (eds.), Toulouse, 1912–​1934, (Hereafter fvsta); with many translated in: K. Foster, The Life of Saint Thomas Aquinas: Biographical Documents, London, 1959. The bibliography on Thomas is extensive, see my recent book: Thomas Aquinas: A Historical, Theological,

118 Prudlo the fact that this itinerant friar who had traveled all over Europe had died in his ancestral lands, only a few miles from the place of his birth. His initial cult was among those whom he had known and lived with, and within his own family. The best testimony of the existence of a cult, besides the admittedly late miracle depositions –​which will be considered in a moment –​are the attitudes of the white monks themselves, who buried Thomas in a place of honor, translated his remains several times within the church, each time verifying that his body was intact. Indeed they even rendered Thomas’ body to the bones, ostensibly to make them easier to preserve for veneration, but in reality to prevent the saint who had providentially died at their abbey from being seized by the Dominicans.40 In addition, two months after Thomas died the University of Paris sent a cordial letter expressing an interest in Thomas’ body.41 Possession of relics was key; this process did not apply to the bodies of ordinary Christians. Miracles and relics were closely intertwined. Aside from this, however, a main occupation of the Dominicans for the next 50 years was defending the doctrine of Thomas from its detractors, both within and outside the order itself.42 Because of these intellectual controversies, there was little time for the cultivation of Thomas’ cause. Indeed there seemed to be little movement in that area at all during that period. The Preachers seemed interested in other cults: the order proposed Raymond of Peñafort for canonization no fewer than four times before 1316, while they presented Ambrose of Siena in 1288 and Margaret of Hungary in 1306. Not once was Thomas’ cult formally advanced before his eventual canonization proceedings, beginning in 1318. Dominicans were too busy first securing the dominance of Thomism in their own order, and then asserting its orthodoxy before the Church at large. These developments occurred at the same time as a significant evolution in the official theology of sainthood in the Church. Given the increasing

40

41 42

and Environmental Portrait, New York, 2020. For an analysis of his cult see ­chapter 7 in this volume. For the vagaries of Thomas’ relics see: Marika Räsänen. Thomas Aquinas’s Relics as Focus for Conflict and Cult in the Late Middle Ages: The Restless Corpse. Amsterdam, 2017. I thank Jenni Kuuliala for calling my attention to this work. See also, C. Douais, Les reliques de saint Thomas d’Aquin. Textes originaux, Paris, 1903. H. Denifle, Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, Paris, 1889–​1897, vol. 1, p. 504, n. 447. For an overview, see: E. Lowe, The Contested Theological Authority of Thomas Aquinas, New York, 2003, but this should be read in conjunction with the review by R.L. Friedman in The Medieval Review (2004). For the university controversies, see: Prudlo, Thomas Aquinas, pp. 107–​50; M.-​M. Dufeil, Guillaume de Saint-​Amour et la polémique universitaire parisienne, 1250–​1259, Paris, 1972; and, D.L. Douie, The Conflict between the Seculars and the Mendicants at the University of Paris in the Thirteenth Century, London, 1954.

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professionalization of the inquisitions of heretical depravity, coupled with diminishing returns in terms of actual heresy, these juridical bodies began to train their attention in other directions. One of these can be considered under the title “excesses in popular piety”. Dominicans were becoming increasingly convinced that the populace could be deceived in its perceptions of holiness, and given the streamlining of canonization processes and the canonical and theological skill it took to run them, they reached the conclusion that one had to be well trained to recognize systematic virtue and valid miracles. People could be deceived. This cast into doubt the traditional root of canonization in the voice of the people, manifested in the sensus fidelium, whereby their spontaneous piety could discern holiness: after all it had worked for a millennium and more. The well-​educated Dominicans were not so sure. Because of the newly developed forms of papal canonization, and particularly the qualitative infallibility that came to be ascribed to it by the mendicant thinkers Bonaventure and Thomas, the Preachers and Minorites became wary of popular claims of sainthood.43 Canonists and scholastic theologians had been busy in examining the content of the notion “miracle”. Indeed it was Thomas’ thought which in no small way lent itself to this professionalization of miracle discernment.44 Augustine Thompson has proposed that the mendicant inquisitors undertook a systematic examination of popular cults, particularly in Italy.45 Their high-​handed procedure did indeed unearth some unsuitable objects of devotion, such as Armanno Pungiluppo of Ferrara, but their zeal also derailed the good causes of such worthy laymen as John Buoni and Alberto Brentatore. The new orders had introduced a dichotomy in the history of sainthood. A medieval lay person could easily identify a saint: he or she was a good citizen and neighbor, who did public, ritual, Catholic things well. Such a person performed miracles for their neighbors after death and interceded for their city.46 It was a popular theology rooted in orthopraxis. Dominicans turned this 43 Prudlo, Certain Sainthood, pp. 140–​44. In particular see the story of Alberto the wine porter in Salimbene’s famous chronicle. The story clearly underscores the idea that the people and the local church were incompetent to judge holiness. That, he contends, should be left to the professionals, i.e. the mendicants. Salimbene, Cronica, G. Scalia (ed.), 2 vols. Corpus Christianorum: Continuatio Mediaevalis 125, Turnhout, 1998–​99, 2, pp. 761–​62. 44 An excellent discussion of the scholastic approach to miracles can be found in M. Goodich, Miracles and Wonders, pp. 19–​28. 45 A. Thompson, Cities of God: The Religion of the Italian Communes, 1125–​1325, University Park, PA, 2005, epilogue. 46 The phenomenon of local sainthood has been extensively studied by Vauchez, Racine, Peyer, Webb, and Frugoni, but especially good for lay religiosity is Thompson, Cities of God, passim.

120 Prudlo conception on its head, making the implicit claim that orthopraxis was not the most vital aspect, it could be feigned. Even more dangerous were the apparent miracles which could be performed by someone in concert with the devil. This meant that only someone trained in theology and canon law could adequately ascertain a person’s orthodoxy or the validity of their miracles. Were a person truly orthodox, orthopraxis would naturally follow. This led to tension between learned sanctity and popular sanctity. The Dominicans began to hone a more refined view of how orthopraxis was in fact enacted within the lived religion of the age. These new theological subtleties were not always well received by the faithful. Yet increasingly such considerations bore weight with the papal curia. After all, more and more mendicants were taking positions of power in the church, filling bishoprics, and being appointed as Cardinals. Indeed in 1276 a Dominican was elected Pope, and twelve years later the first Franciscan mounted the throne of Peter. Only sixty years after their foundations, the mendicant orders had arrived at the most august office in Christendom. A symbiosis had been established between the papacy on one hand and the mendicant orders on the other. Each reinforced the other in battles against the empire, against the secular masters at the universities, against the local episcopacy, and in defense of the new papally-​canonized mendicant saints. It was to be a mightily profitable cooperation. In this increasingly legal and theological context we can understand the question asked by Igor Teixeira, “can a book be a miracle?”47 that is, can the orthodox theological output of Thomas be considered as an aspect of holiness? By the turn of the fourteenth century, this position came to be more and more plausible. Indeed it is likely that the push to canonize Thomas resulted from the increasing orientation of the order towards advanced theological and philosophical study.48 The Dominicans, particularly those of Oxford and Paris, worked strenuously to defend and certify as reliable all of Thomas’ works. By the pontificate of John xxii (r. 1316–​1334) the Thomists were dominant in the order. In addition, the new pope was very favorable to Thomas’ writings, particularly because they dovetailed with his own position against the heretical spiritual Franciscans.49

47 48 49

I.S. Texeira, Como se constrói um Santo: a canonização de Tomás de Aquino, Curitiba, 2014, p. 25. Ibid., p. 191. A. Dondaine, “La Collection des oeuvres de saint Thomas dite de Jean XXII et Jaquet Maci”, Scriptorium 29 (1975), pp. 127–​52. Indeed, John xxii’s affection for Thomas goes far beyond mere agreement in the controversial issue of poverty.

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We can see then that Thomas’ canonization and cult were operating on two levels. One was the genuine, if restricted, local cult that involved the immemorial processes of pilgrimage, intercession, relic, and miracle. In this sense Thomas was very much a saint in the pattern of local sanctity common all over the Christian world. On another level, an official one, he was the standard bearer of an order and of a set of philosophical/​theological positions. Dominicans and men such as John xxii were devoted to Thomas in the traditional sense certainly; however they added to this the powerful impetus of his brilliant articulation of Christian orthodoxy. Just as in the canonizations of the previous two Dominicans, we see the merging of two streams into a powerful river of devotion.50 On one hand the institutional Church deployed saints for various missions, whether it was in confirming papal policy of the early thirteenth century as in Dominic’s case; using them in anti-​heretical and anti-​imperial struggles as in the instance of Peter of Verona; or in the promotion of a theological/​philosophical program as in Thomas’ elevation. On the other hand, in the absence of a genuine popular cult, the institutional Church would not have been able to canonize at all. Popes could recognize sanctity officially and fulminate against cultic abuse, but they could not create devotion ex nihilo. Even though John xxii was a partisan of Thomas’ thought, he could not canonize him without evidence of a cult and miracles. By the turn of the year 1300, canonizations had reached a pitch of professionalization. Experience had taught the curia over the previous 100 years the proper legal manners and methods, not to mention the underlying theology, of the discernment of saints. John xxii, himself a skilled scholar, possessed all the tools molded over the previous century to establish the sanctity of the man. There were a few problems attendant upon such a project. First was the issue of Thomas’ intellectual positions; these were still being digested by the Church at large. Steps had been taken to normalize his intellectual positions, but there were still strong pockets of resistance. This drove John to emphasize the traditional categories of holiness. Thomas would not be sainted as a scholar, nor would the canonization mean absolute approval of all his works. Rather the elevation had to take place within the tried and true contexts of a life of systematic virtue and the performance of miracles. This led to another complication. As nearly forty years had elapsed since the death of the saint, what would the quality of the remaining witnesses be? Of course post-​mortem miracles could still happen, but the issue was particularly pressing regarding the life and immediate post-​mortem 50

J.P. Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, R. Royal (trans.), Washington, DC, 1996, vol. 1, p. 320.

122 Prudlo activity of the saint, especially since the shrine miracles that occurred right after interment were a primary factor in assessing medieval holiness. Even given the favorable disposition of the pope, the order would have to negotiate its moves carefully, and to ensure that all the depositions and evidence were up to the highest standards. The Dominicans made a preliminary step under the guidance of Guillelmo de Tocco in the summer of 1318. Tocco presented himself in Avignon with letters from both the civil and religious authorities of southern Italy begging that the process be opened. In addition, Guillelmo brought with him the first edition of his life of the saint.51 The pope was favorably impressed; indeed one suspects that foreknowledge of his favorable intentions was one of the causes of presenting the case at this opportune time. He appointed three proctors, the usual number, for the inquisitio that would be focused in Naples, near Thomas’ birth and death places, as well as where he initially went to university. The inquisitio in partibus went well, but John xxii asked for an additional commission at Fossanova in 1321, in order to supplement testimony and to ensure the veracity of the witnesses’ accounts. In particular it appears that he wanted reliable reports of the shrine miracles. John, it seems, would leave no stone unturned in his determination to place Thomas’ cult on as strict a legal basis as possible. Even with this second commission’s report, John and his Cardinals waited until 1323, perhaps again attempting to avoid any accusations of undue haste. An analysis of the miracle accounts present in the depositions show a typical shrine saint, very much like the picture one gets of Thomas Becket’s shrine miracles. By far, healings of everyday diseases dominate, effected in the physical presence of, or in contact with, his tomb. There are few dramatic miracles, few prophecies, and no resurrections. Prosaic miracles dominate. One can particularly cite the relative paucity of miracles that Thomas accomplished in life. One of the only accounts recorded narrates that when Thomas was sick at Fossanova, he requested a meal of herrings. Such food would have been impossible to obtain on the Mediterranean coast, but the request demonstrates Thomas’ experiences in living in northern Europe, as well as perhaps nodding to his aristocratic background. Inexplicably, a fish seller came to the monastery and found that he did indeed have herrings. Such a workaday narrative is meant to illustrate Thomas’ humility, while at the same time alluding to his legendary absentmindedness. Apparitions do make up a substantial part

51

Tocco’s work has been expertly edited and analyzed in C. Le Brun-​Gouanvic, Ystoria sancti Thome de Aquino de Guillaume de Tocco (1323), Toronto, 1996.

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of his dossier, and similar to Dominic, visions often accompany healings.52 The geographical range of Thomas’ miracles is very restricted. The few that take place apart from the shrine are still to be located in south-​central Italy. What can such data tell us then? First, the concentration of miracles at the Cistercian Abbey of Fossanova betrays no jealousy on the part of the first biographers, contrary to the assumption of many that the Dominicans were terribly upset not to possess the body. Even when the Cistercians rendered Thomas’ body in lye in order to reduce it to bones, the Dominican biographers insert the story without editorial comment. Everyone knew how valuable relics were. The mere fact that Thomas was producing miracles at all was the key for the promoters of the cult. Further, the lack of effort in either cultic extension or reporting of faraway miracles indicates that by the early 1300s, an internationally extended cult was not necessary; well attested local miracles were enough. It may also indicate a restricted cult, a real possibility. Thomas was very much like the hundreds of other local saints and patrons of Christendom, in that his shrine-​based cult was the height of traditionalism in sanctity. Thomas’ cult, however, exhibited a difference. His theology, which would garner him the titles “Angel of the Schools” and the “Common Doctor” assured his intellectual presence and, attendant upon that, his cultic presence worldwide in a new and innovative form. In his Bull of Canonization, however, John ignores much of the intellectual contribution of Thomas in favor of a highly traditional text.53 Only in passing does the pope mention that he was a University Master and a renowned teacher, but hews to the more established forms of vita et miracula. After a recapitulation of the saint’s biography, in which John draws a sophisticated portrait of the unity of the virtues, he then proceeds to the wonders. Even though John had personally praised Thomas for hundreds of miracles, in the Bull he only includes nine, presumably those that he and the consistory found to be most worthy of credence. Like Dominic, John reports that the tomb of Thomas was suffused with a heavenly odor during the recognition of his relics. Thomas cured a physician of gout (impressive presumably because the physician could not heal himself). Another was healed of paralysis, and a notary

52

Apparitions take up an odd place in hagiography. They were accepted by all levels of society, indeed the popes themselves reported receiving visions at various times, yet they were impossible to authenticate, which is why they almost never made it into official canonization bulls. People expected apparitional miracles, from the laity to the curia, but they could not be used in official certification. See the perceptive discussion in Goodich, Miracles and Wonders, pp. 100–​16. 53 John xxii, “Redemptionem misit”, [18 Jul 1323], fvsta, pp. 519–​30.

124 Prudlo was cured of angina. Thomas also mended broken bones and brought health to infants. In all this he is a standard medieval saint, but that is precisely the point. Thomas’ sanctity was presented in traditional categories. All of these were reported at or around the shrine of Thomas at Fossanova, either in contact with the tomb or with a relic. The young girl with the swollen gullet had no knowledge of Aristotelian causality; she prayed to Thomas because he was a holy man, and his relics were present to her, a physical reminder of the closeness of the Incarnation to fallen humanity. John knew however that once Thomas was established as a canonized saint, his cultic and intellectual stature in the Church could be extended almost indefinitely. 5

Conclusion

In the end we see several trends here worthy of further study. First, the Dominicans were at the forefront not only of orthodox thought generally, but more specifically in the theology and practice of sainthood. Secondly, their expertise in the curia, in canon law, and in inquisitions of heretical depravity stood them in good stead for the rapidly evolving processes of formal canonization, that included the collection and discernment of miracle narratives. Indeed Dominic’s process is one of the earliest complete dossiers of such an effort. From there they became rapidly qualified hagiographers, especially when one of their authors, James of Varazze, produced the medieval equivalent of a “best seller”. His efforts allowed Dominican ideas of sanctity and holiness to be mediated widely. Thirdly, we can also see a dialogue between laity and friars, in the various ways in which sanctity and cultic extension were developed and refined. Dominicans responded to lay persons’ desires in terms of preaching and access to saints’ relics, and provided opportunities for miraculous occasions, while the laity in turn helped to spread the news of Dominican saints and cultivated their devotion. A third entity may be added to this symbiotic relationship: the papacy. The popes, in promoting Dominican saints, helped to form the practice of holiness in the Church, while the Dominicans received the highest possible sanction for their holy ones. This trialogue can be traced in individual cases if miracles as recounted by the laity, in Dominican miracle collections and vitae, and in the bulls of papal canonization. All of these in turn began to affect the thoughts of jurists and theologians, making the thirteenth century axial for the study of the development of Christian saints and sainthood.

­c hapter 6

Miracula and Exempla –​A Complicated Relationship Jussi Hanska 1

Introduction

Exemplum and miracles are two different but often overlapping genres of medieval literature. Sometimes miracles were reworked into exemplum form. As the history and development of the miracle genre has been thoroughly dealt with within other chapters of this collection, it will suffice here to take a look at the history and development of exempla as a literary genre. Exemplum was developed as a means of convincing audiences in ancient Greek rhetoric. Aristotle wrote in his On Rhetoric (c.335 bce) that there are two species of rhetoric argumentation; firstly, induction, in which a speaker argues from one specific proposition to another with an implied generalization of their universal applicability. In this he was using exempla, or to use Aristotle’s Greek word, paradeigma (παραδειγμα). The second means was deduction which is the use of the rhetorical syllogism that Aristotle called enthymēma (ἐνθύμημα).1 The auctoritates on Classical Latin rhetorics –​Cicero, Quintilian, and the anonymous author of the Rhetorica ad herennium (wrongly attributed to Cicero during the Middle Ages) –​accepted the Greek concept of paradeigma more or less as such and translated it into the Latin word exemplum. The Romans also produced the first works that can be considered exempla collections. For example, stories taken from Valerius Maximus’ Factorum et dictorum memorabilium libri ix were used during the Middle Ages side by side with medieval exempla material. Christian rhetors such as Tertullian were quick to pick up the Pagan exemplum tradition in their writings.2 During the Middle Ages exemplum ceased to be used as a means of rhetoric persuasion used in the court of law and became part of the new Christian form of rhetoric –​preaching. According to the artes praedicandi manuals, exemplum was one of the three alternative means of argumentation in the sermons, 1 G.A. Kennedy, A New History of Classical Rhetoric, Princeton, 2011, pp. 55–​7. 2 C. Bremond, J. Le Goff et J-​C. Schmitt, L’Exemplum (Typologie des sources du Moyen Âge occidental, 40), Turnhout, 1982, pp. 44–​49.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2021 | DOI:10.1163/9789004468498_008

126 Hanska namely authorities (Lat. auctoritates) such as the Bible and the Fathers, logical reasoning (Lat. rationes), and exempla. According to Bremond, Le Goff, and Schmitt, exemplum can thus be defined as “a short narrative presented as truthful and intended to be inserted into a discourse (usually a sermon) to convince an audience of a salutary lesson”.3 This chapter deals with the complex relationship between miracle and exemplum. This is a relevant topic for hagiographical research for two reasons. Firstly, miracles as such are always at the heart of the hagiography, and secondly, preaching was one of the most important means of diffusing saints’ cults during the Middle Ages. This chapter is divided in three short sections. The first describes how the medieval writers converted the miracle stories, in many cases ages old, into didactic exempla ready to be used for the purposes of religious education. This is done by using one single healing miracle story taken from the Acta sancti Sebastiani. The second section illustrates how these miracula-​cum-​exempla were actually used by the preachers and writers of the model sermon collections. This is done by presenting a few examples of how the very same story of Saint Sebastian’s miracle was used by the writers of the model sermon collections in different contexts from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century. The third and final section points out that the flow of information between the preachers and their audiences was not a one-​way street. The audiences who were exposed to the miracle stories of the sermons constructed their own idea of what a miracle was supposed to be and circulated this idea back to the ecclesiastical authorities in connection with inquisitiones in partibus of the canonization processes. In doing so they helped to create new saints and new miracle stories that were in turn preached from the pulpits. 2

Metamorphosis from a Miracle to an Exemplum

With an understanding of the nature of medieval exemplum, it is easy enough to conceive how miracle stories were occasionally used as exempla. In the spirit of this chapter, however, let us take an example from Dominican Stephen of Bourbon’s (d. 1261) famous exemplum collection De septem donis Spiritus

3 Bremond, Le Goff et Schmitt, L’Exemplum, pp. 37–​8. On the relationship between Classical rhetoric and medieval preaching, see H. Caplan, “Classical Rhetoric and the Mediaeval Theory of Preaching”, Classical Philology 28:2 (1933), pp. 73–​96.

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Sancti.4 Among hundreds of stories collected into his magnum opus, Stephen tells the following story: On the cure of Roman Prefect Cromatius Similarly, one reads in the Passion of Saint Sebastian that when Cromatius, the most famous and rich man, became extremely ill, he promised to Saint Sebastian that he would convert to faith, if Saint Sebastian would teach him a medicine that could cure him. And the saint said that he would be cured if he would break all his idols and be baptized. This he did except that he kept one idol, that is the one of the sun, moon, and the stars that was made of gold and extremely beautiful. Then he was baptized but was not cured. Later he did penance, destroyed the idol that he had kept, and then an angel of Lord appeared to him and cured him perfectly. Similarly, the soul of the sinner is not cured unless he does penance on all his sins.5 Saint Sebastian was one of the famous early Christian martyr saints. According to his legend he died in Emperor Diocletian’s persecutions in 280s. Stephen of Bourbon’s exemplum story originates from the fifth-​century hagiographic work called Acta Sancti Sebastiani.6 It was falsely attributed to Saint Ambrose of Milan during Stephen’s time, but was most likely written by Arnobius the Younger who was a Christian priest from Gaul active in Rome in 460s. It was extremely popular all through the Middle Ages and survives in c.400 manuscripts.7 Yet, the abbreviated exemplum version of the story, namely that of the Dominican preacher James of Varazze (d. 1298), became far more influential than the original miracle story. In the 1260s James included the miracle of Cromatius’ healing into his Legenda aurea.8 This collection of saints’ legends was one of the most influential literary works of the Middle Ages. It survives in 4 See T. Kaeppeli, Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum Medi Aevii, iii, i-​S, Roma, 1980, no. 3633. 5 Étienne of Bourbon, Tractatus de diversis materiis predicabilibus. Ed. J. Berlioz, Étienne de Borbone Tractatus de diversis materiis predicabilibus. Tertia pars (Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis, 124B) Turnhout, 2006, pp. 47–​48. 6 Ps.-​Ambrosius, Acta Sancti Sebastiani martyris (Patrologia Latina, 17), cc. 1042–​107. 7 P. Kitzler, “ ‘Habeo cubiculum holovitreum’: A Note on the Interpretation and Genealogy of two Astrological Passages in the Acta Sebastiani Martyris”, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 73 (2010), p. 327. 8 James of Varazze, Legenda aurea. Ed. G.P. Maggioni, Iacopo da Varazze, Legenda aurea, Florence, 1998, pp. 165–​66. James of Varazze is sometimes erroneously called James of Voragine, but there is no such place; Voragine is the Latin name of the North-​Italian town of Varazze near Genoa.

128 Hanska hundreds of manuscripts and was printed in nearly two hundred incunabula editions.9 Thus, by the end of the thirteenth century, there were at least two abbreviated, exemplum versions of Cromatius’ healing miracle circulating. The differences between the original miracle story and Stephen de Bourbon’s exemplum version of it are an excellent example of how the miracle stories were re-​worked to be suitable for use as exempla. First of all, the original story is roughly three modern printed pages long and it includes many more details and nuances. As such, it would have been far too long to be told within a sermon. By the time preacher had finished telling the story, the listeners would have forgotten the beginning of it. Secondly, the original story had way too many details and sidelines to serve efficiently as an exemplum. There are more people featured in it, as the original story includes as active characters the prefect’s son, Tiburtius, who threatens to throw Sebastian and his friend the priest Polycarpus into fiery furnaces if his father is not cured after Cromatius’ astrological instruments are destroyed. Both these characters are missing in Stephen of Bourbon’s version of the story. It can be noted that not just this story, but the whole Acta sancti Sebastiani is a rather complicated literary work and, as Petr Kitzler points out: “with a cast of no less than thirty characters, must have made heavy demands on the audience’s memory and concentration”.10 As a seasoned preacher Stephen of Bourbon readily identified this problem and re-​worked the story by dropping out the unnecessary characters who did not contribute to the relevant points of the exemplum. Such changes were typical when re-​working hagiographic miracle stories into exempla. The point of the exemplum was to be plausible, but it was not historiography in the modern sense of the word, and consequently it did not have to follow its sources slavishly. Any changes were possible, and indeed, desirable as long as they served to make the story more efficient from the didactic point of view. Thirdly, the moral teaching of Stephen of Bourbon’s story is rather different in the original version. In Acta sancti Sebastiani, Cromatius agrees to give Sebastian and Polycarpus free power to go into his house and destroy all the pagan idols there. He does not knowingly decide to keep any pagan artefacts to himself. However, he has elsewhere a small study where he keeps astrological 9

10

For a list of the surviving manuscripts, see Kaeppeli, Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum Medii Aevi, ii G-​i, no. 2154. Robert Francis Seybolt lists 173 incunabula editions, ninety-​seven in Latin and the rest in different vernaculars: R.F. Seybolt, “Fifteenth Century Editions of the Legenda Aurea,” Speculum 21 (1946), pp. 327–​38. On the career and influence of James of Varazze, see S.A. Epstein, The Talents of Jacopo da Varagine, Ithaca and London, 2014. Ibid. p. 328.

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equipment he had inherited from his father. Sebastian and Polycarpus then explain to him that since several planets and stars are named after pagan deities, astronomy as an art is an enemy of God (ars Deo inimica cognoscitur). After this misconception (Cromatius had acted in bona fide as he did not understand that astrological tools could be connected to idolatry) is cleared, Cromatius’ son gives Sebastian and Polycarpus permission to destroy all the astronomical equipment, albeit with threats, and when this is done, an angel appears to Cromatius and he is cured.11 Here it is clear that it is a question of misconception, not an intentional effort to continue worshiping idols as in the exemplum version. This minor change in the story was necessary as Stephen of Bourbon was seeking material concerning penance to be incorporated into sermons, and therefore Cromatius had to commit a sin that would require doing penance. Hence it was necessary to indicate that he had knowingly tried to keep his pagan astrological instruments to himself. The original miracle story was not about penance but was simply making a statement against astronomical studies that were not acceptable for the early Christian Church. Finally, some details are changed to make the story more easily understandable for the audiences. For example, Stephen of Bourbon simply states that the angel of Lord appeared to Cromatius. The word angel is not mentioned in the original story. It says: And then they came to all the crystal and transparent glass idols, and all the mechanical artefacts, and as soon as they had been broken in the hands of the saints, a young man with his face illuminated by a fire-​red light appeared to Cromatius and said: “My Lord Jesus Christ, to whom you believed in to gain back the health of your limbs, sent me to you”.12 For a theologically trained reader, it is obvious that the young man who appeared to Cromatius was indeed an angel. However, Stephen of Bourbon’s book, written at the end of his long career as a preacher and inquisitor, was addressed to younger Dominican brothers to serve them when preaching to the population at large. This eventual audience of the exempla consisted, in 11 12

Acta sancti Sebastiniani, c. 1044–​45. Acta sancti Sebastiniani, c. 1047. “Tunc accesserunt ad universa idola crystallina et holovitrea, et omne opus illud mechanicum: et subito, dum sanctorum manibus frangerentur, apparuit ante oculos Chromatii juvenis, cujus facies flammeo radiabat et dixit ei: ‘Misit me Dominus meus Jesus Christus, cui credidisti ut omnium membrorum tuorum recipias sanitatem.’ ”

130 Hanska addition to the clergy and reasonably educated bourgeoisie of the cities and towns, also of the poor of the towns and the mostly illiterate lay audiences in the countryside. For their needs it was necessary to speak about things with their real names and not risk that the audiences would understand anything presented implicitly. If we turn back to the criteria presented in the above quoted definition of exemplum, one can easily see that Stephen of Bourbon’s version of Cromatius’ story meets them all. It is a short story, presented as a true one, and it presents a morally salutary lesson, and finally, it was meant to be used eventually within a religious discourse –​in a sermon. Let us draw some general conclusions from the example presented above. The metamorphosis from original miracle story into an exemplum could mean several changes. Firstly, the length of a miracle story can alter from a few lines to several pages, whereas an exemplum by definition is always short and compact. In practice this often means that exempla versions are abbreviated versions of the original miracle stories. This abbreviation is often done by concentrating on the essential features of the miracle. If the story has side lines, they are cut out. An exemplum is normally concentrated on one issue only, and in the case above it is penance. Anything in the original story that does not illuminate this chosen goal and is not necessary for the story to be understood is often left out altogether in the exemplum version. Similarly, an exemplum story does not need a wide gallery of side characters whose inclusion needs to be explained to the audience. Hence these superfluous characters are often left out from the exempla. In our example Stephen of Bourbon eliminated from the story Sebastian’s sidekick Polycarpius and Cromatius’ son Tiburtius. They did not bring any significant added value to the story and could easily be done away with. However, instead of dropping characters from the original miracle story, the writers of the exempla sometimes opted to do just the opposite. One of the essential features of an exemplum was that it had to be true or at least plausible and believable to the audience. Sometimes this caused the writers of the exempla to present their stories as true stories that had happened in surroundings familiar to their audience, and to persons known by their audiences. A good example of this is the story of the Jew who threw his son in the oven. The Cistercian monk Caesar of Heisterbach tells a story of a miracle by the Holy Virgin in his Liber VIII miracolorum. According to Caesar it took place in Wrocław (in German also known as Breslau) in Poland. Caesar states that there was a Jewish boy who went to the church with his Christian friends and received communion there and carried it home to show it to his father. The Jewish father having heard what had happened cursed his son and threw

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him into the hot oven. Alarmed by the mother’s desperate cries, a crowd of Christians entered the house, opened the oven and found the boy miraculously unharmed by the fire. The boy explained that the lady he had seen in a statue above the altar had protected him from the flames with her mantle. The crowd took the host back from the Jew and brought it back to the church were the Jewish boy and his mother were baptized.13 For a less educated listener, mentioning the place Wrocław gave this story a distinct local impression; however, at the time when Caesar was writing during the first years of the thirteenth century this story was already at least six hundred years old. Its earliest known versions originated from the late sixth century. In the early versions the miracle took place in Constantinople. During the twelfth century, it was often relocated to Bourges in France, and later on to other places in western Europe until on 9 November 1304 the Italian Dominican preacher Giordano da Pisa retold it yet again claiming that the events took place in Greece (in Grecia fu uno fanciullo de’ giuderi).14 The basic story remains the same through the centuries, but the geographic location is often changed to make the story feel more relevant and plausible for the audiences. Finally, exemplum collections were often written so that the stories were arranged under topics in alphabetical or some other logical order. For example, Stephen of Bourbon’s collection was organized into chapters according to the seven gifts of Holy Spirit, whereas the English Franciscan collections Liber exemplorum and Speculum laicorum and many others following them were organized alphabetically.15 This need to classify the stories according to the headings of the chapters occasionally led to changes in the original miracle story to make it better serve the point that needed to be driven home. We have seen above how the miraculous story of Cromatius’ cure was changed to deal with penance rather than idolatry.

13 14

15

Caesar of Heisterbach, Libri viii miraculorum. Ed. A. Meister, Die Fragmente der Libri VIII miraculorum des Caesarius von Heisterbach (Römische Quartalschrift für christliche Altertumskunde und für Kichengeschichte, Supplementheft), Rome, 1901, pp. 141–​42. D.L. Despres, “Mary of the Eucharist: Cultic Anti-​Judaism in Some Fourteenth-​Century English Devotional Manuscripts”, in J. Cohen, From Witness to Witchcraft. Jews and Judaism in Medieval Thought (Wolfenbüttel Mittelalter-​Studien, 11), Wiesbaden, 1996, p. 377; C. Delcorno, Giordano da Pisa e l’antica predicazione volgare (Biblioteca di “lettere” italiane, 14), Florence, 1975, pp. 274–​75. For further occurrences of this exemplum, see F.C. Tubach, Index exemplorum. A Handbook of Medieval Religious Tales (ff Communications, 204), Helsinki, 1981, no. 2041. L’Exemplum, pp. 60–​64.

132 Hanska 3

Miracula, Exempla and the Sermons

Above we have seen one concrete example of how the miracle narratives of the saint’s vitae were converted into short didactic exemplum stories. Exemplum collections, however, were not the final product in this conversion from a tale of wonder to a tale of persuasion. Exemplum collections were merely one of the tools employed by the preachers in their quest of delivering God’s word for their audiences. As subjects of exempla, miracle stories became part of a well-​oiled rhetorical machine that was the single most important means of communication before the arrival of print, namely preaching.16 The arrival of the printed book meant that the written word was more easily available for larger groups of people. Preaching, however, remained an important means of communication. In fact, printing helped to distribute model sermon collections even more efficiently and a large share of the early printed best-​sellers were sermon collections or other praedicabilia.17 Because of this an analysis of the relationship between miracle stories and exempla would not be perfect without analyzing the miracula-​cum-​exempla within the surviving model sermon collections. A good example of this are the sermons including the miraculous events presented above from the Acta sancti Sebastiani. Before going into a few exemplary cases, one needs to discuss briefly the preaching on Saint Sebastian in general. The popular conception of Saint Sebastian is that he was, often together with Saint Roch, presented as the ultimate protector against plague. However, looking at the sermons on his feast day (20 January), a different image comes out. Saint Sebastian as a plague saint was in practice born after the Black Death; the sermons from the preceding period simply present him as a martyr saint. As the model sermons were rather conservative and tended to copy much from preceding collections, Saint Sebastian was rarely connected to the plague even in those collections that were written after the Black Death.18 In practice this 16 17

18

For an analysis of preaching as mass communication, see D.L. d’Avray, The Preaching of the Friars. Sermons diffused from Paris before 1300, Oxford, 1985, pp. 3–​4. On the popularity and diffusion of the model sermon collections in the early print, see P. Delcorno, In the Mirror of the Prodigal Son. The Pastoral Uses of a Biblical Narrative (c. 1200–​1550), Leiden –​Boston, 2017, pp. 113–​14 and A.T. Thayer, Penitence, Preaching and the Coming of Reformation, Aldershot, 2002, pp. 13–​45. For the importance of the sermons during the early modern period, see J.M. Frymire, The Primacy of the Postils: Catholics, Protestants and the dissemination of ideas in Early Modern Germany, Leiden, 2010. O. Gecser, “Sermons on St. Sebastian after the Black Death (1348-​ca. 1500)”, in O. Gecser et al., Promoting the Saints. Cults and Their Contexts from Late Antiquity until the Early Modern Period. Essays in Honor of Gábor Klaniczay for his 60th Birthday (ceu Medievalia, 12), Budapest and New York, 2011, p. 267.

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means that our exemplum, the case of the miraculous healing of the Prefect Cromatius, is hardly ever presented as evidence of Sebastian’s power as a healing saint. Here it is not possible to analyze all the sermons on Saint Sebastian’s feast day.19 I have chosen two sermons to serve as an example of the use of Cromatius’ healing story within model sermon collections.20 The first one is James of Varazze’s sermon De sancto Sebastiano martyre, sermo primus from James’ Sermones de Sanctis collection.21 This sermon uses as a thema passage from Luke’s Gospel (2: 34): “Behold, thou hast instructed many, and thou hast strengthened the weak hands. Thy words have upholden him that was falling”. Following this Gospel reading, the sermon is then divided into three main parts, first dealing with how Sebastian has instructed many; second, with how he has strengthened the weak; and the third with how he has upheld those that were falling. James of Varrazze refers twice to the story of Prefect Cromatius’ healing, namely in the first and in the second part of the division. In the first part he does not retell the story, but simply alludes to the mass conversion of Cromatius’ family: On the first part of the division, one should note that some people, such as the idolizers, ignored the virtue of God, and therefore Saint Sebastian taught them the truth of faith, and in one day he broke more than two hundred idols and baptized the prefect of the city together with 1400 men of his family.22 19 20

21

22

For a list known surviving sermons on Saint Sebastian, see Gecser, “Sermons on St. Sebastian”, pp. 270–​72. Despite the title, Gecser lists also those sermons that came from the time preceding the Black Death. Most of the sermons actually delivered were either never recorded in written form or have not survived. The few surviving reportationes include even fewer sermons on Saint Sebastian. Therefore it is necessary to rely on model sermon collections. On the actual sermons and reportationes of them, see L.-​J. Bataillon, “Sermons rédigés, sermons réportés (XIIIe siècle)”, Medioevo e rinascimento 3 (1989), pp. 69–​86. Reprinted in L.-​J. Bataillon, La prédication au XIIIe siècle en France et Italie. Etudes et documents, Aldershot, Ashgate, 1993, no. iii. James of Varazze, Sermones de sanctorum festis per anni circulum. De Sancto Sebastiano martyre, sermo primus, Ulm, 1484, fols. 24r-​v. James of Varazze’s Saints’ sermons collection survives in more than 300 hundred manuscripts making it by far the most popular medieval sermones de sanctis collection: S.A. Epstein, The Talents of Jacopo da Varagine, p. 12. For a list of the surviving manuscripts, see Kaeppeli, Scriptors Ordinis Praedicatorum ii, no. 2155. James of Varazze, Sermones de sanctorum festis per anni circulum, sermo de sancto Sebastiano martyris, sermo primus, f. 24r: “Circa primum notandum quod quidam

134 Hanska This passage refers to Saint Sebastian’s role in converting and baptizing pagans and is very much in line with the spirit and motive of the original miracle story from Acta sancti Sebastiani. Therefore it is not particularly interesting from this chapter’s point of view. The second occurrence, found in the second part of the division, is much more interesting. James writes: Secondly, he was the strengthener of the weak of which it is said [in the Gospel reading]: “he strengthened the weak hands”. For some people are feeble in beginning to do good, Prov. 19[,24]: “A slothful man hideth his hand in his bosom”. Such a person was Cromatius the prefect who did not want to destroy all his idols, but instead concealed one of them. However, it was not possible for him to be saved before that too was shattered. Similar to Cromatius are those who abandon their sins, but still want to retain one.23 Here one could make two observations. The first one is that James of Varazze does not actually tell the exemplum story in extenso. On both occasions he only refers to its contents in a manner that presupposes that the reader of his model sermon is familiar with the original story. This was not an uncommon thing to occur in model sermon collections. As parchment, and even paper from the latter half of the fourteenth century onwards, were expensive and copying manuscripts took much time and effort, the authors were often happy with short references to commonly known stories rather than copying them in extenso and wasting precious parchment, time, and effort. A good example of this practice are the model sermons of another late thirteenth-​and early fourteenth-​century Dominican preacher Peregrinus of Oppeln. In his sermons on the feast of the Nativity, Peregrinus states that Mary remained a virgin after the birth of Christ; she was not violated but illuminated in giving birth, and therefore she is called the Star of the Sea and has illuminated many sinners. To emphasize this last point Peregrinus instructs the users

23

ignorabant virtutem Dei sicut idolatre, ideo sanctus Sebastianus docuit fidei veritatem unde una die plus quam ducenta idola confregit et prefectum urbis et mille quadringentos viros de eius familia baptisavit.” James of Varazze, Sermones de sanctorum festis per anni circulum, sermo de sancto Sebastiano martyris, sermo primus, fol. 24v: “Secundo fuit corrobator debilium cum dicitur manus lassas roborasti. Sunt enim quidam debiles ad bonum incipiendum, Prov. 19: ‘Abscondit piger manum suam sub asella sua.’ De quorum numero erat Cromatius prefectus qui cum omnia ydola sua confringere potuisset, unum tamen abscondit sed salvari non potuit quousque confractum non fuit. Similes sunt qui peccata sua deserunt unum tamen retinere volunt.”

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of his model sermons, and continues: “Tell how she cured the blind Jew who was standing before her image in Rome”.24 It is clear that Peregrinus assumes that his clerical readers are familiar with the story; alas that is not true with all the modern historians as I have not been able to identify this exemplum from other sources. The second observation one makes on James of Varazze’s version of Cromatius’ healing story is that James is following Stephen of Bourbon’s exemplum (or another similar version of the story) rather than the original Acta sancti Sebastiani version. Here too the point James wants to make is that Cromatius did not want to have all his pagan idols destroyed. Thus, he deliberately remains in his sin of idolatry and is not healed. At the end of the story James connects Cromatius’ example directly to those who go to confess their sins but leave some of them unconfessed. The problem of incomplete confession was often addressed in moral theological tractates of the thirteenth century.25 James of Varazze’s interpretation of Cromatius’ healing story was not the only one possible. While sermons often consisted of literary topoi that remained more or less similar from one sermon collection to another, the preachers were free to develop their material according to their particular needs. Thus, along with Étienne of Bourbon’s exemplum version emphasizing confession, the original anti-​idolatry motive of the story survived in sermons. For example, Johannes de Biblia, early fourteenth-​century lector of the Dominican convent of Bologna, used it in his sermon on Saint Sebastian.26 Johannes builds his sermon around his chosen thema (Lk 2:34): “Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against”. The child in the Gospel reading refers to Saint Sebastian who was set to ruin the pagan cults. He will cause the rising again of many men, that is, the conversion into Christian faith, and eventually, because of this, he was spoken against, that is, he became a martyr. On the part of the sermon concerning ruining the pagan cults, Johannes tells that Saint Sebastian was like a flooding river that carried away the foundations on which pagan cults were built. These foundations were the idols and Johannes duly notes that Saint Sebastian personally destroyed more than two hundred of them.27 On the second part of the 24 25 26 27

Peregrinus of Oppeln, Sermones de tempore et de sanctis. Ed. R. Tatarzyński, Peregrini de Opole Sermones de tempore et de sanctis, Warsaw, 1997, p. 27. “Dic quomodo Iudaeum excaecatum Romae and imaginem suam sanavit.” A.T. Thayer, Penitence, Preaching and the Coming of Reformation, pp. 59–​60. On Johannes de Biblia, see Kaeppeli, Scriptores Ordinia Praedicatorum ii, p. 385. Johannes de Biblia, Sermones de sanctis. Sermo de sancto Sebastiano specialiter. Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, ms Borghes. 23, fols. 95r–​96v. ”Fundamentum autem

136 Hanska division Johannes explains to his audiences how Saint Sebastian woke people who were sleeping because of the error of idolatry. He mentions that according to his legend, 1400 people were baptized because of Saint Sebastian’s merits.28 In both above mentioned cases Johannes de Biblia refers to Saint Sebastian’s legend (sicut de eo legitur, ut dicitur in legenda) and, indeed, he also follows the interpretation of the original Acta sancti Sebastiani to Cromatius’ healing although he does not mention Cromatius’ name or tell the whole story. It seems that Johannes expects that his clerical readers are familiar with the story or least able to go back to the original legend if they do not remember it. In either case, the story of Cromatius’ healing and the baptism of his whole family (in the Roman sense including servants and slaves too) was meant to serve as an exemplum within Johannes de Biblia’s sermon. By the fifteenth century the fighting against idolatry and superstitions became an increasingly important topic in preaching. The preachers of the Observant movement within the mendicant orders were particularly active in rooting out witchcraft and superstitious beliefs.29 This new emphasis is evident also in our third sermon example taken from the Pomerium sermonum de sanctis by the Franciscan preacher Pelbartus of Temesvar (today known as Timișoara, situated in western Romania). Pelbartus became lector of the Observant Franciscan convent of Buda in 1483 and stayed there until his death in 1504. During this period, he also wrote his books: that is, a theological synthesis called Aureum sacrae theologiae rosarium and a massive collection of model sermons called Pomerium sermonum divided into four volumes (de tempore, de sanctis, quadragesimales, and Mariale). Pelbartus’ sermon collections belonged to the late medieval bestsellers. They were printed in thirteen editions before 1520 and had a huge influence on the religious education of the people, especially in central Europe.30

28

29 30

vitiorum est ydolatrie cultus unde consequenter notatur vane superstitionis desolatio cum sequitur ‘et terram gygantium detrahes in ruinam.’ Terra gygantium, id est, demonum est cultus ydolorum, hec enim pascit demones sicut terra serpentes. Hanc terram beatus Sebastianus in ruinam destruxit quia sicut de eo legitur plus quam ducenta ydola ipse confregit.” Johannes de Biblia, Sermones de sanctis. Sermo de sancto Sebastiano specialiter, Borghes. 23, fol. 96v. “Quod verbum exponatur quasi fuerit verbum beati Sebastiani ad regeneratos per undam baptismi qui fuerunt mille quadringenti per eius merita et documenta ut dicitur in legenda.” See for example F. Conti, Witchcraft, Superstition, and Observant Franciscan Preachers. Pastoral Approach and Intellectual Debate in Renaissance Milan (Europa sacra, 18), Turnhout, 2015. On Pelbartus of Temesvar, see B. Roest, Franciscan Literature of Religious Instruction before the Council of Trent (Studies in the History of Christian Traditions, 117), Boston and

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Pelbartus writes in his sermon on Saint Sebastian: Finally, Sebastian taught us perfect faith in Christ because, when the prefect of the city of Rome was suffering from a grievous illness and asked Saint Sebastian that he would be cured, Sebastian replied to him that he should first renounce idols and give Sebastian the power to break them into pieces. He said: “Because you fearful are afraid of breaking your gods into pieces, give them to me to be crushed”. When this was done, Cromatius the prefect was not cured. Sebastian said to him: “Since you were to be cured but it did not happen, it is certain that you did not fully reject infidelity from your mind, or you kept back some idols”. Cromatius replied that he had an inner chamber where he had all the equipment one needs to study the stars; it had cost him two hundred measures of gold, and with it he was able to foresee all the future. When Sebastian said that also that should be broken, the prefect’s son Tiburtinus said: “If, when these precious items are destroyed, my father still remains uncured, you both, that is Sebastian and Priest Policarpus, will be burned alive”. Sebastian replied to him: “So be it as you say”. When the equipment was destroyed, an angel appeared to the prefect and announced to him that he had received his health from Lord Jesus. Thus, the prefect, his son, and 1400 of his family were baptized. Of this it is evident that for salvation, it is not enough to believe in some degree, but to keep carefully all the articles of faith, not commit any mortal sin, and not to remain stained by any superstition whatsoever.31

31

Leiden, 2004, pp. 98–​99; A.T. Thayer, Penitence, Preaching and the Coming of Reformation, pp. 27 and 38. Pelbartus of Temesvar, Pomerium sermonum de sanctis per anni circulum, Nuremberg, 1519, fols. k3r-​v. “Denique Sebastianus docuit perfectam fidem in Christum quia interea dum prefectus urbis Rome gravissimo morbo laborans rogasset Sebastianum, ut sanitatem reciperet, respondit Sebastianus quod prius idola abnegaret et confringendi sibi potestatem daret, quia vos, inquit, timidi deos vestros confringere timetis, mihi ergo date conterendos. Quod cum effectu perfecisset, Cromatius prefectus nullam sanitatem recepit. Cui Sebastianus: ‘Cum sanitatem recipere debuisti nec recipisti, certum est quod aut infidelitatem non dum plene abiecisti mente, aut idola reservasti.’ At ille indicavit se habere thalamum in quo erat omnis disciplina stellarum pro quo plus quam ducenta pondera auri expenderat et per que futura omnia previdebat. Cumque Sebastianus diceret quod et illud confringi deberet. Filius prefecti Tiburtinus dicit: ‘Si distructo hoc precioso opere pater meus sanitatem non receperit, ambo’, scilicet Sebastianus et etiam Policarpus ‘vivi concrementur.’ Cui Sebastianus: ‘Sic fiat, ut locutus es.’ Quo confracto angelus apparuit prefecto et sibi sanitatem a Domino Iesu redditum nunciavit. Sicque prefectus et eius filius et mille quadringenti de eius familia baptizati sunt. Ex quo patet quod salutem non

138 Hanska A quick comparison reveals that Pelbartus used James of Varazze’s Legenda aurea as a basis of his exemplum. It follows almost verbatim the story as it is presented by James.32 The only personal addition is the final sentence that explains the moral and relevance of the story to Pelbartus’ contemporary audiences. Pelbartus explains that in Cromatius’ case Saint Sebastian taught us what is perfect faith in Christ. The story itself is presented faithfully to the original version in Acta sancti Sebastiani emphasizing the importance of neglecting idolatry. However, Pelbartus explains after telling the story that perfect faith does not consist only of believing vaguely and in some degree, but, he insists, that one should carefully believe in all the articles of faith found in the Apostles’ creed and in addition to that, carefully avoid committing any mortal sin. It is interesting to compare how Stephen of Bourbon and Pelbartus of Temesvar abbreviated the very same legend into a short exemplum form in two completely different ways. Stephen changed the story and its moral to better suit his purposes. Pelbartus, following James of Varazze, was more faithful to the original rendition and he also had an eye for dramatic twists in the plot. This is evident from how he incorporated Cromatius’ son’s threats to Saint Sebastian and Priest Polycarpus. Seen together, all the above presented versions of Cromatius’ healing miracle present an example of how miracle stories could be, and indeed often were, turned into exempla and then used in preaching. It is typical that one miracle story could be turned into an exemplum several times and used for different purposes and motives –​often ones that were not present in the original context of the miracle story. 4

The Influence of Preaching and Exempla on Creating New Saints and Their Miracles

Above we have seen how the miracle stories were converted into exempla and then used in model sermon collections and, no doubt, eventually in actual preaching. However, that was not the end of the story. As the French medievalists of the Annales school had already pointed out, the relationship between the learned clerical culture and the popular culture was never a one-​way

32

sufficit aliquantummodo credere, sed omnes fidei articulos perfecte tenere et nullo peccato mortali vel nulla superstitione inquinatum manere.” Cf. James of Varazze, Legenda aurea, pp. 165–​66.

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street.33 The preachers told miracle stories and amused their audiences with exempla, but some of these stories actually originally came from the audiences; they were parts of oral culture picked up from the streets and market places by the itinerant preachers. It also happened that the audiences helped the clergy to create new miracle stories. This happened especially after the beginning of the thirteenth century when the official process of making new saints was revolutionized and became an exclusive papal privilege. From then on, one could only become an officially venerated saint through a complicated judicial process and one part of such canonization processes was to determine whether the potential saint had procured any miracles while alive and especially after his death. In these processes the miracle stories gained new, rather different roles; a more mundane and even banal role. They were no longer needed to convince the population at large of the holiness of a saint or even to serve as an example of saintly behavior, but to convince the civil servants of the Papal curia and eventually the pope himself that the candidate was worth being canonized. The most important part of a canonization process was an enquiry held in places where the putative saint had lived and performed his or her miracles (Lat. inquisitio in partibus).34 The interrogations concerning claimed miracles were extremely thorough and their purpose was to eliminate any cases that could be explained by natural reasons, leaving only true miracles, that is, the ones that were undoubtedly caused by supernatural causes. This is well in line with what Thomas Aquinas had to say about miracles. Thomas’ view was that the world functions according to a system of secondary causes (we would call them natural laws). God had created and instituted these laws and can also suspend them whenever He sees it necessary; this can happen for example to prove that someone is speaking on Divine authority or to prove someone’s sanctity. In any case, for Thomas and for the papal commissioners carrying out inquisitiones on putative saints’ miracles, a miracle was by definition an exceptional occurrence, something that befalls only rarely and only as a consequence of divine intervention.35

33 34 35

See for example Jean-​Claude Schmitt, “La parola addomesticata. San Domenico, il gatto e le donne di Fanjeaux”, in Jean-​Claude Schmitt, Religione, folklore e società, Bari: Laterza, 1988, p. 124. For the practicalities of these interrogations, see Katajala-​Peltomaa & Kuuliala’s chapter in this volume. D-​L. d’Avray, Medieval Religious Rationalities. A Weberian Analysis, Cambridge, 2010, pp. 38–​42.

140 Hanska Thus, while from the thirteenth century on the miracles were strictly regulated by the ecclesiastical authorities and considered exceptional occurrences, in practice at the grass roots level they were discussed and promoted on a daily basis by the preachers in their sermons. Miracle stories turned into exempla were the most important tool in this popular diffusion of miracles and propagating attitudes and understanding concerning them. Miracle stories, saints’ day sermons, and the biblical stories concerning miracles performed by Jesus all shaped the popular ideas of what true miracles were supposed to be like. In practice this meant two things. Firstly, the general understanding of what miracles were like guided popular opinions on what kinds of events were perceived as miraculous. Secondly, and more importantly, it heavily influenced the witnesses of the canonization processes and how they told the miracles they had witnessed to the ecclesiastical authorities. A concrete example of this process can be seen at the canonization process of Thomas Cantilupe (d. 1282), bishop of Hereford, which was held in London and Hereford in 1307. A certain William Cragh or William ap Rees was hanged on the gallows at Swansea on 12 November 1291.36 After hanging, he was cut down and carried into a town house for a wake. On the following night William woke up and later, in the presence of several witnesses in Swansea castle, he told a story of how he was miraculously saved from suffocation while being hanged. According to the surviving records of the inquisitio in partibus process: When he was taken to the gallows, the said William begged God that He would release him from such a vile death because of the merits of Saint Thomas of Cantilupe, the aforementioned bishop of Hereford. Furthermore, he reported that when he was hanged a certain bishop, as it appeared to him, held his feet and prevented him from being hanged.37 It is more than likely that William Cragh invented this story to avoid simply being hanged again, and quite probably with more success. However, as it happens, the story of miraculous survival was not a product of William’s creative imagination, but a rather well-​known miracle story that had been widely

36

37

For more details concerning William Cragh’s hanging miracle, see J. Hanska, “The Hanging of William Cragh: Anatomy of a Miracle”, Journal of Medieval History 27 (2001), pp. 121–​38; R. Bartlett, The Hanged Man. A Story of Miracle, Memory, and Colonialism in the Middle Ages, Princeton and Oxford, 2004. Inquisitio de fide, vita et moribus, fama et miraculis recolende memorie domini Thome de Cantilupo, quondam episcopi dicte ecclesie Herefordensis. Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat.lat. 4015, fol. 8v.

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circulated in exemplum collections. The oldest known version was written down by William of Malmesbury in the early twelfth century.38 This story circulated widely among the thirteenth-​century writers of praedicabilia.39 It even found its way into the above-​mentioned Stephen of Bourbon’s exemplum collection in the following form: We read that there was a certain thief who had this one merit, that he fasted with bread and water on the vigils of Mary’s feast days. Also, when he went out to rob, he always read the Hail Mary and begged the Virgin not to allow him to die in this state of sin. He was caught and hanged, and he hung on the gallows for three days not able to die. He shouted to the passers-​by and asked them to fetch a priest. The priest came along with several others and when they took him down from the gallows, he said that a most beautiful virgin had held him by his feet for three days. The thief promised to mend his ways and he was set free.40 The parallels between William Cragh’s miracle as told by himself, and the case of the miraculously saved thief are too extensive to be mere co-​incidence. It seems obvious that William Cragh was aware of the hagiographic motif of the saint saving a condemned man from asphyxiation. The most likely explanation is that he had either personally heard the story from a pulpit, or someone else who had heard it in a sermon had retold the story to William Cragh. It is plausible that the people of Swansea, or at least some of them, were also aware of the existence of this motif. For a medieval audience, the fact that it was a case of re-​telling a known story did not deduct from the credibility of William Cragh’s story; on the contrary, it was a miracle that had happened before and was therefore more believable if anything. 38 39

40

B. Ward, Miracles and Medieval Mind: Theory, Record and Event, 1000–​1215, Philadelphia, 1982, pp. 155–​56. F.C. Tubach, Index exemplorum, no. 2235, and numbers 2234, 2236, and 3796 for the variants of the story. See also B. de Gaiffier, “Un thème hagiographique: le pendu miraculeusement sauvé”, in B. de Gaiffier, Études critiques d’hagiographie et d’iconographie, Brussels, 1967, pp. 194–​226. A. Lecoy de la Marche, Anecdotes historiques, légendes et apologues tirés du recueil inédit d’Étienne de Bourbon, dominicain du XIIIe siècle, Paris, 1877, no. 119. “Item legitur quod quidam fur habebat boni quod vigilias beate Marie in pane et aqua jejunabat, et, cum iret furari, semper Ave, Maria dicebat, rogans eam ne dimitteret eum mori in peccato illo. Cum autem captus suspendendetur, per triduum pependit, nec potuit mori. Cum autem vocaret transeuntes ut advocarent ei sacerdotem, adveniente eo et preposito cum aliis, removetur a patibulo, dicens quod virgo pulcherrima sustentaverat eum per pedes per triduum; promittens emendacionem, liber dimittitur."

142 Hanska No matter how William Cragh had learned the story, we are dealing here with an obvious case of a miracle story told in the form of an exemplum giving birth to a brand new miracle story. It is clear that William Cragh was not the only witness of inquisitiones in partibus processes whose testimony was affected by miracle stories they had heard from the preachers. This process can be studied in cases like William Cragh’s where an official inquisitio in partibus was carried out and its minutes have survived. However, it is known that dozens of processes never came to that point. Nevertheless, in these cases too, the local postulators organized hearings where witnesses were interviewed concerning the miracles of the putative saint. These initial stages of canonization processes were bound have an effect on the cult of the putative saint even if his sanctity remained local and he was never officially sanctioned. 5

Conclusions

Hagiographic miracle stories were used during the thirteenth-​century preaching revival and the later Middle Ages as raw material for short and edifying religious stories called exempla. Their mutual relationship could be defined in one single sentence: Not all the exempla are miracles but almost all the miracles could be used as an exemplum. As the exemplum stories were intended to amuse and entertain the audiences and at the same time to drive home salutary lessons, they were often much shorter and often straight to the point versions of the original miracle stories. In practice this meant that authors of the exempla ruthlessly cut away all the details, persons and other elements of the stories that were not strictly necessary for understanding or dramatic effect. Sometimes the writer of the exempla had a different scope and intentions than those in the original miracle story. In such cases it was normal procedure to change the details of the story to underline the desired message. Historical accuracy was not the key issue if one stood to gain more spiritual benefit with changed details. Following this logic, one miracle story could be turned into numerous different exempla according to the particular needs of the preachers or their audiences. Short versions of exemplum stories were collected into thematically or alphabetically ordained exempla collections, in such a manner that the preacher could carry within one single volume a true library of miracle stories and other exempla fitting for all imaginable purposes. This was obviously more

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convenient for mendicant brothers and other itinerant preachers than carrying entire libraries of Saints’ vitae and miracles on preaching tours. However, exemplum collections were only work tools for the preachers. Eventually the miracle-​cum-​exemplum stories ended up in actual orally delivered sermons. As we only have very few surviving reportationes of these actual sermons, one has to contend himself with studying model sermons that survive. Sometimes they were based on edited versions of actually delivered sermons, sometimes they were written to be published. However, the scholarship on the field of medieval sermon studies strongly suggests that the model sermons were essentially very similar to actual sermons. This study shows that sometimes the preachers took material from exemplum collections such as Stephen of Bourbon’s De septem donis Spiritus Sancti used here as an example, and sometimes they went straight to ad fontes, that is, to the original miracle story collections. In either case, the preachers used miracle material in the form of exemplum, as they did not have unlimited time to use; many in their audiences were not disposed to listen to fully developed miracle stories. Sometimes the miracle stories and exempla containing them were so familiar to the clergy that they were not told in extenso in model sermons but only referred to with a short line indicating which story is supposed to be told in that context. The most popular exempla were indeed circulated widely in actual sermons. This explains the fact that some stories survive in numerous slightly different alternative versions. There are also indications that the miracle exempla stories were not just told by the preachers to the lay audiences, but that sometimes, as in the case of William Cragh’s miraculous survival of hanging, the lay audiences told the stories back to the preachers and clergymen in slightly altered form and thus contributed to creating new miracle stories. An important methodological insight is the recording process: the interaction between miracles and exempla was a two-​way street between the learned and lay spheres.

­c hapter 7

Rituals and Spaces of Devotion in Cistercian Everyday Religion Marika Räsänen 1

Introduction

The focus of this chapter is on the ways in which the cult of a saint was carried out in the everyday life of a Cistercian monastery. The saint in question is Thomas Aquinas (1224/​1225–​74), a Dominican friar who died in the Cistercian monastery of Fossanova (in current terms located in the border area of Lazio and Campania, in Italy) when he was heading from Naples to Lyon.1 According to the witnesses to Thomas’s canonization process, a special relationship started developing between the monks and Thomas when he arrived in Fossanova and was taken care of by the Cistercians for some weeks before his death at the monastery. The oral tradition of the monks, recorded in documents in 1319 and 1321, offers us an understanding that the handling of Thomas’s body according to the Cistercian regulations and customs played an important role in the formation of a future saint. The use of Cistercian practices was of great importance for the introduction and adoption of Thomas’s cult both in the monastery and among the local people. Together with tracking the marks of Thomas’s early veneration, I will discuss questions such as where and how the people contacted the Saint and what kind of practices they developed for contacting him. When the witnesses of the canonization inquiries describe miracles that happened to them, they provide a fresh picture of different devotional practices. At the center of these practices was Thomas’s tangible presence at his tomb. Both the placement and the form of the tomb affected the ways in which the faithful were able or allowed to approach the tomb, stay in its vicinity, and touch it.2 The acts of gazing towards the tomb and the body, as well 1 The most authoritative studies on Thomas’s life are J.-​P. Torrell, O.P., Initiation a saint Thomas d’Aquin: sa personne et son oeuvre, Fribourg & Paris, 1993 (repr. Paris, 2015) and J.A. Weisheipl, Friar Thomas D’Aquino: His Life, Thought, and Works, Washington, DC, 1983. 2 The placement of the tomb and the surrounding architecture of the shrine is still quite a fragmentarily studied problem, although the importance of material premises for the development of the cult and pilgrimage is recognized; see for example P. Davies, D. Howard,

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2021 | DOI:10.1163/9789004468498_009

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as respective acts of veneration, differed remarkably according to the status and gender of the devotee. In the following pages, I will concentrate on the monastic space of Fossanova, its division, and its uses by different groups of agents. The structure of the chapter roughly follows the divisions of the physical environment. Thomas Aquinas was proclaimed an official saint of the Church in July 1323. Collected memories, the testimonies of the canonization process, form the most complete source for Thomas’s cult at the Cistercian abbey and in the surrounding area at the turn of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. At the same time the canonization protocols are an extremely rare documentation of the Cistercian devotional culture in Fossanova and in the lay communities around the monastery. From Fossanova, in terms of other devotional material, or indeed any kind of sources, very little survives from this period (roughly between 1274 and 1321), and from the nearby villages there is even less. Thus, the depositions given in the inquiries in Naples in 1319 and Fossanova in 1321 offer an exceptional approach for different kinds of studies, including the everyday religion of these communities which would be otherwise difficult to examine. Despite the remarkable value of the processes as a source, they are surprisingly under-​utilized in research on Cistercian monastic and lay culture.3 2

An Introduction to Thomas Aquinas’s Canonization Material

On 23 July 1319 at the Archbishop’s palace in Naples, the commissars, notaries, and scribes were ready to hear and write down the oral testimonies of witnesses regarding Thomas Aquinas’s sanctity. Thomas, who had died 45 years earlier in the Cistercian monastery of Fossanova, had gained a lively cult in the & W. Pullan (eds.), Architecture and Pilgrimage, 1000–​1500. Southern Europe and Beyond, Farnham & Burlington, 2013. 3 Central studies utilizing Thomas’s canonization material regarding Fossanova and its connections to the surrounding communities are I. Taurisano, “Discepoli e biografi di S. Tommas”, in Tommaso d’Aquino O.P.: Miscellanea storico-​artistica, Rome, 1924, pp. 111–​86; E. Angelini, Priverno nel Medioevo, Rome, 1998; C. Ciammaruconi, “La Inquisitio dell’abate Pietro da Monte San Giovanni e la communita monastica di Fossanova alla fine del XIII secolo”, in Il monachesimo cistercense nella Marittima medievale. Storia e arte: Atti del convegno, Abbazie di Fossanova e Valvisciolo, 24–​25, settembre 1999 (Bibliotheca Casaemariensis, 5), Casamari, 2002, pp. 11–​90; E. Parziale, L’abbazia cistercense di Fossanova: Le dipendenze in Marittima e l’influenza sulla produzione artistica locale tra XII e XIV secolo, Rome, 2007; G.M. De Rossi, Fossanova e San Tommaso: Sulle orme di San Tommaso d’Aquino a Fossanova: un percorso tra agiografia e topografia, Rome, 2013; M. Räsänen, Thomas Aquinas’s Relics as Focus for Conflict and Cult in the Late Middle Ages: The Restless Corpse, Amsterdam, 2017.

146 Räsänen surrounding area in the frontier of the Papal State and the kingdom of Naples. The canonization process had started among the Southern Italian Dominicans in 1317, and Pope John xxii had officially proclaimed the canonization case open and nominated the inquisitors in September 1318. The first round of hearings was organized in Naples in 1319 and the second in Fossanova in 1321.4 William of Tocco, a Dominican friar from Southern Italy, was appointed as the official conductor of the process in 1317, but he had possibly started to collect material related to Thomas’s sanctity much earlier. It was he who presumably invited the witnesses to the hearings.5 In some cases the protocols of Fossanova offer the impression that the laypeople had arrived at the monastery

4 Systematic preparations for the canonization began in the Provincial Chapter of the Dominican Order in Gaeta in 1317. The Pope’s bull for starting the process, two inquiries, and other relevant material are edited as a special issue of Revue Thomiste by M.H. Laurent, Processus canonizationis S. Thomae, Neapoli (Fontes Vitae S. Thomae Aquinatis, 4), Marseille, [1911], 265–​407, and Processus canonizationis S. Thomae, Fossanova (Fontes Vitae S. Thomae Aquinatis, 5), Marseille, [1911], pp. 409–​510. The editions are based on medieval manuscripts in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, Ms. latin 3112 (Neapoli) and Ms. latin 3113 (Fossanova). There is another surviving, fragmentary, manuscript of the inquiry of Naples in the Archivio Secreto Vaticano, Cam. Ap., Collectorie 434B. At one time there also appears to have existed another copy of the inquiry of Fossanova in the Vatican archives, see J. Rius Serra (ed.), “Processus canonizationis beati Thome, peractus Fossanovae, iuxta exemplar asservatum Tabulario S. Rituum Congregationis”, Analecta sacri ordinis Fratrum Praedicatorum 22 (1936), pp. 509–​29, 576–​631, and M.H. Laurent, “De processu canonizationis S. Thomae Aquinatis Fossae Novae facto. Manuscriptum novum”, Analecta sacri ordinis Fratrum Praedicatorum 22 (1936), pp. 632–​39. In this chapter, I am using Laurent’s editions, and hereafter I will use the abbreviations Neapoli and Fossanova for the inquiries. 5 On William’s role in the process: K. Foster, The Life of Saint Thomas Aquinas. Bibliographical Documents, London, 1959, p. 6; C. le Brun-​Gouanvic, “Contexte historique et littéraire de l’Ystoria sancti Thome de Aquino”, in Ystoria sancti Thome de Aquino de Guillaume de Tocco, Toronto, 1996, pp. 1–​31. William’s strength was apparently fading before the final state of the canonization and John of Naples took his position as the procurator of the process, see A. Walz, O.P., “Historia canonizationis sancti Thomae de Aquino”, in Sadoc Szabó (ed.), Xenia Thomistica: Divo Thomae doctori communi ecclesia occasione VI centenarii ab ejus canonizatione oblata, 3 vols, Rome, 1925, vol. 3, pp. 105–​72, esp. p. 121. It appears that William was doing research for the process of Fossanova in nearby villages some time before the actual hearings, and collected the material for the Miracula. See the interesting testimony in Fossanova xlvi, pp. 451–​52. The documentation, or organization, for Thomas’s canonization hearings is rather circumscriptive, and a lot of common information is missing. On the role of the procurator on a general level, see P. Golinelli, “Social aspects in some Italian canonization trials: the choice of witnesses”, in G. Klaniczay (ed.), Procès de canonisation au Moyen Âge. Aspects Juridiques et religieux (Collection de l’École française de Rome, 340), Rome, 2004, pp. 165–​80; R.C. Finucane, Contested Canonizations: The Last Medieval Saints, 1482–​1523, Washington 2011, esp. p. 29.

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to seek a cure, and if they were healed, they were then asked to testify fairly spontaneously about the miracle. The records of the canonization process first very briefly, give the questions or themes, which were presented to the witnesses. These themes were three: Thomas’s saintly life, his miracles during his lifetime, and miracles after his death. This means that previously prepared formularies, articuli interrogatorii, were not used in Thomas’s processes.6 In addition to these three general themes, the witnesses were asked such clarifying questions as how they knew the matter they were reporting, where and when the event had taken place, who else knew, what kind of words were used in the situation, for how long the beneficiary had been ill, and for how long he or she had been healthy after the miracle, etc.7 In Naples, 42 people visited the palace and left their testimonies to the papal inquisitors during a rather long period of two months (23 July–​18 September). Among the witnesses were Cistercian monks, converses, and oblates (sixteen altogether), Dominican friars (eleven), some priests, and nine noble men. The statements include the date, and from these we can notice that in the final product of the process, the depositions were organized in the same order as the witnesses entered in front of the inquisitors, each in turn. There is one exception from this rule: the testimony of Petrus Grassus. His testimony is the only one without a date, copied at the start of the testimonies collected in the protocols of Naples. I presume that Petrus’s deposition was placed as the opening piece of the document due to his status as a high dignitary in the kingdom of Naples (miles regis, commissarius et familiaris).8 The Cistercians (except for two) were grouped as witnesses for the first days of the hearings, which indicates that the monks and converses travelled together to Naples to give their testimonies. Their venture was time-​consuming and expensive, as traveling from the monastery to Naples took several days, 6 On the normative aspects of canonization processes and the use of articuli interrogatorii, see A. Vauchez, La sainteté en Occident aux derniers siècles du Moyen Age, Rome, 1988; G. Klaniczay, “Proving sanctity in the canonization processes”, in G. Klaniczay (ed.), Procès de canonisation au Moyen Âge. Aspects Juridiques et religieux (Collection de l’École française de Rome, 340), Rome, 2004, pp. 117–​48; M. Goodich, “The Death of a Saint: A Hagiographical Topos”, in K. Mustakallio et al. (ed.), Hoping for Continuity, Childhood, Education and Death in Antiquity and Middle Ages (Acta Instituti Romani Finlandiae, 33), Rome, 2005, pp. 227–​38, and S. Katajala-​Peltomaa, Gender, Miracles, and Daily Life: The Evidence of Fourteenth-​Century Canonization Processes, Turnhout, 2009. For examples of the other Italian canonization process right before Thomas’s, see Golinelli, “Social aspects in some Italian canonization trials”. 7 Neapoli iv, pp. 271–​72, and Fossanova iv, 415. 8 Neapoli vi, pp. 273.

148 Räsänen plus the travelers had to stay in the city for some nights. All this means that the Cistercians had prepared their campaign to give the testimonies well, presumably at the request of William of Tocco.9 Not at all exceptionally for the period, a new round of hearings was organized two years after the first round in Naples. At this time, the commissars, notaries, and scribes assembled at the monastery of Fossanova (10–​12 November 1321), which guarded the tomb of the saint candidate. The abbot’s house was visited by 114 witnesses, most of whom were laymen (54) and women (40) from the surrounding villages. The group also included Cistercians who were not present in Naples. The local laity did not travel to Naples to give their testimonies –​Naples was too far for simple and poor peasants and artisans. It appears that the original plan was to organize the hearings in Fossanova, in the first place, but the sickness of the Archbishop of Naples, one of the commissars, prevented it. According to André Vauchez, in the later Middle Ages it became typical to rearrange hearings in cases which lacked lay voices in the first round, as a widespread fama sanctitatis was a necessity for the success of the canonization in that period.10 Based on Italian canonization processes, Paolo Golinelli places the emphasis differently. He states that clerical witnesses were always more appreciated, but in the case of popular cults, lay voices gained a major role. According to Golinelli, the canonization process had a social importance: “in the fourteenth century, there was a conspicuous predominance of distinguished personalities, who established also in this way their leading role in their towns”.11 In Thomas Aquinas’s case, we can see that both tendencies claimed by Vauchez and Golinelli are fulfilled: the process at Naples contained

9

One example of a testimony from which we can read about the preparations of the monks and officials for the canonization process is in Neapoli xl, pp. 315–​17; the same miracle is testified also by William himself, Neapoli lxiii, pp. 351–​52. 10 Vauchez, La sainteté en Occident aux derniers siècles du Moyen Age, pp. 39–​67. With regard to two separate inquiries, see especially Klaniczay, “Proving sanctity in the canonization processes”, pp. 117–​48 and Katajala-​Peltomaa, Gender, Miracles, and Daily Life, pp. 23–​70. On Thomas’s case, see H. Sancho, who claims that the work of the prelates was not sufficiently accurate in Naples and this was the reason the Pope ordered new hearings to be conducted in Fossanova: H. Sancho, “VI centenario de la canonización de Santo Tomás de Aquino (1323–​1923)”, La Ciencia Tomista 80 (1923), pp. 153–​63, esp. p. 159. Gerulaitis, for his part, argues that the lack of several important witnesses in Naples was the reason for the other process, see L.V. Gerulaitis, “The Canonization of Saint Thomas Aquinas”, Vivarium 5 (1967), pp. 25–​46, esp. p. 39. 11 Golinelli, “Social aspects in some Italian canonization trials”, pp. 179–​80.

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only the clerical and noble witnesses, whereas the emphasis in the process of Fossanova bears witness to a vivid and widespread lay devotion.12 Despite the abundant material collected in Naples and Fossanova, Thomas’s cult has often been claimed to have suffered from a lack of devout enthusiasm. Some scholars have gone so far as to state that they consider Thomas’s fame to have been produced purely for the necessity of the successful canonization.13 Angelo Walz, a Dominican historian, is somewhat more positive, but he also proposes that it was only the start of the official canonization process which gave birth to the local cult in the second half of the 1310s.14 André Vauchez is one of the rare scholars who has noted that Thomas’s cult had actually already flourished around Fossanova long before the beginning of the canonization process.15 The majority of scholars seem not to have considered the effects of time lapse and the placement of Thomas’s tomb on the documentation collected in 1319 and 1321. The official procedure of collecting the oral tradition of Thomas’s deeds and miracles started late, considering the year of his death and any possible post-​mortem healing miracles which may have occurred straight away at the tomb. As one reads the canonization testimonies, it becomes clear that the monks of Fossanova started to venerate Thomas as their saint early on, but apparently they felt no need to seek official recognition for Thomas’s cult, i.e. canonization. The early miracles and the cult among the monks are studied in depth in the next section. We can also turn our gaze to the Dominicans, and ask why Thomas’s canonization only started nearly 50 years after his death. The answer remains unclear, as several possibilities must be taken into account: Thomas was first and foremost a scholar and venerated as such among the friars, again, without a real need for

12

13

14 15

Le Brun-​ Gouanvic has calculated 48 different miracles attested in the inquiry of Fossanova. According to her, 10 of these miracles happened at the tomb and 38 at some distance from Fossanova. See Le Brun-​Gouanvic, “Contexte historique et littéraire de l’Ystoria sancti Thome de Aquino”, pp. 48–​49, 58. J.-​ C. Schmitt, “La fabrique des saints. Note critique”, Annales. Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations, 39:2 (1984), 286–​300, esp. p. 291; P. Mariani, “Racconto spontaneo o memoria costruita? Testi a confronto in alcuni processi di canonizzazione del secolo decimoquarto”, Mélanges de l’École française de Rome –​Moyen Âge 108 (1996), 259–​319, esp. p. 281; A. Dubreil-​Arcin, Vies de saints, légendes de soi: l’écriture hagiographique dominicaine jusqu’au Speculum sanctorale de Bernard Gui (1331), Turnhout, 2011, p. 82. A. Walz, Luoghi di san Tommaso, Rome, 1961, p. 120. A. Vauchez, “Les canonisations de S. Thomas et de S. Bonaventure: Pourquoi deux siècles d’écart?”, in M. Mollat (ed.), 1274 –​Année charnière –​mutations et continuités, Paris & Lyon, 1977, pp. 753–​67.

150 Räsänen canonization.16 In addition, the Dominican Order possibly still somehow avoided saints of its own, or the friars were not enthusiastic about promoting the cult of one of their brothers which would probably have benefitted Fossanova, but would not have made as much difference to them.17 Certain other practical issues also affected the canonization material –​ and the distorted understanding of Thomas’s early cult. In Thomas’s case, as seems to have been quite normal for the late medieval processes in general, a special emphasis was given to the eye-​witnesses.18 An eye-​witness was one who had him-​or herself experienced or seen the miracle to which he or she testified. Most of the witnesses of Thomas’s hearings were eye-​witnesses, but the second-​grade witnesses, that is, those who had heard about the miracle directly from an eye-​witness, were also accepted. As the time lapse between Thomas’s death and the collection of the miracles for the canonization process was long, we may also suspect that a respectable amount of memories of episodes that had occurred through Thomas’s meditation in Fossanova had simply vanished. This holds true especially with the first generations of the lay beneficiaries of Thomas’s post mortem miracles: these eye-​witnesses may have already died.19 William of Tocco, as the person who probably selected the witnesses, seems to have been especially rigid in selecting only the first-​grade witnesses among the laity, presumably seeking more watertight evidence for the inquisitorial process. No gossip or rumors that circulated in the nearby villages were recorded in the protocols.

16 17

18 19

Remarks on Thomas’s veneration as a scholar can be found for example from the acts of the General Chapters of the Dominican order, edited by B.-​M. Reichert from 1868 onwards in Monumenta Ordinis fratrum Praedicatorum Historica. With regard to the Dominican lack of enthusiasm to canonizing saints, the case of Saint Dominic, the founding father of the Order, is often referred to; see for example G. Barone, “L’agiografia domenicana alla metà del XIII secolo”, in L.E. Boyle & P.-​M. Gy (eds.), Aux origines de la liturgie dominicaine: le manuscrit Santa Sabina XIV L 1 (Collection de l’École française de Rome, 327), Rome, 2004, pp. 365–​77. It seems that the initiative for his canonization arrived from Pope John xxii’s side, not from the Dominicans, who were originally more for the canonization of Raymond of Peñaford in the beginning of the fourteenth century, Walz, “Historia canonizationis sancti Thomae de Aquino”, pp. 118–​21; Dubreil-​ Arcin, Vies de saints, légendes de soi, p. 82. On witnesses and their calling in the canonization processes, see Katajala-​Peltomaa, Gender, Miracles, and Daily Life, pp. 24–​28, 48. One exception seems to be a miracle which happened to a small paralyzed boy, Iacobus, in 1277. The witness was a lay brother, Petrus de Fundis, who recounted that the same boy was a lay brother of the monastery at the time of the canonization, and this may have been the reason why this very old case was remembered and recorded in the hearings. Fossanova xxxvi, pp. 309–​10.

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Another thing which seems to have had a remarkable influence on Thomas’s cult, and the lay devotion in particular, is the location of Thomas’s tomb in the Cistercian monastery. Essentially the earliest depositions regarding Thomas’s sanctity were given by the Cistercian monks who had cared for Thomas when he arrived in the monastery, already ill, and who were still alive in 1319. According to these witnesses, the first signs of Thomas’s sanctity were recognized immediately after his death. Although the records still succeed in conveying the enthusiasm of the witnesses, the documents have not convinced scholars of Thomas’s early cult in Fossanova and the surrounding area, as the number of lay miracles in the collected processes remains low from the period before the end of the 1310s. The low number is caused, as is stated above, by the preferences for having ecclesiastical and first-​grade witnesses, but also the restricted access of the laity to the Cistercian church space had significant relevance for the cult and miracle accounts. The east end of the church, where Thomas’s tomb was located, was, according to the Cistercian rule, accessible exclusively to monks. This hierarchical and closed church space was a result of the Cistercian worldview, which required the monks to concentrate on spiritual work within their own community.20 The restrictiveness apparently caused practical problems in the development of Thomas’s veneration and cult, and this is the issue which we examine next. 3

A New Saint in the Monastery: The Devoted Monks

The old and authoritative members of the Cistercian community of Fossanova arrived for the hearings in Naples. The statements of this group of Cistercian witnesses are emotionally intense: they describe the eventful first days, months, and years after the death. In this time Thomas’s corpse was buried, exhumed, and re-​entombed; it was possibly also divided in two or more parts, exhumed, and re-​entombed again. All witnesses were personally present in all or some of these events –​if they had not yet been at the monastery when Thomas died, or when the first transportations of the corpse took place, they named older monks from whom they had heard the stories.21 20

21

L.J. Lekai, The Cistercians: Ideals and Reality, Kent, OH, 1977, p. 265; M.G. Newman, The Boundaries of Charity: Cistercian Culture and Ecclesiastical Reform, 1098–​1180, Stanford, 1996, passim. On Thomas’s case more in depth, see Räsänen, Thomas Aquinas’s Relics as Focus for Conflict and Cult, pp. 73–​133. The key witnesses here are the Abbot Nicolaus (ix), Nicolaus de Fresolino (xi), Martinus de Pastina (xiii), Octavianus de Babuco (xvi), Nicolaus de Piperno (xxi), Petrus de Fundis (xxxvii), and Petrus de castro Montis Sancti-​Iohannis (liii).

152 Räsänen The fact that the commissars did not have exact question formularies gave free rein to the witnesses. The first Cistercian witness, Abbot Nicholas (the second out of all witnesses), gave a rather lengthy and detailed testimony. This testimony seems to have directed the procedure to be followed by the commissars, who asked questions of the others in order to confirm details already mentioned by the abbot. In general, the content of the testimonies of the ancient generation of the monks follows very similar paths from Thomas’s death to the first transportations of the body and miracles. The testimonies include slight discrepancies in details, which indicates that the tradition was somewhat old, and not made up and carried out only for the canonization process.22 Altogether, these testimonies depicting Thomas’s last days and death form the key elements to understanding the birth of Thomas’s cult at the monastery. Regarding the key testimonies, our interest focuses on the night after the funeral. The monks, and especially Abbot Nicholas, vividly describe the corpse, which was exhumed the night after the funeral and moved secretly from the front of the high altar of the church to the Chapel of Saint Stephen. The monks mention the fear of losing the body as the motivation for this furtiveness. The Abbot continues his testimony, explaining how seven months after the secret transportation, Thomas appeared to the prior of the monastery and urged him to transport the body back to the original tomb. The prior could do nothing but obey, and with some help he opened the tomb at the Chapel of Saint Stephen.23 The other monks admitted to the commissars in turn that they had realized that something was going on when they sensed a sweet odor emanating all over the place. The perfume caused a flow of people to come to see what was going on. All marveled at the miraculous, sweetly perfumed body they found.24 Interestingly, the monk Petrus de castro Montis Sancti-​Iohannis, who otherwise gave a long and detailed testimony in many respects, remained curiously silent on the first exhumation and the secret transportation.25 On the discovery of the body in the Chapel and the following acts, however, he testifies with admirable meticulousness: Petrus emphasizes how the monks first 22 On control and freedom in giving testimonies, see Mariani, “Racconto spontaneo o memoria costruita?”, pp. 280–​ 91; M. Goodich, “Mirabilis deus in sanctis suis: Social History and Medieval Miracles”, in K. Cooper & J. Gregory (eds.), Signs, Wonders, Miracles: Representations of Divine Power in the Life of the Church, Woodbridge, 2005, pp. 135–​56; Finucane, Contested Canonizations, pp. 28–​29. 23 Neapoli viii, p. 278. 24 Neapoli viii, p. 278; x, pp. 280–​81; xii, p. 283; xv, p. 287. For more detail, see Räsänen, Thomas Aquinas’s Relics as Focus for Conflict and Cult, pp. 73–​86. 25 Neapoli lii, pp. 336–​37, see also the similar testimony of Nicolaus de Piverno, conversus, xx, p. 291. Räsänen, Thomas Aquinas’s Relics as Focus for Conflict and Cult, pp. 74–​79.

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marveled at Thomas’s miraculous body and then, in order to give recognition to the miracle, prepared themselves for the solemn transportation, a real translatio. According to Petrus’s testimony, the ritual was led by the prior and two other priests dressed in silken vestments and adornments in order “to inspire the monks to greater devotion”.26 The body was moved in the procession and buried (again, according to the other monks) in front of the high altar of the abbey church. Curiously enough, earlier in his testimony, Petrus had described the detailed preparations of Thomas’s body for the funeral, the theme of which was missing from the other depositions. These preparations included the washing of the corpse, a custom which was reserved uniquely for Cistercian monks. It seems that with this act Petrus wanted to underline the admiration the monks felt towards Thomas from the very beginning: through the washing ritual, Thomas was separated from an ordinary visitor and elevated into the same category as the monks of the Cistercian order.27 The narration, and possibly the real actions –​including the secret transportation, the abbot’s vision, and the solemn translation –​tell us about the monks’ wishes to have a new saintly member in the Cistercian community. We must remember that as a living person Thomas had belonged to the Friars Preachers, but the place where he died gave a different prospect for his memory if utilized wisely. Here the Cistercians appear to have turned to the traditional language used when talking about sainthood: it was the powerful language of rituals, first inventio (the body was surprisingly rediscovered from Saint Stephen’s chapel, where it was discreetly moved by the prior) and then translatio (solemn transportation back to the high altar). Both of these acts were used before the formalized process of the papal canonization to confirm Thomas’s sanctity.28 Among the monks, Petrus’s testimony is an exception. His story does 26 27

28

Neapoli lii, p. 337. Petrus for example depicts how the monks washed Thomas’s corpse after his death, Neapoli li, pp. 335–​36. On the Cistercian orders with regard to their defuncts, see D. Choisselet (ed.), Les ecclesiastica officia cisterciens du XIIème siècle, (La documentation cistercienne, 22), Reiningue, 1989, cxiiii, p. 21. On formal and ritualized practices towards dying people within the Cistercian world, see M. Cassidy-​Welch, Monastic Spaces and Their Meanings: Thirteenth-​century English Cistercian Monasteries (Medieval Church Studies 1), Turnhout, 2001, pp. 226–​32. On the processes of recognition of glorious corpses and the formalization of the cults of saints, see P.J. Geary, Furta Sacra: Thefts of Relics in the Central Middle Ages, Princeton, 1990, esp. p. 109; L. Canetti, “Mnemostoria e archeologia rituale delle traslazioni di reliquie tra Antichità e Medioevo”, in K. Stantchev (ed.), ‘Inventio’ e/​o ‘translatio’: Il culto delle reliquie dei santi, Distributed digitally by ‘Reti Medievali’, 2001, pp. 1–​12, (accessed 20 July 2019); Id., Frammenti di eternità: Corpi e reliquie tra Antichità e Medioevo, Rome, 2002, pp. 23–​75.

154 Räsänen not include the component of the secretly hidden corpse after the funeral, a component which would have emphasized Thomas’s own wish to be a part of the Cistercian community by urging to be moved back to the high altar. But in Petrus’s testimony Thomas became “a Cistercian” through the washing ritual, and his idea seems to have been that there was no need for a furtive story that might have sounded suspicious to the ears of the canonization commissars or fellow Dominicans. Despite the negative prospects, the witnesses together succeeded in assuring the listeners and making their point clear: the perfuming body was an uncontested sign of Thomas’s sainthood and his wishes to be venerated by the Cistercian monks, as well as his desire to stay in Fossanova.29 Next, the same monks were univocal and assured the interrogators that for the next seven years Thomas’s tomb had been in front of the high altar of the abbey church of Fossanova. The location ante altare magnum at the presbytery served to create and consolidate devotion towards a new and originally non-​ Cistercian saint. The entombment place in the area of the monks’ choir presumably formed a strong bond between Thomas and the monks who gathered ten times a day for liturgical services, their most central duties, in the choir. Seven years seems to have been an appropriate length of time to stabilize the relationship, symbolically as well as in practice. Chronologically, the following actions reported by the Cistercians around Thomas’s corpse appear to refer to the consequences which were caused by Thomas’s intense veneration at the monastery. In 1281 (or 1282) Thomas’s body was once again exhumed and transported to a more honorable place. Petrus de castro Montis Sancti-​Iohannis gives a description of a solemn rite, a new translatio which proved Thomas’s veneration in the monastery. All the monks emphasized Thomas’s saintly status at the monastery: they explicitly stated that the mass after the translation-​procession was sung according to the liturgy of a holy confessor, as it would not have been appropriate to use the normal mass of remembrance for the death, “Requiem eternam”.30 The positioning of 29

30

In another situation in another Cistercian house, Thomas was also said to have appeared in a vision and encouraged the monks to continue his veneration in a situation in which the monks were not sure whether Thomas wanted to be a part of the spiritual community of the monastery. See M. Jacquin, O.P., “Une relique de saint Thomas d’Aquin”, Divus Thomas, 1 (1923), pp. 289–​95. The pressure which was directed towards Thomas’s cult was a new situation in Fossanova and perhaps not so common in the Cistercian culture either: traditionally their saints were mostly former abbots whose cults thrived within the congregation of the monks, see Cassidy-​Welch, Monastic Spaces and Their Meanings, pp. 217–​22; H. Birkett, The Saints’ Lives of Jocelin of Furness: Hagiography, Patronage and Ecclesiastical Politics, York, 2010. Neapoli lii, pp. 337–​38.

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the new tomb at the apsis area on the left side of the altar was more honorable than the old one. The tombstone, which was raised above ground level, indicated the kind of altar-​shrine construction common in Italy at that time.31 The new tomb, which was much more imposing than the old one, was the most important sign of the respect of the monks towards their saint. With this ritual, the Cistercians evidenced Thomas’s status as a patron saint and relocated his corpse to a place which was more appropriate to it. The translocation, however, can refer to the intensified cult in another way as well. If monks sought a peaceful moment for personal contact with the saint through a prayer at his tomb, that kind of moment was perhaps difficult to find, as the presbytery was a place of abundant liturgical activities and long services. In addition, the situation was much worse for others who, according to the canonization material, started to develop a fascination for Thomas, but were not allowed to enter the presbytery at all. For the lay brothers and laity of the surrounding villages, the entrance to the monks’ area, and the whole east end of the church space, was forbidden in the Cistercian rule. In this kind of situation, it seems natural to translocate the body to a place which was one of the holiest areas of the church, more accessible than the previous, but not as disturbing from the viewpoint of the daily routine of the monks. The narrations of the monks basically fall into two categories, the first being the stabilizing phase of Thomas’s cult at the monastery, described above and evidenced by the old generation, and the second, a daily veneration which can be detected from the statements of the younger generation. The testimony of the monk Iacobus de Fresolino, called Rubeus, gives us an example of how the Cistercian vocation of living was structured according to the liturgical hours and how personal devotion towards the saint could have been adapted to the daily rhythm. The daily services were obviously important to follow regardless even of the fact that Iacobus was suffering from a high fever. Iacobus meticulously describes to the commissars of the process how the fever had attacked him at the time of the completory and held him until the next day at None, and further to the third day up to Matins, when the fever rose. Finally, he called for Thomas to cure him by a prayer in the dormitory: “Blessed Thomas, the holy body, release me from this fever and I promise to make you a wax gift if I am released from this fever”. The written record reports that during a short

31

J. Cannon, Religious Poverty, Visual Riches: Art in the Dominican Churches of Central Italy in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries, New Haven, CT and London, 2013. On the monumentalization of Thomas’s tomb in Fossanova, see Räsänen, Thomas Aquinas’s Relics as Focus for Conflict and Cult, pp. 89–​95.

156 Räsänen pause between Matins and Lauds, Iacobus was completely cured and he firmly believed that the cure occurred due to Thomas’s merits in the year 1318.32 The daily routines around Thomas’s tomb and the stabilized cult are also described in the testimony of a non-​Cistercian witness, Iohannes de Neapoli, who was a famous theologian from the Order of Preachers. He refers to an interesting story he had learned from another esteemed Dominican, Landulfus de Neapoli, who had once visited Fossanova on his way to Rome. When Landulfus arrived at the monastery, he was suffering from strong colic pains and started to cry and lament. The monks recommended that he should use the same treatment used by them when they were ill: to first put the rope with which he girded his tunic on the lid of Thomas’s tomb, and then to stretch out on the rope. Landulfus did as he was advised and was cured.33 The testimony gives an impression of an established practice used by the monks whenever they suffered any illness. Unfortunately, the role of the rope is not described better or mentioned in any of the other depositions. We can speculate on the custom of putting the robe of a monk’s habit on the tomb soaked by Thomas’s holiness, after which the robe functioned as a relic. If the monks themselves did something like this and wore the robe-​relic, the item would have brought Thomas’s sanctity materially outside the presbytery and would have functioned as a daily protection of the saintly companion.34 The material collected from the witnessing monks in Naples tells us that the monks were deeply devoted and faithful to Thomas –​and if we read the testimonies carefully, we can see that they both explicitly and implicitly refer to decades-​old devotion.35 Thus, Thomas’s cult among the monks was not 32 33 34

35

Neapoli xxxiii, p. 306. “Beate Thoma, corpus sanctum, libera me ab ista febre et ego promitto tibi facere unum votum de cera si liberabor a dicta febre”. Neapoli xlviii, p. 329. “corrigiam scilicet, qua accinctus erat, super sepulcro bone memorie fratris Thome de Aquino, ordinis fratrum Predicatorum, qui in ipso monasterio sepultus erat, extendendo, et tandem toto corpore se super idem sepulcrum prosternendo”. No references to the monks’ use of the representative relics is given in the Cistercian testimonies, but there are several cases in the Miracula collected by William Tocco, in which a layman or woman possess an item that touched the tomb and they considered the object as Thomas’s relic. Practices of this kind were presumably common, possibly even more permissible for the laypeople than for the monks in the late-​medieval doctrinal atmosphere. Besides the above described events which testify about the beginning of the cult early at the monastery, monks like Iohannes de Adelasia testified fervently about their long-​lasting vocation. Iohannes told the commissars how one night he suddenly felt such an awful pain in his intestines that he was sure to die. The pain increased and he sensed how his body lost its power and his spirit was departing. Inspired by heart and mind in great devotion and shedding tears, he started to call Thomas’s name and ask for his help: “Blessed Thomas Aquinas, help me and release me from this sickness; because I have always been

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an impulse of the necessity caused by the opened canonization process, but something which matured in active relation with the monks and the whole monastery. In those cases when the monks testified on their activity at the tomb, the description emphasized the presence and active veneration of the whole community by chants and other acts such as the processions. 4

The Activity at the Tomb: Lay Brothers and Visitors

As I mentioned above, the Cistercian rule strictly divided the spaces of the monastery: the closest area was the east end of the abbey church, which was reserved solely for the monks. Other members of the community and visitors were allowed to enter the west end, except women, who could not enter inside the walls of the monastery at all.36 The canonization hearings give a univocal picture of interpreting the rule in Fossanova: only the tight restriction of not allowing women in the monastery seems to have been respected.37 The descriptions of visits of the converses and other professionals of the monastery, as well as male pilgrims, are abundant and full of interesting details in collected material from the hearings in both Naples and Fossanova. The main reason why there are only a few recounted miracles in the canonization material where the beneficiary would have visited Thomas’s tomb before the 1310s could have been, as mentioned, due to the long time between Thomas’s death and the canonization hearings. But the Cistercian culture and uses of the space must be taken into consideration as well. If the monks respected their spatial rules, and I believe they did at first, visits, prayers, and begging miracles were simply not possible for people other than the monks. But I also suggest that this situation changed quite soon, that is, at the beginning

36

37

faithful to you” (“Beate Thoma de Aquino, adiuva et libera me de ista infirmitate; quia ego ero devotus tuus tempore vite mee”). He started to vomit and was cured. See Neapoli xxviii, pp. 302–​3. Iohannes was helped by the sacristan of the monastery, Riccardus de Fundis, who assumed the honor of having been the person who persuaded Iohannes to turn to Thomas, see Neapoli lxxii, pp. 365–​66. The miracle is witnessed by several other monks as well, see for example lxxi, p. 363. It is also told that the doctor of the monastery found the sickness called “apostema” incurable. See also Emilia Jamroziak’s chapter in this volume. The Cistercian rule prohibited children from entering the main church, and men if they were accompanied by women. Les ecclesiastica officia cisterciens du XIIème siècle, cxx. See also Cassidy-​Welch, Monastic Spaces and Their Meanings, p. 31. In a few cases a woman’s presence is mentioned at the tomb, but small boys seem to have been more frequent visitors there, although the rule prohibited entrance to the Cistercian church.

158 Räsänen of the 1280s. Signs of the changing attitude towards the pilgrimage are the translatio and new location of Thomas’s tomb, which I discussed from another angle in the previous section, and a miracle connectable to the new placement of the sepulcher in 1281 or 1282. The beneficiary of the miracle was the doctor Raynaldus from a nearby village, San Lorenzo.38 He arrived at the monastery, according to some narrations, to take care of someone who was ill, but the doctor himself got ill as well. According to the other witnesses, Raynaldus had already been ill for some time and arrived in the monastery seeking a cure from the tomb.39 The witnesses of the miracle are the same monks who testified on the translatio, dated to the same period, and although there are some differences in details in their depositions, the monks are univocal in their unqualified approval to help Raynaldus: As Raymondus was paralyzed, he was carried or led to the tomb by monks and servants. The monks testified on how Raynaldus lay on the tomb and prayed a while, then cried out: “I am cured by the merits of Brother Thomas Aquinas!” The monks themselves were serving the vesper in the choir of the church when the miracle occurred. After the miracle, the monks started to ring the bells of the church tower in order to inform the surrounding country of the miracle. At the presbytery they solemnly sang Te Deum laudamus.40 The monks’ enthusiasm and joy is still vividly present in the sentences which describe those events and are written down in the records. Did the monks wish to awaken Thomas’s cult in the surrounding areas? Did they organize an advertising campaign, with the erection of the new, monumental sepulcher and solemn translatio marking an impressive start to it? Or was the lay cult born spontaneously without the monks’ guidance? In that case, the translation could have been done because the devotees requested access to the tomb. Both views are plausible, but the monks’ willingness to take the step forward to the accepted and maintained lay cult is considerable: with the new translation and Raynaldus’s miracle, they showed that the monastery welcomed the pilgrims who traditionally, and still in that day according to the Cistercian rule, were not allowed to enter the east end of the abbey church.41 38 39

40 41

San Lorenzo is known as Amaseno today. It is situated not far away from the monastery. Neapoli ix, p. 279; xi, pp. 281–​82; xiii, pp. 283–​85; xvi, pp. 287–​89; xxi, pp. 292–​93; xxxvii, pp. 311–​13; liii, pp. 338–​40. Paolo Mariani has used this miracle as part of the material for his analyses of collective memory in the Middle Ages. See Mariani, “Racconto spontaneo o memoria costruita?”, pp. 259–​319. Cf. esp. Neapoli xvi, pp. 287–​89; xxxvii, pp. 311–​13; liii, pp. 338–​39. On miracles and their response to the needs of the surrounding society, see S. Chennaf & O. Redon, “Les miracles de saint Louis”, Les Miracles miroirs des corps, sous la responsabilité de Jacques Gelis et Odile Redon, St. Denis, 1983, pp. 55–​85; R. Van Dam, Saints and their Miracles in Late Antique Gaul, Princeton, 1993.

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It seems evident that after the translocation of the tomb and the miracle of Raynaldus, the monks continued to encourage their lay members and the laity of the villages to communicate with the saint, and they carried sick and paralyzed people to the tomb. For example, Gregorius de Sancto-​Stephano, a monk, testifies how he himself and Perrottus, a Gaul, carried Petrus Francisci de Piperno, who was a member of the monastic family and a shoemaker, to Thomas’s tomb. Petrus had been taken by a bad spirit and looked almost dead. Gregorius describes how he and Perrottus positioned Petrus and straightened him onto the tomb for some hours. Meanwhile, Gregorius and Perrottus prayed “Pater and three times Hail Mary” and begged God to heal the sick due to Thomas’s merits. Petrus was indeed cured.42 When Nicolaus de Maximo de Piperno, an employee of the monastery, had a broken arm, the monks, having heard of the problem, recommended that he make a vow to Thomas.43 One of the witnesses of the miracle, the monk Johannes de Sclavis, tells in his testimony how Nicolaus had previously prayed to many saints without any help for his sickness. After the vow to Thomas, he recovered perfectly.44 Nicholaus de Maximo’s miracle story is a good example of how Thomas was elevated above all the other saints venerated in Fossanova. The monks assured the monastic family and the neighboring people of Thomas’s power and active participation in the life of the monastery.45 The message of the monks’ depositions is clear: It would be worthwhile to dedicate oneself totally to Thomas. Thomas, in turn, would demonstrate his mercy to his loyal servants and take care of them. The story of the lay brother Manuel de Piperno is interesting from many respects.46 Although he was a conversus of Fossanova, he first sought a cure for his broken arm from a privernese doctor, chirurgus Andrea dicto Papaleo, who is the person often referred to as a specialist of medicine in the testimonies. Andrea could not help Manuel, who went from the doctor’s house to his 42 43 44 45

46

Perrotus seems to be a servant of the monastery but his status is not well described in the testimonies. See Neapoli xxii, pp. 294–​95; xxiv, pp. 297–​99; xxx, p. 304; xxxi, pp. 304–​5. Neapoli xxix, p. 303; xxxii, pp. 305–​6; xxxiv, pp. 307–​8; xxxix, pp. 313–​15, and lvii, pp. 344–​45. Neapoli xxxii, pp. 305–​6. Often the lay witnesses of the hearings, such as a layman from Sonnino, Petrus Nicolai, emphasize how the monks or converses of Fossanova advised them, see for example Neapoli liv, pp. 340–​41; lvi, pp. 342–​44; Fossanova x, p. 422; xlvii, pp. 452–​53. On advertisement strategies, see for example M. Bacci, Investimenti per l’aldilà. Arte e raccomandazione dell’anima nel Medioevo, Bari, 2003, esp. pp. 19–​20. I do not separate here the different ranks of the monastery’s lay personnel, although I mainly speak about converses who had made their own vows different from those of the monks. Among the lay brethren, there are of course also oblates, workers, apprentices, and others who were taken care of by Thomas. See for example Fossanova xiv, pp. 425–​26.

160 Räsänen father’s place in Priverno. At home he met his sister, Annexa, who felt sympathy towards her brother and asked why he would not recommend himself to the blessed Thomas Aquinas. Manuel seems to have felt some frustration and answered harshly, “Leave me alone” [Dimitte me stare], and headed back to Fossanova. The pain grew and Manuel used a sling for three months before he devoutly went to Thomas’s tomb. There, he laid himself down on it, promising to donate a sum of money, twenty solidorum, to the monastery every year on the day of Thomas’s feast if he was cured. Manuel fell asleep and when he woke up, he realized he was cured.47 The story emphasizes the efficiency of Thomas’s divine cure compared to the knowledge of regular doctors. Other interesting elements are the saintly fame which had reached Priverno, a town near Fossanova, Manuel’s ignorance of that fame when his sister was clearly faithful to Thomas, and the relatively long period during which Manuel suffered before he went to Thomas’s tomb. Perhaps because of his stubborn attitude, Manuel promised a considerably large sum of money to celebrate Thomas if he attained the cure. The most interesting detail of the testimony, given in a very casual manner, is the money-​ gift which would have been repeated annually to celebrate the feast of Thomas Aquinas. This sentence indicates that Thomas was publicly celebrated as a saint in Fossanova already before the canonization. Unfortunately, no other source survives from Fossanova which would strengthen the annual, local celebration, but considering the details we have gathered from the monks’ testimonies on the liturgical rites organized at the monastery, it seems plausible that Thomas was included in the official liturgy of the monastery and was venerated actively with other saints of Fossanova. Surprisingly often in the records of Thomas’s canonization, we meet people who joined the Cistercian Order due to their gratitude for the miracles meditated by Thomas. Recovery with Thomas’s help and entry to the monastic community seems to have been an independent and important category among the miracles. A statement by lay brother Leonardus de Piperno, for example, suggests that he was first working as a blacksmith of the monastery and joined the Order immediately after having experienced first the punitive and then the healing power of Thomas.48 It is not clearly said that the recovery caused the entry of the beneficiary to the Order, but the record gives quite a strong impression of that. The entry and the consecutive miracle is clearly attested, then, for example in the case of Nicolaus Zappus de Piperno.

47 48

Fossanova viii, pp. 420–​21. Neapoli xxvi, pp. 299–​301.

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Nicolaus told the committee that his arm had been painful for about one year when he decided to join the Cistercian Order of Fossanova. One month later or less, he was filled with a great veneration towards Thomas and he went to his tomb. There Nicolaus laid his hand on the tomb, intoned Misere mei, Deus, and recovered.49 These conversio-​type miracles may have been an influence on changing Thomas’s own status from Dominican friar to Cistercian monk, the kind of rhetoric we followed above in the section in which we talked about the Cistercian rituals in connection with Thomas’s body. Economic problems claimed to have racked the monastery from the end of the thirteenth century may have been another, and very practical, reason to advertise the recruitments through Thomas’s cult.50 One powerfully accentuated theme in the testimonies, and which we have already spotted but not analyzed, is the ritual of lying down on the lid of the tomb while praying for a cure. The canonization material abundantly describes people who had a great urge to touch the marble of the tomb when seeking their recovery. When examining the depositions more carefully, it appears that touching the tomb was a central tool, especially for lay visitors, but also for the lay members of the monastery, to be in contact with Thomas.51 Beside the tomb, the other spaces of the monastery are fairly rarely mentioned as the stage of the miracles; the sick house, however, was also where Thomas’s miraculous interventions took place sometimes. A good example of the centrality of touching the tomb is the miracle of Magister Marcus, a priest of Santa Lucia of Priverno. He told the committee that he had had a bad cough for three years when he arrived in Fossanova one day and there he conceived a devotion to Thomas. He recommended himself devoutly to Thomas and positioned himself on the tomb. Marcus says that the recovery happened thirteen years previously (in the year 1308), and domina Guerra Gulferame de Piperno and Petrus Andree Sancti-​Iohannis, a monk of Fossanova, witnessed the miracle. Another typical example are Romica and Leonardus, parents of a four-​year-​old boy, Petrus, from Priverno, and the way they recommended the child to Thomas. To liberate Petrus from awful pains caused by swelling and redness of the ribs, leg, and foot, the family brought him to Fossanova where the father carried him to Thomas’s grave. There, Petrus 49 50 51

Fossanova vii, pp. 418–​19. On the economics of Fossanova, see A. Bianchini, L’Abbazia di Fossanova e san Tommaso d’Aquino, Casamari, 1974, p. 25; Parziale, L’abbazia cistercense di Fossanova, pp. 34–​35. According to the records, the monks turned to Thomas quite rarely for obtaining a cure from sickness, and they appositely visited the tomb even less when they suffered an illness. The other groups, however, most often found their recovery from the tomb.

162 Räsänen slept on the tomb for some hours, after which he was cured.52 Clearly, lying on the grave was the medium of the miracle in these cases. An enlightening example is also the case of Petrus Letus, who could not move or speak. Thus, he had a document drawn up, which described in detail how he should be taken to the monastery and placed on the tomb. He also ordered a payment for a mass that was to be chanted at the high altar while he was lying on the sepulcher.53 Petrus evidently thought that the celebration of the holy mass functioned as a public prayer when he could not form the words by himself. Simultaneous contact with the holy through the material world, i.e. lying on the tomb, and through the spiritual communication, i.e. the mass, evidently made Petrus’s begging more efficient in order to obtain the cure. As the above examples attest, it was important for the people of Fossanova and the surrounding villages to reach the tomb and to be in physical contact with it. In other words, the material aspects were central to the perception of holiness and to daily communication with Thomas.54 Gifts that the people left at the tomb in return for the cure also emphasized the importance of the materiality of the contact. These gifts were often described to have been objects presenting the injured limbs and other parts of the body which suffered the illness, or they were portraits of the beneficiaries.55 The gift, left on the tomb, maintained the contact between the saint and his devotee beyond the actual lying on the tomb, and as such created the visible bond between them. In fact,

52 53 54

55

Fossanova xcviii, pp. 487–​88; C, pp. 488–​89; ci, p. 489; cxxxi, p. 508. Fossanova cxxiii, pp. 502–​3. On the practice and attitudes of lying on the lid of a sepulchre, see O. Redon and J. Gélis, “Pour une étude du corps dans les récits de miracles”, in S. Boesch Gajano and L. Sebastiani (eds.), Culto dei santi, istituzioni e classi sociali in età preindustriale, L’Aquila and Rome, 1984, pp. 563–​72. For more on Thomas’s case, see Räsänen, Thomas Aquinas’s Relics as Focus for Conflict and Cult, pp. 104–​19. Naples xxi. The masses, coins, candles, and figurative ex-​voti were normal gifts. See for example Fossanova xlii, pp. 448–​49; liv, pp. 457–​58; lxxvii, pp. 473–​74; cxi, p. 497; cxv, pp. 497–​98; cxvii, p. 499. The richness of offerings is a normal narrative element of descriptions of pilgrimage. Despite the pattern, the testimonies most probably also hold some truth. During the excavations in the area of the monastery, a lot of fragments of ceramics have been found, which, at least partly, may be offerings of pilgrims to Fossanova. For more, see B. Ciarrocchi, “Il materiale archeologico dell’abbazia di Fossanova: nuovi rapporti alla conoscenza dell’insediamento monastico”, Rivista Cistercense 22 (2005), pp. 153–​80. On votive offerings more widely, see E. Antoine, “Images des miracles. Le témoinage des ex-​voto peints en Italie centrale (XIVe-​XVIe siècles)”, in D. Aigle (ed.), Miracle et Karama, (Bibliothèque de l’École des Hautes Études, Sciences Religieuses, 109), Turnhout, 2000, pp. 353–​74.

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the stimuli of Thomas’ presence in Fossanova were sensed remarkably vividly through touching, hearing, and smelling.56 5

Conclusions

The canonization material, collected from the people of Fossanova and the surrounding villages, presents the long-​lasting fidelity towards Thomas of the monks, lay brothers, and artisans of the monastery as well as local nobility and peasants. The recorded depositions give a full picture of the rites to recognize Thomas’s sainthood and daily routines to venerate the established saint of the monastery. The monks seem to have guided the cult and presented a model to others of the ways which were correct and efficient in communication with the saint: the primary acts were to lie down on the lid of the tomb, to pray, and to call devoutly to the saint. The calls to Thomas may have become even more efficient if they were accompanied by the daily service (the service was underway in the background when the petition was made) or the offered mass. Clearly, it was important to praise and show gratitude to the saint by the liturgical acts, such as chants, performing masses, and tolling the bells of the church. The gifts were important marks of communication and gratitude as well. In the light of the written records, it seems that Thomas became more popular all the time in Fossanova. This hardly surprises us, as Thomas seems to have been prompt and loyal in helping the monastic family and all the other devotees who dedicated themselves to the saint. The miracles recounted by the Cistercians emphasized Thomas’s role as a patron saint of Fossanova who took care of his family, nurturing and protecting it. However, the reciprocal cult was hardly possible without the monks who opened the abbey church and the placement of Thomas’s tomb for all the devotees. The physical contact with the sainthood –​this contact materialized at the tomb –​was crucial for developing the widespread cult. The monastery became a center of religious attendance, and the miracles attracted frequent visits and intense devotion at the tomb. 56

See the similar ideas in R. Sánchez Ameijeiras, “Imagery and Interactivity: Ritual Transaction at the Saint’s Tomb”, in S. Lamia & E. Valdez del Alamo (eds.), Decorations for the Holy Dead: Visual Embellishments on Tombs and Shrines of Saints, Turnhout, 2002, pp. 21–​38.

­c hapter 8

Pilgrimage as a Feature of Miracles Leigh Ann Craig 1

Introduction

Pilgrimage, travel undertaken in pursuit of encounters with the holy, is a religious activity which both predates Christianity and is practiced well beyond its bounds.1 Within the Christian tradition, pilgrimages which took Rome, the Holy Lands, and the shrines of saints as their destinations were established as early as the second century; for lay Christians, these journeys were both a source for, and a vital mode of engaging with, hagiographic literature.2 By the Middle Ages, pilgrimage in Latin Europe was widespread, and the practice served a variety of devotional purposes. Pilgrims traveled to sacred locations in the hopes of miraculous recovery from illness or in gratitude for other miraculous protection; as an act of penance for specific misdeeds, and in expiation of sins more generally; and out of a desire to see for themselves the physical settings associated with Christ, the Apostles, and the saints –​that is, to satisfy their curiosity and deepen their devotion.3 Because pilgrimage was theoretically available to most Christians, it could bring people from many walks of life together, each for their own particular reasons. As such, it was also fertile ground for exuberant religious creativity. Devotees carried a broad array of experiences, goals, and ritual practices with them to shrines, and both the conceptualization of pilgrimage shrines and the pilgrims who visited them could be challenging for clerical officials to control.4 Modern scholars, too, have 1 For introductory discussions on pilgrimage as religious phenomenon, see I. Reader, Pilgrimage: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford, 2015; S. Coleman & J. Elsner, Pilgrimage: Past and Present in the World Religions, Cambridge, 1997; and R. Barber, Pilgrimages, Woodbridge, 1991. 2 On late Antique Christian pilgrimage, see P. Brown, The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity, Chicago, 1981; M. Dietz, Wandering Monks, Virgins, and Pilgrims: Ascetic Travel in the Mediterranean Word, A. D. 300–​800, University Park, 2005. 3 For overview studies of the medieval Christian practice of pilgrimage, see D. Webb, Medieval European Pilgrimage, c. 700–​c. 1500, Basingstoke, 2002; J. Sumption, Pilgrimage: An Image of Medieval Religion, Totowa, NJ, 1975; and P.-​A. Sigal, Les marcheurs de dieu: pelerinages et pelerins au moyen âge, Paris, 1974. 4 Sumption, Pilgrimage, pp. 265–​74; G. Constable, “Opposition to Pilgrimage in the Middle Ages”, Studia Gratiana 19 (1976), pp. 125–​46; J.L. Nelson, “Opposition to Pilgrimage in the

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2021 | DOI:10.1163/9789004468498_010

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approached the practice using a profusion of interpretive approaches. It has been argued that medieval pilgrimage represented everything from the erasure to the enhancement of social divisions, and expressed the impulse both to individualize and to collectivize human identities.5 The adaptable nature of pilgrimage is clearly reflected in its history across the medieval millennium. The late Antique had already seen the development of two major forms of Christian pilgrimage: devotional and penitential travel to Rome and to the Holy Lands, and the pilgrimage to saintly relic shrines, often in hopes of miraculous healing.6 While the turbulent centuries after the fall of Rome did not seem to generate new forms of pilgrimage, the collections of miracles which were written before the millennium, and the enthusiastic early medieval trade in relics (manufactured, stolen, or otherwise), nonetheless suggest that pilgrims sought relic-​shrines more or less continuously throughout the early Middle Ages.7 Surviving evidence also suggests that sites associated with the New Testament –​particularly Rome and Jerusalem –​saw a similarly steady stream of visitors in this period. Early medieval clerical authorities were concerned enough about the well-​being of long-​distance travelers in a troubled

Reign of Charlemagne?” in V.L. Garver & O.M. Phelan, eds., Rome and Religion in the Medieval World: Studies in Honor of Thomas F.X. Noble, Farnham, 2014, pp. 65–​82. 5 V. Turner & E. Turner, Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture: Anthropological Perspectives, New York, 1978; J. Eade & M.J. Sallnow, eds., Contesting the Sacred: The Anthropology of Christian Pilgrimage, New York, 1991; J.D. Clift & W.B. Clift, The Archetype of Pilgrimage: Outer Action with Inner Meaning, New York, 1996; E. Badone & S.R. Roseman, “Approaches to the Anthropology of Pilgrimage and Tourism”, in Badone and Roseman, eds., Intersecting Journeys: The Anthropology of Pilgrimage and Tourism, Urbana and Chicago, 2004, pp. 1–​23; and A.E. Bailey, “Peter Brown and Victor Turner Revisited: Anthropological Approaches to Latin Miracle Narratives in the Medieval West”, in M.M. Mesley & Wilson, eds., Contextualizing Miracles in the Christian West, 1100–​1500, Oxford, 2014, pp. 17–​40. 6 B. Britton-​Ashkelony, Encountering the Sacred: The Debate on Christian Pilgrimage in Late Antiquity, Berkeley, 2005; G. de Nie, Poetics of Wonder: Testimonies of the New Christian Miracles in the Late Antique Latin World, Turnhout, 2012; and G. de Nie, “Patterns of miracle: four late antique stories”, in C.J. Chandler & S.A. Stofferahn, eds., Discovery and Distinction in the Early Middle Ages: Studies in Honor of John J. Contreni, Kalamazoo, 2013, pp. 235–​51. 7 T. Head, Hagiography and the Cult of the Saints: The Diocese of Orléans, 800–​1200, Cambridge, 1990; P. Geary, Furta Sacra: Thefts of Relics in the Central Middle Ages, Princeton, 1991; D.R. Shanzer, “So many saints –​so little time … the Libri miraculorum of Gregory of Tours”, Journal of Medieval Latin 13 (2003), pp. 19–​60; C. Pilsworth, “Miracles, missionaries and manuscripts in eighth-​century southern Germany”, Studies in Church History 41 (2005), pp. 67–​76; C.M.A. West, “Unauthorized miracles in mid-​ninth-​century Dijon and the Carolingian church reforms”, Journal of Medieval History 36:4 (2010), pp. 295–​311.

166 Craig era to arrange protections for women undertaking Jerusalem pilgrimages, and even to issue warnings discouraging women from such journeys altogether.8 This durable ritual practice subsequently shared in the economic and cultural vigor and inventiveness which marked the eleventh and twelfth centuries.9 In this period, the notion of pilgrimage as penance was adapted to meet the needs of the new feudal nobility; the warrior class was encouraged by clerical leaders to undertake penitential pilgrimages to Jerusalem, Rome, and Santiago de Compostela, an attempt to guide nobles into a more pious (and biddable) performance of their public roles.10 This same penitential impulse underpinned noble participation in the Crusades, and fueled the development in Venice of a centralized and regulated travel industry which provided tour packages to affluent Holy Land pilgrims.11 Meanwhile, the eleventh and twelfth centuries also witnessed an increase in hagiographical writing and in the veneration of new saints. Pilgrimages to the shrines of these new saints were undertaken by a wide swath of the social spectrum, and, especially in the twelfth century, miracles were collected at those shrines in large numbers.12 By the later thirteenth century, the popularity of sacred travel had generated strong critiques which argued that pilgrimage was an exercise in needless curiosity and frivolity, and that the enthusiasm for the veneration of new saints was overly credulous.13 Responses to these critiques varied. The concept of pilgrimage was, in this period, adapted in ways which obviated the need for travel for those whose mobility might be limited in some way. Vowed religious women, for example, facing increased pressures for enclosure, began to write guides for mental pilgrimage, a format of planned prayer in which devotees imagined a journey while remaining entirely stationary. The hire of professional proxy pilgrims, or the making of bequests in wills to support such

8

J.A. Smith, “Sacred Journeying: Women’s Correspondence and Pilgrimage”, in J. Stopford, ed., Pilgrimage Explored, York, 1999, pp. 41–​56. 9 Sumption, Pilgrimage, ch. viii, refers to this as the “great age of pilgrimage”. 10 Sumption, Pilgrimage, ch. vii; Webb, Medieval European Pilgrimage, pp. 49–​52; S. Yarrow, “Pilgrimage”, in R.N. Swanson, ed., The Routledge History of Medieval Christianity 1050–​ 1500, London, 2015, pp. 161–​64. 11 M.C. Gaposchkin, “From Pilgrimage to Crusade: The Literature of Departure, 1095–​1300”, Speculum 88:1 (2013), pp. 44–​91; R.C. Davis, “Pilgrim-​Tourism in Late Medieval Venice”, in P. Findlen, M.M. Fontaine, & D.J. Osheim, eds., Beyond Florence: The Contours of Medieval and Modern Italy, Stanford, 2003, pp. 119–​32. 12 See the seminal work by A. Vauchez, Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages, trans. Jean Birrell, Cambridge, 1997; and P.-​A. Sigal, L’homme et le miracle dans la France medievale, XIe-​XIIe siècle, Paris, 1985. 13 Webb, Medieval European Pilgrimage, pp. 71–​77; Sumption, Pilgrimage, ch. xv.

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a proxy, also began to appear more frequently.14 Nevertheless, the economic and political dislocations of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries seemed to impel lay Christians toward more participation in pilgrimage, rather than less. Even as the curia became more exacting in its standards for official canonization of new saints, already-​established shrines continued to draw pilgrims, and new cults which were never to be officially acknowledged drew pilgrims for as long as their local popularity lasted. Further, lay Christians became increasingly interested in new shrines that housed relics related to proven objects of veneration, and particularly of Christ or of Eucharistic miracles.15 As such, the vibrant creativity of pilgrimage as devotional practice was never meaningfully stifled during the medieval millennium. 2

The Boundaries of Pilgrimage in Miracle Literature

While pilgrimage left its mark in multiple textual traditions, including law codes and legal documents, Christian liturgy, sermons, devotional literature, satire, and travel guides or diaries, the practice of pilgrimage is perhaps most intimately entangled with the production of miracle literature, “without which”, in the words of Diana Webb, “we would know much less about pilgrim behavior and practices than we do”.16 However, scholars who seek to learn about the practice of pilgrimage through miracle literature must keep in mind that the two do not always overlap, and that several varieties of pilgrimage-​based devotion had nothing to do with miracles at all. To use miracles to study pilgrimage, then, means one will be studying only a subset of all pilgrimage activity. Most notably, the pilgrimages to locations associated with Christ and the Apostles –​ those to the Holy Land and to Rome –​were generally understood as penitential journeys. They were taken in fulfillment of vows, offered indulgences as 14 Sumption, Pilgrimage, pp. 295–​302; K.M. Rudy, “A Guide to Mental Pilgrimage: Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Arsonal Ms. 212”, Zeitchrift für Kunstgeschichte 63:4 (2000), pp. 494–​515; A. Lermack, “Spiritual pilgrimage in the Psalter of Bonne of Luxembourg”, in R. Bork & A. Kann, eds., The Art, Science, and Technology of Medieval Travel, Aldershot, 2008, pp. 97–​111. 15 G.J.C. Snoek, Medieval Piety from Relics to the Eucharist: A Process of Mutual Interaction, Leiden, 1995; C. Bynum, “Bleeding Hosts and their Contact Relics in Late Medieval Northern Germany”, The Medieval History Journal 7:2 (2004), pp. 227–​41; R. Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things? Saints and Worshippers from the Martyrs to the Reformation, Princeton, 2013, pp. 78–​79; C. Bynum, Wonderful Blood: Theology and Practice in Late Medieval Northern Germany and Beyond, Philadelphia, 2007. 16 D. Webb, Pilgrimage in Medieval England, London and New York, 2000, p. xvii.

168 Craig their reward, and satisfied a desire to achieve nearness to the central story of salvation, but they were typically not undertaken with the understanding that the pilgrim might expect a miraculous experience.17 Crusades, a specialized form of pilgrimage, were likewise framed as penitential and meritorious for the soul, but not as a regular occasion of the miraculous.18 Later medieval forms of mental or spiritual pilgrimage, wherein ritual prayer and textually-​guided acts of imagination stood in for physical travel, were likewise unrepresented in the genre of miracles.19 Even physical pilgrimages undertaken to the shrines of saints might have a penitential goal, particularly where such journeys were judicially imposed. These primarily penitential rituals were not strongly associated with miracles, though shrine-​based collections did, upon occasion, describe the miraculous breaking of bonds worn by pilgrims who had finally earned saintly absolution after long penitential wandering from shrine to shrine.20 As such, while pilgrims and pilgrimage appear commonly in miracle narratives, many kinds of pilgrimage practice are not reflected in that literature. The converse is also true: some miracle texts had little relevance to sacred travel. Thus, one must select miracles with care to learn anything about pilgrimage from them. Chroniclers recorded miracle narratives in their works with the goal of asserting the social or political authority of a person or an institution, rather than promoting pilgrimage to a shrine.21 The goal of such miracles was not to suggest that sacred travel should be undertaken in the expectation of

17

18

19 20 21

R.L. Wilken, The Land Called Holy: Palestine in Christian History and Thought, New Haven, 1992, pp. 82–​125; B. Ward, Miracles and the Medieval Mind: Theory, Record, Event, 1000–​ 1215, London, 1982, p. 124; D.J. Birch, Pilgrimage to Rome in the Middle Ages: Continuity and Change, Woodbridge, 1998, pp. 39–​41; and C. Morris, “Pilgrimage to Jerusalem in the late Middle Ages”, in Morris and P. Roberts, eds., Pilgrimage: The English Experience from Becket to Bunyan, Cambridge, 2002, pp. 141–​77. C.T. Maier, Crusade Propaganda and Ideology: Model Sermons for the Preaching of the Cross, Cambridge, 2000; S. Kangas, “Deus vult: Violence and suffering as a means of salvation during the First Crusade”, in T.M.S. Lehtonen and K.V. Jensen, eds., Medieval History Writing and Crusading Ideology, Helsinki, 2005, pp. 163–​74. See for example Rudy, “A Guide to Mental Pilgrimage”. M.C. Mansfield, The Humiliation of Sinners: Public Penance in Thirteenth-​Century France, Ithaca, 2005, pp. 280–​86; C. Vogel, “Le pèlerinage penitential”, Revue des Science Religieuses 38:2 (1964), pp. 113–​53. See for example A.-​V. Gilles-​Reynal, “Un miracle de saint Saturnin au XIIe siècle: une fable politique?” in J. Elfassi, C. Lanéry, and A.-​M. Turcan-​Verkerk, eds., Amicorum societas: Mélanges offerts à François Dolbeau pour son 65e anniversaire, Florence, 2013, pp. 271–​92; and C. Pilsworth, “Miracles, Missionaries, and Manuscripts in Eighth-​century Southern Germany”, Studies in Church History 41 (2005), pp. 67–​76.

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a miraculous experience, and some did not mention pilgrimage at all.22 So, for example, Benedictine communities in the Ardennes recorded miracles in their foundation narratives which indicate a saintly mandate not for pilgrimage, but for the monks’ rights over the local water supply.23 But even the miracles of healing or rescue might not be associated with any pilgrimage. Miracle-​working relics, for example, might be carried by their keepers on fundraising tours, rather than remaining stationary, producing collections of miracles wherein pilgrimage to a shrine was not an obligate part of the story.24 Similarly, while veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary was sometimes associated with relics located at particular shrines (as at Chartres), both devotion to the Virgin and miracles granted by her were represented in other collections as omnipresent, rather than location-​based. As such, many collections of her miracles from the thirteenth century on describe events which were neither indicative of a pilgrimage nor specific to a shrine.25 Such miracles, while they 22

23 24

25

B. Ward, “Miracles and History: A Reconsideration of the Miracle Stories Used by Bede”, in G. Bonner, ed., Famulus Christi: Essays in Commemoration of the Thirteenth Centenary of the Birth of the Venerable Bede, London, 1979, pp. 70–​76; T.N. Hall, “The Miracle of the Lengthened Beam in Apocryphal and Hagiographic Tradition”, in T.S. Jones & D.A. Sprunger, eds., Marvels, Monsters, and Miracles: Studies in the Medieval and Early Modern Imaginations, Kalamazoo, 2002, pp. 109–​40; C.S. Watkins, History and the Supernatural in Medieval England, Cambridge, 2007; R.D. Giles, “The miracle of Gerald the Pilgrim: hagiographic visions of castration in the Liber Sancti Jacobi and Milagros de Nuestra Señora”, Neophilologus 94:3 (2010), pp. 439–​50; S. Justice, “Eucharistic Miracle and Eucharistic Doubt”, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 42:2 (2012), pp. 307–​32; O. Biaggini and B. Milland-​Bove, eds., Miracles d’un autre genre: récritures médiévales en dehors de l’hagiopgraphie, Madrid, 2012; Gilles-​Reynal, “Un miracle de saint Saturnin au XIIe siècle: une fable politique?;” and N. Caciola, Afterlives: The Return of the Dead in the Middle Ages, Ithaca, 2016, ch. 3. E.F. Arnold, “Engineering miracles: water control, conversion and the creation of a religious landscape in the medieval Ardennes”, Environment and History 13:4 (2007), pp. 447–​502. G. Koziol, “Monks, Feuds, and the Making of Peace in Eleventh-​Century Flanders”, in T. Head and R. Landes, eds., The Peace of God: Social Violence and Religious Response in France around the Year 1000, Ithaca, 1992, pp. 239–​58; S. Yarrow, Saints and Their Communities: Miracle Stories in Twelfth-​Century England, Oxford, 2006, pp. 63–​99. On the transition from shrine-​based to general collections of miracles of the Virgin, see Ward, Miracles and the Medieval Mind, ch. 8. On shrine-​based Marian pilgrimages, see G. Signori, “The miracle kitchen and its ingredients: a methodical and critical approach to Marian shrine wonders (10th to 13th century)”, in Hagiographica: Rivista di agiografica e biografia della Società internazionale per lo studio del Medio Evo latino 3 (1996), pp. 277–​303. For examples of non-​shrine-​based collections, see V.F. Koenig, ed., Gautier de Coincy, Les Miracles de Nostre Dame, 4 vols., Geneva, 1955–​70; William of Malmesbury, The Miracles of the Blessed Virgin Mary, ed. M. Winterbottom and R.M. Thompson, Suffolk, 2015; O. Collet, “The Miracles de Nostre Dame par personnages and the legacy of

170 Craig are rich textual sources in many ways, may have limited value for the scholar of pilgrimage. 3

Pilgrimage as Context and Source for Miracle Texts

Where sacred travel serves as a critical element in the narratives, however, they offer a rich source of information. This is most evident in the collections associated with miracle shrines which proliferated in large numbers beginning in the twelfth century, and in the canonization inquests which were conducted by the papacy from the later twelfth century onward as it gradually assumed control over formal canonization. Both shrine-​based collections and canonization inquests served to publicize those shrines and to prove their saint’s efficacy as intercessor. As such, the narratives they contain portray pilgrimage to a specific saintly shrine as effective and meritorious, and virtually all of their protagonists are also pilgrims.26 These two types of sources preserve thousands of accounts of pilgrimage to saints’ shrines. Consider, for example, the story of Robert Vertlet of Winchester, who undertook pilgrimage to the shrine of Henry vi at Windsor in the late fifteenth century. According to Henry’s miracle collection, Robert had been ill for a year with an increasing weakness which impaired his mobility, “scarce contriving now and again to move himself a little from his place through propping himself on two crutches”. Though travel was difficult for Robert under such circumstances, the narrative relates, as we might expect, that Robert’s efforts in undertaking a pilgrimage to Windsor were not wasted. Upon his arrival, “this weakness of body all at once left him and disappeared, giving place to the immediate soundness of health”.27 Robert Vertlet’s narrative appears in the collection which supported an incomplete Gautier de Coinci”, in D. Maddox & S. Sturm-​Maddox, eds., Parisian Confraternity Drama of the Fourteenth Century: The Miracles de Nostre Dame par personnages, Turnhout, 2008, pp. 67–​86; A.W. Boyarin, Miracles of the Virgin in Medieval England: Law and Jewishness in Marian Legends, Woodbridge, 2010; K. Inhat, “Marian Miracles and Marian Liturgies in the Benedictine Tradition of Post-​Conquest England”, in Mesley and Wilson, eds., Contextualizing Miracles in the Christian West, 1100–​1500, pp. 63–​98. 26 Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things?, pp. 558–​67; for more detailed studies, see K. Ashley & P. Sheingorn, Writing Faith: Text, Sign, and History in the Miracles of Sainte Foy, Chicago, 1999; S. Yarrow, Saints and Their Communities; and R. Koopmans, Wonderful to Relate: Miracle Stories and Miracle Collecting in High Medieval England, Philadelphia, 2010. 27 R. Knox & S. Leslie, ed. and trans., The Miracles of King Henry VI, Cambridge, 1923, pp. 73–​ 74: “… vixque valeret duobbus innitendo cruculis interdum de loco vel modicum se transferre …; omnis illa corporis invalitudo subito evanescens aufugit deditque sanitati locum

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bid for canonization for King Henry vi of England, who died in 1471 under highly questionable political circumstances, such that he was posthumously considered a political martyr.28 Henry’s canonization case petered out for lack of financial support before a canonization inquest was even undertaken, but his cult leaves us his eloquent vita and a substantial miracle collection. Robert Vertlet’s narrative is so normative for the genre as to be completely unremarkable, and as such serves as a useful basis from which to explore the inclusion of pilgrimage in miracles associated with high and later medieval saints’ shrines. Even so, we should be aware that it was preserved in a collection which passed over many, if not most, of the pilgrims who traveled to Henry’s shrine. Both shrine-​based collections and canonization inquests incorporated only those narratives thought worthy of preservation by clerical authorities, rather than representing a general survey or a complete listing of the experiences of visitors to shrines. These selections were made based upon the perceived miraculous success of a given pilgrimage, and upon the willingness of the miraculé to make that experience public. The internal evidence of the narratives themselves, however, suggests that not all pilgrims who visited a shrine left able to boast of miraculous experiences, and that not all people who experienced something they thought was miraculous were willing to boast of it. Unsuccessful prior pilgrimages were sometimes recorded in order to reflect favorably on the merits of the successful saintly intercessor. The early fourteenth-​century collection of miracles of Mary Magdalen from St.-​Maximin-​ de-​Provence features a story of pilgrims who made a failed initial attempt to obtain intercession for a demoniac at the competing Magdalen shrine at the cathedral at Vézelay. In the presence of the Vézelay relic shrine, the demon publicly declared that surcease for the victim it occupied could only be found at St.-​Maximin, whose claims to the Magdalen’s relics were the only valid ones.29 Other accounts describe pilgrims who were forced to publicize their miraculous experiences more fully because those miracles had been revoked

28

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ilico succedenti”. See also the full edition of the collection offered by P. Grosjean, ed., Henrici VI Angliae Regis Miracula Postuma, Brussels, 1935, pp. 94–​95. J.W. McKenna, “Piety and Propaganda: The Cult of Henry VI”, in B. Rowland, ed., Chaucer and Middle English Studies in Honour of Rossell Hope Robbins, London, 1974, pp. 72–​88; S. Walker, “Political Saints in Later Medieval England”, in R.H. Britnell & A.J. Pollard, eds., The MacFarlane Legacy: Studies in Late Medieval Politics and Society, New York, 1995, pp. 77–​106; and L.A. Craig, “Royalty, Virtue, and Adversity: The Cult of King Henry VI of England”, Albion 35:2 (2003), pp. 187–​205. Jean Gobi l’Ancien, Miracles de Sainte Marie-​Madeleine, ed. and trans. J. Schlafer, Paris, 1996, pp. 184–​85.

172 Craig or suspended by a piqued saintly benefactor.30 Finally, even those experiences selected as significant might be recorded in narrative which provides information about the beneficiary of the miracle almost exclusively, remaining silent about his or her community of fellow-​pilgrims, or noting them only in passing as “friends” or “bystanders”.31 The pilgrim-​beneficiaries who appear in these collections, then, are exceptional representatives of the pilgrimage experience, and are presented in a way which emphasizes their singularity. Keeping these limits in mind, stories like that of Robert Vertlet do offer a valuable glimpse of Christian engagement with pilgrimage. They sometimes discuss, for example, the goals and the challenges surrounding the very decision to become a pilgrim at all. This decision might arouse contention; the long history of anti-​pilgrimage rhetoric left traces not only in sermons, satire, and courtesy literature, but also in miracles.32 The protagonists of miracle stories sometimes encountered doubt about the efficacy of the saint they had chosen to seek out, or outright anger that they chose to undertake pilgrimage travel. These forms of difficulty are recorded in miracle accounts that featured saints meting out punishment to those who denigrated their power to heal, as when Birgitta of Sweden caused the legs of two men who spoke ill of her to be broken.33 The scribe who recorded Robert’s narrative framed his decision to become a pilgrim as a question of his awareness of the practice more generally. Despite his physical suffering, we are told that Robert was inspired to undertake his difficult journey because he “heard of the wide renown of the most devout King Henry, which had been spread abroad everywhere through the frequent occurrence of miracles done by him”.34 Meanwhile, though Robert himself does not appear to have done so, shrine-​based miracles frequently described the making of binding pilgrimage vows by their protagonists –​sometimes in a moment of duress, and sometimes not.35 In this same collection, for example, we find the story of a four-​year-​old boy named Thomas Fowle who was struck in the eye by an ill-​aimed arrow. Fearing he would die, “the parents and all those 30 Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things?, p. 363; Vauchez, Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages, pp. 459–​60. 31 For examples of references to bystanders, see Knox & Leslie, ed. and trans., The Miracles of King Henry VI, pp. 36, 48, 112, and 165; for examples of “friends”, see pp. 51 and 104. 32 Constable, “Opposition to Pilgrimage”. 33 I. Collijn, ed., Acta et Processus Canonizacionis Beate Birgitte, Stockholm, 1924–​1931, p. 150. 34 Knox & Leslie, ed. and trans., The Miracles of King Henry the Sixth, p. 75: “… audita devotissimi regis Henrici nobilissima fama: que ex miraculorum eius frequencia ubilibet divulgata est …”. 35 Vauchez, Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages, pp. 453–​62; Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things?, pp. 103–​12.

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present, finding no other relief, betook themselves to entreating the divine comfort with one voice, imploring the aid of Mary, the Immaculate Mother of God, and of the most pious King Henry from their inmost hearts”.36 Thomas’ wound ceased bleeding immediately, making a pilgrimage of thanksgiving to Windsor a sacred obligation, rather than a voluntary gesture of piety. Details of this sort allow us some glimpse of community involvement, as well as the motivation, or even religious obligations, of pilgrims and their companions. Only some miracles offer this sort of discussion of their protagonists’ decision to become pilgrims; likewise, narratives exhibit great variation in how much of that pilgrimage is explicit in the text. The shrine served as the object of pilgrimage travel, and as such the scribes who recorded miracles at those shrines often had not observed that travel. Some miracle texts were recorded in great brevity, depriving us of much information on pilgrimage. The miracles of the blessed Simone da Todi (d. 1322) are notable in this regard. Recorded day by day, the miracles in this collection consist of a list of brief notices such as that of “a certain girl of the age of twelve years, named Agnes, the daughter of Boninsegna di Mesciazano, who was impaired in her hands and her feet, such that she was not able to go forth, and was not able to help herself, and it had by then been five years and more …”.37 These precis are followed by a brief note that all of the people in the list had been healed through Simone’s merits. From such short notices we may learn who was healed and of what perceived condition, and perhaps something of the distance they purportedly traveled, but we are offered no details about pilgrims’ experiences or ritual actions. Other narratives, like Robert’s, offer more details about pilgrims’ experiences of travel to the shrine.38 Where it is discussed, the physical process of sacred travel served in the narratives as public, performative proof of the miraculous. Descriptions of travel to shrines afforded the opportunity to describe, and offer proof, of both infirmity and recovery. The author of Robert’s narrative began by declaring, without any special proof, that Robert had been living with mobility impairment for some time, but he also took pains to emphasize that Robert “came to the shrine of the holy man … with great labor, and worn 36 37 38

Knox & Leslie, ed. and trans., The Miracles of King Henry the Sixth, p. 55: “Propterea parentes illi et qui convenerant universi (aliunde non reperientes refugium) ad divina sola expetenda solacia concordi voto subfugiunt”. Phillip Papazoni, Miracula, in Acta Sanctorum, April ii, p. 821: “Quædam puella æt. xii ann. nomine Agnesia, filia D. Boninsegna de Mesciazano, erat contracta pedibus & manibus, ita quod ire non poterat, nec poterat se juvare, jam sunt quinque anni & ultra …”. See for example S. Farmer, Surviving Poverty in Medieval Paris: Gender, Ideology, and the Daily Lives of the Poor, Ithaca, 2005; I. Metzler, Disability in Medieval Europe: Thinking About Physical Impairment in the High Middle Ages, C. 1100-​C. 1400, Abingdon, 2006, ch. 5.

174 Craig out by pain above the usual”.39 Such portrayals of the personal difficulties of sacred travel describe a wide variety of bodily conditions, as well as adaptive strategies including human care, assistive mobility technology, and the use of service animals.40 By comparing one half of the round-​trip pilgrim journey to the other, these descriptions of pilgrim travel also help, in some narratives, to prove the miracle. Robert’s homeward journey demonstrated his wellness because he did not need “the supports by which he walked hitherto … and so came back safely to his home”.41 This trope of positive comparison was likewise present for those who lost their minds and were brought to the shrine, often “by force”, using chains, ropes, and other forms of physical restriction.42 In 1347, a demoniac named Ciomea, the was brought to the Pisan shrine of the blessed Gerard Cagnoli “tied on an ass”, and was subsequently led into the church “resisting strongly and crying out”. There she was cured, and we are told that when she left the shrine she “returned in peace” as a homeward-​bound pilgrim.43 Pilgrimage experiences on the road toward home also figure in shrine-​ based collections as proof of the ongoing efficacy of a particular shrine. One of the most significant of the twelfth-​century shrine-​based collections, that of Santiago de Compostela, incorporates several examples of miracles of protection offered to pilgrims who had visited Compostela as penitents, and thereafter were protected from harm while traveling because of their prior devotion.44 39

Knox & Leslie, ed. and trans., The Miracles of King Henry the Sixth, p. 75: “… non sine sudore nimio et penis (sic) gravioribus fatigatus ad eiusdem sancti viri devenit basilicam”. 40 Farmer, Surviving Poverty in Medieval Paris; Metzler, Disability in Medieval Europe, ch. 5; S. Katajala-​Peltomaa, “Demonic Possession as Physical and Mental Disturbance in the Later Medieval Canonization Processes”, in Katajala-​Peltomaa and S. Niiranen, eds., Mental (Dis)Order in Later Medieval Europe, ed., Boston and Leiden, 2014, pp. 108–​27; and J. Kuuliala, Childhood Disability and Social Integration in the Middle Ages: Constructions of Impairments in Thirteenth-​and Fourteenth-​ Century Canonization Processes, Turnhout, 2016. 41 Knox & Leslie, ed. and trans., The Miracles of King Henry the Sixth, p. 76: “… ipsa quibus antea sustentabatur podia cum oblacionis pignore promisso, beato viro relinquens in testimonium, sospes ad sua regreditur”. 42 L.A. Craig, Wandering Women and Women as Pilgrims in the Later Middle Ages, 1300–​1500 CE, Boston and Leiden, 2009, Ch. 5. 43 “Il tratto dei miracoli del B. Gerardo Cagnoli, O. min. (1267–​1342) di Fra Bartolomeo Albizi, O. Min. (d. 1351)”, Miscellanea Francescana 66 (1966), p. 152: “Haec ergo, die supradicta, ligata super asinum Pisas ducitur ad Sacntum Gerardum; et perveniens ad ecclesiam deponitur de animali, ac fortiter resistens et clamans, violenter introductiur coram Sancto. … ac Sancti Gerardi munita cedula, recessit in pace”. 44 M. Possamaï, “Les miracles de saint Jacques: essaie de définition de la vertu thaumaturgique du saint de Compostelle”, in Le Livre de saint Jacques et la tradition du pseudo-​ Turpin: Sacralité et littérature, ed. Jean-​Claude Vallecalle, Lyon, 2011, pp. 35–​54.

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Miracles also provide descriptions of pilgrimage ritual, including discussions of formal vows and pre-​pilgrimage confessions or fasting, ritual conditions of travel (such as going barefoot), and ritual actions undertaken at shrines.45 Though not all scribes bothered to record these details, Robert’s story, even though it is brief by the standards of Henry’s verbose collection, does offer three specific details about his ritual actions. The first of these was Robert’s promise of a ritual offering (beyond his crutches): when he decided to undertake pilgrimage, we are told, “he laid by offerings (munera) of devotion”.46 After his arrival at Windsor, the narrative describes two other ritual acts: he “venerated the holy tomb with due honor”, and he “made many supplications before the Lord”.47 This brief account, then, records a vowed votive offering, interaction with the tomb, and public prayer. Narratives associated with pilgrimage shrines are frequently just as detailed, if not more, about their protagonists’ engagement with ritual. As such, these passages serve both as instruction manual on how to access the power of the saints, and also forged a causal link in the narrative between the power of the saint and the recoveries of particular individuals. The degree to which authors portrayed any of these aspects of pilgrimage in miracle narratives was affected by a number of factors. One of these was their degree of interest in promoting pilgrimage; while pilgrimage to some of the new saintly cults which arose after the millennium were promoted with enthusiasm by clerical authorities –​particularly, for example, new cathedral shrines –​those associated with monastic communities were sometimes perceived to be less convenient and their miracles seem less inclined to encourage sacred travel.48 Change over time likewise had an effect on pilgrimage’s appearance in the literature. Vauchez’s seminal work found a shift in the fourteenth century away from shrines as the obligate locations of miracles, such that even in shrine-​based collections, more of the miracles recorded had been granted immediately upon the taking of a pilgrimage vow to the saint –​that is to say, before a pilgrimage was actually performed –​rather than at the shrine of the 45 Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things?, pp. 355–​60. 46 Knox & Leslie, ed. and trans., The Miracles of King Henry the Sixth, p. 75: “… illi votive devocionis munera preparebat”. 47 Knox & Leslie, ed. and trans., The Miracles of King Henry the Sixth, p. 75: “Ubi dum honore debito sacrum venerando sepulcrum preces multiplicaret coram domino …”. 48 R. Bartlett, “The hagiography of Angevin England”, in P.R. Coss & S.D. Lloyd, eds., Thirteenth Century England, V: Proceedings of the Newcastle upon Tyne Conference 1993, Woodbridge, 1995, pp. 37–​52; B. Nilson, Cathedral Shrines of Medieval England, Rochester, 1998; C. Vincent & J. Pycke, eds., Cathédrale et pèlerinage aux époques médiévale et moderne: reliques, processions et dévotions à l’église-​mère du diocèse, Louvain-​la-​Neuve, 2010.

176 Craig saint.49 This shift transformed more pilgrimages from demonstrations of penitential and physical suffering to occasions of public thanksgiving. The miracles of Henry vi’s collection, which have a strong preponderance of instantaneous miracles, provide examples of how this vogue for pilgrimages of thanksgiving might present certain limits to the scholar of pilgrimage.50 Although Henry’s miracles are quite lengthy (between roughly eight hundred and fifteen hundred words each), they often spend the majority of their efforts describing the emergent situation, vow, and miracle which spurred the pilgrimage of their protagonists. As such, they often say little about the travel itself, mentioning it only in the final two to three sentences as a token of “happily ever after”. When, for example, Agnes Green was cured of her insanity by appeals to Henry, we learn only in the final sentence of her narrative that she visited Henry’s shrine on 24 August of 1485, and that while she was there she declared the miracle publicly “to many bystanders”.51 4

Lived Pilgrimage and Miracle Text

Appearances of pilgrimage as narrative element in miracles certainly carry a sense of their clerical authors’ opinions about the practice of sacred travel. Didactic intent –​a desire to express particular cultural norms or ideas –​is, after all, intrinsic to the miracle genre. However, the high medieval growth in shrine-​based miracle collecting and of legal investigations into those miracles also raises the question of how much the (self-​guided, self-​interpreted) experience of an individual pilgrim may have influenced these texts. To what extent are these idealized portraits, and to what extent may we learn about lived pilgrimages –​that is, the historical ritual experiences of living people? This question is central to an ongoing tension between historiographical impulses. For those seeking evidence of lived experience, miracles pose a great interpretive challenge because of the nature of their oral and written transmission, and because of modern skepticism about miraculous claims. And yet, the texts offer an unparalleled glimpse of lay and often unlettered Christian pilgrims as they engaged with their circumstances, their faith, and their ritual tradition. 49 Vauchez, Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages, pp. 469–​77. 50 Craig, “Royalty, Virtue, and Adversity”. 51 P. Grosjean, ed., Henrici VI Angliae Regis Miracula Postuma, Brussels, 1935, pp. 213–​14: “Ante cuius quoque sacrum monumentum isipsum rursus, sub eo quo hic intitulatur ordine, astantibus plurimis patefecit, quo die beati apostolic Bartholomei sollenizatur momeoria, anno supra notato”.

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Navigation of these contrary interpretive impulses requires as clear an understanding as possible of the distance, and the conceptual and procedural links, between the ritual practice of pilgrimage and miracles as a textual record of that practice. Just as the degree to which pilgrimage appears as a narrative element in miracles was variable, so too was the degree to which lived pilgrimages served as sources for miracle texts. Logically, if stories contained no pilgrimage –​either as a narrative element or as an intrinsic implication of a shrine-​based setting –​ they had little potential for any direct link to lived pilgrimages, either. Thus, lived pilgrimages might have little or no connection to texts whose primary goals were to assert divinely-​mandated rights or authority (as in chronicles), to teach essential messages about the faith to the Christian laity (as in exempla), or to increase devotion to a known figure such as Christ or the Blessed Virgin, but not to a specific site of pilgrimage.52 By the same token, a shrine-​based setting does not guarantee that a miracle narrative’s origin lay with a living pilgrim. Miracle writers frequently reproduced content, repurposing in a new context iterations of pre-​existing stories whose transmission may be traced by their distinctive elements.53 The story of the Virgin Mary’s miraculous protection of a pregnant nun, for example, appears in multiple Marian collections and makes no mention of pilgrimage or shrines at all; but the narrative was also re-​used by authors of shrine-​based collections, appearing, for example, in collections of miracles associated with Icelandic saints’ shrines in the thirteenth century.54

52

53 54

On miracles as exempla, see B. Müller, “The Diabolical Power of Lettuce, or Garden Miracles in Gregory the Great’s Dialogues”, in K. Cooper & J. Gregory, eds., Signs, Wonders, Miracles: Representations of Divine Power in the Life of the Church, Woodbridge, 2005, pp. 46–​66; on Eucharistic miracles, see C. Bynum, Wonderful Blood; Justice, “Eucharistic Miracle and Eucharistic Doubt;” and F. Wallerich, “Miracles eucharistiques et prêtres indignes dans quelques recueils cisterciens (1170–​1220)”, Revue d’histoire de l’église de France 101 (2015):19–​40; on miracles of the Virgin, see D.A. Flory, Marian Representations in the Miracle Tale of Thirteenth-​Century Spain and France, Washington, 2000; and A.W. Boyarin, Miracles of the Virgin in Medieval England. Hall, “The Miracle of the Lengthened Beam;” V. Smirnova, “Saint Faith’s scandalous miracles: a quest for novelty”, in G. Jaritz, ed., Scandala, Krems, 2008, pp. 33–​43. M. Cormack, “Better off dead: approaches to medieval miracles”, in T.A. DuBois, ed., Sanctity in the North: Saints, Lives, and Cults in Medieval Scandinavia, Toronto, 2008, pp. 334–​352. At the same time, the opposite can also be true, and nonhagiographic miracles can be framed by known local historical events; see B. Bombi, “The Authority of Miracles: Caesarius of Heisterbach and the Livonian Crusade”, in B. Bolton & C. Meek, eds., Aspects of Power and Authority in the Middle Ages, Turnhout, 2007, pp. 305–​26.

178 Craig Even in the high medieval shrine-​based collections, and in the canonization inquests which investigated those narratives, it can be difficult to discern the level of influence that a living pilgrim may have had in shaping the final text. While the vast majority of such texts are presented as a faithful reporting of the testimony of pilgrim-​miraculé and their fellow-​travelers, multiple layers of filtration are interposed between the living pilgrims and the written documents. For many pilgrims those filters proved impenetrable; as we have seen, shrine-​ based collections and canonization inquests record the stories of only a select subset of pilgrims. Once singled out as significant enough to record, however, the experiences of pilgrims still had a long road to travel before reaching the destination of text. Information delivered orally in the vernacular faced the process of translation into written Latin, in a variety of procedural contexts. In the case of shrine-​based collecting, this may initially have happened via a seemingly simple process of verbal declaration by a pilgrim to a shrine-​keeper, who then composed a written version of the narrative. Yet even if it were available to us, such an oral description of events from a pilgrim would itself be problematic as source. Some miracle beneficiaries, such as children or the severely ill, could not speak for their own experience; human memory is notoriously malleable even in healthy adults; and the presence of companions and witnesses must also have shaped the narratives as they were delivered by those who claimed to have had benefit of saintly intercession.55 Furthermore, the initial written version may not have been the final one. Robert Vertlet’s narrative was part of a collection which was redacted from materials that had been taken down at Henry’s second shrine in Windsor over the course of nineteen years (between 1481 and 1500). From these preliminary materials, 174 narratives were selected and freshly rewritten in a grandiose Latin style in 1500 or so. The final redaction of Robert’s narrative was accompanied by the marginal notations of three numbering schemes, showing that the author was compiling revised narratives drawn from several shorter collections.56 Likewise, Thomas Becket’s two miracle collections were redactions drawn from a lost initial compilation, and have been argued to date to at least fifteen years after the events

55 56

On memory in medieval sources, see E. van Houts, Gender and Memory in Medieval Europe, Toronto, 1999; and M. Carruthers, The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture, 2nd ed., Cambridge, 2008. London, British Library Royal 13 c. viii; the dual marginal numbering schemes are also preserved in the edition, P. Grosjean, ed., Henrici VI Angliae Regis Miracula Postuma; Ex Codice Musei Britannici Regio 13. C. Viii, Brussells, 1935.

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they describe.57 The filters between living pilgrim and textual record as preserved in a shrine-​based collection, then, could be many. But the nature of this gap between pilgrim and text in shrine-​based collections also varied with developments in the genre over time. While local cultic promoters of the eleventh and early twelfth centuries had a relatively free hand in crafting hagiographic material, the papacy began to assume control over official canonization in the later twelfth century, and had established the legal norms of canonization by 1240.58 This administrative centralization did not mandate specific formats for shrine-​based miracle collections, but it does seem to have influenced those collections. Scholars have frequently noted that there is a sea-​change in these texts somewhere in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century, one that privileged a detail-​oriented legalism.59 The narratives collected from this time forward more consistently provide details about locations, dates, and the identity of the pilgrim-​miraculé, their companions, and other witnesses. While miracle stories were always underpinned to some degree by a structure of naturalistic doubt, and “belief” is a complicated notion to apply to their contents, these later shrine-​based collections incorporate a strong sense of evidentiary standard. The authors frequently fixed a skeptical eye upon the question of possible natural explanations for the events they describe, seeking with deliberate care to exclude any but a supernatural cause.60

57

58 59

60

N. Vincent, “William of Canterbury and Benedict of Peterborough: the manuscripts, date and context of the Becket miracle collections”, in E. Bozóky, ed., Hagiographie, idéologie et politique au Moyen Age en Occident: Actes du colloque international du Centre d’Etudes supérieures de Civilisation médiévale de Poitiers, 11–​14 Septembre 2008, Turnhout, 2012, pp. 346–​87. E.W. Kemp, Canonization and Authority in the Western Church, New York, 1980, pp. 82–​140; Vauchez, Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages, pp. 22–​32; Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things?, pp. 58–​61. Among others, see Koopmans, Wonderful to Relate, pp. 202–​5; K. Sykes, “Sanctity as a form of Capital”, Studies in Church History 47 (2011), pp. 112–​24; S. Crumplin, “Modernizing St. Cuthbert: Reginald of Durham’s miracle collection”, Studies in Church History 41 (2005), pp. 179–​919; and I. Metzler, “Indiscriminate Healing Miracles in Decline: How Social Realities Affect Religious Perception”, in Mesley & Wilson, eds., Contextualizing Miracles in the Christian West, 1100–​1500, pp. 155–​76. S. Justice, “Did the Middle Ages Believe in Their Miracles?” Representations 103:1 (2008), pp. 1–​29; M. Goodich, “Reason or Revelation? The criteria for the proof and credibility of miracles in the canonization processes”, in G. Klaniczay, ed., Medieval Canonization Processes: Legal and Religious Aspects, Rome, 2004, pp. 181–​97; and R.C. Finucane, “Authorizing the Supernatural: An Examination of Some English Miracles Around 1318”, in Bolton & Meek, eds., Aspects of Power and Authority in the Middle Ages, pp. 289–​304.

180 Craig Henry vi’s miracle collection is one example of this impulse toward legalization in the shrine-​based collections. Unlike, for example, the pilgrims who appear in the mid-​twelfth-​century Book of Saint James, the majority of the pilgrims recorded in it are named, and their place of origin and sometimes their social station are recorded.61 The narratives typically record the date of the events, and the names of witnesses to the events in question. The information is detailed enough that two decades after they were initially recorded, papal investigators who undertook an initial survey of possible witnesses for a canonization inquest were able to declare forty miracles “proven” based on their discussions with at least three living witnesses each, and to label several others “unproven” because they could no longer locate sufficient witnesses.62 While it is rare for direct fact-​checking from living pilgrims to be preserved outside of a canonization dossier, Henry’s miracle collection does leave us with a valuable example of the way that such legal concerns, and the awareness of the need for connection to living witnesses, might have underpinned the creation of shrine-​based collections from the thirteenth century forward. The filters between pilgrim and text are different, yet equally complicated, in the written material produced by canonization inquests. A form of legal record that developed fully by 1270, canonization dossiers often included the vita and miracle collection produced by the saint’s promoters, and so has direct connection with shrine-​based miracle collecting. But they also contain the legal records of the inquest itself.63 These included a preliminary inquiry, a papal bull directing three commissioners to gather evidence regarding several articles concerning the life and miracles of the saint, the records of witness depositions, and sometimes, direct letters of corroboration from an eyewitness.64 As such, the dossiers sometimes contain multiple redactions of the

61 62

T. Coffey. L.K. Davidson, and M. Dunn, eds., The Miracles of Saint James, New York, 1996. For information on this marginalia, see Grosjean, ed., Henrici VI Angliae Regis Miracula Postuma, pp. 74*–​104*. 63 Vauchez, Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages, pp. 33–​46. See also the detailed examinations of specific dossiers in G. Klaniczay, ed., Medieval Canonization Processes: Legal and Religious Aspects, Rome, 2004; M. Goodich, Miracles and Wonders: The Development of the Concept of the Miracle, 1150–​1350, Aldershot, 2007, ch. 6; M.C. Gaposchkin, The Making of Saint Louis: Kingship, Sanctity, and the Crusade in the Later Middle Ages, Ithaca, 2008, chs. 1 and 2; and Smoller, The Saint and the Chopped-​up Baby, ch. 2. See also the chapters by Louise E. Wilson, Roberto Paciocco, and Sari Katajala-​Peltomaa & Jenni Kuuliala in this volume. 64 R. Koopmans, “Testimonial letters in the late twelfth-​century collections of Thomas Becket’s miracles”, in D.C. Mengel and L. Wolverton, eds., Christianity and Culture in the Middle Ages: Essays to Honor John Van Engen, South Bend, 2015, pp. 168–​201.

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same events, in different formats (as shrine-​based narrative, legal article, testimony –​sometimes from multiple witnesses –​and letters.) In the depositions, in particular, living pilgrims are especially close to the production of text, and scholars have found this to be immensely rich and rewarding material.65 And yet, if we seek in them some information on the lived experience of pilgrims, we must recall that these records, too, are filtered. As with shrine-​based collections the miracles which appear in canonization inquests must first be selected as noteworthy, as relatively few miracles were investigated closely. Rachel Koopmans has observed that in arranging for witness testimony by pre-​selected beneficiaries of miracles, clerical authorities were “collecting people, rather than stories”, as they once had done in shrine-​ based collections.66 Similarly, the canonization inquests incorporate the same problems of language shift and the capture of oral communication as the shrine-​based collections. Further, witness testimony might be most significantly affected by questions of unreliable memory, since many years might have elapsed between the original events and the inquest. These witnesses might, by that time, have recounted their experiences publicly many times, or have discussed those events with others in their community, seeking common ground in recall, both of which are processes known to affect memory.67 As such, while the living pilgrims might be near to the text in the case of these depositions, they might not be very near at all in time or in memory to the lived pilgrimage experience which they were asked to recount. Finally, the contents of this testimony were guided by the questions of clerical investigators. The degree to which those questions limited the narrative power of the witnesses is variable and difficult to discern, though it is possible to trace, to some degree, the thoughts of lay witnesses based on those moments when they volunteered information “off-​script”.68

65

S. Katajala-​Peltomaa, “Recent Trends in the Study of Medieval Canonizations”, History Compass 8:9 (2010), pp. 1083–​92. 66 Koopmans, Wonderful to Relate, p. 205. 67 On canonization testimony and its perils, see the essays in Klaniczay, ed., Medieval Canonization Processes; L. Smoller, “Miracle, Memory, and Meaning in the Canonization of Vincent Ferrer, 1453–​1454”, Speculum 73:2 (1998), pp. 429–​54; R. Bartlett, The Hanged Man: A Story of Miracle, Memory, and Colonialism in the Middle Ages, Princeton, 2004; G. Klaniczay, “Speaking About Miracles: Oral Testimony and Written Record in Medieval Canonization Trials”, in A. Adamska &M. Mostert, eds., The Development of Literate Mentalities in East Central Europe, Turnhout, 2004, pp. 365–​95; R. Fincuane, “The Toddler in the Ditch: A Case of Parental Neglect?”, in M.E. Goodich, ed., Voices from the Bench: Narratives of Lesser Folk in Medieval Trials, New York, 2006, pp. 127–​48. 68 For example, see Smoller, “Miracle, Memory, and Meaning”.

182 Craig These encounters between authors and witnesses, no matter the setting, also encompass one of the most difficult challenges in medieval textual interpretation: to make sense of the interplay between the ontologies of learned, Latin-​ literate authors and the vernacular, often illiterate ontologies of the living sources from which those authors drew.69 Miracle texts pose an especially complex challenge in this regard in that many post-​Enlightenment observers do not find their content credible; they concern fantastic events of a sort which many contemporary thinkers (and indeed, many medieval observers) have struggled to reconcile with our notions of the possible.70 Furthermore, the repetition of narrative elements (and, on occasion, entire distinctive narratives) in miraculous literature makes clear that miracles were mimetic, and had been from the earliest veneration of saints. Even in collections with some root in witness testimony, claims of miracles were made from within a recursive loop of believability: cultural expectations shaped the perceptions of individuals, and hence those individuals’ experiences and memories; those individuals, in turn, shared their memories to contribute to narratives which were then used to shape the expectation of future pilgrims.71 The relationship between the lived pilgrim experience and testimony and the written text is not one-​way. Thus, untangling the thread of lived experience is distinctly challenging. Until the mid-​twentieth century, historians faced with this challenge often argued that all miracles represented a relatively complete fabrication by the literate in the pursuit of didactic goals.72 More recently, scholars have weighted the relative contributions to the final text of pilgrims and scribes in a variety of ways. In his seminal essays on the cult of the saints in the late Antique, Peter Brown posited a parallel model of “popular” and “elite” forms of Christianity, and he saw in the cult of the saints the construction of an agreed-​upon middle

69 70

71 72

See the discussions of this issue included in Goodich, ed., Voices from the Bench; S. McSheffrey, “Detective Fiction in the Archives: Court Records and the Uses of Law in Late Medieval England”, History Workshop Journal 65:1 (2008), pp. 65–​78. A. Kleinberg, Prophets in Their Own Country: Living Saints and the Making of Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages, Chicago, 1992, ch. 3, tackles this issue; skepticism about the possibility of miracles underpins the work of R. Finucane, Miracles and Pilgrims: Popular Beliefs in Medieval England, Basingstoke, 1977; meanwhile, R.A. Scott, Miracle Cures: Saints, Pilgrimage, and the Healing Power of Belief, Berkeley, CA, 2010, aims for a more nuanced exploration of these concerns. S. Yarrow, Saints and Their Communities, p. 16; L.A. Craig, Wandering Women and Holy Matrons, ch. 3. See Justice, “Did the Middle Ages Believe their Miracles?”, pp. 8–​9. This notion is not entirely without proponents today; see J. Wirth, “Légend et miracles de saint Thomas d’Aquin”, Micrologus 21 (2013), 397–​409.

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ground between these two viewpoints.73 In response, other scholars have suggested that popular/​elite dichotomies are overly simplistic. Patrick Geary has argued that such an approach erases a plethora of local competing interests which are best examined by exploring the specific historical, textual, and codicological context of a given miracle collection.74 Taking this cue, scholars working on specific collections have explored in detail the question of the relative contributions of groups of pilgrim-​witnesses versus their multiple questioners.75 Others have preserved the notion of a popular/​elite divide, but suggest that rather than a negotiated truth, the stories represent an agreed-​upon wish, a “comfort narrative” or a reflection of collective psychology.76 Yet others have suggested that education or power is not the divide most important to the narratives, which internally divide Christians into “believers” who share in the veneration of the saint in question, versus “unbelievers” who do not.77 Even bearing in mind the complexities of balancing didacticism versus lived experience, local context versus the broader Christian worldview, the learned versus the unlettered, or the believer versus the doubter or the heretic, these sources have already taught us a great deal about pilgrimage as practice. Several decades’ worth of work on miracles has explored the social history of pilgrimage, looking at the human networks and circumstances of those who engaged in sacred travel.78 Scholars have made particularly fruitful use of miracles as a window on the lives of social groups under-​discussed as pilgrims in other sources, such as women, children, and the poor.79 Miracles could be equally 73 Brown, The Cult of the Saints, pp. 23–​49. 74 P. Geary, Living with the Dead in the Middle Ages, Cornell, 1994, ch. 1; Justice, “Did the Middle Ages Believe Their Miracles?”. 75 See, among others, Smoller, “Miracle, Memory, and Meaning;” M. Goodich, Miracles and Wonders, chs. 4 and 5; M. Richter, “Procedural aspects of the canonization of Lorcán Ua Tuathail”, and G. Klaniczay, “Proving sanctity in the canonization processus (Saint Elizabeth and Saint Margaret of Hungary)”, in Klaniczay, ed., Medieval Canonization Processes, pp. 53–​65 and pp. 117–​48, respectively. 76 Bailey, “Peter Brown and Victor Turner Revisited;” Cormack, “Better off dead”. 77 S. Yarrow, “Miracles, Belief, and Christian Materiality: Relic’ing in Twelfth-​Century Miracle Narratives”, in Mesley & Wilson, eds., Contextualizing Miracles in the Christian West, 1100–​ 1500, pp. 41–​62. See also M. Goodich, “Miracles and Disbelief in the Late Middle Ages”, Mediavistik 1 (1990), 23–​38; and M. Goodich, “Innocent III and the Miracle as Weapon Against Unbelief”, in Goodich, Lives and Miracles of the Saints: Studies in Medieval Latin Hagiography, Aldershot, 2004, 456–​70. 78 For summary discussions of medieval pilgrims organized by social status, see D. Webb, Medieval European Pilgrimage, ch. 3; Sumption, Pilgrimage, chs. 14 and 15. 79 R. Finucane, The Rescue of the Innocents: Endangered Children in Medieval Miracles, New York, 1997; S. Farmer, Surviving Poverty in Medieval Paris; L.A. Craig, Wandering Women and Holy Matrons, ch. 3 and ch. 5.; A.E. Bailey, “Wives, mothers and widows on

184 Craig fruitful ground for those seeking to explore the localized and miracle-​oriented, rather than long-​distance and penitential, pilgrimages of nobles, or of professed religious. Given that so many miracles concern matters of healing, we have also learned much about questions of disability in medieval society, and disabled pilgrims brought themselves, or were brought by their communities, out of their homes and to the “thresholds of the saints”.80 Further, miracles provide valuable evidence about the behavior of those pilgrims when they reached shrines; as such, they allow us to study not only the presence and movement of pilgrims of all sorts, but also their ritual actions. Marika Räsänen’s chapter in this volume explores this ritual facet of miracles in detail.81 The miracles’ record of spatial elements of pilgrimage has also been valuable. Miracles offer us the opportunity to study the movement of people through space, and the collections associated with several cults have been examined in order to learn about their geographical catchment areas and their expansion into new regions.82 The techniques of digital humanities, including those which make use of global information systems (gis) to map human activity, offer the promise of yet further insights about human movement to be drawn from miracles.83 We have also learned from miracles something about the movement of money and goods, seeing pilgrimage as a purchase or investment on the part of the pilgrim, and sifting out evidence of economic

pilgrimage: categories of “woman” recorded at English healing shrines in the high Middle Ages”, Journal of Medieval History 39:2 (2013), 197–​219. 80 C. Rawcliffe, “Curing Bodies and Healing Souls: Pilgrimage and the Sick in Medieval East Anglia”, in Morris & Roberts, eds., Pilgrimage: The English Experience from Becket to Bunyan, pp. 108–​40; I. Metzler, Disability in Medieval Europe: Thinking About Physical Impairment in the High Middle Ages, C.1100 –​C.1400, Abingdon, 2006, ch. 5; S. Katajala-​ Peltomaa, “Demonic Possession as Physical and Mental Disturbance in the Later Medieval Canonization Processes”, in Katajala-​Peltomaa and S. Niiranen, eds., Mental (Dis)Order in Later Medieval Europe, Boston and Leiden, 2014, 108–​27; and J. Kuuliala, Childhood Disability and Social Integration in the Middle Ages: Constructions of Impairments in Thirteenth-​and Fourteenth-​century Canonization Processes, Turnhout, 2016. 81 See also the ongoing work on the ritual use of cathedral space by pilgrims in the collaborative project “Pilgrimage and England’s Cathedrals”, . 82 Finucane, Miracles and Pilgrims, pp. 160–​72; Farmer, Surviving Poverty, ch. 1; C. Krötzl, Pilgr, Mirakel, und Alltag: Formen des Verhaltens im skandinavischen Mittelalter, 12.-​15. Jahrhundert, Helsinki, 1994. 83 See for example, F. Taylor, “Mapping Miracles: Early Medieval Hagiography and the Potential of GIS”, in History and GIS: Epistemologies, Considerations and Reflections, ed. A. von Lünen and C. Travis, Dordrecht, 2013, pp. 111–​25.

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networks operating along routes and at shrines.84 Ideas, too, travelled spatially. Miracles tell us that individual Christians decided to visit specific shrines not only because they had spiritual concerns to be met or health problems to be solved, but also because they had “heard of the wide renown” of the saint or shrine in question.85 Miracle texts provide us, then, with a record of the movement of people and of ideas; of some of the human problems which spurred their mobility, and the challenges and opportunities afforded by that mobility; and of both the generation and the effects of hagiographic literature as it was shared within Christian communities. As such, miracles provide an invaluable window onto the pilgrimage phenomenon as a facet of Christian culture. Though the window is, in places, opaque, as all textual records can be, the sheer volume and the colorful detail of these texts beckon the historian of pilgrimage towards a fuller investigation. 84 85

B. Nilson, Cathedral Shrines of Medieval England, Woodbridge, 1998; B. Nilson, “The Medieval Experience at the Shrine;” and A. Bell & R. Dale, “The Medieval Pilgrimage Business”, Enterprise and Society 12:3 (2011), pp. 601–​27. Knox & Leslie, ed. and trans., The Miracles of King Henry the Sixth, p. 75: “… audita devotissimi regis Henrici nobilissima fama …”.

­c hapter 9

Physical Disability and Bodily Difference Jenni Kuuliala 1

Introduction

In the early 1260s, an eleven-​year-​old boy named Guillot moved from his native Norman village of Varenguebec to Paris, where he joined the workshop of Robert Reboule, a cloth-​fuller. After a few years, something went wrong with his right leg, causing him to limp for about a year. Guillot asked local physicians and a surgeon for help, and the latter performed several incisions on his leg. This was futile, however, and only made his condition worse. Eventually, Guillot was only able to walk with crutches. The surgeon informed him that the problem could not be cured by earthly means, and suggested that he make a pilgrimage to the shrine of St Eloy. Guillot followed the advice and walked about 100 km to the shrine in Noyon in great pain. Unfortunately, the pilgrimage was also useless, since Guillot’s condition did not improve. The cloth-​fuller then suggested to Guillot that he undertake another pilgrimage, telling him to confess before leaving, and to take a servant named Conte as a companion. Again, Guillot made the long journey in great agony, sometimes being carried by others when he could not walk. This trip too was made in vain. Back in Paris, a physician named mestre Bernard treated Guillot but, like the surgeon before, had no success. Guillot’s infirmity had proliferated such that he now had seven or eight fistulas on his leg through which one could touch his bones. He could not put his leg to the ground, and the smell coming from his fistulas was so bad that the other members of Robert’s household started to castigate him for letting Guillot stay. At this point, Robert advised Guillot to have his leg cut off so that he could be in the company of other people and earn his bread. After consulting a carpenter, Guillot dismissed this idea. Finally, Guillot heard that the bones of King Louis ix (1214–​1270), who had died while on Crusade, were being carried back to France, and that many miracles were being made through him. Guillot first went to the royal palace to visit the relics but was not let in. Later, when the bones were buried in the basilica of St Denis, he managed to reach the grave. After this pilgrimage, Guillot was able to walk without crutches, but his cure was not complete. Robert Reboule then told Guillot to confess and make a second pilgrimage to Louis ix’s grave.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2021 | DOI:10.1163/9789004468498_011

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This time he spent nine days –​a novena –​praying at the shrine.1 On the seventh day, he also took some dust from the top of the grave and put it into the fistulas. After three more days, the fistulas were completely emptied of pus and fully healed; only scars remained. For the next four months, Guillot walked with a cane because of his weakness, but, apparently, he was later fully cured. Guillot testified about his miraculous cure some twelve years later, at the canonization inquest of St Louis ix of France, held at St Denis in 1282–​1283. Aside from a few surviving fragments, the protocols of the hearing are lost.2 Fortunately, a Franciscan friar named Guillaume de Saint-​Pathus, who was the confessor of Louis’s widow Margaret of Provence (1221–​1295), wrote a work titled Vie et miracles de Saint Louis based on these documents at the request of their daughter Blanche of France (later Infanta of Castile, 1253–​1323).3 Scholars have compared Guillaume de Saint-​Pathus’s work with the surviving original documents and, relying also on his notes about the production of the work, have concluded that the section concerning Louis’s miracles in particular follows the original inquest documents rather faithfully.4 Guillaume apparently merged the various witness accounts to create a separate account of each of St Louis’s sixty-​five investigated miracles.5 1

2

3

4

5

Novena was one of the common periods of time spent at shrines to acquire a cure, especially among those petitioning for St Louis ix’s help. See A. Vauchez, La sainteté en Occident aux derniers siècles du Moyen Âge. D’après les procès de canonisation et les documents hagiographiques, Rome, 1988 [1981], p. 520. The surviving documents include testimonies to three miracles (those of a poor woman, Amelota, with a curved back, a small girl called Mabileta who was unable to walk, and a blind woman Lucia di Ruimilli), edited in H.-​F. Delaborde, ed., “Fragments de l’enquête faite à Saint-​Denis en 1282 en vue de la canonisation de Saint Louis”, in Mémoires de la Société de l’Histoire de Paris de l’Ile-​de-​France, 23 (1896), pp. 1–​71, as well as a fragment of Louis’s brother Charles of Anjou’s testimony to his vita, edited in ‘Caroli I Andeagavensis, Siciliae Regis, Depositionis Fragmenta’. An English translation of the latter is included in P. Jackson, The Seventh Crusade 1244–​1254. Sources and Documents, Aldershot, 2009, pp. 115–​20. The section concerning miracles has been edited by P.B. Fay as Guillaume de Saint-​Pathus, Les Miracles de Saint Louis (Paris: Librairie Ancienne Honoré Champion, 1931); Guillot’s miracle is on pp. 23–​26. The part concerning Louis’s life is Guillaume de Saint-​Pathus, Vie de Saint Louis, ed. H.-​F. Delaborde, Paris, 1899. S. Farmer, Surviving Poverty in Medieval Paris. Gender, Ideology, and the Daily Lives of the Poor, Ithaca and London, 2005, pp. 7–​9; M.C. Gaposchkin, The Making of Saint Louis: Kingship, Sanctity, and Crusade in the Later Middle Ages, Ithaca and London, 2006, pp. 37–​39. Guillaume’s approach to Louis’s vita was somewhat different. He re-​organized this material under headlines, which fit the pattern essential for constructing a saintly life. Gaposchkin, The Making of St Louis, pp. 39–​40. As is common to the canonization protocols of the period, some witnesses in the inquiry reported additional miracles they had witnessed; these are not included in the total count. Guillaume de Saint-​Pathus’s miracle collection, as well as the surviving fragments of the

188 Kuuliala In all thirteenth-​century canonization inquests, St Louis ix’s included, there is a high percentage of miracles curing what we today would label as “physical impairment” –​including mobility impairments, blindness, and hearing and speech impediments. Their proportion decreases in the later medieval period, but this kind of miracle cure has always remained a fundamental type. It also had its predecessors among the biblical miracles performed by Christ and his apostles.6 As has already been mentioned elsewhere in this book,7 the way that canonization protocols and other miracle collections were born, and the crucial role thaumaturgic miracles play in them, makes these documents among the best sources for studying medieval conceptions of and attitudes towards chronic and acute illnesses and impairments and attempts to heal them. Using Guillot’s miracle and other such accounts as its source material, this chapter discusses the ways in which physical difference and its socially and functionally disabling consequences are represented in late medieval hagiographic material, especially in those documents based on canonization inquests. The chapter also discusses the source-​critical aspects of the study of disability and health based on canonization process records. How was physical difference reconstructed in this context, and what can a modern researcher reasonably deduce from them? 2

Dis/​Ability, Terminology, and the Miraculous

Each society defines the ways it handles difference, and community norms, beliefs, and ideals define the characteristics considered to be desired or unwanted.8 At the same time, no community holds a monolithic view of

6 7 8

miracle testimonies, make it clear that during Louis ix’s canonization inquiry the witnesses were allowed to tell about their experiences more freely than was usual, and that their testimonies were written down in detail. Of the beneficiaries of miracles, more than half –​thirty-​eight –​were cured of conditions affecting their mobility or hand function; this proportion of mobility impairments is higher than average. See Vauchez, La sainteté, p. 547. Four beneficiaries were cured of blindness and two of deafness. Additionally, two miracle beneficiaries were resuscitated and one saved from drowning; nine were cured of various severe illnesses; three of facial disfigurement; two of mental problems; one of possession; and one of epilepsy. One man was punished for blasphemy and later cured. Louis’s help also saved a woman’s wine cellar from destruction. See Iona McCleery’s chapter in this volume about the biblical models for non-​healing miracles, p. 254. See esp. pp. 1, 4–​5, 13. See e.g. K. Allen Smith and S. Wells, “Introduction: Penelope D. Johnson, the Boswell Thesis, and Negotiating Community and Difference in Medieval Europe”, in K. Allen Smith and

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physical difference, but it always depends on the wider societal and cultural context.9 Dis/​ability history has emerged as a field of study over recent decades; within medieval studies it has been a branch of its own since the early 2000s.10 It stands at the crossroads of the history of medicine, social history, the history of mentalities, and the history of minorities. Studying the ways in which past societies have defined, constructed, and negotiated physical deviance provides a window into structures of power, stigmatization of difference, and corporality.11 Consequently, the goal of dis/​ability historians has been to establish it as a category of analysis similar to gender, social status, age, and ethnicity.12 Terminology and disability theories have been among the key concerns of scholars engaged with medieval “disability”. For much of the twentieth century, the predominant model of thinking about the subject was the so-​called “medical model of disability”, which reflects the medical development and S. Wells (eds), Negotiating Community and Difference in Medieval Europe: Gender, Power, Patronage, and the Authority of Religion in Latin Christendom, Studies in the History of Christian Traditions 142, Leiden, 2009, pp. 1–​16. 9 C. Rawcliffe, Leprosy in Medieval England,Woodbridge, 2010, p. 110. 10 The first book focusing solely on the topic was I. Metzler, Thinking about Physical Impairment During the High Middle Ages, C.1100–​1400, Routledge Studies in Medieval Religion and Culture, London, 2006. Since then, an increasing number of studies have been published. Among them are J.R. Eyler, ed., Disability in the Middle Ages. Reconsiderations and Reverberations, Aldershot, 2010; J. Kuuliala, Childhood Disability and Social Integration in the Middle Ages. Constructions of Impairments in Thirteenth-​ and Fourteenth-​Century Canonization Processes (Studies in the History of Daily Life, 4), Turnhout, 2016; I. Metzler, A Social History of Disability. Cultural Considerations of Physical Impairment, Routledge Studies in Cultural History, London, 2013; C. Nolte, ed., Homo debilis. Behinderte –​Kranke –​Versehrte in der Gesellschaft des Mittelalters, Affalterbach, 2009; C. Nolte, ed., Phänomene der “Behinderung” im Alltag. Bausteine zu einer Disability History der Vormoderne, Affalterbach, 2014; C. Rushton, ed., Disability and Medieval Law: History, Literature, Society, Cambridge, 2013; C.L. Scarborough, Viewing Disability in Medieval Spanish Texts: Disgraced or Graced, Amsterdam, 2018; W.J. Turner and T. Vandeventer Pearman, eds, The Treatment of Disabled Persons in Medieval Europe. Examining Disability in the Historical, Legal, Literary, Medical, and Religious Discourses of the Middle Ages, Lewiston, 2010; T. Vandeventer Pearman, Women and Disability in Medieval Literature, The New Middle Ages, New York, 2010; E. Wheatley, Stumbling Blocks before the Blind. Medieval Constructions of a Disability (Corporealities. Discourses of Disability), Ann Arbor, 2010. 11 For this discussion, see D.M. Turner, “Introduction: Approaching Anomalous Bodies”, in D.M. Turner and K. Stagg (ed.), Social Histories of Disability and Deformity: Bodies, Images and Experiences, London, 2006, pp. 1–​16. 12 P. Longmore and L. Umansky, “Introduction”, in ead. (eds), The New Disability History: American Perspectives, New York, 2001, pp. 1–​ 11; E. Bösl, A. Klein, and A. Waldschmidt, “Grundlagen der Disability History”, in ead. (eds.) Disability History. Konstruktionen von Behinderung in der Geschichte. Eine Einführung, Bielefeld, 2010, pp. 1–​66.

190 Kuuliala institutionalization of difference in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This model sees bodily conditions –​impairments and chronic illnesses –​as the problem of an individual who needs to be cured or “normalized”; it omits the experience of the individual, turning them instead into objects of medical procedures. Following the emergence of the disability rights movement, a new “social model of disability” has developed that has heavily influenced the study of disability history. This more recent model separates “impairment” as a factual, physical state from “disability”, which is caused by society’s restrictive and discriminating practices and attitudes. The division between the two has also been accepted by the World Health Organization.13 Despite its importance, especially in the academic context, this social model has received criticism; it omits, for example, the fact that “impairment” itself is a culturally defined concept. It has also largely dismissed the body as an experiencing agent.14 Recently, some scholars have suggested that we should use a cultural model of disability, which sees “impairment” as fluid and culturally defined, and “dis/​ability” as culturally constructed, to facilitate an analysis of the body and its symbolic dimensions.15 This does not, however, need to set aside the “social model” completely: in the context of medieval studies, recognizing the existence or absence of societal and communal disabling practices is, and has been, useful for studying the everyday lives of people with physical impairments. In miracle narratives, the experience of a body cannot be separated from other consequences of infirmity, since a saint’s intervention typically healed them all. However, as the following discussion will demonstrate, socially disabling consequences were rarely emphasized in hagiographic sources, and their boundaries were very fluid. Related to the question of theories is that of terminology. What is and is not “impairment” or “disability” in the modern world is far from self-​evident. 13

14 15

who /​Disabilities [http://​www.who.int/​topics/​disabilities/​en/​]: “Disabilities is an umbrella term, covering impairments, activity limitations, and participation restrictions. An impairment is a problem in body function or structure; an activity limitation is a difficulty encountered by an individual in executing a task or action; while a participation restriction is a problem experienced by an individual in involvement in life situations. Disability is thus not just a health problem. It is a complex phenomenon, reflecting the interaction between features of a person’s body and features of the society in which he or she lives”. B. Hughes and K. Paterson, “The Social Model of Disability and the Disappearing Body: Towards a Sociology of Impairment”, Disability and Society, 12/​3 (1997), pp. 325–​40. See also T. Shakespeare, Disability Rights and Wrongs, London, 2006, esp. pp. 29–​53. B. Frohne, “The Cultural Model of Dis/​ability”, in Dis/​ability History der Vormoderne –​Ein Handbuch /​Premodern Dis/​ability History –​A Companion, ed. C. Nolte, B. Frohne, U. Halle, and S. Kert, Affalterbach, 2017, pp. 61–​63.

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Such umbrella terms did not even exist in the medieval period. In the Middle Ages, the most commonly used Latin words for various physical conditions were infirmitas, infirmity, or debilitas, debility,16 both of which could cover a wide range of physical, mental, and spiritual conditions and characteristics. This holds true for the miracle narratives as well. Furthermore, the terminology used in these sources typically does not differentiate “illness” from “impairment”. In Guillot’s case, the original French text refers to the problem in his leg simply as une maladie, a malady; in other cases, a similar maladie in a leg could also be an enfermeté, infirmity.17 Definitions of “health” are equally fluctuating. Guillot’s case is a fine example of a progressive functional and social disability and, respectively, lack of health. As long as he was able to walk, even with crutches, he was not really disabled –​he could still work, and his leg did not yet stink and cause social problems. Only when the situation got so much worse that working was no longer possible, and especially when the smell of the fistulas disgusted other people, was his condition, or his disability, at its worst. This is also the moment at which the miracle occurred. Laura A. Smoller has shown that it was typical of witnesses in canonization inquests to place the miracle at the most desperate time,18 and this seems to have been the case with those who testified about Guillot’s cure as well.19 Similarly, Robert Reboule’s suggestion that Guillot should have his leg cut off so that he could earn his bread and be in the company of other people is telling. With his leg amputated, Guillot, then fourteen or fifteen years of age, would certainly still have had “an impairment”, but his body would once again be functional and not disable him from fulfilling his social role as an artisan. This can be seen, perhaps, as the definition of health in pre-​modern 16 17

18 19

H.-​W. Goetz, “Vorstellungen von menschlicher Gebrechlichkeit in frühen Mittelalter”, in C. Nolte (ed.), Homo debilis. Behinderte –​Kranke –​Versehrte in der Gesellschaft des Mittelalters, Affalterbach, 2009, pp. 21–​55. See e.g. Guillaume de Saint-​Pathus, Les Miracles de Saint Louis, pp. 34–​37, 45–​46. The terminology also did not depend on whether or not the condition was congenital. For example, in the inquest of St Elizabeth of Hungary there is a case of a boy whose body was twisted in every possible way such that he was totally unable to use his legs or hands; yet according to the narrative, the “illness appeared in thirty-​four places” (“ita, quod in xxxiiii locis eruperat ille morbus”): Quellenstudien zur Geschichte der hl. Elisabeth, Landgräfin von Thüringen, ed. A. Huyskens, Marburg, 1908, pp. 222–​23. L.A. Smoller, “Defining the Boundaries of the Natural in Fifteenth-​Century Brittany: The Inquest into the Miracles of Saint Vincent Ferrer (d. 1419)”, Viator, 28 (1997), pp. 333–​60, at 345. Guillaume de Saint-​Pathus’s narrative does not note which other witnesses testified to Guillot’s condition, but it may be assumed that Robert Reboule was among them.

192 Kuuliala societies.20 Guillot’s cure at Louis ix’s shrine was gradual, but the narrative uses the word gueri, healed, already in reference to the phase when he still needed a cane because of weakness. There are similar examples elsewhere in Louis ix’s miracula, as well as in miracle testimonies from other contemporary canonization inquests. Although non-​complete cures are relatively rare in the records, there is a significant number of cases in which the beneficiary was left with a mild impediment after the cure, such as a limp or the need to use a cane, but was nevertheless labelled as “healthy” by witnesses and the commissioners of these hearings.21 In the most severe case I have found, the beneficiary at first could not walk, was able to move about only on a small cart, but after prayers to St Nicholas of Tolentino he was healed to the point that he could walk on crutches.22 Furthermore, Les Miracles de Saint Louis includes miracles of two women who limped “by nature” but whose situation got much worse at some point. The saint restored them back to their “natural” limping state, and the text refers to these miraculées as having been healed. After the miracle, both were again able to take care of their everyday tasks.23 “Health”, therefore, was communally and culturally defined as much as was a disability that needed a cure.24 In the context of the miraculous, the point of course was that, after proper invocation, the saint intervened in a situation for which the beneficiary asked his or her help. Again, it was the community, and later the various parties to the canonization inquiry, who decided whether the cure really was a miracle and whether the beneficiary really had been healed.25 Guillot’s pondering about having his leg cut off is, however, illuminating in 20 21 22

23 24 25

See D. Gentilcore, Healers and Healing in Early Modern Italy, Manchester, 1998, pp. 185–​86. For these, see J. Kuuliala, “Heavenly Healing or Failure of Faith? Partial Cures in Later Medieval Canonization Processes”, in S. Katajala-​Peltomaa and K. Salonen (eds), Church and Belief in the Middle Ages: Popes, Saints, and Crusaders, Amsterdam, 2016, pp. 171–​98. Il processo per la canonizzazione di S. Nicola da Tolentino, ed. N. Occhioni (Collection de l’Ecole française de Rome, 74) Rome, 1984, pp. 216, 270–​71. The beneficiary was a young man named Mathiolus Angeli. He had been unable to walk for two years, and was asking for alms in front of a local man’s house. Seeing Mathiolus, the owner of the house and some other men said that it would be a great miracle if St Nicholas “healed that cripple”. Hearing this, Mathiolus said that he only asked for a great grace so that he could walk on crutches, and this is what St Nicholas granted him. Nicholas of Tolentino’s canonization inquest was conducted in 1325. At that time, the division between a miracle and a grace was not yet established, developing only in the sixteenth century. See R.C. Finucane, Contested Canonizations: The Last Medieval Saints, 1482–​1523, Washington, 2011, p. 24, n. 31. Guillaume de Saint-​Pathus, Les Miracles de Saint Louis, pp. 96–​97, 129. See M.D. Grmek, Les maladies à l’aube de la civilization occidentale, Paris, 1983, for a thorough analysis of the cultural nature of the concept of “illness” in Ancient Greece. See R.C. Finucane, Miracles and Pilgrims. Popular Beliefs in Medieval England, New York, 1995 [1977], p. 73.

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this context as a relatively rare example of a more medico-​social, equally fluid definition of health. In the context of “health” –​or being un-​impaired –​Guillot’s case is also illuminating in terms of beneficiary identification. Guillot was testifying about his miraculous cure twelve years after it had happened, and yet he was still going by the byname “le Potencier”, derived from the French word for crutches, les potences. Such bynames are rarely recorded in canonization documents, yet interestingly enough, an elderly woman cured by the merits of St Louis ix, Avice de Bernevile, was also reportedly called “la Potenciere” at the time of the inquest, equally twelve years after her cure.26 It is possible that the two kept their bynames to remind people about the divine grace they had received. Otherwise, canonization inquests give hints of how people were identified by impairment. In the Breton inquest of St Yves of Tréguier from 1330, for example, prayers to the saint rescued a blind man who had fallen into a well. All witnesses identified this man as Gaufridus Bonnio, the blind (cecus).27 Irina Metzler has shown that such nicknames deriving from physical and functional characteristics were relatively common and not stigmatizing, and many of them evolved into hereditary surnames.28 In the case of those whose impairment was related to a miraculous cure, the byname or other identification matters, as does a remaining impediment, because they connected the beneficiaries’ bodies with the saint who had brought them assistance. This is one of the many ways the divine manifested itself on a human body.29 3

Body and Community

When analyzing conceptions of infirmity in miracle accounts, one of the key characteristics to take into account is their culturally internalized narrative structure. Inspired directly or indirectly by Vladimir Propp’s morphological analysis of folk tales, several scholars have analyzed the constituents of a 26 27

28

29

Guillaume de Saint-​Pathus, Les Miracles de Saint Louis, pp. 104–​07. One of the witnesses even testified that they had prayed to the saint, saying: “Lord Saint Yves, Gaufridus the blind fell into a well”. Processus de vita et miraculis Sancti Yvonis, in Monuments originaux de l’histoire de Saint Yves, ed. A. de La Borderie, J. Daniel, R.P. Perquis and D. Tempier, Saint-​Brieuc, 1887, 1–​299, pp. 235, 281–​82, 284–​90. I. Metzler, “What’s in a Name? Considering the Onomastics of Disability in the Middle Ages”, in W.J. Turner and T. Vandeventer Pearman (eds), The Treatment of Disabled Persons in Medieval Europe. Examining Disability in the Historical, Legal, Literary, Medical, and Religious Discourses of the Middle Ages, Lewiston, 2010, pp. 15–​50. See J. le Goff, The Medieval Imagination, trans. A. Goldhammer, Chicago, 1988, pp. 84–​85.

194 Kuuliala miracle narrative.30 The established pattern is also inherent in the questionnaires the commissioners of canonization inquests used to interrogate the witnesses.31 One of the key elements of the pattern was a description of the situation’s severity; this primarily involved giving proof of physiological and functional symptoms. Miracle accounts in general do not go into detail about the aetiologies of impairments and illnesses. References to humoral theory are extremely rare in canonization records,32 and even details about accidents and other mishaps causing long-​term physical problems were rarely reported.33 However, more comparison between different geographical areas and source types is still needed. Most often the reports resemble those given in the case of Guillot le Potencier: an infirmity or malady simply “struck” its victim.34 This is most likely a consequence of the purpose of recording the cases. Pierre-​André Sigal has suggested that the lack of interest in aetiology may derive from the lack of medical knowledge,35 and indeed it is probable that the commissioners of the hearings, instructed to ask questions that the witnesses could answer,36 chose to omit the subject. Instead, the need to lie in bed, the inability to walk, or the need for aid is repeated over and over again in all hagiographic material. It could even be said that a person walking with a cane or on crutches became a symbol of a petitioner for saintly assistance. In the case of blindness, the need for another person’s guidance was such a marker.37 All other consequences appear very subdued in canonization documents, although there are occasional references as Guillot le Potencier’s example shows. This suggests 30

For the pattern, see S. Andrić, The Miracles of St. John Capistran, Budapest, 2000, pp. 225–​ 57; Goodich, Miracles and Wonders, pp. 93–​99; G. Klaniczay, “Miracoli di punizione e maleficia”, in S. Boesch Gajano and M. Modica (eds), Miracoli. Dai segni alla storia, Rome, 2000, pp. 109–​36; G. Klaniczay, “Ritual and Narrative in Late Medieval Miracle Accounts. The Construction of the Miracle”, in S. Katajala-​Peltomaa and V. Vuolanto (eds), Religious Participation in Ancient and Medieval Societies (Acta Instituti Romani Finlandiae, 41) Rome, 2013, pp. 207–​23. 31 See ­chapter 4 in this volume. 32 A very rare reference to humors was recorded in St Thomas Aquinas’s inquest. Frater Petrus de Piperno testified about his sister’s inflated and swollen throat, and said that it was caused by the piling up of humors. Fontes vitae S. Thomae Aquinatis 1–​4. Fasciculus IV, Processus canonizationis S. Thomae, ed. M.-​H. Laurent, Saint-​Maximin, 1911, p. 342: “que ab annis pueritie sue habuerat guttur grossum et inflatum ex congregatione humorum”. 33 See Metzler, Disability in Medieval Europe, pp. 149–​50, for accidents causing impairments in high medieval miracles. 34 This way of recording the onset of an impairment continued in the early modern period: Gentilcore, Healers and Healing in Early Modern Italy, p. 182. 35 Sigal, L’homme et le miracle, p. 248. 36 Katajala-​Peltomaa, Gender, Miracles and Daily Life, p. 39. 37 See Kuuliala, Childhood Disability, pp. 56–​57.

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a source-​critical issue for scholars wishing to study medieval conceptions of impairment/​disability based on canonization processes. Did people really see the most obvious functionally disabling consequences as the most important manifestation of impairment, and were all other consequences inconsequential or non-​existent? Or is this simply a misapprehension caused by the practicalities of proving a miracle? After all, the manifestations of any infirmity –​ regardless of its type –​that were most visible for other people were also the most tangible proof of its existence. At the same time, however, miracle narratives or the experiences of the miraculous and all its by-​products were not born in a vacuum; rather, communal attitudes and conceptions influenced the miraculous, and vice versa. No society has a static attitude towards physical difference. In the later Middle Ages, a multitude of factors influenced the way that communities viewed and treated their members who had some kind of bodily impairment. Consequently, what lay beneath each narrative of a miraculously cured, once deviant body on a communal level varied. In earlier studies, the common stereotype has been that disabled people in the Middle Ages were rejected and ridiculed, unable to function socially in the same manner as others, and regularly blamed for their impediments.38 Canonization testimonies, as well as other miracle narratives are, however, mostly silent about such reactions, and recent scholarship has challenged ideas of causality between sin and illness /​ impairment.39 In early medieval didactic miracle narratives, there occasionally appears a notion that an illicit action such as work on Sunday had caused a person’s infirmity,40 but this thinking is absent in the late medieval canonization documents. In these sources, a saint is occasionally, albeit relatively rarely, considered to have punished a person for blasphemy. It is impossible to say, however, how often impairment or illness was interpreted as punishment.41 38 See Metzler, Disability in Medieval Europe, pp. 11–​20. 39 Metzler, Disability in Medieval Europe, pp. 8–​9, 38–​47, 67–​68, 88–​94. See also S. Farmer, “Manual Labor, Begging, and Conflicting Gender Expectations in Thirteenth-​Century Paris”, in S. Farmer and C. Braun Pasternack (eds), Gender and Difference in the Middle Ages, Minneapolis, 2003, pp. 261–​87, pp. 272–​73; B. Frohne, Leben mit “kranckhait”. Der gebrechliche Körper in der häuslichen Überlieferung des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts. Überlegungen zu einer Disability History der Vormoderne, Affalterbach, 2014, pp. 114–​16; Kuuliala, Childhood Disability, pp. 82–​94. 40 C. Laes, “Disabled Children in Gregory of Tours”, in K. Mustakallio and C. Laes (eds), The Dark Side of Childhood in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Childhood in the Past Monograph, 2) Oxford, 2011, pp. 39–​62, pp. 44–​46. 41 For punishment miracles, see Klaniczay, “Miracoli di punizione e maleficia”, pp. 115–​16; C. Krötzl, ““Crudeliter afflicta”. Zur Darstellung von Gewalt und Grausamnkeit in mittelalterlichen Mirakelberichten”, in T. Viljamaa, A. Timonen and C. Krötzl (eds), Crudelitas.

196 Kuuliala Furthermore, for proving the miracle, the origins of the physical condition –​whether spiritual or mundane –​were not crucial compared with the outer symptoms; usually the onset was recorded only when it was somehow extraordinary for defining the cured condition.42 This was, most likely, also the situation in everyday life, in which the functionally disabling consequences undoubtedly defined the experience of an impaired person to a large extent. Although a person’s ability to fulfil an expected social role was a key element in definitions of health, the ability or inability to earn one’s living is raised quite rarely in the records.43 As in the case of Guillot le Potencier, St Louis ix’s miracles are an exception here, with a relatively high number of beneficiaries who were poor or Parisian workers.44 Therefore, in the collection we encounter several people unable to earn their living because of a long-​term infirmity, some of them forced to beg.45 By contrast, because the said collection provides exceptionally detailed information about the beneficiaries’ lives, it also shows the other side of the coin. Physical impairment deemed to be serious did not necessarily make the person unable to work; therefore, miracle testimonies are one group of sources that challenge the old assumption that physical impairment automatically led to poverty in pre-​modern societies.46

42 43

44

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The Politics of Cruelty in the Ancient and Medieval World. Medium Aevum Quotidianum, Sonderband 2, Krems, 1992, pp. 121–​38, pp. 124–​28; J. Kuuliala, “Disability and Religious Practices in Late Medieval Prussia: Infirmity and the Miraculous in the Canonization Process of St Dorothea of Montau (1404–​1406)”, in S. Katajala-​Peltomaa and R.M. Toivo (eds), Lived Religion in the Baltic Sea Region during the Long Reformation, Leiden, 2016, pp. 46–​74; Sigal, L’homme et le miracle, pp. 276–​82; Smoller, “Defining the Boundaries of the Natural”, pp. 355–​56. See also Ildikó Cspregi’s and Iona McCleery’s chapters in this volume. See B. Frohne and J. Kuuliala, “The Trauma of Pain in Later Medieval Miracle Accounts”, in W.J. Turner and C. Lee (eds), Trauma in the Middle Ages, Leiden, 2018, pp. 215–​36. There are also views that employability was largely synonymous to the ability to function; see in particular I. Metzler, “Indiscriminate Healing Miracles in Decline: How Social Realities Affect Religious Perception”, in M.M. Mesley and L.E. Wilson (eds), Contextualizing Miracles in the Christian West, 1100–​1500. New Historical Approaches (Medium Ævum Monographs, xxxii) Oxford, 2014, pp. 155–​76. Members of the bourgeoisie are commonly witnesses in canonization inquiries, but in Guillaume’s work we get exceptionally detailed information about their profession and status in society. Poor people, by contrast, are underrepresented in all canonization protocols, as both witnesses and beneficiaries of miracles. They were considered to be less trustworthy than the wealthy. Farmer, Surviving Poverty, pp. 53–​55; Goodich, Miracles and Wonders, p. 82; Krötzl, “Prokuratoren, Notare und Dolmetscher”, pp. 122–​23. These people and their survival strategies are thoroughly analyzed in Farmer, Surviving Poverty. This approach has been influentially criticized by Brendan Gleeson, who writes that it “silences history, projecting disabled people’s relatively recent experience of service

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For instance, a deaf-​mute youth later named Loÿs worked in the kitchen of the Count and Countess of Auxerre, and a man called Richart de Briqueville was able to continue his work as a vallet costurier after his legs were paralyzed.47 Although other canonization inquests appear to have been less interested in these aspects of the beneficiaries’ lives, both the ability and inability to work with a chronic condition emerge in the records from time to time.48 The same applies to other ways of fulfilling one’s role socially, although these aspects were recorded even more rarely than earning one’s living. The marital status of those with physical difference is occasionally readable in miracle narratives; the mid-​fifteenth-​century canonization process of St Bernardino of Siena, for example, records an account of a married woman who had been claudicante, limping, since birth.49 In most cases, however, miracle depositions do not offer much information about the marriage chances of those with impairments, except for occasional references to the future problems of girls with facial disfigurements. An Italian woman named Philippa testified at the canonization inquest of St Clare of Montefalco that she had been worried that nobody would want to marry her daughter, who had a swelling in her throat.50 At the inquest of St Thomas Aquinas, a young woman called Margareta de

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dependency and marginalisation through the entirety of past social formations”, and further that it naturalizes “the relationship between impairment and social dependency that has existed to varying degrees in capitalist societies”. B. Gleeson, Geographies of Disability, London 2001 [1999], p. 64. See also D. Blackie, Disabled Revolutionary War Veterans and the Construction of Disability in the Early United States C. 1776–​1840, Helsinki, 2010, pp. 138–​40 and Metzler, A Social History of Disability, pp. 71–​85. Guillaume de Saint-​Pathus, Les Miracles de Saint Louis, pp. 50–​55, 81–​83. Loÿs’s case is among the most extraordinary miracle narratives of the period and has been analyzed by several scholars. See Farmer, Surviving Poverty, pp. 74–​78, 89–​90; Farmer, “A Deaf-​ mute’s Story”; Kuuliala, Childhood Disability, pp. 57–​58, 138–​39, 166, 249–​50, 254–​58; Metzler, A Social History of Disability, pp. 200–​03; Wittmer-​Butsch and Rendtel, Miracula. Wunderheilungen im Mittelalter, pp. 272–​74. Occasionally this was not investigated in particular but becomes evident otherwise. In the canonization process of St Thomas Aquinas, there are depositions regarding the cure of medicus cirurgicus Raynaldus de Santo Layrentio, who walked on crutches due to podagra and was cured at St Thomas’s grave. Most witnesses did not talk about his working life, but one of them was asked about the reason why he was at Fossanova Abbey in the first place. The witness stated that he had come there to treat the cellarer. Fontes vitae S. Thomae Aquinatis, pp. 280–​85, 292–​93, 311–​12. Il Processo di canonizzazione di Bernardino da Siena (1445–​1450), ed. L. Pellegrini (Analecta Franciscana, xvi. Nova series, Documenta et studia, 4) Grottaferrata, 2009, pp. 45–​47. Il processo di canonizzazione di Chiara da Montefalco, ed. E. Menestò (Quaderni del Centro per il collegamento degli studi medievali e umanistici nell’Università di Perugia) Florence and Perugia, 1984, pp. 480–​81: “Et finaliter cum eam maritasset, crevit grossities sicut unum ovum. Unde ipsa, multum plorans dolens ne vir eam vilificaret et nollet

198 Kuuliala Piperno came to the Fossanova Abbey to request help for a swelling in her throat. Her brother testified that the man to whom she was betrothed had rejected her because of the swelling. The commissioners inquired about her marital situation after the cure, and one of the witnesses reported that Margareta was married to the same man, and that they had children.51 Her case can thus be compared with those in which the miracle gives the beneficiary back his or her ability to earn their bread, since her situation in life was, thanks to the merits of St Thomas, what it was supposed to be. In general, any references to other people’s disgust towards an impaired body are rare in the miracle testimonies. When they do appear, they offer strong evidence of the desperate nature of the situation and are typically used as the most concrete proof that saintly intervention is needed. In Guillot le Potencier’s case, other members of Robert Reboule’s household did scorn him, but the narrative makes it clear that the reason was precisely the smell, not his impairment per se. Similar remarks were made about a swineherd named Moriset de Ranton, who also had oozing wounds in his leg. The other residents of a Maison-​Dieu where he resided for some time did not want to be in his company.52 Some beggars with impairments also faced harsh treatment, but here contemporary social hierarchies played a major role, and impairment as such was not the only explanatory factor.53 Only very sporadically do we encounter

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eam recipere in uxorem, quia nondum eam trasduxerat, devovit eam Deo et beate Clare predicte”. Fontes vitae S. Thomae Aquinatis, pp. 340–​41, 342–​43. Guillaume de Saint-​Pathus, Les Miracles de Saint Louis, p. 47: “Et puoit si fort la dite apostume que cil de la dite Meson Dieu ne voloient que le dit Moriset aprochast d’els”. For a different interpretation, see H. Skoda, “Representations of Disability in the Thirteenth-​ Century Miracles de Saint Louis”, in J.R. Eyler (ed.), Disability in the Middle Ages. Reconsiderations and Reverberations, Aldershot, 2010, pp. 51–​66, at p. 63. In medieval culture, a putrid smell was associated with sin, hell, and damnation, while a sweet smell was associated with sanctity. Rawcliffe, Leprosy in Medieval England, pp. 134–​35. Similarly, in the canonization hearing of Franciscan friar Ambrose of Massa from 1240–​1241, the sister of a man named Rainerius Christiane could not stand the smell of his leg and suggested a vow to the saint. aass Nov iv, p. 591. Mistreatment of the blind has been analyzed in Wheatley, Stumbling Blocks before the Blind. On mockery of the impaired, and the rarity of it, in earlier miracle collections, see Metzler, Disability in Medieval Europe, pp. 162–​63. The harsh treatment meted out to disabled beggars was rooted in discussions of justified begging: those unable to earn their living were entitled to ask for alms. Beggars were, however, easily suspected of feigning their impairments and illnesses. See e.g. Farmer, Surviving Poverty, pp. 44–​50, 60–​70; B. Geremek, The Margins of Society in Late Medieval Paris, trans. J. Birrell, Cambridge, 2006 [1987, 1991], pp. 31–​35; Metzler, A Social History of Disability, pp. 154–​98; M. Rubin, Charity and Community in Medieval Cambridge, Cambridge, 1987, pp. 54–​65.

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remarks of awe or wonder caused by severe physical deformity. Some future miracle beneficiaries were compared to “monsters”, and occasionally the beneficiaries reported being shunned by others, like a woman in St Margaret of Hungary’s inquest who had a condition that made her body deformed and caused epileptic fits. According to her testimony, before her cure everyone shrank back from the sight of her.54 Miracle testimonies do, however, include cases in which the shunning is not self-​evidently based on social hierarchies. Most often these relate to the future beneficiary’s appearance or to sensory impairments; however, they are rare even in these cases. The father of a small girl with an overgrown nose told the inquest of St Louis of Anjou about his co-​workers’ mockery: “What a daughter you have! She has a nose resembling a cuckoo!”55 One adult man in the same process reported that he was mocked because of his deafness,56 and a blind man eventually cured by the merits of St Elizabeth of Hungary was laughed at when he took the wrong path.57 Humor and ridicule in the context of disability have not yet been afforded much attention for the medieval period, but David M. Turner’s study on disability in England during the long eighteenth century may shed light on the topic. He writes that towards the end of the century, making jokes about other people’s mishaps, impairment included, became increasingly improper. Before this, impairments were a common laughing stock but, at the same time, there is also a large number of examples in which the impaired person could turn the situation around and the jeerer became the target of laughter.58 It is likely that somewhat similar attitudes existed in the late medieval period. Being laughed at did not need to be marginalizing, however, but was rather part of accepted social interaction, even if unpleasant. 54 55

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The Oldest Legend: Acts of the Canonization Process, and Miracles of Saint Margaret of Hungary, ed. I. Csepregi, G. Klaniczay, and B. Péterfi, Budapest, 2018, p. 531: “Per tres annos in tantum inifrma fui, quod omnes abhorrebant me”. Processus canonizationis S. Ludovici ep. Tolosani, in Analecta Franciscana sive chronica aliaque varia documenta, Tomus VII. Processus Canonizationis et Legendae variae Sancti Ludovici O. F. M. Episcopi Tolosani, ed. Collegio S. Bonaventura, Florence, 1951, 1–​269, pp. 244–​45: ‘ “Qualem filiam habetis! Habet nasum ad instar cugule!” ’ I think that “cucule”, or cuckoo, is the most probable meaning for the word, despite the deviation in the spelling. See C. de F. Cange, et al., Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, Niort, 1883–​1887, t. 2, col. 643c. Processus canonizationis S. Ludovici ep. Tolosani, p. 155: “ita quod nonnulli vicini faciebant derisiones suas de eo”. Quellenstudien, p. 179: “ita, ut sepe, de via declinans, per media sata transiret: unde et comites itineris sui ipsum sepe deridebant”. D.M. Turner, Disability in Eighteenth-​century England: Imagining Physical Impairment, London, 2012, pp. 63–​73.

200 Kuuliala While more research on humor and medieval disability is needed, hagiographic material does not allow any in-​depth analysis on the matter. All in all, the issue for scholars wishing to study reactions to bodily difference is how much can be said based on the sporadic remarks that appear in canonization testimonies.59 In my view, one should be extremely careful about making generalizations from these sources. Although scorn or ridicule arose every now and then, such reactions were not an established way of underlining the severity of an infirmity. Furthermore, the lived reality of the socially disabling consequences of impairment behind the narratives fluctuated. People’s situation in life, their wealth, gender, and the type of their impairment, had all greatly affected whether or not their condition impacted their ability to work or their social position in general.60 It must be noted that whether or not these aspects were actually reported and recorded was also a function of the requirements of the canonization inquests. It may be that in the case of severe physical impediments such as an inability to walk, no reports of social rejection were needed to emphasize the severity of the case and, consequently, the saint’s power. At the same time, the lack of underlined disability may have been an issue for those investigating the case. In St Louis ix’s miracles, and

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Another intriguing case is recorded in the fragments of St Louis ix’s canonization process, as well as in the miracle collection. It concerns a poor woman, Amelota de Chambli, who walked totally bent over. She was described as monstruosa, and one of the witnesses said that children were afraid of her. “Fragments de l’enquête faite à Saint-​Denis en 1282 en vue de la canonization de Saint Louis”, p. 31; Guillaume de Saint-​Pathus, Les Miracles de Saint Louis, 18. Children as mockers of the elderly is a common theme in medieval literature (A. Janssen, “The Good, the Bad, and the Elderly. The Representation of Old Age in Netherlandish Prints (ca. 1550–​1650)”, in A. Classen (ed.), Old Age in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Interdisciplinary Approaches to a Neglected Topic, Berlin, 2007, pp. 437–​84, p. 447), and in her article on disability in Louis ix’s miracles, Hannah Skoda reads this case (as well as another one in which other children bully a blind beggar boy) as evidence of children showing uninhibited fear and using mockery as a frequent response. Skoda, “Representations of Disability”, p. 62. Such remarks were, however, in no manner a common way of portraying communal response towards physical deviance in the hagiographic material, and based on these sporadic notions I would be extremely careful in making wide-​reaching generalizations about the matter. Wealth, poverty, and the ability to work were also not fixed but fluctuating. For the complexity of the definitions of poverty, see Rubin, Charity and Community, pp. 6–​9. An example of this is a boy called Ceptus Sperançe de Monte Falco, who had twisted legs since birth. Several people gave testimonies about his cures at the canonization hearing of St Clare of Montefalco, but only one of them referred to seeing him begging. There are other indications suggesting that the family was not the poorest; his mother, for example, took him on a donkey to have baths. Il processo di canonizzazione di Chiara da Montefalco, pp. 308, 376–​77, 427, 505–​06.

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the surviving fragments of the canonization inquest, there is a report of the miracle of Lucia di Ruimilli, a married woman who was blind for several years. During her blindness, Lucia had several children. The commissioners asked her repeatedly how she was able to nurse and take care of them, although she was blind. The witnesses reported that she did it as well as she could, and that her eldest daughter and husband helped her when needed.61 Although not directly stated, such testimonies leave a strong impression about the interplay between such remarks and the need to find proof of a miracle. 4

Impairment and Emotions

The social dimensions of physical difference can also be analyzed in the context of emotions. Emotions are an inseparable aspect of all hagiographic material, although one must keep in mind that “emotion” is a modern concept, and that modern translations of medieval terms for feelings or emotions are rarely, if ever, completely compatible.62 Nevertheless, miracle testimonies and other hagiographic texts frequently portray feelings and reactions that can be studied in the framework of emotions and emotional communities formed by the devotees of saints.63 For the purpose of the current chapter, feelings towards bodily difference are the most crucial.64

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“Fragments de l’enquête faite à Saint-​Denis en 1282 en vue de la canonisation de Saint Louis”, pp. 54–​71; Guillaume de Saint-​Pathus, Les Miracles de Saint Louis, pp. 153–​58. 62 N. Archambeau, “Tempted to Kill. Miraculous Consolation for a Mother after the Death of her Infant Daughter”, in E. Carrera (ed.), Emotions and Health, 1200–​1700, Leiden, 2013, pp. 47–​66, pp. 48–​49, and B.H. Rosenwein, Emotional Communities in the Early Middle Ages, Ithaca and London, 2007, pp. 3–​4; B.H. Rosenwein, “Worrying about Emotions in History”, American Historical Review, 107 (2002), pp. 821–​45. 63 For emotional communities, see Rosenwein, Emotional Communities, and for the usage of this concept in the study of miracles, J. Van Mulder, “Miracles and the Body Social. Infirmi in the Middle Dutch Miracle Collection of Our Lady of Amersfoort”, in C. Krötzl, K. Mustakallio, and J. Kuuliala (eds), Infirmity in Antiquity and the Middle Ages: Social and Cultural Approaches to Health, Weakness and Care, Aldershot, 2015, pp. 241–​53. 64 Saints’ vitae and the canonization testimonies to their lives frequently record the holy men and women’s tears as a sign of their empathy to Christ’s passion. Tears of devotion are also a frequent theme. E. Cohen, The Modulated Scream: Pain in Late Medieval Culture, Chicago, 2010, p. 129; K.-​J. Knight, “Si Puose Calcina A’ Propi Occhi. The Importance of the Gift of Tears for Thirteenth-​Century Religious Women and Their Hagiographers”, in E. Gertsman (ed.), Crying in the Middle Ages, London, 2011, pp. 136–​55; D. Trembinski, “Illness and Authority: The Case of Francis of Assisi”, in C. James Rushton (ed.), Disability and Medieval Law: History, Literature, Society, Newcastle, 2013, pp. 112–​33, p. 119.

202 Kuuliala The most frequent emotion that appears in canonization testimonies is sorrow, often demonstrated by shedding tears. This is also the most difficult, if not impossible, emotion to distinguish from the veneration of saints, since devotional tears were an inseparable part of invoking a saint.65 There are occasional miracle accounts in which a connection does not seem to have been made between devotional tears and the sorrow caused by physical infirmity,66 and most often these two instances are tightly interlinked. Consequently, the protocols emphasize the sorrow or grief of the person making the vow. While adults most often made it for themselves, in the case of children the person making the vow was usually the parent, and therefore the parent’s emotions were paramount –​to the point that it often appears that the saint cured the parent as much as the child.67 In some hearings, they also appear as a scribe or notary’s rhetorical choice. For example, in the canonization inquest of John Buoni that took place from 1251 to 1254, the use of the expression doleret ad mortem to refer to someone’s infirmity appears frequently; it is, however, virtually non-​existent in other protocols.68 In addition to being part of the process of asking for saintly help, grief and tears also highlighted the need for such help and, consequently, the severity of the physical state for which a cure was asked. Here, emotional reactions are often also manifestations of physical pain and discomfort. Although pain as an explicitly stated feeling appears infrequently in miracles dealing with long-​term physical conditions,69 the term dolere can be read as including both the emotional and the somatic sentiment –​the two are not necessarily separable.70 This is partly related to the above-​mentioned tendency to place 65 66

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See Katajala-​Peltomaa, Gender, Miracles, and Daily Life, p. 88. The most obvious example I have come across is the deposition of Iohanna Deodata in St Louis of Anjou’s inquest. She testified about her son Iacobus’s congenitally twisted feet. Throughout her testimony, as well as in other depositions concerning the case, it evident that Iacobus had a rather normal life, being, for example, educated and playing with other children. Iohanna’s testimony includes no reference to her personal sorrow, until she heard a sermon about the virtues of St Louis, was moved to tears, and decided to ask for his help. Processus canonizationis S. Ludovici ep. Tolosani, pp. 176–​80. See D. Webb, “Friends of the Family: Some Miracles for Children by Italian Friars”, in The Church and Childhood, ed. D. Wood, Oxford and Cambridge, 1994, pp. 183–​95. aass Oct ix, pp. 865, 873, 876, 881. There are miracle narratives, however, in which the pain was the main symptom of infirmity, or even an infirmity in its own right. See Frohne and Kuuliala, “The Trauma of Pain”. On pain as an emotion in the medieval context, see N. Cohen-​Hanegbi, “Pain as Emotion: The Role of Emotional Pain in Fifteenth-​ Century Italian Medicine and Confession”, in E. Cohen, L. Toker, M. Consonni, and O.E. Dror (eds), Knowledge and Pain, Amsterdam, 2012, pp. 63–​82.

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the miracle at the most desperate time. A nobleman named Theobaldus de Beloczac’s leg was badly injured during a battle alongside Charles of Blois, the Duke of Brittany, in 1347. His testimony only refers to any feelings or emotional reactions some twenty years later, when he felt sudden pain in the old wound and could not sleep. Other residents of the house heard his pain and suggested that he make a vow to Charles.71 The deposition does not make clear whether the injury had troubled Theobaldus during previous the twenty years; nevertheless, the pain and his inability to sleep quietly –​a frequent trope in miracle narratives –​intermingle with the vow. In Guillot le Potencier’s case, we see similar tendencies, although the narrative is more complex. He was “grieved and anguished” because of the troubles he endured during his pilgrimage to Noyon, where he arrived “not without great pain and anguish”.72 Such sentiments are not, however, explicitly spelled out for his three visits to the bones of St Louis, perhaps because the journey was shorter. The veneration of saints was an integral aspect of medieval communities, and the ideas and conceptions about the miraculous belonged to and were formed in the communal sphere. Grief, pain, and discomfort were primarily private sensations, and only became communally known and therefore provable if the beneficiary somehow performed them. This might explain reports of crying and wailing. Some emotions related to physical difference were, however, originally formed in the interaction with others; this pertains particularly to shame and embarrassment. As is the case with other negative reactions towards impairment, reports of such sentiments are equally rare in canonization protocols. Perhaps not unsurprisingly, they usually pertain to conditions similar to reports of scorn or problems in finding a marriage partner: sensory impairments and disfiguring conditions. The brother and a son of a miles

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Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. lat. 4025, fols 132r-​v: “tot et tantis doloribus concussus extitit occasione dicti vulneris et in dicto vulnere, quod quiescere et dormire non poterat; et sic dictis doloribus afflictus qui ab eodem die nocteque non cesssabant […]. Et tunc um aliqui vidissent et audissent istum testem tot et tantis doloribus concussum sibi dixerunt, quod ipse servierat bene et fideliter bono domino, et magistro suo Domino Carolo”. Guillaume de Saint-​Pathus, Les Miracles de Saint Louis, p. 24: “le dit Guillot fu dolent et angoisseus pour la maladie et pour ce que il ne creoit pas que il peust soufrir le travail de si grant voiage […] Toutevoies il emprist le voiage et ala saint Eloy a Noion, non pas sanz mout d’angoisse et de douleur”. It was common for pilgrims to highlight the troubles of the journey, which also underlined their humility when approaching the saint. See Metzler, Disability in Medieval Europe, pp. 169–​71, and also Finucane, Miracles and Pilgrims, pp. 87–​88; Sigal, L’homme et le miracle, pp. 120–​22.

204 Kuuliala testified that he had been ashamed of his sister’s deafness,73 and a woman testified in John Buoni’s hearing that her husband was ashamed of his deafness and did not leave the house.74 As an example of reports of shame, a Franciscan friar Ricardus de Insula gave a witness account in the canonization process of St Thomas Cantilupe in 1307 about his miraculous cure from being covered with warts. At the time, he was a student at Orleans but avoided the fellowship of others because of the condition.75 The warts did not prevent Ricardus from studying and thus fulfilling his social role, although they might have caused an impediment later for his clerical career.76 Sometimes testimonies report shame that was caused primarily by a failure in one’s field of work. In her testimony, the wife of a man called Bonapace testified that he had been blind for two years and had to beg because of it; she stated that he was ashamed of walking from door to door.77 Of these witnesses, Ricardus de Insula was the only one whose testimony used the word erubescentia; all others use verecundia. In medieval thinking, verecundia was a form of shame stemming from the fear of public disapproval. It was usually considered praiseworthy in the case of women, but could be unmanly.78 We of course have no way of knowing exactly which vernacular word the witnesses used when reporting their sentiment. The Latin translation, however, again demonstrates the challenges as well as possibilities of studying the social consequences of physical difference. References to verecundia were deeply communal by nature, rooted in the ways the community defined both shame and honor. The inability to earn one’s living or the inability to marry off a deaf sister could indeed be seen as social failures causing the sentiment. That it was so often expressed by men make it more complicated, raising the question of whether these men’s masculine roles were being challenged because of their impairments. The scarcity of such remarks makes 73 74 75

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Processus canonizationis S. Ludovici ep. Tolosani, p. 154: “verecundabantur quod ita erat surda, ita quod magis vellent mortem quam vitam eius”. aass Oct ix, p. 878: “non audiverat aliquo modo: immo propter verecundiam stabat dictus Bonvicinus semper in domo”. Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, ms Vat. lat. 4015, fols 62v–​64r: “absque magna erubescencia non audebat ostendere dictas manus, nisi cirothecatas, et ex dicta erubescentia consorcia communia declinabat”. See also aass Oct ix, 821, for the testimony of a woman who reported having been ashamed of her condition that made her look foolish (fatua). For this issue, see K. Salonen and J. Hanska, Entering a Clerical Career at the Roman Curia 1458–​1471, Aldershot, 2013, pp. 9, 117, 123. aass Oct ix, p. 874. D. Boquet and P. Nagy, Medieval Sensibilities: A History of Emotions in the Middle Ages, transl. R. Shaw, Cambridge, 2018, pp. 166, 168, 172–​75, 222.

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comprehensive comparisons between genders and age groups impossible, but at least they show the fluidity of communal definitions of what was, in the end, medieval “disability”. 5

Conclusions

In this chapter I hope to have demonstrated some of the possibilities and challenges of using documents of late medieval canonization processes for the study of dis/​ability, impairment, and community. As texts focusing on the views and conceptions of the laity regarding ill health and healing, they provide a rare chance to unpack the ideas that medieval communities had towards physical difference. At the same time, there are several source-​critical aspects that a researcher needs to take into account. The most important for such a topic is the narrative structure of a miracle, which required emphasis on the negative consequences of the condition being healed, as well as the need to provide proofs of the beneficiary’s physical state. As something visible to everyone, these miracles highlighted physical disability, while the social and emotional consequences were recorded with much less frequency or specificity. The narrative pattern of the miracles was not disconnected from everyday life, but rather was culturally internalized. There is, therefore, no need to expect that the emphases and details of miracle accounts offered a separate way of dealing with impairment and disability. Rather, they stemmed from everyday life and influenced it as well. Given the vague definitions medieval society had for various forms of bodily difference and ill health, it is reasonable to ask whether the modern concepts of “impairment” and “disability” can even be attached to medieval realities, or whether they should be used as a starting point for research on medieval miracles. A modern historian unavoidably takes her views and topics from the questions relevant and topical in present-​day discussions, and detecting developments and situations in past societies has already brought new tones to discussions of disability in the modern world. At the same time, a more broadly defined approach to (chronic) ill health or infirmity in medieval miracle narratives would offer new opportunities for widening our understanding of dis/​ ability in past and present societies.

­c hapter 10

Madness, Demonic Possession, and Methods of Categorization Sari Katajala-​Peltomaa 1

Introduction

Polarity of good and evil was a pervasive element in religious thought in the Middle Ages. Furthermore, the belief in the omnipresence of supernatural creatures –​the powers of demons and saints –​was well-​established; it was accepted, formulated, and defined by the clerical elite and was a part of lay religiosity. According to the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), Lucifer had once been an angel but was driven out of heaven after committing the sin of pride. Therefore, the Devil and his minions were spiritual creatures with greater physical and mental capacity than humans.1 One manifestation of these superior powers was demonic possession: a malign spirit could take over a person’s body and make him or her act as if mad. Driving out malign spirits was a traditional manifestation of saintly powers; in late Antiquity, the cures took place at shrines, since it was the relics and the holy power within them that drove away demons. In the Middle Ages, some of the demoniacs were delivered at a distance, but it seems that the sacred sphere continued to play an important role: many deliveries took place at the shrine even if “distance miracles” formed a majority in late medieval canonization processes.2 Theologically and medically, demonic possession and mental illnesses were different states. Raving madness, like other fits of insanity, was a medical condition, while demoniacs were taken over by an overpowering malign spirit, which was literally dwelling inside their bodies. As the symptoms were often 1 On Lucifer, “Concilium Lateranense IV”, in J. Alberigo, P. Joannou, C. Leonardi, P. Prodi (eds.), Conciliorum Oecumenicorum decreta, Freiburg, 1962, cons 1. On demons and popular religion in the Middle Ages in general, see the seminal work of A. Gurevich, Medieval Popular Culture: Problems of Belief and Perception, Cambridge, 1988. 2 On categorization between shrine miracles and distance miracles, see A. Vauchez, La Sainteté en Occident aux derniers siècles du Moyen Âge. D’après les procès de canonisation et les documents hagiographiques, Rome, 1988, p. 523 and C. Krötzl, “Miracula post mortem: on Function, Content and Narrative Changes”, in C. Krötzl & S. Katajala-​Peltomaa (eds.), Miracles in Canonization Processes: Structures, Functions, and Methodologies, Turnhout, 2018.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2021 | DOI:10.1163/9789004468498_012

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similar, a clear dividing line did not exist and diagnosis was a result of negotiation. In the medieval world of healing, there were no experts of “the diseases of the head” but mental disorders and physical illnesses were treated by the same specialists. At the same time, mental disabilities –​various psychological and intellectual states affecting a person’s capacities to function in society and everyday life –​were also tackled in the judicial context and evil spirits were used as an explanation in court cases to exculpate the offender. But the insane were also often, with some reservations, seen as not responsible for the crimes they may have committed.3 In the legal discourse, the main interest usually was the permanence of the condition: whether the person had been born with it and whether s/​he had lucid intervals. Demonic possession or Devil’s insinuation were exceptions in legal or administrative documents and a clear distinction between outright possession and other demonic influence was not regularly made.4 For example, the insanity defense in general was rare and supernatural causes were not regularly used as an explanation for mental instability; only 0.8 per cent of such cases recorded in eyre rolls and coroner’s rolls from thirteenth-​and fourteenth-​century England mention the Devil. They were mainly cases of suicides and the perpetrator could not have been interrogated. Blaming supernatural forces was caused by the fright and confusion of the family members and neighbors, as Sara M. Butler suggests, and she continues in stating that the sheer incomprehensibility of the act may have led to this kind of interpretation. Respectively, in letters of remission in fourteenth-​and fifteenth-​ century France, the Devil is mentioned most often in cases of thefts, abortions, and blasphemy. In homicides, it is mentioned only in two per cent of cases. According to Claude Gauvard, in letters of remission the Devil was typically mentioned only if it was impossible to blame the victim for the crime.5 3 W.J. Turner & T. Vandeventer Pearman (eds.), The Treatment of Disabled Persons in Medieval Europe. Examining Disability in the Historical, Legal, Literary, Medical, and Religious Discourses on the Middle Ages, Lewiston, 2010; W.J. Turner, (ed.), Madness in Medieval Law and Custom, Leiden, 2010; W.J. Turner, Care and Custody of the Mentally Ill, Incompetent and Disabled in Medieval England, Turnhout, 2013, and A. Pfau, “Protecting or Restraining? Madness as a Disability in Late Medieval France”, in J. Eyler (ed.), Disability in the Middle Ages. Reconsiderations and Reverberations, Farnham, 2010, pp. 93–​104. 4 W.J. Turner, Care and Custody, pp. 129–​32. See also W.J. Turner, “Silent Testimony: Emotional Displays and Lapses in Memory as Indicators of Mental Disability in Medieval English Investigations”, in W.J. Turner (ed.), Madness in Medieval Law and Custom, Leiden 2010, pp. 81–​95. On various terms and vocabulary used for mental health conditions in the context of medical, religious, legal/​administrative texts, see Turner, Care and Custody, p. 78. 5 S.M. Butler, “Representing the Middle Ages: The Insanity Defence in Medieval England”, in W.J. Turner and T. Vandeventer Pearman (eds.), The Treatment of Disabled Persons in

208 Katajala-Peltomaa In the field of medicine, demons appear more frequently; in medical treatises exorcism rituals were occasionally recommended as a cure for lunacy and epilepsy.6 University trained physicians used humoral theory as an explanatory framework for illnesses and were more inclined to find natural causes for mental illnesses. They were regularly willing to admit, however, that demons could disturb the humoral balance, for example by causing a superabundance of black bile, which could be remedied by balancing the diet.7 However, from the thirteenth century onwards in treatises focusing on practical medicine, so-​called “practica”, medical writers also discussed the possibility of demons being behind various mental disorders. In particular, authors with Arabic influence were more willing to accept the idea of demons affecting physical health as well.8 Demonic possession overlapped, yet was not synonymous, with raving madness, as the symptoms were similar: convulsions, foaming mouths and rolling eyes were described in both conditions. Both demoniacs and madmen could be aggressive, verbally abusive and even violent towards themselves or others. Medieval Europe. Examining Disability in the Historical, Legal, Literary, Medical, and Religious Discourses on the Middle Ages, Lewiston, 2010, pp. 117–​33, esp. pp. 122–​23. For medieval letters of remission, C. Gauvard, De grace especial. Crime, état et société en France á la fin du Moyen Age, 2 vols, Paris, 1991, p. 441. 6 L.T. Olsan, “Charms and Prayers in Medieval Medical Theory and Practice”, Social History of Medicine 16:3 (2003), pp. 343–​66. C. Rider, “Medical Magic and the Church in Thirteenth-​ Century England”, Social History of Medicine 24:1 (2011), pp. 92–​107. 7 On the disease called incubus, meaning either a sexual demon enticing to the sin of lust, a phantasma creating a sense of strangulation, or an actual disease with symptoms that included a sense of being strangled and inability to move, see M. van der Lugt, “The Incubus in Scholastic Debate: Medicine, Theology and Popular Belief”, in P. Biller and J. Ziegler (eds.), Religion and Medicine in the Middle Ages, York, 2001, pp. 175–​200. On interconnection between religion and medicine, see also Cf. R. Jehl, “Melancholie und Besessenheit in gelehrten Diskurs des Mittelalters”, in H. de Waardt, J.M. Schmidt, H.C. Midelfort, S. Lorenz & D.R. Bauer (eds.), Dämonische Besessenheit. Zur Interpretation eines kulturhistorischen Phänomens, Bielefeld, 2005, pp. 63–​71; J. Ziegler, Medicine and Religion, c. 1300: the Case of Arnau de Vilanova, Oxford, 1998, pp. 8, 173–​75. 8 Arabic medical authors from Constantine the African via Al-​Zahrawi to Avicenna noted the possibility of demons as causes for various mental and physical illnesses, see C. Rider, “Demons and Mental Disorder in Late Medieval Medicine”, in S. Katajala-​Peltomaa and S. Niiranen (eds.), Mental (Dis)Order in Later Medieval Europe, Leiden, 2014, pp. 47–​69. She also suggested that the cultural context of the medieval author, living in places with early witch trials, may have had an effect on the authors’ interest in demonic mental disorder. For interconnection between melancholy and humoral imbalance, see R. Jehl, “Melancholie und Besessenheit”, pp. 63–​71. See also L.A. Craig, “The Spirit of Madness: Uncertainty, Diagnosis and the Restoration of Sanity in the Miracles of Henry VI,” Journal of Medieval Religious Cultures, 39: 1 (2013), pp. 60–​93.

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Uncontrollable cries, aimless wandering as well as things being damaged were reported in both conditions. Blaspheming God and saints and the abhorrence of sacred things were more readily linked with cases of demonic possession, but they were not unmistakable signs. Mental disorders differed from the physical ones, however, as they did not necessarily have any concrete physical signs and the symptoms could have been mainly social. Even if some medical authors recognized the brain as a nucleus for mental disorders, they could have been brought about by spiritual things as well, since demons were often considered to be the reason for one acting “out of one’s mind”.9 If the cause was spiritual, the solution also needed to be so: earthly doctors could not do much in cases of demonic possession, as only a spiritual remedy could ameliorate the situation. In other words, one needed to invoke a saint for help. Therefore, hagiographic material is a very productive type of source to study this phenomenon. A comingling of the categories in hagiographic material is seen when raving madness and demonic possession were grouped together.10 Furthermore, the vocabulary could occasionally be used interchangeably within depositions of a canonization process or in a miracle narration. On the other hand, the categorization could have been precise and a knowing decision. It seems that different diagnoses or a lack of strict definitions were always a result of communal negotiations; be it done by the surrounding community of the victim or at the interrogation by the witnesses and inquisitorial committee. In the following, I will analyze the ways and methods of labelling a case in the records; how the categorization between various mental disorders was conducted in the thirteenth and fourteenth century canonization processes. 2

Finding Demons in the Depositions

The dividing line between divine and diabolical spirit possession and the intermingling of the two things, that is discerning the source of inspiration of female mystics –​whether they were possessed by a divine or malign spirit –​has been a

9 Turner, Care and Custody, pp. 66–​76. The brain was not typically mentioned in hagiographic material in cases of demonic possession, but for a rare exception see the case of Raymundus in this chapter. 10 See, for example, the relatio, the abbreviation of the canonization process of Nicholas of Tolentino: “De demoniacis invasacis seu evanitis et adrabicis liberatis” in Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. lat. 4027 fol. 27r, and the abbreviation of the canonization process of Charles of Blois in Vatican City, Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Collectorie 434, fols. 110r–​v.

210 Katajala-Peltomaa subject of keen interest.11 In miracle collections, the question of distinguishing concerned the various categories of mental disorders; the uncertain and negotiable element was whether these persons were possessed by a malign spirit or suffered from other kinds of mental (or physical) illnesses. Cases in miracle collections and canonization processes were deeply rooted in the needs of the daily life of the laity. These cases did not gain wide publicity, cause notorious scandals, or manifest large-​scale religious and political power struggles. Saints were a counter-​force to demons and their help could be sought amidst daily adversities; therefore, miracle narrations offer insights into the dynamics of a community and into the ruptures in the ideal social order. They also enable an analysis of negotiations between religious and medicinal explanations.12 Exorcism miracles had Biblical precedents: Jesus healed demoniacs and demonstrated his position as “the Holy One of God” (Mark 1: 24) by driving out malign spirits. Therefore, such deliveries were appreciated as manifestations of divine power and were regularly recorded in miracle collections during the Middle Ages.13 The shared background for different canonization inquests was 11

12

13

Major contributions to the study of demonic possession during the Middle Ages are N. Caciola, Discerning Spirits. Divine and Demonic Possession in the Middle Ages, Ithaca, 2003; D. Elliott, Proving Woman. Female Spirituality and Inquisitional Culture in the Later Middle Ages, Princeton, 2004; and D. Elliott, Bride of Christ Goes to Hell: Metaphor and Embodiment in the Lives of Pious Women, 200–​1500, Philadelphia, 2012. With a similar focus on discerning spirits, see also M. Sluhovsky, “The Devil in the Convent”, The American Historical Review 107 (5) (2002), pp. 1378–​411, and M. Sluhovsky Believe Not Every Spirit: Possession, Mysticism, & Discernment in Early Modern Catholicism, Chicago, 2007; B. Newman, “Possessed by the Spirit: Devout Women, Demoniacs, and the Apostolic Life in the Thirteenth Century”, Speculum 73 (1998), pp. 733–​70; R. Kieckhefer, “The Holy and the Unholy: Sainthood, Witchcraft and Magic in Late Medieval Europe”, in S.L. Waugh and P.D. Diehl (eds.), Christendom and Its Discontents. Exclusion, Persecution, and Rebellion, 1000–​1500, Cambridge, 1996, pp. 310–​37. For the Early Modern Era, see S. Ferber, Demonic Possession and Exorcism in Early Modern France, London, 2004. On demonic possession, the laity and everyday life, see S. Katajala-​Peltomaa, Demonic Possession and Lived Religion in Later Medieval Europe, Oxford, 2020, A. Boureau, “Saints et démons dans les procès de canonisation”, in G. Klaniczay (ed.), Procès de canonisation au Moyen Âge –​Medieval Canonisation Processes, Rome, pp. 199–​221; M. Goodich, “Battling the Devil in Rural Europe: Late Medieval Miracle Collections,” in J.-​P. Massaut & M.-​E. Henneau (eds.), La christianisation des campagnes. Actes du colloque de C.I.H.E.C. (25–​27 août 1994), vol. i, Bruxelles, 1996, pp. 139–​52, and L. Ackerman Smoller, “A Case of Demonic Possession in Fifteenth-​Century Brittany: Perrin Hervé and the Nascent Cult of Vincent Ferrer”, in M. Goodich (ed.), Voices from the Bench. The Narratives of Lesser Folk in Medieval Trials, New York, 2006, pp. 149–​76. Other miracles with Biblical precedents, like resurrections of the dead and the recoveries of the blind and the lame, were always more important proofs of sanctity. Typically, only a few examples of demonic possession can be found in each collection. On Biblical miracles, see M. Goodich, Miracles and Wonders: The Development of the Concept of Miracles,

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formed by the hagiographic genre, theological definitions based on the Bible, as well as from the requirements of canon law. Nevertheless, demonic possession is not a uniform concept and there are considerable differences between various processes. In addition to the shared elements, the local culture and socio-​political milieu of each cult, personal interest, and the approach of both the inquisitorial committee as well as the witnesses affected the outcome. On a general level, the cases of mental disorders in the thirteenth-​and fourteenth-​century canonization processes can roughly be divided into three different categories, regarding the demonic influence in them. First, there are processes where the approach of the inquisitorial committee was rather strict –​they required undisputable proof of the presence and power of malign spirits to label a case as demonic possession and favored medical explanations instead. The estimation of the witnesses was not enough as sole evidence. The second category is from the opposite end of the spectrum; demonic possession seems to have been a label chosen by the inquisitorial committee. Demons were not necessarily mentioned by the witnesses; such a definition was a knowing choice, even a propagandistic tool for the inquisitorial committee. In the third category, the defining line between demonic possession and other mental disorders was a fluid one. Mental illnesses and demonic possession were a mixed category and a clear separation was not required or important. The commissioners were not interested in drawing a definite line between these two states and the terms were occasionally used interchangeably in the depositions. In the following, I will introduce these categories and consider the reasons for different approaches from the perspective of the recording practices and vocabulary. A case in point in the first category was the canonization process of Thomas Cantilupe, which was carried out in London and in Hereford in 1307. The commissioners were William Durand, Bishop of Mende; Ralph Baldock, Bishop of London; and William de Testa, a papal tax collector. They were learned in the canon law and papal administration. This process met the requirements of canon law in such a manner that it is even claimed that it served as a model for later hearings.14 Categorization between different states seems to have been 1150–​1350, Aldershot, 2007, pp. 9–​12, and B. Ward, Miracles and the Medieval Mind: Theory, Record and Event 1000–​1215, London, 1982, pp. 20–​24. See also A. Boureau, Satan hérétique. Histoire de la démonologie (1280–​1330), Paris, 2004, who claims that obsession with demons was not a typical feature of medieval culture in general, but only emerged at the end of the thirteenth century. 14 C. Krötzl, “Kanonisationsprozess, Socialgeschichte und Kanonisches Recht im Spätmittelalter”, in M. Korpiola, (ed.), Nordic Perspectives on Medieval Canon Law, Helsinki, 1999, pp. 19–​39, esp. 37.

212 Katajala-Peltomaa rather strict, which is exemplified in the alleged first miracle which happened through Thomas’ powers. At the end of the thirteenth century in the town of Hereford, a certain Editha, wife of Robertus the ironmonger, fell ill. Her condition was of the mental kind; the seizure hit her one night during Lent, but witnesses were uncertain whether she was raving mad or possessed by a demon. She did not eat or drink anything for several days, but screamed constantly, mindlessly, and was so aggressive that she needed to be tied down. The witnesses defined her as raving mad –​they used the word “furiosa” when describing Editha’s violent behavior and screaming.15 However, “vicarius” Gilbertus, the official of Hereford cathedral, assumed that possession was the reason for her fury. He uses the words “arepticia” and “furia” when describing her: she was either taken by a spirt or raving mad.16 Editha’s husband also thought that she was possessed by a sprit, but when further interrogated he admitted that he had not seen her doing anything special by the power of malevolent spirits, such as changing form or places.17 The other witnesses stated that they did not know whether she was possessed or raving mad, implying that the categorization was not clear and fixed in cases like this. Apparently, it was not of great importance for the lay witnesses since the categorization did not arise spontaneously. The commissioners, on the other hand, deemed the categorization important and they wanted to draw the defining line. After Gilbertus’ estimation of potential demonic presence, other witnesses interrogated after him were asked about Editha’s condition. The commissioners posed the additional question –​had Editha been possessed or was she mad? –​to clarify the situation.18 They did not get a straight answer from the majority of the witnesses, but in the records, the case was entitled “Editha furiosa”. The reason for this categorization was undoubtedly the ambiguous signs and witnesses’ inability to provide any clear evidence of the demonic presence. The fact that Editha died the next summer, a few months after the incident, as well as her condition after the cure, may have further clarified the 15 16 17 18

Depositions to this case are in Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. lat. 4015 fols. 211r–​219v. Vat. lat. 4015 fol. 212v. “credit quod fuit arepticia sed tamen non vidit quod portaretur nec mutaretur de loco ad locum nec quod fecerit aliquem actum ex potencia malignorum spirituum”. Vat. lat. 4015 fol. 215v, also fol. 215r. “Item requisitus si dicta mulier erat arepticia sive demoniaca dixit se nescire nec ex qua causa paciebatur furorem”. Vat. lat. 4015 fol. 214r. Others assumed that Editha was not possessed “nec erat arepticia sed frenetica”. F. 216v; “nescit tamen quanto tempore sibi duravit furia supradicta, nec ex qua causa in eam inciderit nec si habebat dilucida intervalla nec idem si erat arepticia”, fols. 217v, also 218v; 219r.

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situation. Many of the witnesses stated that after the cure Editha was of healthy mind, “sana mente”, but physically she did not recover: she remained weak, “debilis”, and needed to be carried or supported by others since she could not walk by herself.19 Such physical symptoms undoubtedly reinforced the validity of the physical and medical, not theological, explanations. There are other processes where there are no cases of demonic possession even if they consist of cases with potential symptoms to be interpreted as demonic presence.20 A case in point is Raymundus in the canonization processes of Louis of Anjou. Raymundus Oliverii was a young cleric, described as “intelligens et litteratus” and a son of a rich man. Raymundus went out of his mind due to the frustration of losing a clerical position, as he explained in his deposition. He admits that due to his symptoms people commonly believed that he was possessed by a demon, as they told him after the recovery. The only other witness to the case was a priest, Bertrandus Mostolli. He said that collectively all who saw Raymundus thought that he was a demoniac. Bertrandus explains that this interpretation was based on his acts: his indecent and turbid words, signs, and bad deeds, like blaspheming God and saints; resisting his father and mother; throwing stones, bricks, sticks, and other things at people approaching him; and ripping off his clothes.21 The question of his state did not come up in the interrogations, and if additional questions were posed, they were not written down in the records. Similarly, spiritual explanation is not used in the records, as the title of this group of miracles in Louis’ process is, 19

20

21

“et in eodem cophino cum quo fuerat portata ab ecclesiam fuit per dictas mulieres reportata ad domum suam quia erat debilis et non poterat ire.. in dicta debilitate nequiens ire ne coadiuvaretur et suportaretur ab aliis, dixit dicta uxor sua in sana mente et sine furia in debilitate tamen et infirma usque ad festum ad vincula sancti petri vel circa et tunc obiit”. Vat. lat. 4015 fol. 216r. The case of Dulcia in the canonization process of Philippe of Bourges from the end of thirteenth century also has many features that could be linked to demonic possession: she was a notorious frenetic whose affliction took place after her husband had tried to kill her with poison made of cat’s brain, toad and serpent. This case has clear resemblances with maleficium and could have been interpreted as a result of demonic influence, but such features are absent from the records. There are also other cases in this process where the beneficiary is interpreted to have been alienata de sensu, but they were also recorded as cases of mental illnesses. Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana Vat. lat. 4019 fols. 75r–​76v; for this case, see also M. Goodich, “The Multiple Miseries of Dulcia of St. Chartier (1266), Jeanne Laboysans of Crosses (1266) and Cristina of Wellington (1294)”, in M. Goodich (ed.), Voices from the Bench. The Narratives of Lesser Folk in Medieval Trials, New York, 2006, pp. 99–​125. Collegium S. Bonaventura, (ed.), Processus Canonizationis et Legendae variae Sancti Ludovici O. F. M. Episcopi Tolosani. Analecta Franciscana, Tomus vii, Florence, 1951, Cap. clxvii, pp. 222–​23.

214 Katajala-Peltomaa “of the raving mad and those out of their mind”. Raymundus’ own testimony, where he explained his condition by using quite elaborate medicinal vocabulary to state how his brain regained order, may have facilitated this kind of definition.22 Not all the commissioners embraced such a strict judicial attitude, though. For others, it seems to have been a fairly uncomplicated issue to categorize a case as a demonic possession. At this other end of the spectrum one may mention the case of Guillamecta from 1370 from Angers. She was a three-​year-​old girl who had a sudden night-​time seizure during which she was frightened, delusional, and aggressive. Her parents, in the hearing of Charles of Blois, described her as being out of her mind. However, the inquisitorial committee had titled the case as “de demoniaca liberata”, even if the parents did not mention demons or spirits. No further questions were posed to clarify the situation. This categorization is further emphasized in the “relatio”, the abbreviation of the records done by the inquisitorial committee after the hearing. There, it was written that she became suddenly possessed, “subito demoniata fuit”, even if this is not what the parents claimed in their depositions. The case is also grouped together with other cases of demonic possession.23 Sometimes the local clergy carrying out an interrogation as part of an official canonization hearing or conducting a local hearing seem to have been in favor of using demons as an explanatory category. Examples of this kind can be found in Nordic canonization processes; in particular, the hearing of Saint Birgitta from the end of fourteenth century is a case in point. The commissioners of her hearing were four cardinals, but miracles were also registered in Vadstena by the local clergy, and these cases were later added to the canonization dossiers.24 If we are to believe the clerics in charge of recording these Nordic cases in Brigitta’s process, demons were lurking everywhere: they could

22 23

24

“de furiosis et alienatis a sensu”, Processus Canonizationis et Legendae variae Sancti Ludovici, p. 214. Depositions of this case are in Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana Vat. lat. 4025 fols. 99r–​100v. For the relatio see Collectorie 434, fols. 110r–​v. For this case, see also S. Katajala-​ Peltomaa, “Narrative Strategies in the Depositions: Gender, Family, and Devotion”, in C. Krötzl & S. Katajala-​Peltomaa (eds.), Miracles in Canonization Processes: Structures, Functions, and Methodologies, Turnhout, 2018. A peculiarity of Nordic culture was the distrust and lack of official notaries. Official documents were authenticated by seals and use of notaries was not common, as Nils Hermansson, the Bishop of Linköping and a witness in canonization process of Birgitta of Sweden clarified. “Verum est quia notariorum usus rarus est in terra ista, nec eis creditor sed sigillis.” I. Collijn (ed.), Acta et processus canonizacionis Beate Birgitte, Svenska Fornskriftsallskapet ser 2. Latinska Skrifter, Band i, Uppsala, 1924–​1931, p. 179.

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afflict an infant in a cradle, children, and both men and women of high social rank –​in particular sinners and persons defiling Saint Birgitta were targets of demonic assaults. The cases are not only numerous but also vivid narrations and rich with detail. Thus, not only the quantity but also the quality is quite remarkable when compared to other processes of the era. An interesting point to be underlined is the status of the witnesses: the ones testifying in these cases were not the lay people, but the local clergy, even though they were not the ones experiencing such vexations. The perceptions of the laity do not emerge from this material; rather demons seem to have been a rhetorical device for the clergy.25 Many of these cases have elements that are more typical of didactic exempla stories than sworn testimonies in other processes. One may encounter, for example, demonic transmutation; a ten-​year-​old Petrus Gedde was cured from demonic possession at the gate of Vadstena monastery; he had lain outside the monastery for a week, when one night a demon in the form of a black dog appeared, touching him and saying “come out, dear friend, otherwise we will soon suffer a great scandal”. Then, a huge snake exited through the boy’s mouth, transmuted into a goat, and leaped into the well of the monastery.26 Witnesses to this case, as well as to many other cases of demonic possession, were local clergy and nobility. In addition to stressing the trustworthiness of witnesses, the narrations in Birgitta’s process were also rich with didactic messages. The illusory detail of the demon’s exit appears quite fantastic but nonetheless it accords with the idea formulated by Thomas Aquinas that even humans could be turned into animals by demonic powers; this was done, however, by imaginary appearance rather than in reality.27 In Birgitta’s process, the propagandistic needs of the local clergy seem to be an explanation for the multiplicity of demons and vivid details in such cases.

25

26 27

Katajala-​Peltomaa, Demonic Possession and Lived Religion, pp. 138–​48; on lay miraculés interaction with Birgitta, see S. Katajala-​Peltomaa, “Devotional Strategies in Everyday Life: Laity’s Interaction with Saints in the North in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries”, in S. Katajala-​Peltomaa & R. Toivo (eds.), Lived Religion and the Long Reformation in Northern Europe c. 1300–​1700, Leiden, 2017, pp. 21–​45; respectively on Birgitta’s image as thaumaturge, see C. Heβ, Heilige machen im spätmittelalterlichen Ostseeraum. Die Kanonisationsprozesse von Birgitta von Schweden, Nikolaus von Linköping und Dorothea von Montau, Berlin, 2008, pp. 201–​2. This case was also recorded in the additional hearing organized by the bishop of Linköping. Acta et processus canonizacionis Beate Birgitte, pp. 141–​42. The listed witnesses were local clergy and a noble man “cum multis alijs personis fidedignis”. In this matter Aquinas drew from Augustine, but reformulated his ideas. W. Stephens, Demon Lovers. Witchcraft, Sex, and the Crisis of Belief, Chicago, 2002, p. 292.

216 Katajala-Peltomaa Priest-​brothers of Vadstena abbey and other local clerics were promoting the cult of Saint Birgitta; in this quest demons worked as a medium. While giving testimony, they interpreted the symptoms to have been caused by demons and defined many of the cases as divine punishments for unbelievers and disrespectful lay Christians. In this process, raving madness was not a separate condition and extra proof was not required to ascertain demonic presence, as in the aforementioned Cantilupe process. The third group consisted of collections of intermingled and mixed categories, and they are typical of Italian material. Hagiographic material in general, and also canonization processes, are numerous in thirteenth-​and fourteenth-​ century Italy. Furthermore, they typically contain several cases of deliveries from demonic possession. For example, the collection of the miracles of Saint Zita contains thirteen cases, and in the collection of the miracles of Gerard of Gagnoli there are twenty-​four.28 These collections were not official canonization hearings: Zita’s miracles were collected at her shrine in Lucca in 1278 and Gerard’s miracles were recorded by a fellow Franciscan, Bartholomeo Albizi, in Pisa in the 1340s. The judicial requirements were likely not as important as in official canonization hearings, but one may also encounter several examples of demonic possession in official Italian canonization processes. For example, among the miracles interrogated in the canonization process of John Buoni, there are five cases,29 and in the hearing of Nicholas of Tolentino carried out in the cities of the Marches of Ancona in 1325, there are nine cases of demonic possession altogether.30 What is notable in the Italian cases is the role of the demoniacs at the interrogation. Contrary to the Swedish cases, for example, many victims testify themselves. The labelling of the cases as demonic possession was rather liberal –​the symptoms were multiple –​and, it seems, it was quite often done or at least accepted by the victims themselves. This sort of label was not only given by others, as is the case in many processes from other parts of Europe. For example, a certain Maria was possessed by a demon for twelve years, but the only symptom she mentioned was her inability to use her left arm.31 She was the sole witness and no indisputable proof of demonic presence were required.

28 29 30 31

“De S. Zita Virgine”, Acta Sanctorum, Aprilis III, pp. 502–​32; Filippo Rotolo (ed.), “Il trattato dei miracoli del B. Gerardo Gagnoli, O.Min. (1267–​1342) di Fra Bartolomeo Albizi, O.Min († 1351)”, Miscellanea Francescana lxvi (1966), pp. 128–​92. “Processus apostolici de Beate Joanne Bono”, Acta Sanctorum, Octobris IX, pp. 763–​885. N. Occhioni (ed.), Il Processo per la canonizzazione di S. Nicola da Tolentino, Rome, 1984. J. Dalarun, “Le livre des miracles”, in J. Dalarun (ed.), La Sainte et la cité. Michele de Pesaro († 1356) tertiaire franciscaine, Rome, 1992, pp. 214–​15.

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Similarly, Philippucia, the wife of Vannucius Iohannis, suffered from an illness that had made her tremble. She was described by witnesses at the canonization hearing of Nicholas of Tolentino to be like a trembling demoniac.32 The lack of medical knowledge could not have been a reason for this fluid categorization, since the cities of Northern Italy had the best medical knowledge of the era and many university-​trained doctors. Paradoxically, the multiplicity of doctors may have partly increased the number of cases defined as demonic possession in the Italian material. For example, in the canonization process of Laurent of Subiaco from 1244 we encounter a boy called Franciscus. He had typical signs of spirit possession: he was crying day and night, blaspheming his parents and even God. He was thought to be possessed by demons.33 The diagnosis was apparently not certain as the parents had a local doctor to see the boy, which would have been useless if demons were behind his affliction. The doctor had a different opinion of the boy’s condition; according to him, Franciscus had worms in his stomach and as a cure he wanted to cut it open. At this point, the boy started to shout: “Take me to saint Laurent”, which the parents did, and he was cured.34 One may sympathize with the patient and his parents. Apparently, they thought that embarking on a pilgrimage was a safer attempt for a cure than to cut open their child’s stomach. The common opinion may also have had more influence, as many thought Franciscus was possessed. 3

Societal and Cultural Processes: Alterity, Medicalization, and Diabolization of the Feminine

The need to separate demonic possession from mental illness was increasing, and fury became more clearly a medical condition in the later Middle Ages. The reason may have been the changes in the field of medicine, or in theology, or both. There is a general consensus among scholars of the medicalization of medieval society, meaning, for example, a rise in both interest and knowledge

32 33

34

“quasi demoniaca cum maximo tremore”, Il processo per la canonizzazione di S. Nicola da Tolentino, testis cclxiii–​c clxiv, pp. 541–​42. “propter hoc is et alii plures demoniacus crederent”. Archivium Arcis Arm. xviii, 3328, fol. 4r. On fear of the pain during surgery as a reason to reject it and turn to a saint instead, see Il Processo per la canonizzazione di S. Nicola da Tolentino, testis lxxxiv, p. 238. Sometimes medical and heavenly help were combined and the role of the saint was to reduce the pain during the operation, “Il Trattato dei miracoli B. Gerardo Gagnoli”, p. 137. Vatican City, Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Archivium Arcis Arm. xviii, 3328, fol. 4r.

218 Katajala-Peltomaa about medicine and recognition of medical expertise in new contexts, like judicial inquiries.35 This may have resulted in stricter categorization between spiritual and medical conditions. Alain Boureau also claims that possession cases are absent in processes under strict clerical control. The stern regulation and high education of the commissioners is evident in the Cantilupe process, and seems to confirm Boureau’s argument. Generally, commissioners carrying out hearings came from the high end of ecclesiastical hierarchy –​they were quite often cardinals, bishops, or abbots –​and were also highly educated. Rarely, if ever, was medicine their main interest, though; theology and canon law were more likely to be their fields of expertise. However, one of their major tasks in gathering evidence for canonization was to require information on whether the cure had been a natural one, brought to happen by medical aid or whether it had been a divine grace, a genuine miracle. Therefore, the commissioners had an interest in these matters and sometimes direct questions were posed as to whether earthly medicaments were used in the search for recovery, and whether the patient could have been cured by natural means. That religion and medicine should not be seen as opposite to each other is generally accepted.36 On a practical level, as illuminated in the canonization processes, they seem to be complementing rather than competing with each other. However, one can ponder whether it was an increase of interest in medicine or rather in canon law and the evolution of the inquisitional process itself 35 Vauchez, La Sainteté en Occident, pp. 547–​48. Boureau, “Saints et démons dans les procès de canonisation”, pp. 203–​9 and pp. 220–​21. On definitions of ‘medicalization’ in medieval context, see J. Singer, Blindness and Therapy in Late Medieval French and Italian Poetry, Woodbridge, 2011, pp. 7–​10 and J. Singer, “Playing by Ear: Compensation, Reclamation, and Prosthesis in Fourteenth-​Century Song”, pp. 39–​52, here pp. 40–​41; M. McVaugh, Medicine before the Plague. Practitioners and Their Patients in the Crown of Aragon 1285–​ 1345, Cambridge, 2002, p. 190, and I. Metzler, Disability in Medieval Europe. Thinking about Physical Impairment during the High Middle Ages, c. 1100–​1400, London, 2006, p. 66. On the ‘medicalization’ of miracles in the late twelfth century, see R. Koopmans, Miracle Stories and Miracle Collecting in High Medieval England, Philadelphia, 2011, pp. 183–​87. On doctors’ role in canonization and other judicial processes, see J. Ziegler, “Practitioners and Saints: Medical Men in Canonization Processes in the Thirteenth to Fifteenth Centuries”, Social History of Medicine, 12:2 (1999), pp. 191–​225 and D. Lett, “Judicium Medicine and Judicium Sanctitatis Medical Doctors in the Canonization Process of Nicholas of Tolentino (1325): Experts Subject to the Inquisitorial Logic”, in K. Salonen & S. Katajala-​ Peltomaa (eds.), Church and Belief in the Middle Ages: Popes, Saints, and Crusaders, Amsterdam, 2016, pp. 153–​70. 36 I. McCleery “’Christ More Powerful than Galen’? The Relationship between Medicine and Miracles,” in M.M. Mesley and L.E. Wilson (eds.), Contextualizing Miracles in the Christian West, 1100–​1500: New Historical Approaches, Oxford, 2014, pp. 127–​54.

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that brought about questions of this sort. For example, in addition to inquiring about the use of natural and supernatural methods in the process of recovery, the list of questions in the Cantilupe hearing also include details of increased faith and devotion.37 They followed the same logic. The intention was not to make a medical diagnosis or explain the cure by laws of nature, but to ascertain that it was a genuine Divine grace, which inevitable result was increase of devotion. Particularly for cases of demonic possession, the inquisitorial logic –​ to find sound evidence of a miracle –​was more important than the medical analysis: the diagnosis was based on behavioral symptoms and categorization was always a result of communal negotiations. The interest in medical details was to find indisputable proof of the condition of the victim both before and after the cure for the curial scrutiny.38 Theological changes, increasing interest in demonic powers and the clerical authorities’ intention to clarify the distinction between demonic possession and mental disturbance may have been one reason for the decline in these sorts of miracles in the collections.39 The evolution of the inquisitorial process, particularly as reflected in the cases of demonic possession, did not progress in a straightforward way, though. Mixed categories and taking witnesses’ words without need for further assurance of diagnosis can still be found in the fifteenth century.40 Furthermore, reverse steps were taken in the evolution of judicial processes: at the beginning of fifteenth century there was a gap of nearly fifty years in canonizations, and Letizia Pellegrini argues that by the 1440s, that is, during

37 38

39

40

For transcriptions of this list, see Chapter Four in this volume. Respectively, the role and importance of medical doctors increased in the canonization processes from the late Middle Ages onwards and demands to include medical knowledge in assessing a miracle on a curial level were uttered from the fifteenth century. See T. Wetzstein, Heilige vor Gericht. Das Kanonisationsverfahren im europäischen Spätmittelalter, Köln, 2004, pp. 288–​99. In the Early Modern period medical doctors were called in to corroborate the testimony given by the physicians treating the patient/​miraculé. Their testimony was given even greater significance than that of the miracle beneficiary. J. Duffin, Medical Miracles, Oxford, 2009, pp. 113–​21. Boureau, “Saints et démons dans les procès de canonisation”, pp. 203–​09 and pp. 220–​21. See, however, H.C.E. Midelfort, “The Devil and the German People: Reflections on the Popularity of Demon Possession in Sixteenth-​Century Germany”, in S. Ozment (ed.), Religion and Culture in the Renaissance and Reformation, Kirsksville, MO, 1989, pp. 99–​119, esp. pp. 101–​02. See also Sluhovsky, Believe Not Every Spirit, p. 15 who argues that still at the beginning of the Early Modern era the boundaries between natural and supernatural causalities and between physiological and psychological symptoms were completely porous. L. Ackerman Smoller, The Saint and the Chopped-​Up Baby. The Cult of Vincent Ferrer in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, Ithaca, 2014, pp. 32–​33 and pp. 40–​41.

220 Katajala-Peltomaa the hearing of Bernardino of Siena, the collecting, recording and investigating of miracles was no longer a well-​known procedure.41 On the other hand, striving for judicial rigor may have been the reason for the absence of cases of demonic possession in the official canonization process of Bernardino. While registering the cases for the official canonization processes, a huge number of miracles were also recorded alongside the official dossier. In these less official miracle collections, seven cases of demonic possession were recorded. Cases of demonic possession may have become problematic from the judicial point of view, but these cases testify to the participants’ continuing need to define certain disorders as caused by demons, as well as to persistent cultural traits relating to this phenomenon.42 Medicalization did not cease the demonic activity in the early modern era: quite the contrary. Rather, demons’ roles and acts were accentuated during these centuries. Some scholars even argue for a general demonization of the world in the sixteenth century and the early modern era has been defined as “the Golden Age of the Demoniac”. An important aspect of this evolution is also the public nature of the possessed and exorcism. For example, at the beginning of sixteenth century the mystery plays depicted the possessed and familiarized the phenomenon for a wider audience.43 In addition to the general demonization of the world, which was manifest also in the witch craze, demonic possessions were linked to the religious strife of the Reformation when public exorcisms, particularly in France and Germany, were part of the propaganda in the fight over proper rituals and ceremonies between the Catholics and Protestants.44 During reformations, 41 L. Pellegrini, “Testifying to Miracles. A Report on the Canonization Process of Bernardin of Siena”, in C. Krötzl & S. Katajala-​Peltomaa (eds.), Miracles in Canonization Processes: Structures, Functions, and Methodologies, Turnhout, 2018, pp. 105–​27. 42 According to Letizia Pellegrini, the reason for omitting certain types of miracles from the official dossiers and focusing on cases from only certain geographical areas may have been the organizers’ insecurity of the judicial requirements and their intention to secure a fast positive outcome. Pellegrini, “Testifying to Miracles”, for a transcription of the possession cases, see pp. 124–​25. 43 A. Marculescu, “Mystery Plays Re-​Loaded: Performing Demonic Possession in the Histoires véritables”, in M. Meere (ed.), French Renaissance and Baroque Drama: Text, Performance, Theory, Newark, 2015, pp. 1–​21. 44 On demonization, see, for example, K. Growther, “From Seven Sins to Lutheran Devils: Sin and Social Order in an Age of Confessionalization”, in P. Gilli (ed.), La pathologie du pouvoir: vices, crimes et délits des gouvernants: Antiquité, Moyen Âge, epoque modern, Leiden, 2016, pp. 485–​524. On public exorcisms as political manifestations and conflict between the Catholics and Protestants, see Ferber, Demonic Possession and Exorcism. Sluhovsky Believe Not Every Spirit argues strongly for de-​dramatizing early modern exorcisms; he sees them as part of daily life even if scholars have mainly focused on the dramatic cases.

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exorcisms were public spectacles that held political importance; it was the polluted France itself that was purified by driving the malign spirits out of demoniacs. For example, Nicole Orby, a young laywoman, was thought to suffer from demonic possession and was exorcised in 1566 by a particularly public means. The exorcism was carried out by a bishop and included long processions in front of large crowds. Her case was part of the power struggles between the Huguenots and the Catholics. Similarly, in Germany the cases of demonic possession and exorcisms were used in struggles over power and proper rites between Lutherans and Catholics.45 There are, however, contrasting views of the timing, intentions, and content of these alterations. According to Nancy Caciola, delivery from malign spirits ceased to be a mercy bestowed upon the individual and it became a ceremony ordained by the priest. Instead of being a divine grace, performed by God through a saint’s “virtus” and uncontrollable by humans, exorcism became a liturgical performance manifesting clerical authority and power. A performance, unlike a miracle, could be regulated; the change served the ideological needs of the church. Hence, ultimately the changes in exorcism practices reflected the needs of the church and the clergy to strengthen their authority on a wider level. Caciola links this development to other administrative and political changes within Christianity: the Schism and its aftermath, and reform movements from below in the fifteenth century.46 Moshe Sluhovsky, in turn, argues that the roots of changes can be found in the fourteenth century but major shifts took place only in the second half of the sixteenth century. Unlike Caciola, he sees the newly emerging sources –​ exorcism manuals, compilations, and conjurations –​as individual enterprises. In the fifteenth century, there were no officially authorized rituals or rules, and the early manuals were approved, if at all, only at synodal level. The Curial regulations did not take place before the late sixteenth century. However, Sluhovsky, too, sees the changes as a regulatory effect; the aim was to replace the diverse methods of individual practitioners, priests, and lay healers, with one standardized liturgical rite performed by a selected and trained group of

For early modern canonization processes, see A. Burkardt, Les clients des saints. Maladie et quête du miracle á travers les procès de canonisation de la première moitié du XVIIe siècle en France, Rome, 2004. 45 On exorcisms as confessional propaganda, see B.P. Levack, The Devil Within: Possession & Exorcism in the Christian West, New Haven, 2013, pp. 85–​100. On Nicole Orby and other French cases, see Ferber, Demonic Possession and Exorcism, pp. 68, 86 and on Germany, Midelfort, “The Devil and the German People”. 46 Caciola, Discerning Spirits, pp. 225–​73.

222 Katajala-Peltomaa exorcists. He also links these changes to a broader delineating of the boundaries between the sacred and the profane and to a campaign to control the miraculous. Sluhovsky argues that the general intention was to take the reform one step further –​according to him, the clericalization of exorcismal practices was not only to bring about a change in exorcism, but to reform the clergy itself.47 During the Middle Ages, the victims of demonic assaults were typically considered to be innocent. Possession was not a result of a pact or other willing contact with the Devil, and it was not a punishment for personal sins or misdemeanors. Indeed, ordinarily it was not even considered to be a sin, since the possessing spirit dwelled in the body while the soul remained unblemished.48 Demonic possession, as described in the depositions of canonization processes, was not, however, a beneficial state. In all likelihood it was a stigma, yet something that could and would be overcome: after the divine grace the victims were no longer only former demoniacs but were also beneficiaries of divine grace, miraculées. The approach changed in the early modern era when the possessed were more readily seen as either victims of malediction or having willingly submitted to the devil. The comprehension of the phenomenon changed as well. According to Moshe Sluhovsky, “diabolic possession was no longer understood solely as an affliction. It was now argued that, at times, it could take place within the soul, without any external physical signs that had characterized medieval possessions”.49 These ideas were undoubtedly linked to wider societal processes of medicalization, demonization and attempts to increase the control of the church. Both historians and anthropologists claim that demonic possession is a phenomenon more likely to happen to more marginal members of society.50 Potentially, marginal members’ deviant actions were also more easily labelled as spirit possession –​and the condition of being a demoniac may have further 47 Sluhovsky, Believe Not Every Spirit, pp. 61–​68. 48 On the soul’s sinlessness, Caesar of Heisterbach, Dialogus Miraculorum, ed. J. Strange, Ridgewood, 1966 [1851], v, p. 15. On contrasting views, like excessive emotions and intemperance facilitating demons to gain access to the minds of people, see H.A. Kelly, The Devil, Demonology and Witchcraft: The Development of Christian Beliefs in Evil Spirits, New York, 1968, p. 35. Cf. F. Chave-​Mahir, L’exorcisme des possédés dans l’Église d’Occident (Xe–​XIVe siècle), Turnhout, 2011, pp. 16, 198 et passim for sin as a prerequisite for possession. 49 See also Sluhovsky, Believe Not Every Spirit, pp. 15–​16 for multiple views and approaches of theologians before the authorized Roman Rite in 1614. 50 M. Keller, Hammer and the Flute: Women, Power and the Spirit Possession, Baltimore, 2002. Cf. Clark, Thinking with Demons. The Idea of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe, Oxford, 1997, pp. 398–​400.

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stressed their marginality. Demonic possession may have also been a means for the expression of dissent, anxiety or anger, but the exit of demons enabled the integration back into the community. Many scholars argue that demonic possession was essentially a feminine phenomenon. For example, Nancy Caciola talks of diabolization of the feminine in the later medieval culture, and Dyan Elliott argues that female mystics were increasingly linked to interaction with the Devil and mystical marriage with Christ to a union with demons. Both of them claim that from the perspective of the clerical elite, women in general were considered to be on the margins, the “religious other”.51 The majority of the victims in medieval possession cases were women. They did not, however, form an exclusive category. We have already met Petrus Gedde and Franciscus, boys possessed by a demon, but adult men could become victims of demonic assaults as well. In the canonization process of Birgitta there were in particular many (c.40%) adult men among the possessed.52 Quite a few of them were also of good social standing. As members of the clergy were the main witnesses on these occasions, it seems that the dividing line ran also according to clerical or secular status. A case in point is a “miracula in vita” depicting a possessed man. According to the deposition of Petrus Olavi, Birgitta’s former confessor, the possessed man said to Birgitta: “O how dissimilar is your spirit in you from mine in me, but when it pleases yours, I will be recovered completely.”53 The man in question was not just anybody, but a man of high status: Johannes Storberni, a lawman (“lagman”) of Östergötland.54 He was by no means of a marginal position, yet he was not a member of the clergy –​the ones in charge of depicting the image of Birgitta as a thaumaturge. Johannes’ position as “infirmus” but at the same time “obsessus” implies that strict categories between mental illnesses and demonic possession were not crucial in this process. “Infirmus” was not a typical word used for demoniacs; 51 Caciola, Discerning Spirits, pp. 172, 254, 309. Cf. Elliott, Bride of Christ; N. Caciola, “Mystics, Demoniacs, and the Physiology of Spirit Possession in Medieval Europe”, Comparative Studies in Society and History 42/​2 (2000), pp. 268–​306, here pp. 289–​90, and D. Elliott, “The Physiology of Rapture and Female Spirituality”, in P. Biller and A. J. Minnis (eds.), Medieval Theology and the Natural Body, Bury St Edmunds, 1997, pp. 141–​73. 52 Around twenty-​five cases of demonic presence can be counted (some only being referred to in short remarks without further detail), with ten having male protagonists. 53 “Infirmum obsessum a demone”. “O quam dissimiles sunt spiritus tuus in te et spiritus meus in me, sed quando placuerit eidem spirtui, qui est in te, salvabor perfecte.” Acta et processus canonizacionis Beate Birgitte, p. 537. 54 Johannes Storberni/​Styrbjörnsson is identifiable in other documents as well: in the 1330s and 1340s he sold and donated land and other possessions. Svenskt Diplomatariums huvudkartotek, document number 3813; 4549, and 4555. (Accessed 12.6.2017).

224 Katajala-Peltomaa it seems to have been a sort of umbrella term covering many sorts of ailments, both mental and physical. The most evident message of Johannes Storberni’s case was, however, the discernment of Birgitta’s state. She was without doubt possessed by the divine Spirit; for further assurance, the scribes had marked in the margin of the deposition “note how the Devil confirms the good spirit in Birgitta”.55 In this case, the healing power was a divine grace, but it was, however, partly controlled by the clergy: they were the ones in charge of depicting Birgitta as a saint fighting with demons and sinful people. They defined the miraculous and labelled the cases into suitable sub-​categories, like deliveries from demonic possession. 4

Conclusions

In his recent book, Brian P. Levack argues for a cultural script for the performance of the demoniacs. According to him, all demoniacs of all eras “whether ill or not, whether duplicitous or not, were following theatrical scripts that were encoded in their religious cultures”.56 On a general level one can agree: all miraculous recoveries were cultural performances up to certain point; cultural codes defined the general boundaries of the miraculous and performances inherent. Nevertheless, there appears to have been ample room for various interpretations –​of symptoms, background reasons, rituals of cure as well as descriptions of events. The evidence from the canonization processes from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries depicts an image of a cultural script that was filled with ambiguities and full of lacunae. The explanations emerging from depositions form a multivocal choir, not one single well-​arranged script. Domina Maria with her infirm arm was seen as a demoniac, while aggressive, abusive, and blaspheming Raymundus was eventually labelled as a madman. On the one hand, since witnesses to the case of Editha were not able to produce evidence of demonic transmutations, her case was labelled as raving madness while the witnesses to the case of Petrus Gedde apparently saw a snake-​shaped demon exiting his mouth and turning into a goat. One single discourse or one universal definition of demonic presence cannot be deduced from miracle narrations. The socio-​political milieu of the cult, cultural variations, and opinions of the witnesses had their effect on the outcome, but above all, the categorization between demonic possession and 55

“Nota quomodo dyabolus confiteretur spiritum bonum in domina Brigida inhabitantem.” Acta et processus canonizacionis Beate Birgitte, p. 537. 56 Levack, The Devil Within, pp. 140 et passim.

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mental illnesses in the canonization processes depended quite a lot on the preferences of the inquisitorial committee. Some commissioners were apparently reluctant to accept demonic influence without further and evident proof, while in other processes demonic possession was an interpretation readily proposed by the inquisitorial committee. However, in many processes, there was apparently no need to separate mental illness clearly from demonic possession, and in some contexts demonic possession as a definition was used rather freely. Categorization of the cases was not based on theological learning and knowledge only, not to mention medicine. Judicial context and inquisitorial logic may have played a major role in defining the cases, but since there were multiple actors in the defining process, the multiplicity of this phenomenon was emphasized in the final records. Common to all miraculous deliveries, however, was that beneficiaries, whether mad or possessed, incorporated in their bodies the manifestation of divine grace, which was bestowed upon the beneficiary of the miracle and the community. Cases of demonic possession reveal many interesting aspects of the dynamics of a community, gender hierarchies and bounds of permissible behavior. However, for these elements to be revealed, one has to be aware of the whole context –​that is the organizational structure, cultural context and rhetorical choices within the collection under scrutiny. Demonic possession was not one uncomplicated category, as a generally held straightforward dividing line between spirit possession and mental illnesses cannot be drawn, and cases from different eras and areas should not be compared uncritically; one has to discern the nuances to understand fully the multiplicity of the phenomenon.

­c hapter 11

Death in a Birth Chamber

Birth Attendants as Expert Witnesses in the Canonization Process of Bernardino of Siena Jyrki Nissi 1

Introduction

At the end of June 1447, in the diocese of Rieti, Italy, a woman called Vannucia reportedly struggled for three days in labour. Her mother Collacia started to believe that the baby in her daughter’s womb was dead. Afraid that Vannucia might also die, Collacia made a promise to the deceased Franciscan friar Bernardino of Siena. If the child could be baptized, she and Vannucia would visit Bernardino’s shrine.1 In the end, after another votum (vow), the outcome was fortunate and Vannucia had a healthy newborn baby. This is one of four cases recorded in the canonization process of Bernardino of Siena (1380–​1444) in which a child was thought to be born dead but was later revived by divine intervention. Bernardino was an Italian friar minor, an observant reformer, a popular preacher, and one of the most famous characters in his own time in Italy. Even though he was charged with heresy by the pope, he had a strong fama sanctitatis, miracles occurred immediately after he had passed away, and people thought that he was a saint. Bernardino’s canonization process was opened only one year after his death and consisted of three investigations in partibus. The first investigation was held in L’Aquila in 1445, the second in the same place in 1447, and the last took place one year later in several different locations in Central Italy between Rome, Siena, Perugia, the March of Ancona and L’Aquila.2 In addition to the testimonies about the saintly life of Bernardino, there were accounts of 162 post mortem miracles in total. Bernardino was canonized five years after the opening of the process.3 1 Il processo di canonizzazione di Bernardino da Siena, ed. L. Pellegrini, Grottaferrata, 2009, p. 206. 2 For the precise locations see Il processo, ed. L. Pellegrini, p. 98. 3 On the details of the canonization process of Bernardino of Siena, see Letizia Pellegrini’s introduction in: Il processo, ed. L. Pellegrini; L. Pellegrini, “Testifying to Miracles: A Report on the Canonization Process of Bernardin of Siena”, in C. Krötzl & S. Katajala-​Peltomaa (eds.),

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2021 | DOI:10.1163/9789004468498_013

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Three of the cases examined in this chapter are from the second investigation, and the last from the third investigation. In this chapter I will investigate what kinds of testimonies were given in the canonization process of Bernardino of Siena regarding times when something went wrong in a birth chamber. In the four birth miracle cases analyzed here, an act of giving birth turned out to be a moment of death.4 I am interested in who the witnesses in these cases were, what their testimonies tell about birth attendants’ expertise and authority during the birth, and what their abilities were to deal with death according to their testimonies. Since women were often called to give testimony about birth miracles, studying the above-​ mentioned questions is important to better understand how the trustworthiness and expertise of birth attendants were perceived by the commissioners in the canonization process of Bernardino of Siena. This can contribute to our knowledge on the use of different expert witnesses in medieval canonization processes. 2

Perils of Medieval Childbirth

Childbirth was one of the greatest perils in the medieval world. Even though we do not have much quantitative evidence from the Middle Ages, it has been estimated that the infant mortality rate ran from 30 to 50 per cent.5 Medieval society had very limited resources to solve this problem. The Church recognized the dangers of giving birth and tried to help the mothers in labor. Many

Miracles in Canonization Processes: Structures, Functions, and Methodologies, Turnhout, 2018, pp. 105–​27. 4 I will offer no opinion on whether or not the infants in these cases were truly dead by our modern standards. What is important to me is the fact that the people present were convinced that the child was dead. Maria Wittmer Butsch and Constanze Rendtel have proposed that when a miraculously cured child was first seen as lifeless by the people present and then revived soon after the votum, he/​she was probably not actually dead, but just suffering from difficult birth complications. Thus, according to them, medieval people misinterpreted the signs of life and death. M. Wittmer-​Butsch & C. Rendtel, Miracula –​ Wunderheilungen im Mittelalter, Köln, 2003, pp. 163–​64. Raymond van Dam has suggested that the biological approach to miracles depreciates their social and cultural context. R. van Dam, Saints and Their Miracles in Late Antique Gaul, Princeton, 1993, p. 84. This holds especially true in the resurrection miracles, since death is not only medical, but very much also a cultural and social phenomenon. 5 B. Hanawalt, “Medievalists and the study of childhood”, Speculum 4 (2002), p. 450; L.E. Mitchell, Family Life in the Middle Ages, Westport, 2007, p. 153.

228 Nissi churches had relics which would offer hope for a safe delivery,6 and one method of religious help was invoking the saints. Miraculous cures formed one part of the “health care” in the Middle Ages and early modern period.7 Different healing methods were not mutually exclusive and did not compete with each other; it is more likely that they complemented each other. Cures were sought from doctors, barbers, apothecaries, and folk healing practitioners but also from saints: they all belonged to the same “medical marketplace” of the time. This coexistence of medical and religious methods has been described as medical pluralism.8 The laity’s spectrum of different supernatural healing methods was much wider than the thaumaturgical landscape offered by the Church.9 Childbirth or resurrection miracles in general are one of the rarest types of miracle in the medieval canonization processes. According to André Vauchez’s categorization, in the thirteenth century only 1.2 per cent of miracles in the canonization processes concerned childbirth. In the fourteenth century, childbirth miracles were recorded more frequently: between the years 1301–​1417, 3.3 per cent of the miracles recorded in processes of canonization were related to childbirth. Still, this was the smallest of Vauchez’s categorizations.10

6

7

8 9

10

The Church’s goal was to keep mothers alive. Easing the pain of a mother was not needed from the theological point of view. Pain during childbirth was the lot of Eve, a burden mothers were expected to bear. E. Baumgarten, Mothers and Children: Jewish Family Life in Medieval Europe, Princeton, 2004, p. 41. M. Elsakkers, “In pain you shall bear children: Medieval Prayers for a Safe Delivery” in A.-​M. Korte (ed.), Women and Miracle Stories: A Multidisciplinary Exploration, Leiden, 2004, pp. 179–​80, 205–​6; J.H. Arnold, Belief and Unbelief in Medieval Europe, London, 2005, p. 94; I. McCleery, “Christ more powerful than Galen? The relationship between medicine and miracles” in M. Mesley & L. Wilson (eds.), Contextualizing Miracles in the Christian West, 1100–​1500, Oxford, 2014, pp. 127–​54; J. Ziegler, “Practitioners and saints: Medical Men in Canonization Processes in the Thirteenth to Fifteenth Centuries”, Social History of Medicine 12 (2/​1999), pp. 191–​225. Most recently on medical pluralism see J. Kuuliala, “The Saint as a Medicator: Medicine and the Miraculous in Fifteenth-​and Sixteenth-​Century Italy”, Social History of Medicine 2020, doi:10.1093/​shm/​hkaa053. Some mineral stones were believed to be helpful in labor. One could also write sacred words on cheese or butter which a mother would then eat to help to deliver the child. Use of a peperit charm was also popular. N. Orme, Medieval Children, New Haven, 2001, p. 16; E. L’Estrange, Holy Motherhood: Gender, Dynasty and Visual Culture in the Later Middle Ages, Manchester, 2008, pp. 49, 55–​58; A. Foscati, “La scena del parto: Nascita del corpo e salvezza dell’anima tra religione, medicina e ‘magia’ nell’altomedioevo,” in C. Terranova (ed.) La presenza degli infanti nelle religioni del Mediterraneao antico: la vita e la morte, i rituali e i culti tra archeologia, antropologia e storia delle religione, Rome, 2014, pp. 312–​16. A. Vauchez, Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages, Cambridge, 1997, p. 468. Vauchez’s categorization also includes infertility cures.

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The more frequent recording of birth related miracles from the fourteenth century onwards may have been due to a change in the way of invoking a saint or in the method of selecting the cases to be recorded. The number of childbirth miracles does not increase exponentially with time but their number varies from one canonization process or miracle collection to another. However, a clear shift is still apparent. Before the fourteenth century the recorded miracles were preponderantly the so-​called “shrine miracles”, which means that the invocation and the miracle took place at or near the saint’s relics. Giving birth at a shrine or undertaking a pilgrimage when one was pregnant was hardly an option, so this made the recording of birth miracles very rare during the period when shrine miracles formed a clear majority.11 Another typical main category of miracles is called “distance” or “invocation miracles”. These are the miracles which occur far away from relics, such as at home or at an accident scene. In these cases, a votum precedes a miracle and a pilgrimage and/​or a votive offering was made afterwards in exchange for a cure. Both shrine and invocation miracles appeared throughout the Middle Ages but only from the beginning of the fourteenth century are the majority of the recorded miracles invocation miracles. Invocation miracles include severe and urgent illnesses or accidents which do not occur in shrine miracles. This meant that the range of infirmities became wider and thus childbirth miracles were also recorded more frequently.12 The genre of childbirth miracles consists of three different types. The most important type was resurrection miracles which were the ultimate miracles a

11

12

However, there existed few shrines in Europe where stillborn infants were carried to. Once brought to a shrine, they were claimed to be miraculously cured for a brief moment, so that they could be baptised. A famous example of such a shrine is the chapel of Oberbüren, near Bern. A. Prosperi, Dare lanima. Storia di un infanticidio, Turin, 2005, p. 206–​207. Most recently on infant resurrections at shrines, see F.H. Jakobs, “Not Quite Dead: Imaging the Miracle of Infant Resuscitation”, in S. Perkinson & N. Turel (eds.), Picturing Death 1200–​1600, Leiden, 2021, pp. 188–​210. C. Krötzl, “Miracula post mortem: On Function, Content and Typological Changes”, in C. Krötzl & S. Katajala-​Peltomaa (eds.), Miracles in Medieval Canonization Processes, pp. 157–​65. Hillary Powell argues that one reason for the scarce number of childbirth miracles might be that the deliverance from childbirth was not as meritorious as healing from other diseases. Thus, according to her, childbirth miracles were perhaps not recorded as gladly as healing from some disability, disease, or trauma. H. Powell, “The ‘Miracle of Childbirth’: The Portrayal of Parturient Women in Medieval Miracle Narratives”, Social History of Medicine 25 (4/​2012), pp. 795–​811. Still, resurrection of a child, like that of any other person, was an ultimate manifestation of divine power and thus the most important of the miracles, which speaks against Powell’s argument. D. Lett, L’enfant des miracles: Enfance et société au Moyen Âge, Paris, 1997, p. 66.

230 Nissi saint could perform. Usually, the prayer was only for resurrection for a brief moment so that the infant could be baptized. A prayer for resurrection could also be made for a dead or fatally ill mother, and in some cases the votum was made for both mother and child. In addition to the resurrection miracles, two other types of miracles are those that help infertile parents and those that ease the pain of a mother in childbirth. In the canonization process of Bernardino of Siena, there are four stillbirth resurrections among the total of 162 miracles.13 Even though they are few in number, childbirth miracle narratives are important source material for better understanding the actions and attitudes of the women who frequently attended the birth chamber and had the best knowledge on the subject. Recent studies on medieval childbirth miracles have scrutinized several different canonization processes from different centuries.14 This chapter, however, concentrates on the cases recorded in one process in fifteenth-​century Italy. Even though it has been questioned whether there were professional midwives in the Middle Ages,15 in the fifteenth century, “midwife” had become a widespread occupational category. There were also medical texts directly addressed to midwives in the fifteenth-​century Italy.16 In all four cases examined in this chapter, we find an obstetrix taking care of the parturient woman. We cannot be totally sure whether these four women were professional midwives, but at least the notary distinguished them from the other birth attendants, calling them an obstetrix. As the testimonies do not offer more background information on these women, I use the Latin term obstetrix instead of “midwife”.

13 14

15

16

In addition to these four cases, there is only one other case which is related to childbirth. In this miracle a safe delivery is prayed for after several miscarriages. Il processo, ed. L. Pellegrini, p. 416. See especially R. Wynne Johnson, Praying for Deliverance: Childbirth and the Cult of the Saints in the Late Medieval Mediterranean, Princeton, 2015; A. Foscati, “Retracing Childbirth Through Hagiographical Texts and Canonization Processes in Italy and France Between the Thirteenth and Sixteenth Centuries”, in C. Gislon Dopfel, A. Foscati and C. Burnett (eds.), Pregnancy and Childbirth in the Premodern World, Turnhout, 2019, pp. 195–​225. For the summary on the debate see F. Harris-​Stoertz, “Midwives in the Middle Ages? Birth Attendants, 600–​1300”, in S. Butler & W. Butler (eds.), Medicine and the Law in the Middle Ages, Leiden, 2014. According to Harris-​Stoertz, midwives disappeared in the Early Middle Ages, re-​emerged in the twelfth century, and were well established by 1300, at least in North-​Western Europe. For a comprehensive bibliography on medieval childbirth and midwifery see R. Wynne Johnson, “Divisions of Labor: Gender, Power, and Later Medieval Childbirth, c. 1200–​1500”, History Compass 14/​9 (2016), pp. 383–​96. M. Green, “Bodies, Gender, Health, Disease: Recent Work on Medieval Women’s Medicine”, Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History 3 (2/​2004). pp. 16–​17.

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The canonization process of Bernardino of Siena is a particularly appropriate source for analysing birth miracles, since in this process the commissioners’ questions are numerous and detailed. According to Letizia Pellegrini, judicial scrutiny of miracles was on a higher level in Bernardino’s process compared to those carried out before the Schism.17 Moreover, the commissioners of the process were highly interested in hearing about the possible remedies given to the beneficiary of a miracle, and in who was responsible for providing the remedies.18 The number of birth miracles in this process is also high enough, yet manageable, for a detailed case study. All this makes Bernardino’s process relevant source material for conducting an investigation of birth attendants’ testimonies in one canonization process. Testimonies in the medieval canonization proceedings are regarded to be important sources on the actual care of parturient women.19 Of course, one has to bear in mind the fact that the testimonies have been filtered through the questions of the commissioners and the translation of a notary. Also, the accounts might have been given in a manner which would emphasize the merits of the saint. Even though we are not hearing women’s voices per se, and the recollection may not correspond to the actual course of events but was formatted to fit the pattern of a miracle, the narrations are based on the experiences of those ordinary women who witnessed the act of giving birth. For this reason, the miracle testimonies can contribute to our understanding of childbirth during the Middle Ages.

17

18 19

Pellegrini, “Testifying to Miracles”, p. 107. Rebecca Wynne Johnson has also noted that compared to other late medieval proceedings, Bernardino’s process is characterized by an unusual precision of details in the questioning and the recording of the answers. Wynne Johnson, Praying for Deliverance, p. 129. See for example Il processo, ed. Pellegrini, pp. 247, 264, 268, 468, 469, 482, 495, 509. Harris-​Stoertz, “Midwives in the Middle Ages?”, p. 61. On the use of miracle narratives in the research of medieval childbirth see also A. Foscati, “I miracoli del parto: personaggi e rituali nelle fonti agiografiche tra XIII e XVI secolo”, Reti Medievali Rivista 19 (2/​ 2018), pp. 63–​83; Wynne Johnson, Praying for Deliverance. R. Finucane, The Rescue of the Innocents: Endangered Children in Medieval Miracles, New York, 2000; D. Lett, L’enfant des miracles; A. Fröjmark, “Childbirth Miracles in Swedish Miracle Collections”, Journal of the History of Sexuality 21 (2012), pp. 297–​312; G. Signori, “Defensivgemeinschten: Kreissende, Hebammen und ‘Mitweiber’ in Spiegel Spätmittelalterlicher Geburtswunder”, Das Mittelalter 1 (1996), pp. 113–​34.

232 Nissi 3

Vannucia’s Dead and Malformed Infant

We already learned at the opening of this chapter of the allegedly miraculous case of Vannucia’s childbirth in 1447. In Bernardino’s process, each miracle is first presented as a short article, articulus, which gives the basic information about the event. The witnesses testified to these articles by verifying the content to be true and then answered the questions presented by the commissioners. As we take a closer look at the testimonies, we see the details which underlie the miracle itself. According to Michael Goodich, “the non-​ideologically charged details and unrehearsed diversions from the standard miracle script” are most valuable information for social historians. Thus, one should keep an eye on “slips of the tongue”, as Goodich calls these irregular details.20 The death of a newborn differed in many ways from that of an adult or older child. In the Middle Ages, death was usually a communal situation in which other people actively took part.21 Even though a private moment of death was, at least to some extent, encouraged by the Church,22 it was common to die surrounded by family and friends. Great emphasis was given to the last sacraments.23 Stillborn children, however, were not allowed to receive the last sacraments. Usually, medieval childbirth may have been a very gender-​specific situation, since men did not generally appear in the birth chamber. As things went wrong, this custom of men being excluded from the birth chamber was not, however, set in stone.24 Even though a birth is a celebration of a new life, 20 21 22 23

24

M. Goodich, “Mirabilis deus in sanctis suis: Social History and Medieval Miracles”, in K. Cooper and J. Gregory (eds.), Signs, Wonders, Miracles. Representations of Divine Power in the Life of the Church, Woodbridge, 2005, pp. 135–​56. J. Nissi, “Communal Acts in the Moment of Death: A Comparison between Nordic and South European 15th Century Hagiographic Material”, Scandinavian Journal of History (2020), https://​doi.org/​10.1080/​03468755.2020.1808526. J. Nissi, “Who Will Accompany the Dying? The Communality of the Late Medieval Death in the Ars Moriendi-​Guides”, in M. Piccat & L. Ramello (eds.), Memento mori. Il Genere macabro in Europa dal Medioevo a oggi, Alessandria, 2014, pp. 515–​30. On the last rites, see for example S. Fallberg-​Sundmark, Sjukbesök och dödsberedelse. Sockenbudet i svensk medeltida och reformatorisk tradition, Skellefteå, 2008; M. Gray, “Deathbed and Burial Rituals in Late Medieval Catholic Europe”, in P. Booth and E. Tingle (eds.), A Companion to Death, Burial, and Remembrance in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe, c. 1350–​1700, Leiden, 2021, pp. 106–​31. For example, a priest could enter a birth chamber to give the dying mother the last sacraments. See for example a case in the canonization process of St Frances of Rome: “Quedam domina Perna, Pauli Johannes Jacobi, de regione Campitelli, cum per sex dies laboraret in puerperio et quasi iam morti propinqua sibi daretur a sacerdote confessio et sacre heucaristie comunicatio.” I Processi inediti per Francesca Bussa dei Ponziani (Santa Francesca Romana) 1440–​1453, P. Lugano (ed.), Città dei Vaticano, 1945, p. 185. In addition to priests,

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in some respect those medieval women who attended a birth were always prepared for death, either that of the infant or the mother. As Marianne Elsakkers has pointed out, for us who live in an “almost over-​medicated society”, it may be difficult to understand how closely linked birth and death were in pre-​ modern societies.25 According to the articulus, the miracle in Vannucia’s case did not take place instantly after Collacia prayed for Bernardino’s help. Collacia made her invocation on Monday evening. However, it was reportedly not until Tuesday morning that Vannucia gave birth to a baby girl. The child seemed to be dead and so malformed that the women taking part in the birth could not distinguish her nose from her eyes. Also, the child is told to have had a livid skin color. The obstetrix, whose name was also Vannucia, took the girl in her arms and declared that she was dead. When Collacia heard this, she prayed again for God’s help. In her heart she asked God to revive the child through the merits of Saint Bernardino, even for only just enough time for the girl to be baptized. Only a little later the child began to open her mouth, and Vannucia put salt in her mouth and bathed her. When she was removed from the bathtub, Vannucia and Collacia took her into a church, where she was baptized by a priest. Later the same day the girl’s appearance was normal, and she was healthy.26 As we learn from this articulus narrative, Collacia’s first invocation was left unfulfilled, and she prayed again that the child would be revived for only a brief moment so that she could be baptized. This type of á répit miracle is common among the birth miracles, which tells us about the importance of baptism and the desire to bury newborn children in consecrated ground.27 Although performing an emergency baptism in dangerous situations was generally encouraged by the Church, according to the source Vannucia did not baptize the child. Instead, she and Collacia took the child into a church to be baptized. Still, Alessandra Foscati has interpreted this by considering that Collacia might have actually baptized the baby when she put salt into child’s mouth and bathed her. When a child was strong enough, she was carried to a church where a priest administered the sacrament. If Vannucia had indeed baptized the child, the priest’s baptism would have been sub conditione, which means that it was valid only if the previous baptism had not been effective.28 This is, however, speculation, since the source is not explicit on the matter.

25 26 27 28

also husbands or doctors could enter the birth chamber in the case of emergencies. Harris-​Stoertz, “Midwives in the Middle Ages?”, pp. 60–​61. Elsakkers, “In pain you shall bear children”, p. 179. Il processo, ed. Pellegrini, p. 206. Foscati, “I miracoli del parto”, pp. 74, 80 ; Foscati, “La scena del parto”, pp. 325–​29. Foscati, “La scena del parto”, p. 327.

234 Nissi A point of interest is also the fact that the baby was seen to be “malformed” and then declared dead by Vannucia. Thus, it seems that Vannucia had the authority to say whether or not the baby was alive. In cases like this, the malformation or other injury was secondary to those praying for the child’s recovery. Their foremost concern was the salvation of the child’s soul and his/​her recovery of life, not the possible disability which was not even mentioned in the votum.29 The ultimate goal of canonization processes was to find out whether a case was a genuine miracle, therefore the need for Divine help needed to be attested first. Thus, commissioners were very interested in the ways people acknowledged the arrival of death. Especially in the cases of newborns, signs of death are observed in detail because in order to be baptized the child needed to be alive.30 Thus, even the slightest signs of life were crucial. An infant without baptism would not ascend to heaven. Although the unbaptized were not burdened by personal guilt, they were in a state of original sin which prevented them from seeing God face to face.31 In the case of Vannucia, three witnesses were examined: Vannucia the baby’s mother, Collacia, and Collacia’s husband Petrucius. For some reason Vannucia the obstetrix was not questioned. In the canonization processes the first witness was usually regarded to be the most important one.32 In Vannucia’s case, Collacia was the first to testify. Her testimony has the highest importance because she was aware of all the details during the course of events. She was the only one of the witnesses who had truly seen what happened during the birth. That is why she was questioned first, and also why her testimony is much longer than Vannucia’s or Petrucius’. Collacia was also responsible for praying to the saint.

29

J. Kuuliala, Childhood Disability and Social Integration in the Middle Ages, Turnhout, 2016, p. 74. 30 In addition to religious concerns, people were also motivated to observe the signs of death for temporal reasons. Even though inheritance or dynastic concerns are not expressed by those who testify in the miracle testimonies, this was a matter of great importance for families when an infant was born. For more information on inheritance see A. Foscati, “ ‘Nonnatus dictus quod caeso defunctae matris utero prodiit’. Postmortem Caesarean Section in the Late Middle Ages and Early Modern Period”, Social History of Medicine 32 (3/​2019), pp. 465–​80; B.R. Lee, “A Company of Women and Men: Men’s Recollections of Childbirth in Medieval England”, Journal of Family History 27 (2/​2002), pp. 92–​100. 31 On limbus puerorum see for example Lett, L’enfant des miracles, pp. 214–​18; Prosperi, Dare lanima. 32 S. Katajala-​Peltomaa, Gender, Miracles, and Daily Life, Turnhout, 2009, pp. 56–​57.

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The commissioners’ first question for Collacia was whether or not she believed that the infant was truly dead. She said yes and she believed that the girl was saved because of the merits of Saint Bernardino. She reported that in addition to the girl’s mother, there were four women present: Collacia, Vannucia the obstetrix, and two other women named Lucia and Rita. Afterwards, Collacia’s husband also saw the child when they took her to the church. When the girl was born and declared to be dead by Vannucia, Collacia asked her to baptize the child, but Vannucia said that it would not be possible, since she was dead.33 According to her testimony, after Collacia had prayed again for God’s help and the baby was revived, Vannucia put a small amount of salt into child’s mouth and placed her into a warm bath. Salt had a religious and sacred character. It was used to prepare an infant for the baptism before entering the church. It symbolized the wisdom which a child received when he/​she was baptized.34 In addition to its religious meaning, salt was also connected to humoralism. This is explained by a thirteenth-​century Franciscan friar, Bartholomeus Anglicus, in his definition of obstetrix in his encyclopaedia “De Proprietatibus Rerum”: A midwife is a woman who has the art to help a woman in childbirth so that she bears and brings forth her child with less woe and sorrow. And so the child should be born with less difficulty and sorrow, she anoints and forments the mother’s uterus and helps and comforts her in that way. Also she draws the child out of the uterus and ties his navel four inches long. With water she washes away the blood of the child and rubs him with salt and honey to dry up humors and to comfort his limbs and members, and swaddles him in clothes and cloths.35 Even though the baby had begun to open her mouth, she still looked as good as dead. Collacia described her skin color as livid and black. In the canonization process of Bernardino, in addition to this case, there are two other cases in which the skin of a dead body became livid. Interestingly, in one of these cases 33 34

35

Il processo, ed. L. Pellegrini, p. 223. B. Hanawalt, Growing up in Medieval London. The Experience of Childhood in History, New York, 1993, p. 45; F. Mershman, “Salt”, in The Catholic Encyclopedia, New York, 1912. Retrieved April 1, 2020 from New Advent: . In Renaissance Italy there was also a specialized salt for pregnant women or new mothers. The sixteenth-​century childbirth majolica wares included a saliera, a small vase for salt. J. M. Musacchio, The Art and Ritual of Childbirth in Renaissance Italy, New Haven, 1999, pp. xiii, 101–​6. Harris-​Stoertz, “Midwives in the Middle Ages?”, pp. 82–​83.

236 Nissi the deceased’s skin is also described as both livid and black.36 Black coloration, on the other hand, is mentioned five times as a sign of death in 29 resurrection cases of Bernardino’s process.37 Vannucia had her turn to witness after her mother. Reportedly, she told the commissioners that at the time she was very ill and did not remember the incident well. She had heard everything afterwards from her mother and it was all as described in the articulus.38 Petrucius does not have much to add to what was known already. He testified that he saw the baby when she was taken to the church. He recalled that all he could see was the baby’s face which was covered in blood. Afterwards he was told what had happened. As a counter-​gift, the whole family visited Bernardino’s shrine.39 We might assume that as a male witness Petrucius’ testimony would verify what his wife had stated previously. In the Middle Ages women had inferior legal status to men and their words were in general not treated as significant as men’s. Women’s right to testify in legal matters was restricted, and the Decretum of Gratian (c.1140) even forbids women from testifying. Still, in the canonization processes they appear as witnesses. The number of women witnesses varies in different processes, but if women possessed first-​hand knowledge of the miracles, they were called in to testify.40 Women are the main actors in the childbirth miracles, thus their role as witnesses is emphasized in these cases. Still, the appearance of women is not limited to the birth miracles in Bernardino’s process but they also appear in other types of miracle testimonies.41

36 37

38 39 40 41

Il processo, ed. L. Pellegrini, pp. 233, 424. In comparison, in the miracle collection of James of the Marches which was collected at the end of the fifteenth century in Southern Italy, the black color is mentioned in a total of 21 cases of the 52 death cases in which the signs of death are mentioned. J. Nissi, “Quomodo scit quod mortuus erat? Signs of Death in 15th Century Italy”, SVMMA 7 (2016), p. 86. When deponents mentioned black coloration on a dead body, they may have referred to a phenomenon which is today known as livor mortis, a settling of blood in the lower parts of body. Nowadays livor mortis is generally seen as purple. However, color perception varies historically and culturally. In medieval symbolism black was a symbol of death, sin and hell. On the history and symbolism of black color see: M. Pastoreau, Black: The History of a Color, Princeton, 2008. Il processo, ed. Pellegrini, p. 223. Il processo, ed. Pellegrini, p. 223. Katajala-​Peltomaa, Gender, Miracles, and Daily Life, pp. 28–​38. For example, in the cures of childhood impairments women from outside the family were considered as important witnesses. Kuuliala, Childhood Disability, p. 30. In Bernardino’s process see for example the case of a boy called Ascencius in which there are five women witnesses. Il processo, ed. Pellegrini, pp. 56–​59. In the first investigation in partibus almost every second case includes at least one woman witness.

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237

Birth in a Hospitale

The next case analyzed is the only one which does not occur in the house of the delivering mother. According to the articulus, in 1446 when Margarita de Basilea was in her eighth month of pregnancy, she entered the hospitale of Saint Louis in L’Aquila with her husband. She was reportedly struggling so much that the obstetrix and other women who were helping with the birth thought that she would die. Finally, the baby’s feet came out of the mother’s womb and the women pulled the child out only to find that he was dead. Bucia, an obstetrix approximately 50 years old, declared that the baby was dead, and she was greatly grieving42 for the condemned soul of this infant. Again, a brief resuscitation is prayed for in order to be able to baptize a child. Reportedly, Bucia asked all the people present to pray for God’s help that the child would be revived for a moment through the merits of Saint Bernardino, so that she could baptize him. After the prayer, the baby started to move his lips which allowed Bucia to baptize him, and she gave him the name Nicholas. Then Bucia bathed him and he became well enough to suckle milk. Later, when the mother had breastfed her baby, he was shown to his father completely well and unharmed.43 In this case the first witness is Margarita Capite de Istrie, who was a governor of the hospitale of Saint Louis. It remains unclear what kind of institution the hospitale was, and we do not know why Margarita de Basilea gave birth there. Perhaps they were traveling and did not have a better place to give birth. From the twelfth to the fifteenth century, most of the hospitals were charitable institutions for the poor or travellers.44 However, Rebecca Wynne Johnson has suggested that the hospitale of Saint Louis could have actually been a secular inn or a hostel for travelers, since the governor Margarita de Capite Istrie was a married woman. The fact that it was governed by a secular woman indicates that it was not a charitable institution operated by a religious order.45 42 43 44

45

On the sorrow at the death of an infant, see N. Archambeau, “Tempted to Kill: Miraculous Consolation for a Mother after the Death of Her Infant Daughter”, in E. Carrera (ed.), Emotions and Health, 1200–​1700, Leiden, 2013, pp. 47–​66. Il processo, ed. Pellegrini, p. 207. M. Green, “Bodies, Gender, Health, Disease”, p. 14. For medieval hospitals see for example: J. Henderson, The Renaissance Hospital: Healing the Body and Healing the Soul, New Haven and London, 2006; B.S. Bowers (ed.), The Medieval Hospital and Medical Practice, Padstow, 2007. Wynne Johnson, Praying for delivery, p. 145. Religious orders did have charitable institutions in L’Aquila. Bernardino’s fellow friar John Capistran founded the Ospedale S. Salvatore in 1446/​47 for curing the sick and hosting pilgrims. This new hospital united smaller Aquilano hospitals and was called Ospedale Maggiore. P. Langer, “One Saint and

238 Nissi Margarita’s role as a first witness emphasizes her importance as a reliable and respected witness in the eyes of the commissioners. According to her testimony, Margarita said that the infant was dead when he was born. When the commissioners asked how she knew this, she replied that she did not touch the baby but she saw how the obstetrix Bucia palpated the child and rolled the baby in her hands to see if he was alive. When Bucia saw that there was no spiritus in the child, and that he neither breathed nor moved, she declared the baby dead.46 When Margarita was asked whether the child looked dead to her, she answered yes. Margarita recalled how they prayed for Bernardino’s help and when they finished the invocation, they heard that the boy started to cry. The commissioners were interested to hear how much time elapsed between the child’s birth and the moment he started crying. Margarita told them that it was a time equivalent to reciting eight or nine pater nosters.47 The second witness is Margarita Petri de Subaudia. Reportedly she saw how Bucia performed tests to see if the baby was alive but she also touched the baby with her own hands. The commissioners were interested to hear what kind of tests Bucia had performed. Margarita stated that she put crushed garlic (alium pistum) into the boy’s mouth, pulled his ears with her fingers and placed her ear over his heart. Bucia could not find signs of life in the infant’s body by any of these means, which led them to pray for divine help.48 Finally the commissioners asked whether the infant was baptized after he woke up. Margarita replied yes and he was given the name Bernardinus.49 Placing an ear over the heart is clear evidence of trying to hear a heartbeat. Pulling the

46

47 48

49

Two Cities, Bernardino da Siena at L’Aquila”, in M. C. Ferrari (ed.), Saints and the City, Beiträge zum Verständnis urbaner Sakralität in christlichen Gemeinschaften (5.-​17. Jh), Erlangen, 2015, p. 279. “Interrogata quomodo hoc sciret, quod fuit mortuus, dixit se non tenuisse puerum in manu, sed vidit quod obstetrix tenebat et revolvebat eum in manibus aspiciendo eum si vivebat vel non; et videns quod in eo non erat spiritus, neque anhelitus, nec se movebat, dixit eum esse mortuum.” Il processo, ed. L. Pellegrini, p. 228. Il processo, ed. L. Pellegrini, p. 228. “Interrogata quale experimentum dicta obstetrix fecit, dixit quod apponebat alium pistum ad os dicte creature, ac eciam stringebat digitis aurigulas, et manum apponebat erga cor, et in omnibus hiis non videbatur … quod dicta creatura aliquem vite spiritum in se habebat …” Il processo, ed. L. Pellegrini, p. 229. In the articulus the baby is called Nicholas. Il processo, ed. L. Pellegrini, p. 229. Even though every layman, if necessary, could perform emergency baptism, midwives were the only laypersons who were instructed to do it. Gibson, “Scene and Obscene”, p. 15. On the guidance and regulations of emergency baptism, see: Smoak, “Midwives as Agents of Social Control”; K. Taglia, “Delivering a Christian Identity, Midwives in Northern French Synodal Legislation, c. 1200–​1500”, in P. Biller & J. Ziegler (eds.), Religion and Medicine in the Middle Ages, Suffolk, 2001, pp. 77–​90.

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ear indicates that Bucia tried to see if the baby reacted to pain. To put crushed garlic in a baby’s mouth might also have been a way to see if the baby reacted to an unpleasant stimulus. All these details were recorded as they verified the death of the infant and hence gave evidence of the miraculous powers of Saint Bernardino. Finally, we have Bucia’s testimony. She testified that she was asked to come into the hospitale to help with the labor. Bucia was probably known for her experience, which led the staff to call for her help. When she saw that the baby was coming feet first she told the other women to take a hold of the baby’s heel and drag him out because it seemed to her that the baby was dead. According to her testimony, Bucia herself put her foot on the mother’s groin and pressed against it while the others pulled the baby out.50 There are no references which suggest that Bucia had tried to turn the baby around or otherwise change his position. Of course, it may be that it was already too late for turning the baby. Bucia told the others to simply pull the child out of the mother’s womb.51 Bucia’s actions had an immense influence on the newborn’s health and condition but it is uncertain whether the commissioners were aware of this. For them, they were not likely to have been an important aspect in giving testimony to the miracle, so we cannot be sure how accurately all of Bucia’s actions during the birth were recorded. When asked how Bucia knew that the child was dead, her only argument was her experience. She did not list any signs of death on the baby’s body but settled for saying that she had been involved in over 140 births and in none of them had the babies looked anything like this. The final indication for her seems to have been the umbilical cord, which had been wound three times around the baby’s neck. Even though she removed the cord she could not see any signs of life, and thus was sure that the child was dead. According to her testimony, when the women had said their prayer and the child had moved his lips, Bucia told the other women to bring water so that she could baptize him. In the end Bucia was still asked if she blew into the boy’s mouth, ears, and nose (ossitavit sive insufflavit in os, aures et nares pueri).

50 51

Il processo, ed. L. Pellegrini, p. 229–​30. In the medieval and Renaissance obstetrical instructions the advice is to turn the infant around inside the womb and never to pull it violently out of the mother. On the advice given by the famous twelfth-​century Trotula, see M. Green, The ‘Trotula’: An English Translation of the Medieval Compendium of Women’s Medicine, Pennsylvania, 2002, p. 80. On Renaissance authors Michele Savonarola’s and Eucharius Rössling’s advice see M. Green, “The Sources of Eucharius Rösslin’s Rosegarden for Pregnant Women and Midwives (1513),” Medical History 53 (2009), pp. 180–​81.

240 Nissi She replied that she did not because she did not see it to be necessary because the boy appeared to be dead.52 Bucia’s deposition is important in understanding the role of birth attendants’ testimonies in validating a miracle. Bucia emphasized her own experience by mentioning the number of births in which she had been involved. Her fame was known in L’Aquila as she was fetched to assist in this particular birth. The commissioners were also interested to hear about the tests which Bucia had performed in order to be assured of child’s death. All these details indicate that an obstetrix could have similar role in validating a birth miracle, as doctors (medicus) had in other healing miracles in which they appear occasionally as witnesses. Doctors could, with their expertise, exclude natural or medical causes as the reason for a recovery. They testified that a patient would not have been able to recover without the intervention of God.53 As Bucia’s testimony indicates, skilled birth attendants could do exactly the same thing in birth miracle cases. Doctors or surgeons may have also been involved in a birth, but only if the mother was seriously ill or if surgery was required.54 In the 52 53

Il processo, ed. L. Pellegrini, p. 230. J. Ziegler, “Practitioners and Saints”; D. Lett, “Judicium medicine and judicium sanctitatis. Medical Doctors in the Canonization Process of Nicholas of Tolentino (1325): Experts Subject to the Inquisitorial Logic”, in S. Katajala-​Peltomaa & K. Salonen (eds.), Church and Belief in the Middle Ages. Popes, Saints, and Crusaders, Amsterdam, 2016, pp. 153–​69. 54 Hanawalt, Growing up in Medieval London, p. 42; M. Green, Making Women’s Medicine Masculine, Oxford, 2008, p. x; G. McMurray Gibson, “Scene and Obscene: Seeing and Performing Late Medieval Childbirth,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 29 (1999), 7–​24. Only women of wealthier families could expect a visit by a doctor. M. Green, “The Sources of Eucharius Rösslin’s Rosegarden for Pregnant Women and Midwives (1513)”, p. 184. Midwives, on the other hand, were supposed to help every woman, regardless of one’s rank. G.L. Smoak, “Midwives as Agents of Social Control: Ecclesiastical and Municipal Regulation of Midwifery in the Late Middle Ages”, Quidditas 33 (2012), pp. 89–​ 90. Even obstetrices could handle complicated medical operations. In addition to the cases presented in this paper, see for example a case in the canonization process of Saint Louis of Anjou, in which a mother had been in pain for three days and the child was believed to be dead inside her. She could not give birth naturally so the obstetrix had to place her hand inside the mother and expel the dead and fetid infant from mothers’ womb. “… et per triduum fuit in tanto dolore et angustia quod puer mortuus est et transversatus in ventre..et quattor diebus portavit ita mortuum; et eum non posset secundum naturam exire, fuit extractus de ventre ministerio obstetricum per instrumentum naturale mulieris predicte.” “Et ista que loquitur in adventu suo posuit manus suas et extraxit puerum de ventre matris sue mortuum et fetentem …” Analecta Franciscana: sive, Chronica aliaque varia documenta ad historiam fratrum minorum spectantia, edita a patribus collegii S. Bonaventurae, Florence, 1951, pp. 166–​67. Of interest also is the fact that if doctors treated pregnant women’s injuries or sicknesses, they were sometimes not able to give them the remedies which they would normally have given to a patient. See for example a case in the canonization process of St Frances of Rome. A pregnant woman called Gentilescha fell and hit her head

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birth miracles of the canonization process of Bernardino of Siena, there are no mentions of doctors.55 5

The Boys Who Wore the Franciscan Habit

Our third case is also a breech birth. According to the articulus, on the last day of April in 1447 Antonius Andree Morello’s son was born dead. He was pulled out of the mother’s womb by his legs like the boy in the previous case. When all the women present noticed that the boy was dead, a woman called Sancta Petrutii shouted out loud: “Oh Saint Bernardino, make a dead boy alive and wake this boy”. All the women started to pray, and immediately the infant began to move his lips and breathe. An obstetrix of about 60 years old, Angelucza de Symone, baptized him and named him Bernardinus after the saint.56 Angelucza is the only witness in this case. Her testimony is very informative and longer than any other testimony in the four cases discussed here. Angelucza said that she was fetched by the child’s father, Antonius, to help with the birth because his wife was in danger of dying. In the articulus it is stated that it was a woman called Sancta Petrutii who first shouted out for Bernardino. Angelucza, however, said that she was the one who asked Bernardino to restore the dead boy to life.57 Accordingly, at this point no votum was made. Angelucza simply asked Bernardino to revive the infant: “O sancte Bernardine, fa de lu morto vivo,

55 56 57

severely, but was not given remedies by the doctors because of her imminent birth. “… unde accidit quod quodam semel cum a quibusdam nupciis, ut dictum est, ornata redirect, a scala prope domus decem et septem graduum capite deorsum verso cecidit; septem mensium pregnans erat; ex quo casu caput et oculi non immerito maximam receperunt inflacionem. Cui medici propter vicinum partum remedium adhibere non poterant.” I Processi inediti per Francesca Bussa dei Ponziani, ed. P. Lugano, p. 163. A woman in the miracle collection of James of the Marches was likewise denied the medical remedies because of her approaching birth: “In Napoli un gentil domina che se chiama Madama Johannella Caragula … essendo piena de vii mese se infirmo gravamente de una sciesa grandissima. Et con febre continua et sopra quella haue tre parasissime … et li medici per respetto dela creatura che hauea i corpo non la possiuano aiutare con nulla medicina.” Miracoli di Jacobo della Marcha, Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat.lat. 7639, p. 20. According to Alessandra Foscati, doctors or surgeons (or male medical experts in general) do not appear in the birth miracle narratives before the sixteenth century. A. Foscati, “I miracoli del parto”, pp. 68, 72. Il processo, ed. L. Pellegrini, p. 214. This is a good example of how witnesses may have exaggerated their role in the course of events. On this subject see L. Smoller, “Miracle, Memory, and Meaning in the Canonization of Vincent Ferrer, 1453–​54”, Speculum 73 (1998), pp. 429–​54.

242 Nissi reviva questo citulo”.58 Rebecca Wynne Johnson suggests that this “sing-​song prayer”, as she describes it, is closer to a charm than a prayer.59 According to her testimony, the other women joined the prayer and Angelucza bathed the child and saw how he started to move, which was a sign for her to baptize him. The commissioners asked if the boy was dead when he was pulled from the mother’s womb. Angelucza replied yes. She knew this because he was not moving at all. She said that she had seen plenty of similar cases but other babies had revived when she just bathed them. Thus, according to her, those other children had come back to life without divine help. In this case she and all the others as well believed that the baby was saved by Saint Bernardino. In the end the commissioners asked if she was the one who made the votum. She said that it was not her. Previously she had stated that she had prayed for Bernardino’s help. There was, however, no mention of a votum. Interestingly she adds that she did not hear that anyone had made a votum. Only later had she heard that the child’s father had made one. He had promised that the child would be named Bernardinus and that the child would wear the Franciscan habit. The commissioners understood that Bernardinus was not the name which Angelucza gave him when she baptized him. She said that she first named him Johannes.60 In the articulus it is said that the obstetrix baptized the child giving him the name Bernardinus out of respect for the saint.61 Most likely the new name was given only later, when things had settled down and Angelucza had also heard of the votum which the father had made. Generally, it was a common custom that a father had the privilege of naming a child. For example, in late-​medieval and Renaissance Florence this paternal naming culture prevailed.62 Still, as Sari Katajala-​Peltomaa has shown, based on the cases in the canonization process of Nicholas of Tolentino, women also promised to name a child after the saint who was invoked.63 Antonius was apparently not present in the birth room, since Angelucza reported in her testimony that there were only women present during the 58 59 60

61 62 63

Il processo, ed. L. Pellegrini, p. 270. R. Wynne Johnson, Praying for Deliverance, pp. 184, 282. “Interrogata si ipsa testis fecit votum, dixit quod non, neque audivisse aliquem facientem, sed tamen postea audivit dici quod pater fecit votum, videlicet quod dictus puer portare deberet habitum Sancti Francisci et imponeret sibi nomen Bernardinus. Interrogata quale nomen ipsa sibi imposuit pro prius, dixit Johannes.” Il processo, ed. L. Pellegrini, p. 271. “… quem obstetrix illico baptizavit imposito eidem nomine Bernardino ob reverenciam beati Bernardini.” Il processo, ed. L. Pellegrini, p. 214. C. Klapisch-​Zuber, La maison et le nom: strategies et rituels dans l’Italie de la Renaissance, Paris, 1990, pp. 87–​93. S. Katajala-​Peltomaa, Gender, Miracles, and Daily Life, p. 232.

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birth. Still, we are told that he actively took part in the process. First, he was told to fetch Angelucza to help with the birth. Then, according to Angelucza he also made a votum to saint Bernardino. Antonius’ actions back up the suggestions made by several scholars: even if men were not in the same room, they were aware of how things were proceeding inside the birth chamber and they could also influence the events in different ways.64 Men could help women in ritualistic ways, such as praying or making a votum, but also in very concrete ways, such as calling for extra help. In her testimony, Angelucza said that when the boy had been pulled out she put him on the ground. This is an act which is also repeated in the final birth case in which Nicolaus Paulini’s son was found to be dead when he was born. Just like Antonius in the previous case, Nicolaus Paulini and his wife reportedly promised to name their child after Bernardino, dress him in the Franciscan habit for two years, and take him to Bernardino’s shrine, if God would rescue him.65 Naming a child after the saint who had rescued him/​her was a usual way to honor the saint in question. It was a public and long-​lasting gift to the saint. It did not, however, bring any material benefit to the saint’s shrine or religious order. To dress a child in the Franciscan habit would further emphasize the parents’ devotion to Bernardino, but also to the Franciscan order. It was very visible act of devotion. This kind of counter-​gift to a saint was not exceptional in fifteenth century Italy. In the canonization process of Bernardino of Siena, a mother of a boy who was run over by horses also promised to dress her son in the Franciscan habit for one year.66 Similarly in the canonization process of St Frances of Rome, there are promises that children will wear white clothing, which was distinctive to Frances’s congregation.67 The ultimate gift parents could give to a saint was to promise that a child would enter a religious order. Child oblations to a saint was a custom which had a biblical role model and this kind of practice is depicted in the miracle collections of Southern and 64 65

66 67

A. Foscati, “I miracoli del parto”, p. 74; F. Harris-​Stoertz, “Midwives in the Middle Ages?”, p. 73; R. Finucane, Rescue of the Innocents, pp. 33–​35; B. R. Lee, “A Company of Women and Men”, pp. 92–​100. “Bernardinus, filius Nicolai Paulini, de civitate Esculana, mortuus natus, emisso voto per parentes de imponendo sibi nomen Bernardini si, meritis et intercessione beati Bernardini, vitam ei Deus omnipotens restitueret, nec non quod per annos duos eum habitu Sancti Fancisci induerent et ad corpus ipsius beati Bernardini Aquilam ducerent, statim dictus puer vivus apparuit, et usque in hodiernum diem incolumis et sanus perseverat.” Il processo, ed. L. Pellegrini, pp. 423–​24. Il processo, ed. L. Pellegrini, pp. 415, 492–​493. I Processi inediti per Francesca Bussa dei Ponziani, ed. P. Lugano, pp. 324, 326.

244 Nissi Central Europe during the early and high Middle Ages. Even the canonization process of Nicholas of Tolentino (1325) presents an example of a child oblation.68 In Bernardino’s cases the promise is that the boys wear the habit only for a certain period of time. In the case of Nicolaus Paulini’s son, there are three witnesses: Cassandra, Nanna, and Mariana Vannini. The first of them, Cassandra, said that she knew the baby was dead because he did not cry. He also did not move or have the typical skin color of a newborn. According to Cassandra, the baby remained like this for about fifteen minutes. This is a typical testimony in a birth miracle. The deponent is trying to convince the commissioners that a miracle occurred by explaining the signs of death and giving an estimation of the elapsed time between the arrival of death and the resurrection.69 Cassandra reported that Nanna placed the child on the ground. Placing a dead infant on the ground is similar to a custom which was also carried out when older people died. In the canonization process of Bernardino of Siena, there is one case in addition to these two birth cases where a deceased is placed on the ground. In this case a man asked to be placed on the ground as he was dying.70 This resembles Bernardino of Siena’s own request at the moment of his death. Bernardino wanted to die with his feet touching the ground.71 William Durand, a thirteenth-​century liturgist and a bishop of Mende, recommended that those who were at the agony of dying should be placed on the ground on ashes or on straw. Following this instruction, the late-​medieval books of hours depicted dying people placed on a straw mat, on a regular mat, or rolled in a

68 69 70

71

S. Katajala-​Peltomaa, Gender, Miracles, and Daily Life, pp. 233–​34; C. Krötzl, Pilger, Mirakel und Alltag. Formen des Verhaltens im skandinavischen Mittelalter, Helsinki, 1994, pp. 317–​18. On the signs of death in Italian hagiographic material see J. Nissi, “Quomodo scit quod mortuus erat?”. Il processo, ed. Pellegrino, p. 535. I have found similar cases from Swedish fifteenth-​ century canonization processes and miracle collections. However, a contemporary Italian canonization process of St Frances of Rome includes no mentions of placing dead people on the ground. For the Swedish cases see for example “Miracula defixionis domini”, ed. T. Lundén in Göteborgs Högskolas Årskrift 1949:4, Göteborg, 1950, pp. 38, 70. In these cases it is reported that a deceased person was placed on the ground “as was the custom with the dead people” or “as was the custom with those who are prepared to be buried”. Bernardino’s last moments are explained in Fra Giuliano da Milano’s letter to the observant convent of Milan. The letter is edited by F. Donati in Bullettino senese di storia patria, volume primo (1894), pp. 70–​76. For a more recent edition see S. Boesch Gajano & M. Rita Berardi (eds.), Civiltà medioevale negli Abruzzi, L’Aquila, 1990–​1992, 2 vols., here vol. 2 (1992), p. 452. See also P. Langer, “One Saint and Two Cities”, p. 275.

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straw mat.72 An ascetic moment of death is also a topical element in the biographies of saints.73 Thus, for older people, dying on the ground was an act of devotion. However, if the deceased was placed on the ground after he/​she had died, it was most likely an act which was done before the deceased was rolled in linen or prepared in whatever way the corpse was handled.74 The commissioners asked if Cassandra touched the child’s body or tried to find a pulse, to which she replied negatively. She said that there was a little time between the invocation and the resuscitation. During this time Nanna blew into the child’s ears (insufflavit in aures infantis).75 This is the second time we encounter insufflation or blowing into the mouth and ears in the birth miracles of Bernardino of Siena. In the previous case the obstetrix did not insufflate but the commissioners asked whether she had done so. Insufflation is the same kind of ritual as putting salt into the baby’s mouth; it prepares a child for baptism. Its purpose is the expulsion of evil spirits but it also symbolized the Holy Spirit.76 Insufflation seems to have been a practice used in Italy in the mid-​fifteenth century and was known to the clerical men of the canonization processes, since insufflation is also mentioned in 1450 at Viterbo in the case of a semi-​dead infant in the canonization process of Rose of Viterbo.77 The second witness in the case was a 65-​year-​old obstetrix Nanna. She also told them that the infant was dead because he did not cry. Also, he could not support himself (nec se sustinebat) which perhaps means that the child was completely limp and immobile. The commissioners asked whether the infant 72 73 74

75 76

77

D. Alexandre-​Bidon, “Immagini del cimitero Cristiano del medioevo” in A.L. Trombetti Budriesi (ed.), Un gallo ad Asclepio. Morte, morti e società tra antichità e prima età moderna, Bologna, 2013, pp. 279–​80. M. Goodich, “The Death of a Saint: A Hagiographical Topos”, in Katariina Mustakallio et al (eds.), Hoping for Continuity. Childhood, Education and Death in the Antiquity and the Middle Ages, Rome, 2005, 227–​38. Sometimes unbaptized children were treated quite harshly since they could not be buried in the churchyard. For example, in the canonization process of Nicholas of Tolentino a father decided that his dead baby should be buried in a garbage heap. Il processo per la canonizzazione di S. Nicola da Tolentino, ed. N. Occhioni, Rome, 1984, testis cclxvii, cclxviii, clcclxix. Cited in S. Katajala-​Peltomaa & V. Vuolanto, Lapsuus ja arki antiikissa ja keskiajalla, Helsinki, 2013, p. 33. Il processo, ed. L. Pellegrini, p. 537. “Insufflation” in F.L. Cross & E.A. Livingstone (eds.), The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, Oxford, 2005, p. 844. The practice was already mentioned in the third century treatise generally known as Apostolic Tradition and conventionally attributed to Hippolytus of Rome. In the early Christian communities, insufflation was done by a bishop to those who converted to Christianity. The Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus, ed. B.S. Easton, Cambridge, 1934, pp. 44–​45. For a Biblical reference see John 20:21–​22. R. Wynne Johnson, Praying for Deliverance, p. 263–​64.

246 Nissi moved while he remained on the ground. According to Nanna he did not. While the mother and other women prayed to Bernardino, Nanna gave the child the usual remedy which she was accustomed to do. By this she meant blowing into the baby’s ears and rubbing onion into his mouth (fricando cepe per os eius). After this the baby began to breathe. Her estimation of the time was half an hour. At the end of her testimony Nanna said that she was accustomed to cases like this and had been involved in several similar cases. Despite her obstetrical skills she still believed that the baby was rescued by Saint Bernardino.78 The final witness is a goldsmith (aurificis), Mariana Vannini. Her testimony does not give much new information but what is interesting to us is the final question which the commissioners put to her. She was asked if she believed that the boy was saved by Saint Bernardino or by the usual remedy given by the obstetrix. Mariana replied that she did not know. She was only sure that the boy was dead when he was born.79 The question indicates that the commissioners saw Nanna’s actions as worldly medicine; their effective use may have lessened the likelihood of divine intervention. This means that these kinds of actions in the birth chamber were probably commonly agreed on and well known in fifteenth-​century Italy. Since Mariana’s testimony does not add any new information to what we already knew, it raises the question of why she was questioned in the first place. In her testimony, her occupation draws one’s attention. A goldsmith was a high-​ ranking artisan and thus a distinguished member of a community. In addition to gender, in medieval society a person’s reliability and trustworthiness were connected to wealth and position.80 As in the case of Petrucius, Mariana’s testimony might be seen as confirmation of the words of previous witnesses. Since the notary had not decided to name Mariana as ordinary honesta mulier or domina, her profession seems to separate her from other women in the process. It was rare that women were identified by their own occupation: instead, they were identified by their husband’s or father’s name.81 This is also the case in the canonization process of Bernardino. Apart from Mariana, there are no mentions of other high-​ranking woman artisans in the whole process.

78 79 80 81

Il processo, ed. L. Pellegrini, pp. 537–​38. “… dixit ignorare, suo tamen iudicio infans mortuus natus est.” Il processo, p. 538. Katajala-​Peltomaa, Gender, Miracles, and Daily Life, p. 42. M. Green, “Documenting medieval women’s medical practice”, in L. García-​Ballester, R. French, J. Arrizabalaga & A. Cunningham (eds.), Practical Medicine from Salerno to the Black Death, Cambridge, 1994, p. 329.

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Conclusions

The testimonies of birth attendants were important for the commissioners of canonization processes since the affirmation of death as well as resuscitation attempts were crucial information when deliberating whether a birth case could be labelled as miraculous. All, but one of the witnesses in the cases studied in this chapter are women. The obstetrices who appear in these cases are elderly women, between 50 and 65 years of age. The fact that the obstetrices are summoned particularly in emergency cases indicates that they were well known for their abilities to help in childbirth. They also instructed other women during the birth, so they were in charge of the care giving in the birth chamber. The authority of these women is underlined by the fact that they sometimes performed an emergency baptism or similarly refused it if it was not possible to baptize a child. Their expertise is also revealed by the questions they were asked: they were thought to possess expert information about the state and health of the newborn. The birth attendants used their experience as proof of the reliability of their words and thus tried to make their testimonies more trustworthy and consequently themselves as more significant members of the community. In these cases, the women taking part in childbirth were aware of the ways of recognizing a dead baby. If the life of a newborn was questionable, it was an obstetrix who made the required tests to see if an infant was dead or alive. The commissioners were highly interested to hear how the women knew if a baby was dead or not. This way these sources uniquely reveal to us how a community functioned and what the birth attendants’ strategies were if a birth did not go according to plan. Still, one has to keep in mind that the hagiographic genre emphasizes certain stereotypical elements which were regarded as proof of a narrative’s reliability. In birth miracle narratives resuscitation attempts, investigating the signs of death, placing a dead infant on the floor, or estimating the elapsed time between the birth and the resurrection are certainly elements which were recorded to emphasize the desperate situation before the allegedly miraculous healing. Also, praying to a saint stands out in the miracle testimonies as its core element. In a birth miracle narrative, the obstetrix had the main role in the birth chamber during the birth but if the birth turned out to be a death, other women or even men could step in and play an important role by praying for a saint’s help. At this point making a votum was as important for the community as the earthly remedies an obstetrix could offer, or at least this is the impression we get from these sources. The testimonies of birth miracle cases increase our knowledge on the use of expert witnesses in medieval canonization processes. Like medical men in

248 Nissi other healing miracles, obstetrices testify that nothing but a miracle could have caused the recovery of a newborn. To testify about their vast practical experience and the physical investigations which they performed were ways to construct their reliability. Also, when an obstetrix testified that she was asked to come and assist in childbirth when things were going wrong, she was stressing that her fame as a childbirth expert was known in her community. Therefore, in addition to studying birth miracle testimonies as an evidence of the care of the parturient women, similar attention should be paid to the ways in which birth attendants built their trustworthiness and status as expert witnesses in the canonization processes.

­c hapter 12

Escaping Justice?

The Politics of Liberation Miracles in Late Medieval Portugal Iona McCleery 1

Introduction

In 1406 a man with a noose around his neck came to the shrine of Our Lady of Virtues near Azambuja, north-​east of Lisbon in central Portugal. Afonso de Viseu explained to the shrine scribe that he had been imprisoned for three years and was condemned to hang because he was accused of murder. As he was being taken to the place of execution with the noose around his neck, he commended himself to Holy Mary of Virtues. He was immediately returned to the tribunal to give more evidence and the next day he was released. He had come to the shrine to give thanks, bearing the noose as a sign of his escape from execution.1 Healing miracles are by far the majority of the miraculous events associated with the late medieval cult of the saints and have received the lion’s share of scholarship.2 Nevertheless, non-​healing miracles like Afonso’s escape are quite prominent within some cults; this particular Marian cult includes eleven cases (20 per cent of the total number). These consist of five escapes from prison or from execution, two escapes from shipwreck or drowning, a protection from injury in warfare, the protection of a woman who had lost her way in the dark, and a punishment miracle without cure.3 These miracles have not previously been studied for what they can tell us about politics. As is also demonstrated by Nicole Archambeau’s chapter in this volume, many non-​healing miracles were political because they involved trade and travel; warfare; poverty and food shortages; work and industry; the construction and interaction of ecclesiastical, royal and noble power; and related to this, the exercise of justice. They are therefore crucial sources for medieval 1 M.Â. Beirante (ed.), O Livro dos Milagres de Nossa Senhora das Virtudes: Estudo Histórico, Azambuja, 2004, p. 37. See appendix for the full passage. 2 For an overview of approaches, see I. McCleery, “Christ more powerful than Galen? The relationship between medicine and miracles”, in M. Mesley & L. Wilson (eds.), Contextualizing Miracles in the Christian West, 1100–​1500: New Historical Approaches, Oxford, 2014, 127–​54. 3 Beirante (ed.), Livro, pp. 38–​39, 43, 47–​48, 51, 55–​56, 57, 60.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2021 | DOI:10.1163/9789004468498_014

250 M c Cleery social history that have perhaps been neglected for some regions in the late Middle Ages due to a wealth of other texts.4 For countries such as Portugal where alternative evidence is lacking, miracles should not be overlooked as sources. Miracles, however, are not transparent windows onto actual experiences, but carefully constructed texts used for preaching, to encourage pilgrimage and to enhance the prestige of shrines.5 Arguably they were also “scripts” for coping with disaster, although the variety of scenarios suggests there was no single model. We can interpret some non-​healing miracles as guides to ideal behavior that represent medieval people as more resilient and proactive than traditionally thought.6 It is also possible to argue that miracle narratives highlight shifting power relations; acting therefore less as scripts and more as manifestations of social change. This chapter complements Nicole Archambeau’s study of protection miracles in Provence by exploring the general nature of non-​healing miracles in the first section, and then in the second section focusing on them in the Portuguese cult of the saints. The final section explores further the five apparent escapes from justice recorded at the shrine of Our Lady of Virtues.

4 For miracles as sources for social history, see S. Farmer, “Down and Out and Female in Thirteenth-​Century Paris”, American Historical Review 103 (1998), 344–​72; M. Goodich, “Mirabilis deus in sanctis suis: social history and medieval miracles”, in K. Cooper & J. Gregory (eds.), Signs, Wonders, Miracles: Representations of Divine Power in the Life of the Church (Studies in Church History 41), Woodbridge, 2005, 135–​56. For political approaches, see S. Walker, “Political saints in later medieval England”, in Idem, Political Culture in Later Medieval England, ed. M.J. Braddick, Manchester, 2006, 198–​222; S. Katajala-​Peltomaa, Demonic Possession and Lived Religion in Later Medieval Europe, Oxford, 2020, pp. 129–​49. 5 For the compilation, construction and purpose of miracles, see much of the work of Michael Goodich, and also G. Signori, “The miracle kitchen and its ingredients: a methodical and critical approach to Marian shrine wonders (10th to 13th century)”, Hagiographica 3 (1996), 277–​303; G. Klaniczay, “Healing with certain conditions: the pedagogy of medieval miracles”, Cahiers de recherches médiévales et humanistes 19 (2010), 235–​48; A. Rűth, “Representing wonder in medieval miracle narratives”, MLN 126 (2011), 89–​114; R. Koopmans, Wonderful to Relate: Miracle Stories and Miracle Collecting in High Medieval England, Philadelphia, 2011. 6 C.M Gerrard and D. Petley, “A risk society? Environmental hazards, risk and resilience in the later Middle Ages in Europe”, Natural Hazards 69 (2013), 1051–​79; E.R. Standley, “Fear, matter and miracles: personal protection and coping with disaster through material culture”, in C.M Gerrard, P. Forlin & P.J. Brown (eds.), Waiting for the End of the World? New Perspectives on Natural Disasters in Medieval Europe, Abingdon, 2021, pp. 239–​54.

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Looking for Non-​Healing Miracles: Methodological Issues

What is a non-​healing miracle? As Archambeau points out in her illuminating chapter in this volume (p.281): “scholars’ goals shape how they define and present protection miracles”. For the present author, whose research is primarily medical, the category of “non-​healing miracle” only makes sense if placed in contrast to “healing miracle”; this therefore explains some differences in approach to Archambeau’s broader definition, which includes recovery from illness. Yet for some scholars, non-​healing categorizations are vague. Ronald Finucane commented that “over nine-​tenths of the wonders [at shrines] were cures”, but he made no attempt to define the other 10 per cent.7 Pierre-​Andre Sigal and Robert Bartlett are among the few to have tried to analyze non-​ healing miracles. For Sigal, they constitute childbirth and infertility; protection from danger (e.g. water, falls, collapsing structures, attacks); deliverance from prison; favorable interventions (e.g. recovery of property, food provision, religious conversion); glorification of the saint (e.g. strange lights, reigniting candles, bodily signs such as saintly odor); punishments; and visions, clairvoyance and prophecies.8 Sigal argues that non-​healings can be more prominent as acts of living saints, which does seem to be borne out by the research done for this chapter.9 For Bartlett, non-​healings involve the provision of food and drink and good weather; visions and prophecies; physical signs of sanctity such as levitation or stigmata; saintly involvement in or protection during warfare; saints battling demons, including exorcising the possessed; saintly interaction with animals, including healing them and protecting humans from them; liberation from prison and enslavement; and finally punishment miracles.10 Quite a number of these miracles share an underlying theme: protection from harm. However, protection from illness and injury should really mean not being harmed in any way including not getting ill and avoiding wounds. 7

R.C. Finucane, Miracles and Pilgrims: Popular Beliefs in Medieval England, New York, 1977, p. 59. 8 P.-​A. Sigal, L’Homme et le miracle dans la France medieval, XIe-​XIIe siècles, Paris, 1985, pp. 265–​88. 9 Sigal, L’Homme, pp. 289–​90; P.-​A. Sigal, “La typologie des miracles dans la literature hagiographique occidentale (XII-​XV siècles)”, in D. Aigle (ed.), Miracle et karāma: hagiographies médiévales comparées, Turnhout, 2000, 543–​56 (pp. 546–​47). For non-​healing in vita miracles, see S. Andrić, The Miracles of St John Capistran, Budapest, 2000, pp. 193–​223; J.A. Skórzewska, Constructing a Cult: the Life and Veneration of Guðmundr Arason (1161–​1237) in the Icelandic Written Sources, Leiden, 2011, pp. 83–​110. 10 R. Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things? Saints and Worshippers from the Martyrs to the Reformation, Princeton, 2013, pp. 365–​408.

252 M c Cleery Those healed of their conditions were protected from death and eventually freed from pain, but it would seem sensible to distinguish these healings from narratives that focus on lack of harm if falling from a height or into water. The language of liberation can also be found in illness narratives, but these should be analyzed separately from prison escapes or cases where there was no suffering.11 It is also useful to separate both the previous groups (healing and protection granted to individuals) from visions, prophecies, physical signs of the presence of holiness, such as stigmata, levitation or dry branches bursting into leaf, and liturgical miracles involving wine, oil, lights or consecrated wafers. These are easier to construe as signs of the protection of the faith, church, territory or cult, rather than of individual people. Non-​healing miracles could be used to promote the work of the Church in a very active way: making peace, encouraging conversion or renewed devotion, and turning people away from heresy or other error.12 Other types of miracles identified as non-​healing by Sigal and Bartlett –​ especially childbirth and fertility problems, and exorcisms –​focus on the recovery of appropriate bodily or rational behaviors, or the healthy performance of social norms such as having children, which are all subjects easily accommodated within the broader scope of medieval healthcare as it is now studied.13 Similarly, it makes sense to include the miraculous healings of animals within the history of medical practice, as it is now understood that there were very close links between human and animal healthcare in the Middle Ages.14 A large number of punishment miracles involves healing, as long as the individual

11 12

13

14

For illness as a form of imprisonment, see C.L. Scarborough, Viewing Disability in Medieval Spanish Texts, Amsterdam, 2018, p. 192. This is a topic that would be worthy of further study. For example, in 1399 a man decided to join the Bianchi spiritual movement that was gaining popularity in northern Italy because his macaroni filled with blood when he tried to eat it: S. Bongi (ed.), Le Croniche di Giovanni Sercambi, Lucchese, 3 vols, Lucca, 1892, vol 2, pp. 313–​14. Thanks to Alexandra Lee for sending me this example. For some reflections on medieval medicine, see my introduction to I. McCleery (ed.), The Cultural History of Medicine in the Middle Ages, London, 2021. For childbirth miracles and possession within medical contexts, see H. Powell, “The ‘miracle of childbirth’: the portrayal of parturient women in medieval miracle narratives”, Social History of Medicine 25 (2012), 795–​811; C. Trenery, “Demons, saints, and the mad in the twelfth-​century miracles of Thomas Becket”, in S. Bhayro & C. Rider (eds.), Demons and Illness from Antiquity to the Early-​modern Period, Leiden, 2017, 339–​56. B. Aitchison, “Holy cow! The miraculous cures of animals in late medieval England”, European Review of History: Revue Européenne d’Histoire 16 (2009), 875–​92; S. Harrison, “Jordanus Ruffus and the Late-​medieval Hippiatric Tradition: Animal-​care Practitioners and the Horse”, unpublished PhD diss, University of Leeds, 2018.

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punished with an illness later repented; these can be studied by medical historians from the perspective of injuries and illnesses. However, punishment miracles also exist, albeit fewer in number, in which the saints protected their lands, property or people from harm and wrongdoing by cutting down perpetrators without cure or resuscitation.15 Resuscitation from what was perceived as death is another type of miracle that some scholars might consider belongs to the non-​healing category. This type of miracle has received considerable attention, especially in the cases of drowned children or the hanging of William Cragh in Swansea in 1290,16 but there is actually a lot of medical detail to some of these cases: clinical signs of death, sometimes medical testimony and aftercare.17 They should be distinguished from cases where an individual was prevented from dying in circumstances in which they would normally have been expected to do so, but remained unharmed: these include falls, potentially crushing or suffocating accidents, submergence in water, and what could be called “thwarted execution”. This last type is very different from those in which a hanged person is resuscitated. Sometimes there was a last-​minute pardon or a last-​minute rescue by friends or family. If the execution was underway, there could be a failure of equipment, e.g. the rope or scaffold breaking.18 In some cases there was simply a failure to die.19 15 Andrić, Miracles of St John Capistran, pp. 202–​03, 236, argues that in vita punishment narratives were less likely to lead to healing compared to posthumous narratives set at the shrine, since going on pilgrimage to the shrine was already a sign of penitence. For more on this miracle type, see G. Klaniczay ‘Miracoli di punizione e malefizia’, in S. Boesch Gajano & M. Modica (eds,), Miracoli: dai Segni alla Storia, Rome, 1999, 109–​37; D. Lett, “Des miracles incroyables: doutes ou intérêt social et politique dans les procès de canonisation des XIIIe-​ XIVe siècles”, in C. Krőtzl & S. Katajala-​Peltomaa (eds.), Miracles in Medieval Canonization Processes: Structures, Functions, and Methodologies, Turnhout, 2018, 177–​93. 16 J. Hanska, “The hanging of William Cragh: anatomy of a miracle”, Journal of Medieval History 27 (2001), 121–​38; R. Bartlett, The Hanged Man: A Story of Miracle, Memory, and Colonialism in the Late Middle Ages, Princeton, 2004; C.A.M. Clarke (ed.), “Power, identity and miracles on a medieval frontier”, special issue of Journal of Medieval History 41 (2015), 249–​361; R.C. Finucane, The Rescue of the Innocents: Endangered Children in Medieval Miracles, Basingstoke, 1997. 17 See the chapter in this volume by Jyrki Nissi, and also L.A. Craig, “Describing death and resurrection: medicine and the humors in two late medieval miracles”, in B. Bowers & L.M. Keyser (eds.), The Sacred and the Secular in Medieval Healing: Sites, Objects, and Texts, London, 2016, pp. 103–​15. 18 The rope broke in the single non-​healing miracle (out of 227) recorded by the papal commissions investigating the sanctity of Elizabeth of Hungary (d. 1231): K.B. Wolf (ed.), The Life and Afterlife of St Elizabeth of Hungary: Testimony from her Canonization Hearings, Oxford, 2011, pp. 180–​82. 19 In a miracle of Our Lady of Montserrat dated to 1323, a young man of Girona captured by the Genoese was first hanged for hours from the ship’s mast and then thrown in the

254 M c Cleery A second major methodological issue to overcome is the problem of the proportion and disparate nature of non-​healing miracles within the collections in which they are found, making them therefore rather difficult to study coherently. Non-​healing miracles are very ancient: 23 per cent of Jesus’ miracles involve non-​ healing acts, especially food provision and “sea stories”.20 The miracles of Jewish scripture (especially the deeds of Moses) and the Acts of the Apostles (especially the deeds of Peter and Paul) were also very influential in the Middle Ages.21 However, despite the influence of biblical topoi, non-​healing miracles can be few in number in medieval miracle collections, especially after the twelfth century. In earlier periods they do seem more dominant: in the tenth-​century longer vita of Gerald of Aurillac (d. 909), a saintly nobleman of southern France, fish and deer frequently landed on Gerald’s dinner plate whenever he was hungry. There was also a cluster of marvels signifying the holiness of his dead body and his tomb.22 In the eleventh-​century cult of St Foy, a little girl saint from Conques, also in southern France, nearly half of the ninety-​one miracle narratives are non-​healing events, especially long, complicated escapes from prison.23 Some later cults do appear to conform roughly to Finucane’s claim that non-​ healings made up 10 per cent of all English miracles. Two British royal cults fit this pattern well: six out of forty-​five miracles (13 per cent) attributed to Queen Margaret of Scotland (d. 1093), probably in the first half of the thirteenth century,24 and twenty out of 174 miracles (11 per cent) attributed to King Henry vi of England (d. 1471), in the late fifteenth century, are non-​healings.25 For

20

21 22 23 24 25

sea. Shocked to find him still alive, and hearing that he had made a vow to the Virgin, his captors let him go. See I. Drumond Braga, “Milagres de Nossa Senhora de Montserrat num códice da Biblioteca Nacional de Lisboa”, Arquivo do Centro Cultural Calouste Gulbenkian 33 (1994), 663–​721 (p. 695). B.L. Blackburn, “The miracles of Jesus”, in G.H. Twelftree (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Miracles, Cambridge, 2011, pp. 113–​30, counts thirty-​five separate miracles across the four Gospels: seventeen healings, seven exorcisms, three resuscitations, five “gift” miracles providing food or money in times of need, a punishment, and two sea stories (calming a storm and walking on water). For “sea stories”, see Koopmans, Wonderful to Relate, pp. 149, 332. R.W.L. Moberly, “Miracles in the Hebrew Bible”, in Twelftree (ed.), Cambridge Companion, pp. 57–​74; J.C. Paget, “Miracles in early Christianity”, in ibid., pp. 131–​48. G. Sitwell (ed.), “The Life of Saint Gerald of Aurillac”, in T.F.X. Noble & T. Head (eds.), Soldiers of Christ: Saints and Saints’ Lives from Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, London, 1995, 293–​362. P. Sheingorn (ed.), The Book of Sainte Foy, Philadelphia, 1995. R. Bartlett (ed.), The Miracles of Saint Æbbe of Coldingham and Saint Margaret of Scotland, Oxford, 2003, pp. 52–​53, 86–​89, 116–​17, 118–​19, 122–​25, 132–​35, 134–​35, 138–​39. P. Grosjean (ed.), Henrici VI Angliae Regis miracula postuma, Brussels, 1935. The miracles include a large number of thwarted executions and liberations.

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some the proportion is less. Only four of the 225 miracles of Godric of Finchale (d. 1170), compiled by Reginald of Durham (d. c.1190), are non-​healing (less than 2 percent).26 One of the forty-​three twelfth-​century miracles of Æbbe of Coldingham (fl. mid-​seventh century) was non-​healing.27 Yet other twelfth-​ century English cults present very different patterns. 42 per cent of the nineteen miracles of Erkenwald, the saint of London, were long and elaborate non-​ healings.28 78 per cent of the miraculous events associated with Modwenna, a possibly sixth-​century saint whose deeds were compiled in the twelfth century, were non-​healing, including a large number of in vita miracles.29 The most famous English miracles, those of Thomas Becket (d. 1170), are nearly 25 per cent non-​healings.30 It could be argued that a perceived dwindling of non-​healing miracles in some cults from the twelfth century onwards was a response to the development of canonization processes. These processes gradually placed more emphasis on healings and the virtues of the saintly individual, reduced the value of in vita interventions, and tended to include fewer dramatic rescues.31 According to the miracle collection compiled by Guillaume de Saint-​Pathus, which is as close as we can get to the lost canonization process of King Louis ix of France (d. 1270), there were only two non-​healings out of sixty-​five.32 Amongst the seventy-​four miracles collected for the process of Louis of Anjou,

26 27 28 29 30

31

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Reginald of Durham, Libellus de Vita et Miraculis S. Godrici, Heremitae de Finchale; Appendix Miraculorum, ed. J. Stevenson (Surtees Society, 20), London, 1845, pp. 435–​36, 462–​63, 464–​65, 466–​69. Bartlett (ed.), Miracles of Saint Æbbe, pp. 52–​53. E.G. Whatley (ed.), The Saint of London: the Life and Miracles of St Erkenwald, Binghamton, 1989, pp. 102–​29, 142–​45, 148–​51, 158–​61. The non-​healings include a liberation. Geoffrey of Burton, Life and Miracles of St Modwenna, ed. R. Bartlett, Oxford, 2002. J.C. Robertson (ed.), Materials for the History of Thomas Becket (Rolls Series, 67), London, 1875–​85, vols 1–​2. I identified eighty-​six non-​healing miracles in the larger collection written by William of Canterbury, and sixty miracles in Benedict of Peterborough’s collection, out of a total of over six hundred. See the other chapters in this volume for the impact of canonization. Koopmans, Wonderful to Relate, pp. 38–​39, comments on the dramatic value of sea stories at shrines. According to J. Kuuliala, Childhood Disability and Social Integration in the Middle Ages: Constructions of Impairments in Thirteenth-​and Fourteenth-​Century Canonization Processes, Turnhout, 2016, p. 92, miracles in canonization processes are usually less didactic due to their more limited dissemination. See also Klaniczay, “Healing with certain conditions”. G. de Saint-​Pathus, Les miracles de Saint Louis, ed. P. Fay, Paris, 1931, pp. 140–​2, 189–​90.

256 M c Cleery bishop of Toulouse (d. 1297), the only non-​healings were four sea stories, one of which is analyzed by Archambeau in this volume.33 Non-​healings are less likely to have had recourse to relics and are more likely to have been difficult to evidence according to inquisitorial procedure. They usually occurred away from the shrine, as did many late medieval healings, but perhaps more often without witnesses, and there was less physical proof compared to healings.34 Indeed, with most protection miracles the whole point is that there was no trace of harm done to the body. This problem may explain why those miraculously liberated sometimes brought the proof of their fetters or noose to the shrine, as Afonso de Viseu did in this chapter’s opening example. Yet despite these issues –​and the lessening chances during the thirteenth century that such miracles would be used to secure the canonization –​non-​ healing miracles continued to be reported at inquiries in the late Middle Ages.35 Liberation miracles are prominent in the processes of Nicholas of Tolentino (d. 1305) and John of Capistran (d. 1456).36 According to André Vauchez, protection miracles quadrupled after 1301, although he does not discuss them.37 Nearly 20 per cent of the miracles of Delphine of Puimichel (d. 1360) and 34 per cent of those of Yves de Tréguier (d. 1303) are non-​healings.38 It seems to be the case that non-​healing miracles continued to be worthy of remembrance in miracle collections in the late Middle Ages, and remained an aspect of canonization processes right through to the modern period.39 They continued to be prominent in Marian cults throughout the Middle Ages. 40 per cent overall of the miracles recorded at Our Lady of Rocamadour in the south of France in

33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Brothers of the Franciscan Order (eds), “Processus canonizationis et legendae variae Sancti Ludovici O.F.M.”, Analecta Franciscana 7 (1951), whole volume, pp. 123, 228–​29, 231–​33. C. Krötzl, “Miracles au tombeau, miracles à distance: approches typologiques”, in Aigle (ed.), Miracle et karāma, pp. 557–​75. M. Goodich, “The miraculous military escape in canonization documents”, first published in German in 2000 and translated into English as article xix in Idem, Lives and Miracles of the Saints: Studies in Medieval Latin Hagiography, Aldershot, 2004, 16 pages (p. 12). D. Lett, Un procès de canonisation au Moyen Âge: essai d’histoire sociale, Paris, 2008, p. 431; Andrić, Miracles of St John Capistran, pp. 304–​06. A. Vauchez, La Sainteté en Occident aux dernier siècles du Moyen Âge d’après les procès de canonisation et les documents hagiographiques, Rome, 1981, pp. 547–​8. J. Cambell (ed.), Enquête pour le procès de canonisation de Dauphine de Puimichel, comtesse d’Ariano, Turin, 1978; A. de la Borderie, J. Daniel, R.P. Perquis and D. Tempier (eds.), Monuments originaux de l’histoire de Saint Yves, Saint-​Brieuc, 1887. P. Parigi, The Rationalization of Miracles, Cambridge, 2009, p. 62, still reports an 11 per cent proportion of non-​healings in the seventeenth century.

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the twelfth century involve non-​healing, rising to 54 per cent in the third book of the collection.40 68 per cent of the narratives in the Cantigas of Santa Maria of King Alfonso x of Castile (d. 1284), a compilation of over three hundred poems, are non-​healings.41 Non-​healings continue to make up 54 per cent of a collection compiled at the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Castile between c.1440 and c.1510.42 40 per cent of a sixteenth-​century Portuguese translation of miracles recorded at Our Lady of Montserrat in Catalonia between 1323 and 1542 are non-​healings. In several cases these last miracles demonstrate human resilience. For example, a group of clergymen whose ship had broken up managed to swim three and a half leagues to shore, and eighteen men trapped in a collapsed well were dug out by “friends and neighbors” who thought them to be dead.43 These percentages might say something about the universality of Marian intercession both in terms of what can be petitioned for, and the number of lower-​status pilgrims who invoked the Virgin Mary and had their experiences recorded.44 It may also say something about the continued prominence of non-​healing miracles and differing relationships between God, saints and communities in some regions.45 There is still a great deal of work to do on this topic.

40 41 42

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M. Bull (ed.), The Miracles of Our Lady of Rocamadour, Woodbridge, 1999. These include many liberations and protections from attack. K. Kulp-​Hill (ed.), Songs of Holy Mary of Alfonso X the Wise: a Translation of the Cantigas de Santa Maria, Tempe AZ, 2000. M.E. Díaz Tena (ed.), Los Milagros de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe (Siglo XV y Primordios del XVI): Edición y Breve Estudio del Manuscrito C-​1 del Archivo del Monasterio de Guadalupe, Mérida, 2017. I have used the tally of the manuscript itself which indexes its miracles, distinguishing between capture and imprisonment and separating protection at sea from protection on land. Braga, “Milagres de Nossa Senhora de Montserrat”, pp. 688, 719, both undated. The rescue of these men reminds me of the Chilean men dug out of a collapsed mine in 2010, and the rescue of Thai children from a cave in 2018. Both events were narrativized as modern miracles. B. Ward, Miracles and the Medieval Mind: Theory, Record and Event, 1000–​1215, Philadelphia, 1987, pp. 132–​65. These Iberian examples could be compared with northern shrines such as Our Lady of Amersfoort in the Low Countries. There are no surviving Marian collections from England.

258 M c Cleery 3

Non-​Healing Miracles in Late Medieval Portugal

The second part of this chapter will focus on a southern European region, and especially its Marian miracles, as a case study. It is not possible fully to characterize the Portuguese cult of the saints here, but it is important to note that there are no surviving canonization processes. Most Portuguese medieval saints were canonized after the Counter-​Reformation; the most recent in 2009 (Nuno de Santa Maria, d. 1431).46 In some cases the miracle accounts only survive in post-​medieval compilations. It is not always clear how Portuguese shrine collections were affected by broader hagiographical developments. There have been relatively few studies of them.47 Portuguese miracles follow the same patterns already noted for England as far as non-​healings are concerned: for the most part they are few and disparate. The twenty-​one miracles of Queen Isabel (d. 1336) include three cases: the preservation of her own corpse, a liberation, and a woman who saw her son again before she died.48 The only non-​healing miracle out of forty-​five attributed to Nossa Senhora da Oliveira (Our Lady of the Olive Tree) at Guimarães in northern Portugal in 1342–​3 was the bursting into leaf of a dry olive branch that was the reason for the cult in the first place.49 The twenty-​six miracles attributed to the Franciscan “Martyrs of Morocco” in Coimbra during the fifteenth century include one liberation and the protection of a family from plague.50 Out of two hundred and one fifteenth-​century miracles attributed to Nuno de Santa Maria, only nine (4 per cent) are non-​healings.51 The collection of miracles 46 47

48

49 50

51

G.C. Moiteiro, “Sobre Nun’Álvares Pereira: notas historiográficas”, Lusitânia Sacra 22 (2010), 203–​21. Before entering religious life, Nuno had been the right-​hand man of King João i (d. 1433). I follow Vauchez, Sainteté, p. 320, note 25, in identifying the cult of Anthony of Padua (d. 1231) as Italian, although he was Portuguese. For the Portuguese cult of the saints, see M. de L. Rosa, Santos e Demónios no Portugal Medieval, Oporto, 2010; M.C. de Almeida Lucas, Hagiografia Medieval Portuguesa, Lisbon, 1984; M. Martins, “Peregrinações e Livros de Milagres na nossa Idade Média”, Revista Portuguesa de História 5 (1951), 87–​236. J.J. Nunes, “Vida e milagres de Dona Isabel, rainha de Portugal”, Boletim da segunda classe da Academia das Sciências de Lisboa 13 (1918–​19), 1293–​1384 (pp. 1369–​70, 1380–​81, 1382–​83). For more on this royal cult based in Coimbra, see I. McCleery, “Isabel of Aragon (d.1336): model queen or model saint?”, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 57 (2006), 668–​92. C. Fernandes (ed.), O Livro dos Milagres de Nossa Senhora da Oliveira, Guimarães, 2006, p. 107. M.A. Fernandes, “Livro dos Milagres dos Santos Mártires (edição e estudo)”, unpublished MA diss., University of Lisbon, 1988, pp. 124–​28, 134–​36. These friars died on a preaching campaign in Morocco in 1220. Their cult, unusually centred on the Augustinian house of Santa Cruz in Coimbra, was papally recognized in 1478, the first Portuguese cult to be so. J.P. de Santana, Chronicas dos Carmelitas, Lisbon, 1745, vol. 1, pp. 486–​559 (pp. 493, 556–​ 59). These involve two liberations.

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compiled by André Dias attributed to the Holy Name of Jesus (Bom Jesús) in Lisbon in 1432 has only one (a sea story) out of thirty-​five miracles, although the prologue explains that the achievements of King João i (1385–​1433) were themselves miracles.52 The sea story in this last collection is striking. João Rodrigues Çaquoto explained in 1432 that a storm arose off Cape St Vincent in the Algarve forcing his ship to land on a beach. And when he jumped off the boat to get to land like the others did, such a great wave came that he was swept out to sea. He commended himself very devotedly to the good lord Jesus, and called his name three times, which was a very certain and proven thing, and immediately at that moment another greater wave came that threw him [on the beach] at the feet of the Countess of Ceuta and Rui Nogueira.53 The “Countess of Ceuta” is a reference to a wife of Pedro de Meneses, governor of Ceuta from 1415 until his death in 1437. He was Count of Vila Real, not of Ceuta; a detail that may not have meant much to a sailor. Pedro married four times; this may have been his third wife, Beatriz de Coutinho, who went to Ceuta in 1426. Rui Nogeira was presumably the alcaide-​mor or mayor of Lisbon of this name who married Pedro’s natural daughter Aldonça.54 Non-​healings are more prominent in a very small number of cults. A collection of twenty-​four miracles of St Vincent, the patron saint of Lisbon, compiled by Master Estêvão, cantor of Lisbon Cathedral in the late-​twelfth century, includes seven non-​healings, mainly recoveries of property. One of these is particularly interesting in relation to the theme of justice. A poor man was entrusted to look after somebody else’s four gold coins, but they were stolen. He was taken before a pretor and judged to forfeit all his goods. After trying magic in vain, he and his wife prayed to Vincent, and the man had a vision telling him where to find the thief who returned the coins on condition that he

52

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M. Martins (ed.), Laudes e Cantigas Espirituais de Mestre André Dias (d. c.1437), Negrelos, 1951, pp. 283–​98 (p. 297). I counted thirty-​three healing miracles in McCleery, “Christ more powerful than Galen”, p. 139, ignoring the sea story and an animal healing. There is a rubric for a thirty-​sixth miracle in the damaged manuscript (Lisbon, Biblioteca Nacional, ms Iluminados 61). Martins (ed.), Laudes e Cantigas, p. 297. M. Lopes de Almeida, I.F. da Costa Brochado & A.J. Dias Dinis (eds.), Monumenta Henricina, Lisboa, 1960, vol 1, pp. 152–​4, notes 1–​4.

260 M c Cleery was not denounced.55 Another collection of seven miracles attributed to the same saint in the first half of the thirteenth century includes two non-​healings, one of which is the long and complex escape of a Cistercian monk from Islamic captivity. On reaching safety, the beneficiary of the miracle stood in his irons during a sermon describing what had happened: “so that they saw and knew that he was indeed tied up by Saracens and released from these chains by St Vincent”.56 The cult of Gil de Santarém (d. 1265) has a proportion of non-​healings that is close to Finucane’s estimated 10 per cent. Gil was a Portuguese Dominican friar who practiced medicine, compiled and translated medical texts, and gained a reputation for holiness within his lifetime.57 The main vita by André de Resende (d. 1573) attributes to Gil ten non-​healings out of one hundred and sixteen miracles. They include the return of a fugitive novice; protection of a woman who fell from a height; the restoration of a dry well in a drought; and the recapture of two enslaved Muslim men who had run away from the Cistercian nunnery of Celas de Guimarães near Coimbra. The nuns sent four wax feet to the shrine in thanks.58 In some ways this last example is a kind of “anti-​liberation” miracle since it was clearly a personal tragedy for the two people most directly involved. The votive offering in this case destabilizes the idea that models of body parts were left at shrines because of illness. In this case it is unfortunately necessary to think of people as ecclesiastical property, reduced to the same level as animals (or reluctant novices) that are prevented from escaping in other cults. Despite the fact that Gil was best known for his healing miracles, in the prologue to a manuscript of one of his medical compilations –​a large collection of herbal remedies translated from Latin to Catalan to Tuscan Italian, dated 24 May 1463, nearly two hundred years after his death –​there is mention of a non-​ healing miracle. The translator/​scribe of this manuscript seems personally 55

56 57 58

A.A. Nascimento & S.A. Gomes (eds.), “S. Vicente de Lisbon e seus milagres medievais”, Didaskalia 15 (1985), 73–​160 (pp. 125–​27). The Latin is unclear; the translators indicate that the couple consulted a witch, but it is more likely that they saw a soothsayer. See T. Johnson, “Soothsayers, legal culture and the politics of truth in late-​medieval England”, Cultural and Social History 17 (2020), pp. 431–​50. Nascimento & Gomes (eds.), “S. Vicente”, pp. 141–​9. I. McCleery, “Saintly physician, diabolical doctor, medieval saint: exploring the reputation of Gil de Santarém in medieval and renaissance Portugal”, Portuguese Studies 21 (2005), 112–​25. This text was published in Paris in 1586. I use the modern bilingual critical edition: V.S. Pereira (ed.), Aegidius Scallabitanus: um diálogo sobre Fr. Gil de Santarém, Lisbon, 2000, pp. 374, 401–​07, 427–​29, 486–​87, 586–​89, 595–​97.

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very well-​informed about Gil’s life and works, but out of all the miracles that the writer could have mentioned in the prologue of a text meant for physical healing, the one that he recalled highlights non-​healing intervention, a reminder of its importance: I the scribe have been to that place and convent [in Santarém, eighty miles up the river Tagus from Lisbon] and heard of many of his miracles and notable deeds in life and in death, amongst others of a well built in the convent, held to be an impossible thing in that place where there is a great lack of water.59 The really unusual example from Portugal is the miracle collection of Our Lady of Virtues from the fifteenth century. The shrine was the consequence of the miraculous discovery of an ivory statue of the Virgin Mary in 1403, leading eventually to the founding of a Franciscan priory, well-​endowed by King Duarte of Portugal (1433–​38), with an annual fair and a good position near the main road between Lisbon and the Castilian border.60 The only manuscript copy of a collection of fifty-​six miracles dated between 1403 and 1498 was made in 1497 on the orders of royal confessor João da Póvoa who complained that the friars had been negligent in recording the miracles properly.61 Almost 20 per cent of the miracles of this cult are non-​healing, that is eleven out of fifty-​six. All but one of the recipients of these miracles are male adults who display considerable agency. The exception is a sleeping child who falls into the sea from a boat but is rescued by his father.62 One sailor in 1408 on a troubled voyage to Flanders represents an enterprising group of mariners who drew lots to see which of them would go on pilgrimage to the shrine. As soon as he was chosen, their storm-​damaged ship ceased to cause them further problems, although they also had the presence of mind to cut down the mast and throw things overboard to aid buoyancy.63 The miracles also include five liberations from captivity or execution, all dating from the early-​ fifteenth century. Translations of them are provided in an appendix and they will be the focus of the last section of this chapter. 59 60 61 62 63

Bethesda MD, National Library of Medicine, ms 22 (Rimedii de diverse malatie), fol. 17. This is probably not the well mentioned in Resende’s vita, since that one was reported by the same Cistercian nuns who saw the return of their slaves. M.G. Ventura, C. Oliveira & R. Pereira, “A igreja de Santa Maria das Virtudes: diversas temporalidades de um local de devoção”, Via Spiritus 7 (2000), 77–​97. The manuscript is Lisbon, Biblioteca Nacional, Cod. 7286. For its compiler, see V.G. Teixeira, “Fr. João da Póvoa e o movimento da observância Franciscana portuguesa entre 1447 e 1517”, Lusitânia Sacra, 2nd series, 17 (2005), 227–​54. Beirante (ed.), Livro, p. 38. Beirante (ed.), Livro, p. 43.

262 M c Cleery 4

Liberation and Political Justice: Interpreting the Miracles of Our Lady of Virtues

The five liberation miracles from this Portuguese Marian cult cover a wide range of ways in which men could escape death and/​or imprisonment. Two of them are divinely-​enabled liberations replete with biblical topoi in which the individual finds himself suddenly released with fetters loosened and the doors open, and even transported mysteriously outside (miracles 2 and 4). Yet one of these cases also involves a legal stay of execution. The other three are even more interesting: Afonso de Viseu (miracle 1) is allowed to go to the court of appeal at the last minute; Pero Velho (miracle 3) receives a stay of execution, a pardon and/​or a commutation of the sentence; and in the last (miracle 5) the judge receives a vision in which the Virgin Mary insists that the accused is innocent of the crime. Innocence is usually not as relevant as contrition in these cases. All of the miracles in this collection, both healing and non-​healing, provide an unusual level of insight into some well-​known political contexts of the period. For example, in 1425 Gil Fernandes attributed to Our Lady of Virtues his nine years without injury in North Africa.64 He was part of the Portuguese forces at the conquest of Ceuta in 1415, traditionally seen as the starting point of the Portuguese imperial expansion in Africa. Fernão Vaz arrived at the shrine in 1420 to explain how he was healed of wounds received the second time he went to Ceuta, which might mean that he also participated in the original invasion.65 Pero Velho, the man who miraculously escaped execution for his involvement in an incident at sea (miracle 3 in the appendix), was on an expedition to take “the rich lady” to England. She was Beatriz, the natural daughter of King João i, who married the Earl of Arundel in London in 1405.66 The Gonçalo Lourenço who condemned Pero to death was probably Gonçalo Lourenço de Gomide, the king’s “private secretary” (escrivão da puridade) and royal counsellor, who was responsible for taking Beatriz to England.67 It is not stated whether Pero was on-​board ship because he was already sentenced to the galleys for some other crime, but he is not described as a sailor or servant.

64 65 66

67

Beirante (ed.), Livro, p. 57. He was also cured of Stone. Beirante (ed.), Livro, p. 55. M. Santos Silva, “O casamento de D. Beatriz de Portugal (filha natural de D. João I) com Thomas Fitzalan (Conde de Arundel): paradigma documental da negociaçião de uma aliança”, in A. Leal de Faria and I. Drumond Braga (eds.), Problematizar a História, Casal de Cambra, 2007, 77–​91. R. Costa Gomes, The Making of a Court Society: Kings and Nobles in Late Medieval Portugal, Cambridge, 2003, p. 182.

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In this naval context, the incident (arruído) was plausibly a mutiny, which, considering the high-​status passengers, might explain the initial severity of the sentence. These kinds of political name-​and place-​dropping are not uncommon features of non-​healing protection miracles, especially sea stories and liberations. The only non-​healing miracle in the cult of Bom Jesús, the previously recounted sea story, also fits this pattern. Nicole Archambeau discusses several examples of politically-​ sensitive protection miracles in her chapter in this volume. Protection miracles are sometimes interpreted by modern observers as ways of explaining good luck, chance or coincidence through a religious lens. Although the compiler of one late twelfth-​century miracle attributed to St Thomas Becket goes out of his way to explain that the recovery of a lost horse was not due to chance, the fact that William of Canterbury feels he has to say this means that chance was understood at the time to be a possible explanation.68 Robert Bartlett argues, using a very ordinary miracle of St Foy’s recovery of a lost book, that the key to a miraculous event was a prior invocation of a particular saint, not whether it could reasonably have happened anyway.69 Chance, however, is not allowed to appear in these ingenious Portuguese liberations. There are political reasons for these narratives and their high-​profile witnesses. Michael Goodich suggested that the preponderance of liberation miracles in France during the eleventh and twelfth centuries is related to “unsettled conditions and military conflict such as internecine feudal warfare and the Crusades in Spain”.70 In a later book, Goodich firmly links the need for liberation and protection in the fourteenth century to what historians call the “late medieval crisis”.71 Similarly, Steven Sargent emphasizes social disorder in his study of miracles in eleventh-​century Aquitaine, and Pierre-​André Sigal refers to “l’anarchie féodale” to explain the higher proportion of liberations in eleventh-​century France.72

68

Robertson (ed.), Materials, vol. 1, pp. 282–​83. See also C. Watkins, “Providence, experience and doubt in medieval England,” in Y. Batsaki, S. Mukherji & J.-​M. Schramm (eds.), Fictions of Knowledge: Fact, Evidence, Doubt, Basingstoke, 2012, pp. 40–​60 (pp. 45–​46). 69 Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things? pp. 333, 587–​609. See also S. Justice, “Did the Middle Ages believe in their miracles?”, Representations 103 (2008), 1–​29; K. Brewer, Wonder and Skepticism in the Middle Ages, Abingdon, 2016. 70 Goodich, “Miraculous military escape”, p. 6. 71 M. Goodich, Violence and Miracle in the Fourteenth Century: Private Grief and Public Salvation, Chicago, 1995. 72 S. Sargent, “Religious responses to social violence in eleventh-​ century Aquitaine”, Historical Reflections 12 (1985), 219–​40; Sigal, l’Homme, p. 269.

264 M c Cleery Liberation miracles have also been studied in scholarship on prisons. Guy Geltner posits a “hagiography of jail-​breaking saints” in his study, although he sees it as a “marginal strand” found mostly in regions of conflict on the edge of Europe.73 Megan Cassidy-​Welch and Julia Hillner argue that liberation miracles had symbolic value, revealing more about theological beliefs in the soul’s captivity and relationships between confinement, exile, asceticism and martyrdom than about the realities of medieval imprisonment.74 Cassidy-​Welch suggests that descriptions of individual ingenuity in liberation miracles represent the contrition “sparked from within” needed for a successful escape rather than opportunism.75 Both Hillner and Sargent suggest that the legal right to free captives was acquired by saintly abbots and bishops who used it to practice charity and to enlarge their jurisdiction within late-​Roman towns. After death, this right became part of their intercessory powers, and then because their miracles were so influential, the theme of liberation passed into European hagiography more broadly.76 On the surface, Iberian liberation miracles might seem to relate to Geltner’s idea of inter-​faith conflict at the edge of Europe; there are numerous examples of escapes from Islamic captivity and conversions to Christianity. These kinds of liberations are particularly common in the Cantigas de Santa Maria and the cult of Dominic of Silos (d. 1073).77 However, the period of Christian “reconquest” –​the taking of land from Muslim rulers within the Iberian Peninsula –​ had ended by 1250 in Portugal and there were long periods of stability thereafter. The miracles of protection in the collection of Our Lady of Virtues, written in the aftermath of the royal-​led conquest of Ceuta, have a different flavor to those of decentralized eleventh-​century France. The local or national and chronological contexts of any shrine are certainly of paramount importance to understanding the content of its miracle

73 74

G. Geltner, The Medieval Prison: A Social History, Princeton, 2008, pp. 86–​88. M. Cassidy-​Welch, Imprisonment in the Medieval Religious Imagination, c.1150–​1400, Basingstoke, 2011, pp. 36–​57; J. Hillner, Prison, Punishment and Penance in Late Antiquity, Cambridge, 2015, pp. 242–​74. See also K. Frances, “Memory and identity in the late medieval prison”, unpublished PhD diss., University of Manchester, 2013. 75 Cassidy-​Welch, Imprisonment, p. 53. 76 Sargent, “Religious responses”; Hillner, Prison, pp. 260–​ 61. The pioneering study of this process was F. Graus, “Die Gewalt bei den Anfängen des Feudalismus und die ‘Gefangenenbefreiungen’ der merowingischen Hagiographie”, Jahrbuch fűr Wirtschaftsgeschichte 1 (1961), 61–​157. 77 A. Lappin, The Medieval Cult of Saint Dominic of Silos, Leeds, 2002, pp. 171–​95. Escapes from Islamic captivity were this saint’s dominant miracle. Lappin explores them as theological metaphors and ecclesiastical viewpoints on Islam and Christian jurisdiction.

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collection but, as Archambeau says in her chapter in this volume, we ought to be careful about placing too much emphasis on conflict or crisis as a reason for miracles. Any century might have periods of crisis and all crises are relative. It is unclear whether violence and upheaval became worse at certain times rather than becoming more meaningful to a larger number of literate people. Research that focuses too much on hardship can inadvertently perpetuate negative ideas about the Middle Ages in modern popular perception. Approaches to the late Middle Ages are less pessimistic than they were in the 1980s-​1990s, when scholars were still influenced by the many economic and humanitarian crises of the twentieth century, and by Malthusian and Marxist debates.78 Medieval people saw liberation miracles as the result of divine intervention, but often describe them as brought about by prisoners seizing opportunities either legally or illegally. The fact that miracles could involve legal release from captivity via the granting of a pardon, payment of a ransom or a prisoner exchange is worth exploring further. It is also necessary to consider the opposite process to that observed by Sargent and Hillner; they observed the influence of early-​medieval political power-​broking on hagiographical topoi, but it may be the case that in the late Middle Ages hagiographical, penitential and other didactic religious writings had, in their turn, an influence on politics.79 It is necessary to seek alternative reasons within their contemporary political context for why a fifteenth-​century Portuguese cult might have several prominent liberation miracles. The miracles prove insightful for a country that lacks the kinds of criminal justice records that Geltner, for example, is able to enjoy for Italy. However, rather than viewing miracles as transparent windows onto daily life they should be read both with and against the grain; that is, miracles can be seen as guides to behavior but also as transgressive in their own right, showing commentary on moments of social change. Often it is the saintly intervention that circumvents norms, not human activity. It is necessary to pay more attention to the social detail in these miracles and compare them to other types of text, especially legal narratives. Very little is known about criminal justice in late medieval Portugal. Unlike in France, England or Italy, prescriptive legislation and the royal pardon letter is what survives; lower and local levels of everyday justice and much of the 78 79

See Archambeau’s chapter in this volume, and also B. Bove, “Une interminable agonie?”, in N. Weill-​Parot and V. Sales (eds.), Le vrai visage du Moyen Âge au-​delà des idées reçues, Paris, 2017, pp. 373–​88. I am influenced here by L.L. Zanetti Domingues, “Religion, Conflict and Criminal Justice in Thirteenth and Fourteenth Century Siena”, unpublished PhD diss., University of Oxford, 2019.

266 M c Cleery evidence of seigneurial, ecclesiastical and magistrates’ courts has disappeared, as have prison records.80 Miracles are therefore extremely valuable sources for criminal justice, although they have not been studied to this end for Portugal. A comparison of royal pardon letters and miraculous liberations shows a close relationship between the two types of narrative. Both contain the convoluted rhetoric of innocence, guilt and penance, escape from prison, commutation of sentences, payment of fines, pilgrimage, and the theme of divine protection.81 The fifteenth century was a period during which a country with a small population expanded commercially and politically into North Africa and beyond. Normally, it is argued that kings preferred not to execute militarily-​trained individuals (which constituted most adult men) if they could help it. Therefore, enforced exile to penal colonies both in Portugal and in North Africa and the Atlantic islands was common, even in cases of adultery, robbery and murder. It is not clear though if such exile was seen as equivalent to a death sentence.82 It would be useful to compare Portugal to other late-​medieval regions in which systems of criminal justice can also be observed undergoing profound change, and where hagiography and sermons were used to promote these changes and articulate anxieties about them.83 80

L.M. Duarte, Justiça e Criminalidade no Portugal medieval (1459–​1481), Lisbon, 1999; Idem, “A justiça medieval portuguesa (inventário de dúvidas)”, Cuadernos de Historia del Derecho 11 (2004), 87–​97; M. Garcez Ventura, “A justiça no quotidiano: os corregedores do reino”, História 34 (2015), 60–​74; A. Vitória, “Bad Cases and Worse Lawyers: Patterns of Legal Expertise in Medieval Portuguese Court Records, c.1200–​1400”, Open Library of Humanities 5 (2019), > (accessed 23 May 2021). 81 Duarte, Justiça, pp. 35–​58, 453–​90, explores Portuguese pardons in detail, comparing his findings with those of N.Z. Davis, Fiction in the Archives: Pardon Tales and their Tellers in Sixteenth-​Century France, Stanford, 1987. For both scholars, pardon letters are versions of events that were “true” for the teller. See also Peter Arnade and Walter Prevenier, Honor, Vengeance and Social Trouble: Pardon Letters in the Burgundian Low Countries, Ithaca, 2015, 13–​18, which begins (p. 1) with a pardon that was narrated as a miracle of a thwarted execution, although Arnade and Prevenier do not otherwise discuss miracle narratives as influences. 82 Duarte, Justiça, p. 442; Idem, “Um luxo para um pais pobre? A pena de morte no Portugal medievo”, Clio & Crimen 4 (2007), 63–​94. Pardon letters were first issued in the mid-​ fourteenth century, but their use greatly increased in 1415 and they became routine in the mid-​fifteenth century (Afonso V issued c.15,000). Women were also pardoned and exiled: see i.m.m. Ribeira de Queirós, “Theudas e manteudas: a criminalidade feminina no reinado de D. João II através das cartas de perdão (1481–​1485)”, unpublished MA diss., University of Oporto, 1999. For numerous examples of pardon letters, see P. de Azevedo (ed.), Documentos das Chancelarias Reais Anteriores a 1531 Relativos a Marrocos, 2 vols, Lisbon, 1915–​34. 83 For comparisons, see Zanetti Dominguez, “Religion, conflict and criminal justice”, pp. 279–​85.

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Portuguese pardon letters frequently mention escape from prison since the individual was often on the run when they petitioned the king. Duarte points out that jails –​intended for temporary custody –​often had limited security measures and poor vigilance; iron restraints were probably old and rusty, locks could be picked. A frequent motif is avoidance of harm to prison property –​ doors, fetters –​while escaping, in order to avoid further accusations of criminal damage or theft. Jailers not infrequently allowed their inmates to escape, either through bribery or sympathy, often because they were themselves reluctant, untrained and poorly-​paid.84 For example, in 1482 the pardon of Maria Fernandes reported that she and other prisoners were freed by a jailer who took pity on them because an outbreak of pestilence had caused everyone else to flee.85 A northern European merchant Eustache de la Fosse, imprisoned near Lisbon in 1480 for illegally trading in West Africa, was also able to bribe a jailer during an outbreak of plague to free him and other prisoners.86 If we return to the miracles of Our Lady of Virtues, several motifs might now seem clearer. For example, in miracles 2 and 4 doors open and fetters fall off undamaged much as in the pardons. To some extent it is the taking of the fetters to the shrine that is transgressive in these miracles, since legally that is theft. The detailed account of his restraints provided by an ironworker (ferrador) in miracle 4 makes one wonder whether he made such things and whether he was skilled enough to remove them. The chouriços or “sausages” that he mentions evoke a thick, curved piece of metalwork that prevented movement. We also hear about the ceremonial aspects of execution: the scaffold, the procession to it, the presence of criers (pregoeiros) whose job it was to preach the infamy of the condemned individual as part of their punishment. There is one reference to the Relação in miracle 1; that is, the Casa da Suplicação, which was the royal tribunal that considered appeals in the case of serious crimes.87 The last-​ minute reprieve in this case may mean that a petition had just been granted or the individual had just been given an opportunity to present a petition, which was ultimately successful.88 Miracles 3 and 5 provide some commentary on the 84 Duarte, Justiça, pp. 413–​20. 85 Queirós, “Theudas”, vol. 2, pp. 6–​7. 86 R. Foulché-​Delbosc, (ed.), Voyage à la côte occidentale d’Afrique en Portugal et en Espagne (1479–​80), Paris, 1897, pp. 23–​24. Eustache did not describe his escape as a miracle but he vowed his journey home to Our Lady of Guadalupe and visited that shrine on his way back to Bruges. The account survives solely in Bibliothèque de Valenciennes ms 489, which otherwise contains pilgrimage narratives. 87 Duarte, Justiça, p. 213. 88 We similarly find this court mentioned in a miracle of Nuno de Santa Maria: Santana, Chronicas, vol 1, p. 558.

268 M c Cleery kinds of otherwise opaque negotiations that might have led to successive commutations of sentence or their replacement by the payment of fines or compensation. Finally, the judge in miracle 5 is presented as conscientious, pious and zealous in his work. It could be argued that the Virgin’s intervention is disruptive here. The judge represents an ideal of divinely-​guided official service that can be compared to a later fresco of the good and the bad judge discovered in the former court house in Monsaraz on the Portuguese-​Spanish border. This unique survival of civic art from the Portuguese Middle Ages shows a concern with the proper process of justice –​for example, avoiding bribery –​presided over by an image of Christ in Majesty.89 There are of course chronological problems in that some of the primary and secondary evidence used to contextualize and inform my interpretation of these miracles post-​dates them considerably. Unfortunately, very little is known about criminal justice in the fourteenth and early-​fifteenth centuries, partly because the royal chancery records for that period survive mainly in slimmed-​down redactions. It is possible that these miracles might represent attempts to accustom the population to judicial procedures such as fines, compensation, and petitioning. They may parallel processes that Lidia Zanetti Dominguez sees in action in Siena in Italy in an earlier period: the change from accusatorial to inquisitorial systems of criminal justice, and the influence of religious ideals on execution and imprisonment.90 The aforementioned arrest of a man for theft described in the miracles of St Vincent of Lisbon show that miracles could already have such a social function during the accusatorial system of the twelfth century. A miracle of Queen Isabel may show petitioning in action as early as the 1330s.91 More work would need to be done on how miracles were used in Portuguese preaching and chronicles in order to prove this point. However, it is striking how supportive these miracles are in relation to royal justice. It would be simplistic to dismiss any of these cases as indicative of lawlessness. They are very different to many earlier miracles in which lords and bandits apparently seized their captives arbitrarily. It would, however, 89

90 91

C. Mourão, “O bom e o mau juíz: fresco dos antigos paços de audiência de Monsaraz”, Cidade de Évora, 2nd series, 2 (1996–​97), 297–​306; M. Gil & ten others, “Microanalytical study of the fresco ‘The Good and the Bad Judge’ in the medieval village of Monsaraz (southern Portugal)”, X-​Ray Spectrometry 42 (2013), 242–​50. Zanetti Dominguez, “Religion, Conflict and Criminal Justice”, 21, 26, 87. A man imprisoned by the Cistercian Abbot of Alcobaça claimed to have been freed by the queen in 1335. Since he referred to her tomb in Coimbra, it is possible that the date is confused as Isabel died in 1336. However, it is feasible that he successfully petitioned the queen before her death, and then visited her tomb the following year. See Nunes, “Vida e milagres”, pp. 1382–​83.

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equally be a mistake to take these cases at face value for the smooth running of the judicial systems; they are representations of and guides to an ideal situation with the whole point being that saintly intervention could circumvent the law but that humans should not. They could however comment on it through accounts of holy intervention. Most of the Portuguese miracle collections discussed here also have close relationships with the royal family from its establishment in the twelfth century and throughout its late medieval process of centralization. The cult of St Vincent in Lisbon was closely connected to the political ambitions of the first king Afonso Henriques (d. 1185) as he moved his center of power further south from Coimbra. Our Lady of Virtues was promoted by King Duarte and its miracles compiled by a royal confessor; one of the witnesses to miracle 2 was a page of the king’s chamber. The miracles of Bom Jésus refer to anxieties around the anticipated death of an aged king, João, who had overcome great adversity to seize the throne and expand his kingdom. Many of the miracles involve minor royal officials. Miracles could be signs of the maintenance of order and calls for continuity; they were not necessarily signs of disorder. 5

Conclusions

Late-​medieval miracle collections compiled at shrines were didactic in nature. They could be used to guide, comment upon, and reinforce the principles of law and order. Often it is non-​healing miracles –​particularly liberations and sea stories –​that most easily allow the transmission of this kind of political or judicial message since they allow leading political actors to associate themselves with a cult while avoiding the stigma of imprisonment, illness or injury.92 The political factor might also help to explain why so many recipients of non-​healing miracles seem to have been adult men, although more research needs to be done on gender in this respect. Liberations from captivity are particularly important political narratives that reflect ideals and perceptions of the exercise of power, as has been pointed out by numerous scholars. However,

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This is not to say that kings and other powerful people did not go on pilgrimage; there is plenty of evidence that they did so and were often greatly devoted to specific shrines. However, in most hagiographical texts such people appear most often as witnesses and donors rather than as beneficiaries of miracles in need of divine aid. King Alfonso x of Castile was highly unusual in depicting himself and his family as recipients of cures: see J.F. O’Callaghan, Alfonso X and the Cantigas de Santa Maria: a Spiritual Biography, Leiden, 1998.

270 M c Cleery saying that a period of history is violent is not a sufficient reason for these miracles. There are of course numerous questions still to be answered. How were miracles disseminated by shrines? How did non-​healing and healing miracles relate to one another? Some individuals experienced both illness and other forms of adversity, reporting them together in a combined visit of thanks to the shrine. Close scrutiny of the language of miracles suggests comparisons between illness, imprisonment, or other mishap, at both physical and spiritual levels. There is much future work to be done on the topic of non-​healing miracles. However, shrine miracles should be seen both as policy tools as well as performances of power; they belong to carefully curated collections that reflect compilers’ views and interests, including political affiliations and social anxieties. Miracles reported during canonization processes appear to differ from miracles recorded at shrines, but non-​healings do continue to feature in the cults of some late-​medieval canonized saints. The differences between in vita and post-​mortem events could be compared further for what they say about personal interventions or ingenuity on the part of the saint or miracle beneficiary. Finally, regional and national differences should be compared and discussed much more. The Portuguese cases presented here indicate that the specific criminal justice system of a particular time and place shaped the narratives well beyond the standard Biblical topoi. In this kingdom, where no saints were canonized during the Middle Ages, liberation miracles were less an escape from justice and more a sign of a justice system at work.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Amy Devenney, Georgina Fitzgibbon and Ian Styler for accepting an early version of this chapter for their session on sainthood at the International Medieval Congress in Leeds in 2017. I would like to thank Alexandra Lee and Emilia Jamroziak for their helpful comments on that paper, and William Flynn for help with the Latin.

Appendix

1

Concerning a Man Condemned to Death, Freed by Holy Mary

In the year of Our Lord Jesus Christ 1406, there also arrived at this house a man called Afonso de Viseu. He said that he had been a prisoner for three years because he was accused of killing a man, and on Friday 23 March, he was

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condemned to hang.93 As they took him to be hanged, with a noose around his neck and his hands tied behind him, he commended himself to Holy Mary of Virtues with all his heart and will. Immediately, they ordered him to turn to the tribunal (Relação) to provide evidence before it, and the next day they ordered him to be released. He came here with the noose around his neck, as he had thus promised. Witnesses: Estêvão Gonçalves Pimentel, Gonçalo Fernandes and Álvaro Afonso, who wrote this.94 2

Concerning a Man Whom They Ordered to Be Beheaded, Freed by the Virgin Mary

In the aforesaid year and month [October 1413], a squire arrived at [the shrine of] Holy Mary of Virtues who was called João Cide from Castelo de Vide. He said that he was a prisoner in the jail (correição) of Entre-​Tejo-​e-​Odiana [south central Portugal] for five months and was condemned by the judge (corregedor) to be hanged. He argued that he was a nobleman (fidalgo) so the king ordered them to cut off his head. As he was taken from the prison (cadeia) to be beheaded, he commended himself very much from the heart to Holy Mary of Virtues, and the judge ordered him back to the prison (prisão). That following night, he found himself released from fetters of four links, and from a chain that was around his neck, and the doors open. He went out and went to Holy Mary of Virtues and told all that had happened to him. Witnesses: Álvaro Gil, page of the king’s chamber; João de Óbidos; João Vicente, cleric; and Vicente Lourenço, proctor of Holy Mary of Virtues.95 3

Concerning a Man Condemned to Death and Freed from Death by Holy Mary the Virtuous

A man arrived here, in the year of the Lord 1407 on 13 July, who had the name Pero Velho. He lived in Samouco de Ribatejo and came from Lisbon in chains. He said that when they ordered the rich lady [to be taken] to England, he went in a galley and a fight/​mutiny (arruído) broke out in the said galley for which he was taken prisoner, saying that he caused that fight. Gonçalo Lourenço ordered him to be hanged. With his hands tied and the men of the king and the 93 94 95

This date in that year was a Tuesday. Beirante (ed.), Livro, p. 37. Beirante (ed.), Livro, pp. 38–​9.

272 M c Cleery proclaimers ready to take him, he commended himself to Holy Mary of Virtues and through the grace and virtue of the said Lady, they ordered him to be taken to the castle. Afterwards he was twice condemned to be hanged and by virtue of the Lady was freed and hanging was commuted to being cut and whipped throughout the city and exiled from the kingdom. He again asked for help from the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Virtues and immediately that night he was released and they ordered him to serve a year in the castle. Witnesses: Lopo Pires, and I, Rodrigo Anes, servant of Holy Mary, who wrote this.96 4

Concerning a Prisoner, Released by the Virgin Mary

In the year 1411, a man arrived at Holy Mary of Virtues called Rui Pires, a farrier/​ smith (ferrador) who lived in Beja. He had been a prisoner in Portel and had some manacles (? chouriços) and over them fetters of four links and even more, and his feet held against the trunk of his body (?), and was in a very strong and well-​sealed tower. This is because they said that he killed a man and he was condemned to be hanged. He promised himself with great devotion to Holy Mary of Virtues and immediately that night he saw the Virgin Mary in a vision. He found himself outside the tower and outside two circuits of walls with the shackles and manacles. He came to Santa Maria das Virtudes to tell everything about how he was freed by the virtue of the Blessed Virgin. Witnesses: Fernão Pires, abbot of Sendim; Lourenço Pires, administrator (mordomo) of the house of the said Lady; and João Bartolomeu.97 5

Concerning a Man Who Was Ordered to Be Hanged for Homicide, Freed by Holy Mary

In the year of the Lord 1425, a man arrived at Holy Mary of Virtues called João Anes de Valedo who lived in Albufeira. He said he was accused of stealing 2000 reais from a merchant who was lodging in his house, for which he was imprisoned and condemned to be hanged. Since his son had made an agreement [avença –​probably an arrangement to pay compensation or a fine], the judge said that it was not necessary to have more witnesses, because the agreement proved that he had done it, and he was condemned to be hanged the next

96 97

Beirante (ed.), Livro, pp. 48–​49. Beirante (ed.), Livro, p. 51.

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day. Seeing himself thus condemned to death, he commended himself to Holy Mary of Virtues that she would want to free him because of his piety as she knew that he was guiltless. That night as the judge was studying the case, the Virgin Mary appeared before him bringing the prisoner with her and told him that in no way was he to do anything bad to that man who was not guilty of the deed of which he was accused. The next day in the court, the judge reported the vision that he had seen and got the worthy men to release the prisoner, but because the son had made an agreement, they judged that he should pay it [the fine or compensation] and then they freed the prisoner. He came to Holy Mary of Virtues and reported this miracle. Witnesses: Brother Afonso Saco and Brother Gonçalo de Penela.98 98

Beirante (ed.), Livro, pp. 55–​56. The rubric mentions homicida but the narrative refers to theft.

­c hapter 13

Protection Miracles as Evidence for the Shifting Political Landscape of Fourteenth-​Century Provence Nicole Archambeau 1

Introduction

The protection miracle is a mainstay of miracle collections and canonization inquest testimony.1 Evidence from the twelfth through to the fourteenth centuries shows that people frequently turned to saints for protection in a variety of dangerous situations. Historians have used these miracles to explore the dangers in daily life in the Middle Ages. But these miracles can reveal more than just what dangers people faced and how their communities reacted. Protection miracles can also highlight political, economic, and social links, both locally and across regions. Saints did not exist in a political or social vacuum. They were part of the fabric of political networks, especially since so many late medieval saints came from aristocratic families or had acted as bishops and abbots of important cities.2 Saints’ political and social roles appeared in their miracles. For instance, turning to a specific saint when in danger of drowning could reveal a merchant’s political alliances with the royal family supporting that saint. 2

Defining the Protection Miracle

But what is a protection miracle? It seems obvious on the surface, but a clear definition does not emerge from miracle collections and canonization inquests. The Gospels were in many ways the first miracle collection and they include protection miracles, such as Jesus protecting the frightened apostles from the storm. Later saints’ lives and miracle collections included protection miracles 1 R. Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things? Saints and Worshippers from the Martyrs to the Reformation, Princeton, 2013, pp. 342–​44. 2 A. Vauchez, Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages, translated by J. Birrell, Cambridge, 1997, pp. 256–​67.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2021 | DOI:10.1163/9789004468498_015

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echoing those found in the Gospels. For example, the influential collection of miracles in Book 22, ­chapter 8 of Augustine of Hippo’s The City of God against the Pagans, which also influenced later collectors of miracles, had many miracles that echoed those found in the Bible, but included no clear definition of types or strict organization.3 Canonization inquests of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries included miracle summaries in the articles of interrogation that organizers read aloud to witnesses so they could address them.4 These gradually imposed order on the holy person’s miracles. By the middle of the fourteenth century, articles describing healing miracles tended to appear first, often grouped by type of illness.5 Articles describing different kinds of miracles such as freedom from incarceration, finding lost objects, and rescues usually appeared after healing miracles. A main organizing principle of articles of interrogation seems to be healing vs. non-​healing.6 However, no clear category of protection emerges in the non-​healing miracles from these sources. The category of protection miracles is, therefore, one imposed by modern scholars. Among scholars studying miracles, there has been little consensus on what protection means. For example, Donald Weinstein and Rudolph Bell developed a statistical analysis of Christian sanctity from 1000–​1700. In this analysis, they explored the frameworks of sanctity for holy people of different ages and sexes. In their statistical profiles, the category of “Patrons of cities, protectors for specific conditions and classes” appears.7 But this category is never directly defined. The few examples given in the chapters shed little light on what they understand protection or patronage to be.8 We see some of the diversity in Didier Lett’s exploration of Nicolas of Tolentino’s canonization inquest. Lett refers to Nicolas as a protector in different situations. 3 For an English translation, see Augustine, City of God Against the Pagans, edited and translated by R.W. Dyson, Cambridge, 1998, pp. 1120–​34. On the importance of Augustine’s miracle collection to later medieval authors, see M. Goodich, Violence and Miracle and the Fourteenth Century: Private Grief and Public Salvation, Chicago, 1995, pp. 147–​48. 4 Vauchez, Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages, pp. 46–​ 50. M. Goodich, Miracles and Wonders: The Development of the Concept of Miracle, 1150–​1350, Aldershot, 2007, pp. 69–​86. 5 For the varying ways articles could appear in canonization inquests, see C. Krötzl and S. Katajala-​Peltomaa, “Approaching Twelfth-​to Fifteenth-​Century Miracles: Miracle Registers, Collections, and Canonization Inquest Processes as Source Material”, in C. Krötzl and S. Katajala-​Peltomaa,(ed.), Miracles in Medieval Canonization Inquest Processes: Structures, Functions, and Methodologies, Turnhout, 2018, pp. 19–​22. 6 For the separation of miracles into healing and non-​healing categories see Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things?, pp. 342–​34. 7 D. Weinstein and R. Bell, Saints and Society, Christendom 1000–​1700, Chicago, 1982, pp. 121–​37. 8 Weinstein and Bell, Saints and Society, pp. 40 and 107.

276 Archambeau In one instance, Nicolas protected pilgrims and freed captives in a region of Italy struggling with warfare between the Guelf and Ghibelline factions.9 In another instance, protection took the form of rescuing nuns in Sancta Lucia from demonic possession.10 These are very different actions that Lett referred to as protection. In the first case, pilgrims were both protected from attack from other humans, and released after being captured. In the second case, the nuns were rescued after they had been possessed by a demon. Not all historians label these actions as protection, especially those concerning rescue from demonic possession. To get a sense of the broad range of ways to understand protection, there are few better places to start than with Michael Goodich’s exploration of danger and miraculous protection in Violence and Miracle and the Fourteenth Century: Private Grief and Public Salvation.11 Michael Goodich was a prolific scholar at the forefront of exploring the richness, diversity, and importance of miracle collections and canonization inquests in the context of later medieval history. Goodich approached the concept of miracle and the genre of canonization inquest with rigor and thoughtfulness. In terms of defining the protection miracle, Goodich was expansive. In Violence and Miracle, danger was everywhere. The book covers dangers in urban and rural daily life, where everything from cooking pots to horses’ hooves could cause injury and death. It also looks at the impact of nature, especially storms and fires. And it explores the specific dangers introduced by the Hundred Years War and what came to be called the Black Death.12 By focusing his book on categories of danger, Goodich looked at all the miracles that included those dangers. This meant that he subsequently considered protection very broadly as well. He even included miracles in which people were severely injured, contracted an illness, or had died and then were healed or brought back to life. These blur the healing/​non-​healing line, but for Goodich the danger was the focus. Other scholars have different ways of defining or referring to protection miracles that reflect what they are using miracles to study. Many do not share Goodich’s broad definition. For example, Pierre-​André Sigal, in his analysis of

9

D. Lett, Un process de canonisation au Moyen Âge: Essai d’histoire sociale, Nicolas de Tolentino, 1325, Paris, 2008, pp. 78–​84. 10 Lett, Un process de canonisation au Moyen Âge, pp. 107–​11. 11 See note 3. 12 K. Bos et al, “A draft genome of Yersinia pestis from victims of the Black Death”, Nature, 478, (2011), pp. 506–​10. M. Green, “Taking “Pandemic” Seriously: Making the Black Death Global,” The Medieval Globe, 1 (2014), pp. 27–​61.

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medieval miracles in eleventh-​and twelfth-​century France, put resurrection miracles into their own category, regardless of what caused the death, and did not include any illnesses as dangers.13 André Vauchez’s study, Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages, grouped protection and deliverance miracles into one category while separating wounds and non-​fatal accidents into a separate category. This separation highlights his focus on the saint and changes in the process of making saints, rather than an exploration of violence and danger.14 In a very different kind of study, Rachel Koopmans focused on familiar plotlines in miracle stories that appeared in collections in England. For Koopmans, protection from danger was one of many problems about which people told stories to collectors of miracles.15 Another issue underpinning what a protection miracle is stems from the different sources of protection miracles. Again, Michael Goodich’s Violence and Miracle is an interesting place to start. Not only did Goodich’s readable study have a broad definition of protection, it also roamed widely among available sources of miracles. He prioritized canonization inquests and provided a clear overview of how they work.16 But throughout the book he used miracle examples from many sources including sermon exempla, miracle collections, and preliminary inquests. While the sources did all look at miracles and the dangers that people faced, these genres do not all share the same kinds of authors and purpose, as he noted.17 This broad inclusion of genres led to a less regimented definition of protection miracle, especially since his definition was not restricted by how canonization inquest organizers presented protection to the increasingly strict standards of the papal curia.18 By drawing on a broad range of sources, Goodich’s study also covered a wide geographic extent. The miracles come from as far east as Cyprus in the Mediterranean to as far north as Sweden. His goal was not to compare or contextualize these sources, but to create a broad picture of danger and the search for miraculous protection. In order to keep the book at a manageable length, he often included only a line or two of reference to different miracles rather than a full study of the medieval text. 13

Pierre-​André Sigal, L’homme et le miracle dans le France mediéval: XIe-​XIIe siècles, Paris, 1985, p. 300. 14 Vauchez, Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages, pp. 466–​68. 15 R. Koopmans, Wonderful to Relate: Miracle Stories and Miracle Collecting in High Medieval England, Philadelphia, 2011, pp. 29–​46. 16 Goodich, Violence and Miracle, pp. 1–​24. 17 Goodich, Violence and Miracle, pp. 94–​6. 18 Goodich, Violence and Miracle, pp. 1–​2. See also Vauchez, Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages, pp. 481–​98.

278 Archambeau Other scholars have different approaches and goals with regard to the category of the protection miracle, which have led not only to different definitions, but also different presentations of these miracles. For example, Ronald C. Finucane also defined protection miracles broadly and studied Europe-​wide trends by collecting hundreds of miracles from around Europe. In contrast to Goodich’s approach in Violence and Miracle, however, Finucane included translations of multiple, detailed canonization inquest testimonies, exploring the language of the text closely.19 In several of his article-​length works, he pursued this approach further, comparing multiple testimonies of the same event to understand how medieval people understood and presented the dangers of daily life in this genre.20 More recent studies reflect a shift in the study of protection miracles. Representing a very different goal and methodology, Laura Ackermann Smoller focused on the changing presentation and reception of one particular protection miracle in the attempts to canonize and promote the cult of Vincent Ferrer.21 Different supporters of the holy man presented the story in a variety of ways, revealing how the miracle reflected the needs or desires of individuals or specific communities.22 Rather than make generalizations about danger in Europe as Goodich and Finucane did, Smoller’s study focused on individual and regional contextualization to highlight the saint-​making process and understand the ways a group of people used stories about their saint. Studies like Smoller’s relocate miracles, including protection miracles, within the scope of medieval history. Goodich put protection miracles, especially those for the dangers of warfare and plague, in the broad framework of persecution, violence, and conflict. His book came out in 1995 and is situated in debates concerning social control, emotion, and daily life taking place among medieval scholars at the time, including John Bossy, Edward Peters, and Philippe Contamine. In addition, Goodich was indebted to Johan Huizinga’s study, The Autumn of the Middle Ages.23 These studies often emphasized the irrationality, persecution, and extreme emotions present in fourteenth-​ century texts. These debates are reflected in Goodich’s approach to categories 19

R. Finucane, The Rescue of the Innocents: Endangered Children in Medieval Miracles, New York, 2000. 20 R. Finucane, “The Toddler in the Ditch: A Case of Parental Neglect?” in M. Goodich (ed.), Voices from the Bench: The Narratives of Lesser Folk in Medieval Trials, New York, 2006, pp. 127–​48. 21 L.A. Smoller, The Saint and the Chopped Up Baby: The Cult of Vincent Ferrer in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, Ithaca, 2013. 22 Smoller, The Saint and the Chopped Up Baby, p. 3. 23 J. Huizinga, The Autumn of the Middle Ages, trans. R.J. Payton, Chicago, 1997.

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of danger, especially war and plague. For Goodich, this was a time when warfare failed to follow “gentlemanly rules of conduct” and instead created a lawless landscape of extreme, unpredictable violence and danger.24 At the same time, fear of God followed in the wake of plague. As Goodich claims, “Since the church regarded the plague as a result of God’s justifiable wrath at human sinfulness, appeasement of the divinity required acts of group penance, collective appeals to God, and public exorcism ceremonies”.25 Goodich juxtaposed the Church as an agent of social control through ceremony with the irrational superstition of the laity. As he stated, diverse people turned to saints for protection because “despite the efforts of theologians, belief in the possibility of appeal to the divine against injustice remained ingrained among much of the laity”.26 Other studies take a different approach to sufferers’ use of protection miracles, one that emphasizes the agency they reveal rather than fear and irrationality of the laity, or the clergy’s attempts at social control.27 In terms of warfare, there is little doubt that the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries were an increasingly violent time due to warfare among city-​states in the Italian peninsula, the “Reconquista” in the Iberian Peninsula, and eventually the Hundred Years War throughout much of Europe. Warfare was changing at this time, especially with regard to professional soldiers, referred to as mercenaries or routiers.28 New research, however, avoids suggesting that there was ever a time when warfare followed “gentlemanly rules”. It also avoids an overly binary view of warfare in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries which lumps “freebooters, routiers, and arsonists” into one category, in opposition to citizen soldiers and knightly warriors in a separate category.29 Studies show that these categories were increasingly fluid and all groups struggled with Christian ideals of warfare.30 24 Goodich, Violence and Miracle, p. 127. 25 Goodich, Violence and Miracle, p. 118. 26 Goodich, Violence and Miracle, p. 28. This juxtaposition is not as strong in his other works, but is quite clear in this book. 27 For a clear discussion of miracle and agency, see S. Farmer, “Down and out and female in thirteenth-​century Paris”, American Historical Review 103 (1998), pp. 344–​72. This chapter focuses on healing miracles and sets out a framework for looking at miracle stories as problem-​solving narratives. 28 K. Fowler, Medieval Mercenaries. Vol. i: The Great Companies, Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2001. 29 Goodich, Violence and Miracle, p. 127. He conflates routiers with brigands in an earlier chapter. See Goodich, Violence and Miracle, pp. 44–​45. 30 For an overview of the changes in warfare and the mercenary groups, see N. Housley, “The mercenary companies, the Papacy, and the Crusades, 1356–​1378”, Traditio: Studies in

280 Archambeau When studied in their context, individual protection miracles can reveal sufferers’ and canonization inquest organizers’ awareness of the complexity of the dangers of warfare.31 The documents that include appeals to saints in violent situations –​such as saints’ vitae, miracle collections, and the testimonies gathered in inquests –​also allowed sufferers to speak out in conflict situations in ways that could be heard by local and regional religious and political leaders. These were not static documents, but documents actively used to promote and make saints who reflected the needs of their communities.32 In terms of the plague, the first waves of plague arriving in the mid-​ fourteenth century added a real sense of insecurity. Re-​evaluation of literary sources, however, has suggested more nuanced reactions to the plague than previously argued. The political and spiritual uses of chronicles and sermons could shape their often extreme presentation of the plague.33 In contrast, notarial records do not support claims, which appear in several kinds of sources, that family members abandoned each other, which would have been interpreted as an act of despair.34 Other sources, like canonization inquest testimony, also question a widespread, simplistic belief that the plague was a punishment from God.35 But more to the point, the fact that sufferers turned to religious processions and appeals to saints was not an indication of superstition. Instead, appeals to saints in canonization inquests frequently show that witnesses also tried, or considered and rejected, medical care.36 In other

31 32 33

34 35 36

Ancient and Medieval History, Thought, and Religion 38 (1982), pp. 253–​80 (253–​255). For an overview of the life of a professional soldier, see William Caferro, John Hawkwood: An English Mercenary in Fourteenth-​Century Italy, Baltimore, 2006, pp. 39–​50. For warfare in southern France, see J. Firnhaber-​Baker, “Seigneurial war and royal power in later medieval southern France”, Past and Present, 208 (2010), pp. 37–​76. N. Archambeau, “His whole heart changed: political meanings of a mercenary’s emotional transformation”, in D. Boquet and P. Nagy (eds.), Politiques des Émotions au Moyen Âge, Florence, Sismel, 2010, pp. 169–​90 (187–​90). Archambeau, “His whole heart changed”, pp. 187–​90. A. Carmichael, “Universal and particular: the language of plague, 1348–​1500”, in V. Nutton (ed.), Pestilential Complexities: Understanding Medieval Plague, London, 2008, pp. 17–​52, and G. Zanelle, “La peste del 1348: Italia, Francia e Germania: una storiografia a confronto”, in La Peste Nera: Dati di una Realtà ed Elementi di una Interpretazione, Atti del Convegno Storico Internazionale 1993, Spoleto, 1994, pp. 49–​135. D. Lord Smail, “Accommodating plague in medieval Marseille”, Continuity and Change 11 (1996), pp. 11–​41, and Shona Kelly Wray, “Boccaccio and the doctors: medicine and compassion in the face of plague”, Journal of Medieval History 30 (2004), pp. 301–​22. N. Archambeau, “Healing options during the plague: survivor stories from a fourteenth-​ century canonization inquest”, The Bulletin of the History of Medicine 85 (2011), pp. 531–​59. Sari Katajala-​Peltomaa, “Recent trends in the study of medieval canonizations”, History Compass 8/​9 (2010), 1083–​92. J. Ziegler, “Practitioners and saints: medical men in canonization processes in the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries”, The Society for the Social History

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words, by seeking both medical and spiritual care, they sought every opportunity to protect themselves and their communities using methods of treatment that medieval Christian society generally saw as valid. Overall, there is not one way that medieval scholars define, present, or study protection miracles. Instead, “protection miracle” is a fluid category. Modern scholars use miracles to explore complex ideas about danger and protection, including dangers of warfare, epidemic, and daily life in the Middle Ages. Increasingly, scholars have also used them to study the characteristics of sanctity and political negotiation involved in the canonization process. Therefore, scholars’ goals shape how they define and present protection miracles. 3

Provence, the Crown of Naples, and the Papacy in Five Protection Miracles

To exemplify the more recent trend of using protection miracles to explore how a group of people presented and used their saints, this study looks at five protection miracles from miracle collections and canonization inquests conducted in Provence in the fourteenth century, including those for Mary Magdalene, St. Louis of Anjou, Countess Delphine de Puimichel, Pope Urban v, and St. Peter of Luxembourg. The study briefly locates each holy person in his or her political moment and then analyzes a specific protection miracle for the uses of these saints and attitudes toward them. Each miracle is one of dozens of miracles in the collection or process that could be considered a protection miracle. For the most part, the miracles in this brief study are non-​healing miracles in which the holy person protected someone from harm. In light of Michael Goodich’s expansive definition of the protection miracles, however, one protection miracle is also a healing miracle in which a holy person protected a sufferer from death. Through exploring protection miracles in multiple genres in fourteenth-​ century Provence, we can glimpse how people making appeals to saints and those promoting saints interacted with and responded, directly and indirectly, to their political leaders, in this case the Angevin Counts of Naples and the Popes. The kings and queens of Naples were the Counts of Provence in the late thirteenth and fourteenth century. Gábor Klaniczay has explored the efforts of of Medicine 12 (1999), pp. 191–​225. i. McCleery, “Multos ex medicinae arte curaverat, multos verbo et oratione: curing in medieval Portuguese saints’ lives”, Studies in Church History 41 (2006), pp. 192–​202. N. Siraisi, Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine: An Introduction to Knowledge and Practice, Chicago, 1990, pp. 38–​42.

282 Archambeau the Crown of Naples to develop a blessed royal line by promoting saints within their family and closely related aristocracy.37 Protection miracles in Provence give a glimpse of the success of these efforts, but also how protection miracles became a way for the Provençaux to question and, potentially, subtly oppose the Crown of Naples. The popes became direct political leaders in the region when they moved the papal court to Avignon. The miracles and testimonies reveal awareness of this political complexity. They even expand the category of political danger by analyzing how the political affiliation of a saint could endanger the people seeking a miracle or endanger the reputation of the saint. The goal of this study is not to present an exhaustive collection of protection miracles in Provence.38 Nor does it seek to make a broad point about dangers in the fourteenth century. Instead the goal is to contextualize individual protection miracles in order to consider moments in time in Provence’s political relationship with its leaders. These miracles suggest transformations in relations between the Papacy, the Crown of Naples, and the people and political leaders of Provence. For example, mariners from Marseille had a choice of saints. Who they appealed to can reflect the relationship of the royal family of Naples to this active port city. A protection miracle that shows people of Provence turning to a local saint, instead of a royal one, to solve political turmoil created by the Crown of Naples can reflect the frustration of a group of people with their political leaders. In addition, the preference for a papal saint can suggest the decreased importance of dynastic saints to both the Provençaux and the Crown of Naples. The miracles in this chapter also suggest an awareness on the part of the people of Provence that their relationships with holy people had both benefits and costs. For example, rescue miracles can reveal that the political affiliation of the holy person put a group of people at risk in the first place. Each miracle, when contextualized, reveals the complexity of political relationships and the multiple uses of saints. 4

Mary Magdalene: A Refugee from the Holy Land

In 1246, Charles i of Anjou, a French prince with ambitions in the Mediterranean, became the Count of Provence when he married Beatrice, the heir of Raymond 37 38

G. Klaniczay, Holy Rulers and Blessed Princesses: Dynastic Cults in Medieval Central Europe, Cambridge, 2002. For a social history of Provence through a study of canonization inquests, see G. Veyssière, Vivre en Provence au XIVe siècle, Paris, 1998. For dangers in Provence, Goodich’s Violence and Miracle provides many examples from the pre-​inquest of Pope Urban v.

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Berenguer.39 Provence became an early foothold in the Mediterranean for Charles, and he forged lasting links with the Provençal nobility by giving them titles and political responsibilities in areas of southern Italy that he came to control.40 Charles i and Beatrice’s son and inheritor, Charles ii, further solidified the relationship between Provence and the Angevin Crown of Naples when he found the relics of Mary Magdalene in the church of St. Maximin near Aix-​en-​ Provence in 1279. His discovery superseded the rival claims of Vézelay and resonated with the fact that Mary Magdalene had significant support in Provence.41 She was seen as one of a group of saints that had been exiled from the Holy Land via a rudderless boat and had washed up on the shores of Provence. In the shared vita of Mary and her sister Martha, Mary resided in an isolated grotto contemplating the glory of Christ, descending infrequently to give awe-​ inspiring sermons.42 Although Martha and other saints were also depicted in the shared vita as preaching, Mary Magdalene was understood in this tradition as the apostle to Gaul. Through preaching, she spread the Christian message to Provence.43 Support for Mary Magdalene and support the Crown of Naples publicly merged in the formal translation of the Magdalene’s relics from a crypt to public display in the church of St. Maximin, which the bishops of major Provençal cities attended.44 According to Katherine Ludwig Jansen, through this discovery, Charles associated the Mediterranean Angevin line with a holy protector, much as the Capetian kings in northern France had associated themselves

39

J. Dunbabin, Charles of Anjou: Power, Kingship, and State-​Making in Thirteenth-​Century Europe, New York, 1998, pp. 41–​54 and 164–​65. David Abulafia, The Western Mediterranean Kingdoms 1200–​1500: Struggle for Dominion, Harlow, 1997, p. 46. Beatrice’s father had held the county as a vassal of the Holy Roman Emperor, who increasingly had little direct political control in the region. 40 For an overview of Charles i’s relations with the Provençaux, see Abulafia, The Western Mediterranean Kingdoms, pp. 57–​81. See also the essays collected in N. Coulet and J.-​M. Matz (eds.), La Noblesse dans les territoires Angevins à la fin du Moyen Âge, Ecole Française de Rome, 2000; É. G. Léonard, Les Angevins de Naples, Paris, 1954. 41 For the discovery of the relics and debate with Vézelay over the body of Mary Magdalene, see N. Clemens, “The Establishment of the Cult of Mary Magdalene in Provence, 1279–​ 1543”, Dissertation, Columbia University, 1997, pp. 64–​70. 42 For an overview of the main points of Mary Magdalene’s life as it appeared in many different sources, see D. Mycoff, The Life of Mary Magdalene and Her Sister Martha, Kalamazoo, 1989, pp. 3–​5. K. L. Jansen, Making of the Magdalene: Preaching and Popular Devotion in the Later Middle Ages, Princeton, 2000, pp. 35–​41. 43 Jansen, Making of the Magdalene, pp. 42–​45. 44 Clemens, “Establishment of the Cult of Mary Magdalene”, pp. 73–​75.

284 Archambeau with Saint Denis.45 But Charles ii also linked the people of Provence to the Crown of Naples by revitalizing one of their saints. Soon after the discovery and translation, the relics began to work miracles, especially for the people of Provence. These were collected by the Dominican friars in St. Maximin and bound in a book in 1315. The Liber miraculorum beate Marie Magdalene, attributed to Jean Gobi who was the prior of the Dominican house at the time, contains 86 miracles grouped by types of illness or protection.46 This collection reflects the needs of the Dominican friars to substantiate the claims of St. Maximin over the competing claims of Vézelay. It also reflects the genre of miracle collection at a shrine rather than a collection of miracles presented in a canonization inquest. For example, it does not include as much information as inquest testimony from the later fourteenth century.47 The first miracle in the Liber miraculorum gives us a glimpse of political links between the lords of Provence and the Crown of Naples. It is not a simple story. It is a complex narrative of how Provençal relations with Naples could bring danger and protection. During a dispute between Charles i of Naples and the city of Genoa, the Genoese captured people from the county of Provence, held them in prison, injured them, and made them fear for their lives.48 The people of Provence faithfully appealed to Mary Magdalene and one of them had a vision in which she told him, “You should not fear because tomorrow you will all be set free”.49 Mary Magdalene’s promise came to pass and the freed group stopped in St. Maximin on their way home to tell the friars and show their devotion at Mary Magdalene’s shrine.50 45 Jansen, Making of the Magdalene, p. 43. 46 J. Sclafer, “Iohannes Gobi Senior OP, Liber Miraculorum B. Mariae Magdalenae”, Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum 63 (1993), pp. 114–​206. For an overview of the Liber and Jean Gobi, see Clemens, “Establishment of the Cult of Mary Magdalene”, pp. 125–​31. 47 Clemens, “Establishment of the Cult of Mary Magdalene”, pp. 131–​41. 48 Sclafer, “Liber miraculorum”, p. 137: “Illo tempore guerra erat inter dominum Carolum illustrem regem Cicilie et homines Ianuences, quidam de comitatu Provincie a civibus Ianuencibus capti sunt, et in eorum carceribus compediti. Nec ipsi Ianuences contenti quod illos captos in suis carceribus detinebant, sed eos diversis suppliciis et iniuriis afficientes, vitam illorum ad amaritudinem cotidie perducebant, nichilominus commitantes eis quod eos diversis penis et suppliciis facerent interire.” 49 Sclafer, “Liber miraculorum”, pp. 137–​38: “Ad Magdalenam, sicut ad singulare refugium, et specialem patronam omnium qui sunt de comitatu Provincie supradicto, eo quod corpus eius habeatur ibidem, videlicet in Sancto Maximino, fiducialiter confugerunt, rogantes et supplicantes ei … beata Magdalena uni eorum aparens dixit: “Non timeatis, quia crastina die omnes eretis expediti!” 50 Sclafer, “Liber miraculorum”, p. 138. “Et sicut in visione Magdalena dixerat, factum fuit, quia in crastino Ianuenses, nescientes quo spiritu ducti, nisi quod credendum est firmiter quod per merita Magdalene, eos omnes a carceribus liberaverunt, et ad propria

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The miracle presents an ambivalent view of Provençal political relations with Charles i. It gives no indication of who these people of Provence were or why they were captured and held. Instead, the miracle frames the captivity in political terms by stating that at this time the Genoese were at war with their lord, Charles i. This suggests that the people of Provence were caught in the crossfire of their count’s wars.51 The timing of this miracle is politically interesting. Although it is not clear exactly when it took place, it would have been before 1285, when Charles i died. The people of Provence, especially those of the city of Marseille, did not always have a peaceful relationship with Charles i. For example, Marseille rebelled as late as 1263.52 Charles i suppressed the rebellion by hanging members of important families. The language of the miracle, which equates Charles i with a war, evokes this tense political relationship. The language of the miracle story also highlights how the political alliance of the people of Provence with Charles i put them in danger. But the miracle then describes them as being rescued by Mary Magdalene, who had recently emerged as an active miracle worker in Provence through the discovery of her relics by Charles ii. So the Crown of Naples both put them in danger and saved them. The fact that the miracles would have been made public in 1315 shortly after the death of Charles ii further emphasizes a shift in the political relationship of Provence and Naples and the different methods of government that Charles ii used at the beginning and end of his reign.53 5

St. Louis of Anjou: An Angevin in Marseille

Mary Magdalene was not the only saint who linked Provence and the Crown of Naples. St. Louis of Anjou, also known as St Louis of Toulouse, the second oldest son of Charles ii of Anjou, linked count and county even more directly. Louis is perhaps best known in histories of the kingdom of Naples for becoming

remiserunt. Ipsi autem apud Sanctum Maximinum venientes, Deo et sue liberatrici gratias retulerunt quas debebant devote, et cum gaudio exsolverunt.” 51 The miracle may reflect Charles i’s support of Provençal lords and port cities that lead to tensions with Genoa in the late thirteenth century. See Dunbabin, Charles I of Anjou, pp. 78–​83. 52 Abulafia, The Western Mediterranean Kingdoms, p. 57. 53 G. Klaniczay, “La noblesse et le culte des saints dynastiques sous les rois Angevins”, in Coulet and Matz (eds), La noblesse et le culte des saints dynastiques, pp. 511–​26.

286 Archambeau a Franciscan and ceding his rights to the throne to his younger brother Robert, who eventually became King Robert the Wise.54 At this crucial moment of renouncing the throne, Louis’ father saw an opportunity to increase the sanctity of a blessed noble lineage, but also to gain worldly ecclesiastical power.55 Charles ii pressured Pope Boniface viii (1294–​ 1303) to make Louis a bishop. Louis did not want to be a bishop, so Boniface refused Louis’ petition to enter the Franciscan order unless he accepted the bishopric of Toulouse as well. Louis agreed to the deal, but was only bishop of Toulouse for a month and a half.56 Louis decided to give up the bishopric during a visit to his sister, Blanche of Aragon. He died shortly after, in 1297.57 Charles ii decided to build Louis’ tomb in a church attached to the Franciscan house in Marseille. Since Louis did not have any special link to the city, historians read this as a strategic link to the Franciscans and a gesture of respect to the lords of Provence, especially of Marseille, who had been quite resistant to his father a few decades earlier.58 In addition, the places where Louis did have some local support –​Toulouse, where he had been bishop, and Barcelona, where he had been held captive for seven years with his brother Robert –​were not part of the Crown of Naples and therefore would have brought no political advantage. Almost immediately, the family started building a case for Louis’ sainthood.59 Although Louis had spent part of his youth in Provence, he had few links to Marseille. People there did not think of him as a healer and did not know to pray to him for miracles. They already had plenty of saints and shrines

54 55

56

57 58 59

S. Kelly, The New Solomon: Robert of Naples (1304–​1343) and Fourteenth-​Century Kingship, Leiden, 2003. A. Vauchez, “ ‘Beata stirps’: Sainteté et lignage en Occident aux XIIe et XIVe siècle”, in Famille et parenté dans l’Occident médiéval, Rome, 1977, pp. 397–​407; Klaniczay, Holy Rulers, 295–​394; Kelly, The New Solomon, pp. 119–​29. M.C. Gaposchkin, The Making of Saint Louis: Kingship, Sanctity, and Crusade in the Later Middle Ages, Ithaca, 2008, pp. 85–​86. Toulouse was notoriously difficult to control due to its large size and unruly cathedral canons, though Louis had help from Jacques Duèze (the future Pope John xxii). See H. Millet, “Les chanoines de cathédrales du Midi”, La Cathédrale (XIIe-​XIVe), Cahier du Fanjeaux 30, Toulouse, 1994, pp. 121–​44. M. Toynbee, S. Louis of Toulouse and the Process of Canonisation in the Fourteenth Century, Manchester, 1929. See Vauchez, Sainthood, pp. 226–​28 for links to the Franciscans. His brother had a new tomb built for him in Marseille attached to the main Franciscan house and his body was translated there in 1319. His body remained in Marseille until 1423 when a later Alphonso of Aragon took most of it in return for sparing the city. Marseille managed to keep one of Louis’ arms in the deal so that they would still have a relic from the saint. See Toynbee, S. Louis of Toulouse, p. 207.

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in the city and region, including Mary Magdalene’s.60 Witness testimonies in the canonization inquest for Louis held in Marseille in 1307–​8 give interesting insight into how Louis’ fame spread before Louis’s brother, Robert, began building churches for him.61 Witnesses from Marseille mentioned the public event of the initial placing of Louis in the tomb. We have evidence from the inquest and other sources that Franciscans travelling in the region wrote sermons about him and suggested that sufferers pray to him.62 People mentioned seeing the efficacy of his miracles and then choosing to pray to him themselves. And since his tomb was in Marseille, a major port city, it was particularly well-​ placed for pilgrimage.63 Again, however, Louis’ inquest reveals the dynamic of combined political danger and physical protection. From witness testimony we learn that in 1300, four citizens of Marseille –​Gauffridus de Serveriis, Petrus Rotgerii, Oggerius de Lamar, and Iohannes Rotgerii –​testified to being on a ship with 150 people, including sailors, merchants, and others from Provence and other regions.64 They described leaving a city they identified as Heleas in Armenia. The ship contained many precious things, so the men were eager to get back.65 On their return voyage, the wind changed near what they called the sea of Trapan (near 60

61

62 63 64 65

The availability of other saints appears in witness testimony. In one miracle from the inquest, Gaufrida Rossa (the wife of a citizen of Marseille) and her sister were on a pilgrimage to local saints’ shrines. Gaufrida chided her sister who wanted to visit Louis’ tomb with wax to complete a vow she had made. Gaufrida said, “Oh sister, you believe the son of the king is in fact a saint? The friars minor just say that to get the wax.” Gaufrida was struck with a debilitating disfigurement after the comment and had to make a vow to Louis to be healed, but her comment gives us insight into the availability of local saints. Fathers of the College of Saint Bonaventure (eds.), “Processus Canonizationis Sancti Ludovici O.F.M.” in Analecta Franciscana 7 (1951), pp. 236–​27. Unlike the miracle collection of Mary Magdalene made at her shrine, these miracles do reflect the demands of a canonization inquest. For the emergence of questioning procedure, see Vauchez, Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages, pp. 40–​48. For changes to procedure in the fourteenth century, see pp. 62–​81. See J.-​P. Boyer, “Predication a Marseille: un sermon pour Louis d’Anjou”, in T. Pécout (ed.), Marseille au Moyen Âge, entre Provence et Méditerranée: Les horizons d’une ville portuaire, Méloans-​Revel, 2009, pp. 311–​18. P. Horden and N. Purcell, The Corrupting Sea: A Study of Mediterranean History, Oxford, 2000, pp. 445–​46. For these four testimonies, see “Processus Canonizationis”, pp. 231, 231–​33. This summary follows the testimony of Gauffridus de Serveriis, which was the most thorough. Sections of the primary source are included, though this is not an exact translation. “Processus Canonizationis”, p. 231: “Gauffredus de Serveriis “narravit et dixit quod cum ipse una cum cl hominibus tam marinariis quam mercatoribus et aliis essent in una navi sua iuxta unam civitatem que vocatur Heleas in Armenia, et dicta navis esset *onusta multis rebus et mercibus preciosis ad valorem, sicut dixit, centum milium librarum bone

288 Archambeau the Trapani region of Sicily) and they met with a storm. They could not put into port, however, because, as they put it, the kingdom of Naples was at war with Sicily. Instead of being able to land and weather the storm, they were pushed to a dangerous part of the sea called Lo Quel or Quelmus and they believed all was lost.66 At this point they prayed to Louis. The four witnesses vowed to bring a wax ship weighing roughly twenty pounds to his tomb and recalled that other merchants also vowed to bring great candles.67 The storm quieted and after nine days they reached the port of Domes near Marseille and entered the city with exultation and joy. Shortly thereafter they visited Louis’ tomb with the promised wax.68 Though the “king’s son” ultimately saved them, travel for these merchants of Marseille was made more dangerous by their political affiliation with the Crown of Naples. Since the war of the Sicilian Vespers in 1282–​5, shipping through the region of the Mediterranean fought over by Naples, Sicily, the Aragonese, Genoa, and the Counts of Barcelona had become uncertain.69 When the storm hit, these citizens of Marseille could not look for refuge in ports controlled by their count’s enemies. They would never have been able to bring home their

monete, flante vento prospero erexerunt velam sicut homines desiderantes ad propria remeare.” 66 “Processus Canonizationis”, p. 231: “[…]venerunt ad mare Trapane iuxta Siciliam, et ibi crevit adersitas et tempestas et fortuna maris, ita quod ipse qui loquitur et ceteri qui erant cum eo in navi, tam de personis quam de rebus fuerunt totaliter desperati: nedum eciam habebant ventum validum sibi contrarium, immo erant positi ex una parte in posse adversa[n]‌cium Siculorum, quia tunc erat guerra gravis et aspera inter regem Sicilie et illos qui Siciliam detinebant; ex alia vero parte habebant Barbariam et unum locum qui est in mari qui inter loca cetera periculosissimus reputatur, qui nominatur Lo Quel, alias Quelmus. Adtendentes ergo cum devocione cordium, sicut dixit, calamitates et pericula supradicta et credentes omnino perire et se pati naufragium ex predictis.” 67 “Processus Canonizationis”, p. 231: “[…] invocaverunt beatissimum Ludovicum qui iacet in Massilia, ut eos de inminentibus et presentibus tunc periculis erueret et de salutari et felici remedio provideret, et promiserunt sibi dare unam navim xx librarum de cera, et mercatores et marinarii et alii qui erant ibi promiserunt duos brandones magnos de cera.” 68 “Processus Canonizationis”, p. 231: “Et his factis, eadem die in vesperis cessavit maris tempestas, et ventus qui adversus fuerat in prosperum fuit mutatus, ita quod continuatis gressibus sine aliqua adversitate, octava vel nona die voti et promissionis emissorum, applicuerunt ad portum de Domes propre Massiliam ad duo miliaria salvi et incolumes cum omnibus rebus et mercimoniis suis, sicut dixit. Et eadem die testis qui loquitur cum multis aliis personis intraverunt civitatem Massilie cum multa exultacione et gaudio, et * postea beato Ludovico navem de cera brandones predictos, sicut promiserant, obtulerunt.” 69 Abulafia, The Western Mediterranean Kingdoms, pp. 108–​12.

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precious cargo and might have been held as prisoners. Even their travel in the Eastern Mediterranean was complicated by Charles ii’s loss of Acre in 1291 and his unsuccessful Crusade attempts. So the citizens’ appeal to Louis of Anjou was not just a cry for protection against nature’s fury, but also protection in waters that his family had made politically dangerous for their allies. 6

Delphine de Puimichel, a Provençal Holy Woman

A turning point in political relations between Naples and Provence occurred in the 1340s during the early reign of King Robert’s granddaughter, Joanna i of Naples.70 Under King Robert of Naples, who took the throne in 1309, Provence had had relative autonomy under a series of Provençal seneschals and members of important families such as the Baux, Marseille, and Agoult-​Simiane were entrusted with political responsibilities in Provence and southern Italy.71 Out of a large field of contenders, King Robert had chosen Joanna to succeed him and to marry Andrew of Hungary. This would solve a complex inheritance problem and avoid a war with the King of Hungary.72 In Robert’s last will of 1343, he put a group of political advisors in place for their minority.73 But this solution did not last long. By 1345, Andrew of Hungary was dead, and Joanna and Louis of Taranto (one of the claimants to the throne) were suspected of assassinating him. By 1347, Joanna and Louis of Taranto were secretly married, even though this had been forbidden by Robert’s will. And by 1348, Joanna had fled Naples to escape the invading forces of the King of Hungary.74 She arrived

70 Kelly, The New Solomon, pp. 287–​305. 71 Kelly, The New Solomon, pp. 140–​53; F. Mazel, La Noblesse et l’Église en Provence, fin x-​début xiv siècle, Paris, 2008, pp. 538–​591. While relations may have been relatively settled, it was not a purely peaceful time. For the political complexity of this time period, see M. Hébert, “Autour de la cavalcade: Les relations entre le comte de Provence, les Hospitaliers et la communauté de Manosque (XIIIe-​XIVe siècles)” in M. Hébert (ed.), Vie privée et ordre public à la fin du Moyen Âge: Études sur Manosque, la Provence et le Piémont (1250–​1450), Aix-​en-​Provence, 1987, pp. 141–​53. 72 É. Léonard, Histoire de Jeanne Ire Reine de Naples, Comtesse de Provence (1343–​1382). La jeunesse de la Reine Jeanne, vol. 2, Monaco, 1932, pp. 214–​24. 73 Because Charles ii ignored primogeniture in order put Robert on the throne of Naples, the field of who could inherit was much broader than it otherwise would have been. At Robert’s death at least eleven family members had a valid claim, and Joanna’s was not the strongest. Kelly, The New Solomon, pp. 276–​82. 74 E. Casteen, From She-​Wolf to Martyr: The Reign and Disputed Reputation of Johanna I of Naples, Ithaca, 2015, pp. 29–​66. Léonard, Histoire, vol. 1, pp. 680–​82 and vol. 2, pp. 1–​9.

290 Archambeau in Marseille at roughly the same time as the first outbreak of the first wave of plague.75 The political relationship between Joanna i, Louis of Taranto, and the lords of Provence was complex. The limitations of a book chapter mean that I must risk oversimplification as I provide context. While the lords of Provence continued to see her as their countess and swore fealty to her, they were given fewer positions of political authority in southern Italy. They also actively resisted Joanna and Louis of Taranto’s attempts to impose Italian seneschals on Provence.76 During Joanna’s early reign, the Estates of Provence became politically more active and important.77 The canonization inquest for Delphine of Puimichel, Countess of Ariano and widow of Count Elzéar of Sabran, sheds light on the increasingly difficult relationship between Provence and Naples. The inquest took place in 1363 in the market town of Apt, roughly 20 miles east of Avignon. Delphine had had a close relationship with King Robert of Naples and Queen Sancia of Majorca both during the lifetime of her husband, Elzéar, and after his death in 1321.78 Delphine lived in Naples after Elzéar became Count of Ariano. Robert and Sancia were with her in papal Avignon when she learned of Elzéar’s death in Paris on an errand for King Robert.79 Delphine also visited Sancia in Naples after King Robert’s death.80 Delphine was not a member of the council appointed to guide Joanna i’s minority, but she knew two important members on it, including Sancia and Philippe Cabassoles, the Bishop of Cavaillon.81

75 Léonard, Histoire, vol. 2 pp. 61–​64. 76 É. Léonard, “Un Ami de Petrarque, Senechal de Provence: Giovanni Barrili”, Études Italiennes 9 (1927), pp. 109–​42; M. Aurell, J.-​P. Boyer, and N. Coulet, La Provence au Moyen Âge, Aix-​en-​Provence, 2005, p. 278. 77 M. Hébert, “La Cristallisation d’une identité: Les États de Provence, 1347–​1360”, in C. Dolan (ed.), Événement, Identité et Histoire, Sillery, 1991, pp. 151–​64. 78 The canonization inquest for Elzéar of Sabran, a member of the Agoult-​Simiane line who served King Robert as Count of Ariano in southern Italy, would have been a place to look for the political relationship between the Crown and the nobility of Provence. Unfortunately, only a papal summary still remains of Elzear’s inquest held in 1351. The protection miracles mentioned do not contain enough detail to see the relationship between Provence and the Crown of Naples. 79 J. Cambell, OFM, ed., Enquête pour le Procès de Canonisation de Dauphine de Puimichel Comtesse d’Ariano, Turin, 1978, pp. 42–​43. 80 Cambell, Enquête, p. 56. 81 Léonard, Histoire, vol. 2, pp. 69–​70 and V. Saxer, “Philippe Cabassole et son Libellus Hystorialis Marie Beatissime Magdalene. Préliminaires à une édition du Libellus”, in L’Etat Angevin: Pouvoir, Culture et Societé entre XIIIe et XIVe Siècle, Rome, 1998, pp. 193–​4.

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One of the strongest indications of the troubled relationship between Provence and Naples was the witnesses and organizers’ silence about Queen Joanna i and Louis of Taranto. Although Delphine knew Joanna and Louis and interacted with them, none of the witnesses mentioned the reigning king and queen of Naples.82 Instead, witnesses spoke of Delphine’s relationship with King Robert and Queen Sancia. They also linked Delphine’s first healing miracle to St. Louis of Anjou, since it took place on the steps of his tomb in Marseille.83 For Delphine’s witnesses, it was as if her interaction with the Crown had ended in the 1340s rather than at Delphine’s death in 1360. We cannot know if this silence about Queen Joanna was a conscious choice, but it seems likely, since the witnesses’ and organizers’ silence cut the ties to the highest political authority that could lend support to Delphine’s canonization. Canonization inquest organizers in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries tended to work hard to include high-​ranking witnesses, not exclude them.84 Several protection miracles in Delphine’s inquest give insight into perceptions of the Crown of Naples during this time of transition, especially those in which witnesses described how Delphine helped in narrowly averting a civil war inspired by Joanna’s attempts to impose an Italian seneschal on Provence.85 A different miracle, however, presents an even more complicated political picture. It captures a sense of political ambivalence even from King Robert’s time, revealing that the rule of King Robert was not remembered as a golden age by all of the witnesses. One witness, Guillelmus Henrici, a sixty-​five-​year-​old legal official (magister rationalis) in the queen’s court in Aix-​en-​Provence, described how he had lived in Naples in 1314.86 He had traveled there with Delphine and Elzéar and observed Delphine’s behavior in the royal court. Guillelmus described her as being pious, honest, devout, and God-​fearing.87 According to Guillelmus’s 82

This is analyzed in N. Archambeau, Souls under Siege: Stories of War, Plague, and Confession in Fourteenth-​Century Provence, Ithaca, 2021, pp. 32–​36. 83 For the miracle at St. Louis’ church in Marseille, see Article 51, the first in the miracle series, Cambell, Enquête, pp. 64–​65. At least two witnesses referred to it including Bertrand Iusbert and Petrus Clodi, who gave the date as 1338: Cambell, Enquête, pp. 240–​ 41 and 149 respectively. 84 Vauchez, Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages, p. 70. 85 N. Archambeau, Souls under Siege, pp. 38–​65. 86 Cambell, Enquête, 361–​377. Guillelmus Henrici was the Juge-​Mage of Provence from 1348–​ 1351. See É. Baratier, G. Duby, E. Hildesheimer (eds.), Atlas Historique: Provence, Comtat Venaissin, Principauté d’Orange, Comté de Nice, et Principauté de Monaco, Paris, 1969, p. 133. 87 Cambell, Enquête, p. 362: “idem deponens ex tunc extimavit et cognovit dictam dominam esse multum devotam et Deum timentem, et sancte vite.”

292 Archambeau testimony, about a month after they arrived, he was deceived by two armed men from Provence, who were in the service of King Robert.88 They led him to an isolated place at the foot of the Castle Ovo where they demanded that he give them all of his money. Guillelmus told the men that he did not have any, although in fact he had 300 silver gros of Turnois.89 Under continued pressure, suddenly, Guillelmus said “Surely I am not afraid, where Petrus de Rodulpho is”. This statement was wondrous, since Guillelmus did not know the names of the men. In fact, one of the brigands was named Petrus de Rodulpho, and Guillelmus’ sudden statement caused the brigands’ hearts to change. Petrus de Rodulpho assured him that no evil would come to him.90 Guillelmus believed that Delphine had put the brigand’s name in his mouth and had changed their hearts. As he put it, he was “freed from their hands” by God through Delphine’s piety and merits.91 In Guillelmus Henrici’s brief account of how Delphine saved him from being robbed in Naples, neither the Crown of Naples nor Provence appeared in a positive light. The men who tried to rob Guillelmus were from Provence, just like him. One was from Marseille and the other from Gardanne in the diocese of Aix-​en-​Provence.92 These men making the streets of Naples a dangerous place were in the service of King Robert of Naples. The story emphasized Delphine’s piety, which was, of course, the goal of a canonization inquest testimony. The story came directly after Guillelmus’ description of her exemplary behavior in Naples and revealed Delphine’s ability to protect people, in this case by transforming the hearts of these dangerous men of Provence. There is no indication 88 Cambell, Enquête, p. 362: “Et iam credit quod illa tunc infra unum mensem proxime sequentem postquam Neapolim applicuerunt … seductus fuit dolose et fallaciter per duos brigandos multum armatos, tunc Neapoli existentes in servicio quondam domini regis Roberti.” Guillelmus believed that an acquaintance of his from Lourmarin in Provence told them that he would be carrying money. 89 Cambell, Enquête, p. 363: “Et ductus fuit verbis dulcibus atque blandis usque ad castrum de Ovo … Cui deponenti ambo dixerunt quod eis traderet pecuniam quam portabat, quoniam eam habere volebant. Eo respondente se pecuniam non habere.” The amount of money appears later in his testimony when the papal commissioners asked him questions. Cambell, Enquête, 363. “Interrogatus qualem et in quo numero portabat pecuniam cum eodem, dixit quod ccc turonenses grossos argenti.” 90 Cambell, Enquête, p. 363: “Idem deponens hec verba protulit, dicens: “Certe non timeo, ubi sit Petrus de Rodulpho!” licet prefati Petri primitus noticiam non haberet. Sicque mox hiuismodi verbis prolatis, corda ipsorum mutata fuerunt, dicens Petrus idem quod dictus deponens malum non reciperet.” 91 Cambell, Enquête, p. 363: “Unde Dei pietate et meritis ipsius domine Dalphine idem testis, ut firmiter credit, extitit ab eorum manibus liberatus.” 92 Cambell, Enquête, pp. 362–​63: “quorum unus, qui erat de Massilia, vocabatur Bermondus Hugolerii, et alter qui erat de Gardana, vocabatur Petrus de Rodulpho.”

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in Guillemus’ testimony that the brigands lost their jobs, however. They continued in the employment of King Robert of Naples, and Naples remained a dangerous city because of its political leadership. The timing of the miracle and testimony is again politically interesting. Delphine’s inquest took place in 1363. Although Guillelmus was speaking of events that had happened in 1314, his memory would have been shaped by those intervening years.93 In those years, two waves of plague had moved through Provence and two major mercenary invasions had destabilized the region.94 The people of Provence received little aid from Queen Joanna or King Louis during this time. The Crown of Naples had shifted attention to defending against attacks from Hungary and to regaining Sicily. There is evidence that Joanna did not collect certain taxes in Provence in years that saw devastation from plague, invasion, or both.95 But there is ample evidence that political ties between Provence and Naples were strained. The witnesses’ silence about Queen Joanna i combined with Guillelmus’ experiences in Naples suggest a changing political relationship and increasing political danger caused by relations with the Crown of Naples. 7

Pope Urban v, Protector of Provençal Aristocracy

Another major event in the early fourteenth century had an impact on where the Provençaux sought protection in these challenging decades. In 1308, after visits to many Christian territories in Europe, Pope Clement v made an extended stay in Avignon on the Rhône river. For a variety of reasons, staying 93

94

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L.A. Smoller, “Miracle, memory, and meaning in the canonization of Vincent Ferrer, 1453–​1454”, Speculum 73 (1998), pp. 429–​54. J. Everard, “Sworn testimony and memory of the past in Brittany, c. 1100–​1250”, in Elisabeth van Houts (ed.) Medieval Memories: Men, Women and the Past, 700–​1300, London, 2001, pp. 72–​91. M. Richter, “The search for spoken language in medieval texts: mission impossible? The case of Italy in the ninth century”, in M. Banniard and D. Philps (eds.), La fabrique du signe: Linguistique de l’émergence entre micro-​ et macro-​structures, Toulouse, 2010, pp. 106–​13. A.-​M. Hayez, “La Défense d’Avignon au temps des Papes”, in D. le Blévec (ed.), Défendre la Ville dans les Pays de la Méditerranée Occidentale au Moyen Âge, Montpellier, 2002, pp. 73–​ 80; G. Butaud, “Villages et villageois du Comtat Venaissin en temps de guerre (milieu XIVe-​début XVe siècle)”, in C. Desplat (ed.), Les Villageois face à la guerre (XIVe-​XVIIIe siècle), Toulouse, 2002, pp. 53–​64. In 1359, Joanna and Louis visited Apt to assess the damages done by plague and war. They gave a ten-​year remittance of twelve deniers per hearth to the city. For a translation of this document into French, see F. Sauve, “La vie Aptésienne d’autrefois”, Mercure Apténsien, Sunday July 21, 1907.

294 Archambeau in the region of the Comtat Venaissin, a papal possession in the county of Provence since the thirteenth century, was safer than trying to return to Rome. Clement v’s temporary residence became the permanent residence for the next five popes.96 In this way, popes became political leaders in Provence for most of the fourteenth century. The last pope to spend his entire pontificate in Avignon was Urban v, 1362–​ 1370. Before being chosen as pope, Guillaume Grimoard had a presence in both Marseille and Naples. He had been the abbot of St Victor of Marseille, a venerable and influential institution in Provence, and he was acting as a papal legate to Naples when he was elected. As pope, Urban v had a reputation for aversion to ostentatious display and for his efforts to return the papacy to the city of St. Peter. He strengthened ties to Provence by canonizing the Provençal nobleman Count Elzéar of Sabran and approving a canonization inquest into the holy life of his wife, Delphine de Puimichel.97 Soon after his death, supporters of Urban v began looking into his canonization as well. A pre-​inquest miracle collection included many protection miracles especially for people from Marseille.98 This is not a surprise, since Guillaume Grimoard had served as abbot of St. Victor and, after his death, his body rested in a chapel there. Many witnesses who testified to miracles spoke in this chapel to the notary Anthonius Mayni.99 Some of these miracles look similar to those found in St. Louis of Anjou’s inquest. For example, witnesses testified to appealing to Urban v while in danger at sea. Provence as a region continued to look to the Mediterranean, and protection from danger at sea echoed the biblical miracle of Jesus rescuing the apostles. Since Urban v was involved in far-​ranging political negotiations, however, some miracles range beyond the boundaries of Provence. Lords involved in fighting the Hundred

96 Gregory xi returned to Rome in 1378 and died shortly after. See G. Mollat, The Popes at Avignon: The Babylonian Captivity of the Medieval Church, New York, 1963, pp. 59–​63. 97 J.-​H. Albanès, Recherches sur la Famille de Grimoard et sur ses Possessions Territoriales au XIVe Siècle, Mende, 1866, pp. 15–​17; Mollat, The Popes at Avignon, p. 58. Although Urban V did not canonize Elzéar’s wife and partner in their chaste marriage, their supporters packaged the two as a double cult. See J. Cambell (ed.), Vies Occitanes de Saint Auzias et de Sainte Dauphine. Vol. 12, Bibliotheca Pontificii Athenaei Antoniani, Rome, 1963. R. Voaden, “A marriage made for heaven: The Vies Occitan of Elzéar of Sabran and Delphine of Puimichel”, in R. Voaden and D. Wolfthal (eds), Framing the Family: Narrative and Representation in the Medieval and Early Modern Periods, Tempe, 2005, pp. 104–​05. 98 A pre-​inquest was not necessarily as rigorous in its standards for witness testimony. For the differences see Vauchez, Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages, pp. 42–​43 and 62–​63. 99 J.-​H. Albanés and U. Chevalier (eds.), Actes et documents concernant le bienheureux Urban V pape, Paris, 1897, p. 310.

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Years War throughout Europe appealed to the good memory of pope Urban v for protection. One brief miracle gives a glimpse of the importance of Urban v as a protector of the aristocracy of Provence. In this example, the person praying for the miracle is even more significant than the miracle itself. To bring in this witness, I use a definition of protection that reflects Michael Goodich’s broad definition. Perrinetus Flamenqui, a scutifer to Lord Raymond of Agoult, the seneschal of Provence and Forcalquier, was seriously injured while defending Lord Raymond in battle.100 Perrinetus was pierced by a sword up to its hilt and for eight days he believed he was dying and lay without speaking. Both Perrinetus and Lord Raymond of Agoult appealed to Pope Urban v to ask Christ for healing. Perrinetus vowed to bring wax to Urban v’s tomb. After he was miraculously healed, Perrinetus brought wax and the sword with which he had been pierced to Urban’s tomb in Marseille and testified to the miracle.101 Though it was most likely not a direct political statement, this vow reveals a shift in political attitudes. Perrinetus and Lord Raymond had many saints to choose from, including St Louis of Anjou whose tomb was also located in Marseille. But the appeal and the wax went to the recently deceased pope. While this might simply be interest in a newly deceased holy person, it makes a difference that the seneschal of Provence chose Pope Urban v. This subtly reflects the turbulent dealings of Provençal aristocracy with Queen Joanna.102 Pope Urban v had, in many ways, been a negotiator for Provence and was therefore a protector of the county. As we saw above, Queen Joanna and Louis of Taranto had not always protected Provence. By the same token, this brief miracle could reveal the danger of political affiliation to saints and their cults. King Robert had actively promoted his 100 This was likely Lord Raymond ii d’Agoult-​Sault, who did not long outlive Pope Urban V: Baratier, Atlas Historique, p. 133. 101 Albanés and Chevalier, Actes et documents, pp. 309–​10: “quidam scutifer qui morabatur cum dicto dno Raymundo, domino suo, cum quodam ense evaginato ipsum denuntiantem percussit, pu[n]‌ctando ita quod ambas coxias perforavit, usque manubrium dicti ensis, credens denuntians mortu[u]m fuisse, et ibidem absque loquela stetisse spatio octo dierum; qui dictus dns Raymundus et egroti vulnerati dictum vulneratum voverunt dicto dno Urbano, quod sibi placeret pro dicto vulnerato supplicare domino nostro Jhesu Xpisto, quod sibi placeret facere gratiam eidem ut a dicto vulnere curaretur, quod sibi offeret dictus Perrinetus unam ymaginem ponderis xx librarum. Quo voto facto, dictus Perrinetus fuit gratia divina plenarie et gratiose curatus, et inde obtulit et presentavit monumento dicti dni pape Urbani quandam ymaginem cere cum dicto ense perforante ambas coyxias, prout asseruit predicta vera esse proprio juramento.” 102 Louis of Taranto died in 1362, the year Pope Urban v was elected. See Abulafia, The Western Mediterranean Kingdoms, p. 166.

296 Archambeau brother Louis’ cult by building churches and including him in sermons.103 Queen Joanna did not continue this practice and the people of Provence, including their seneschal, turned elsewhere for protection. 8

Peter of Luxembourg, a French Transplant

Over the next decades, the influence of both the pope and the Crown of Naples would continue to diminish in Provence. Queen Joanna died in 1382, the Great Schism weakened papal influence in Provence, and the county of Provence increasingly came under French control when Joanna made Louis i, Duke of Anjou and brother of Charles v of France, her heir.104 The canonization inquest of Peter of Luxembourg, held in Avignon in 1390, reflects these shifting political alliances. Peter of Luxembourg had few links to Provence and none to Naples before he died. He was related to Charles vi of France, and Pope Clement vii (the Avignon or French Pope) accelerated his religious career.105 He was made a canon of Notre Dame at eight years old and at fifteen he was appointed the bishop of Metz. The city of Metz had sided with Pope Urban vi (the Roman or Italian Pope), however, so Peter’s brother Valeran of Ligny had to take the city by force in 1383 in order to install Peter as bishop. Peter resigned after two years, perhaps because he had lost Valeran’s support by curtailing his brother’s more violent attempts to subdue the city. Pope Clement vii called Peter to Avignon and made him a cardinal. Peter died in Avignon in 1387. By 1390, when the canonization inquest for Peter of Luxembourg was held in Avignon, Pope Urban vi had died and a new pope, Boniface ix, was in Rome. Each pope recognized rival claims for the Crown of Naples and the county of Provence as well.106 Neither claimant supported the interests of the Provençal aristocracy as had Kings Charles i, Charles ii, and Robert. The political ties of the lords of Provence gradually shifted away from the popes and Crown of Naples to the king of France. Some of these swiftly changing and complex political events appear in Peter of Luxembourg’s inquest. The brief testimony of the noble lord Nicolao 1 03 Gaposchkin, The Making of Saint Louis, pp. 85–​86. 104 Abulafia, The Western Mediterranean Kingdoms, pp. 168–​69. 105 Peter was related to Charles vi of France through his parents, Guido of Luxembourg, count of Ligny and St Paul, and Mathilda of Castilione, countess of St. Paul. See Veyssière, Vivre en Provence, pp. 10–​13. 106 Abulafia, The Western Mediterranean Kingdoms, p. 169.

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de Atria, a citizen of Naples, provides a quick glimpse of this corner of the Mediterranean. Lord Nicolao was traveling by ship with ambassadors to the Queen of Sicily. Near Rome, horrible winds came up and pushed them aground, where they hit the land very hard four times. Lord Nicolao invoked Cardinal Peter and promised to visit his tomb if they were rescued. The sea became peaceful, they were able to escape, and Lord Nicolao completed his vow.107 This miracle hints at how the political landscape of 1390 had shifted radically even from that of 1363. In this miracle, the title of Queen of Sicily was no longer affiliated with Naples and the Angevins, even if only in name or political ambition. Not only had the Crown of Naples given up their claims to Sicily, but Queen Joanna had died and neither new claimant was yet married. This reference to the Queen of Sicily was most likely to Maria, the daughter of Frederick iii of Sicily, though the text does not specify this. The testimony also suggests that political alliances had changed. Rome (evoked here by the fossam Romanam) had become a place to fear. With rival popes supporting competing political claims in Naples and Provence, ambassadors had to be careful where they ran aground. And, perhaps most importantly, in this testimony a lord from Naples prayed to a French saint and visited his tomb in what remained of papal Avignon. 9

Conclusions

Each of these protection miracles reflected a moment in time, giving insight into a shifting political landscape. The miracle statements and witness testimonies reveal a complex awareness of political affiliation on the part of those people presenting saintly activity and invoking the saints available to them. In this approach to protection miracles, a miraculous liberation from torture and incarceration is also a political statement about the incarceration, the liberation, and everyone involved. The framing of the miracle by those who 107 Archives départmentales du Vaucluse, Series H, Celestins of Avignon, register 62/​ 2, Witness ccxi, folio 61 verso: “Item quod nobili viro, Nicholas de Atria, de civitate Neapolitana, per mare una cum certis ambassiatoribus missis ad dominam Reginam Cecilie, transfretante, cum prope fossam Romanam applicuissent, insurrexerunt venti horribiles, ex quorum flatu intumescentibus undis intrare fossam coacti fuerunt, et tanto impetu fuerunt adducti, quod quater ad terram fortissime percusserunt propter quod omni spe et adjutorio denudati, nisi dei et dicti domini Cardinalis ipsum humiliter invocaverunt et promiserunt ipsius visitare sepulcrum; et confestim post mare placatum est et dicta galiota in qua erant in mari sine periculo retracta est et sic periculum evaserunt et postmodum promissa compleverunt.”

298 Archambeau testified to it or those who wrote it down –​the way they tell us what happened, to whom, when, where, and in some cases why –​speaks to the broader world in which the miracle occurred. These details reveal the dangers of political alliances for those who traveled through contested territory. The details also reveal the danger saints’ cults faced as political alliances fell apart. In some cases, danger and rescue came from the same political actors. In other cases, as those for saints whose cults disappeared, there was no rescue. Like other studies, this chapter has produced no clear cut definition of protection. People in Provence, like all of Europe, faced diverse dangers and turned to their holy people for protection in many forms. If anything, this chapter has allowed the concept of danger to be even more complex than it was in studies like Goodich’s Violence and Miracle in the Fourteenth Century. By seeing that danger could come from the holy person’s political affiliations, it casts the net of danger even wider. Looking at protection miracles in one region does not replace the methods of Michael Goodich, Ronald Finucane, and others who gather miracles from many different places in order to form a broad picture of danger and saintly protection in Europe. Instead it offers another way to explore change over time by looking at snapshots of danger and protection in one region. Efforts to contextualize these snapshots give us a chance to dig deeper into the political moment of the region that produced the miracle. This process reveals generalities about medieval Europe just as the broader methods do. For example, the point that protection miracles were rarely simple but instead encapsulated a complex political awareness is likely to be true for many places in Europe. But this method also allows scholars to explore political differences. The politics of Provence in the fourteenth century were not identical to the politics of England or Sweden. Protection miracles reflect the political dynamics and needs of the region. They are statements about local and regional rulers. Miracle stories and testimonies were a place for people in a region to speak about their leaders, and even critique them. As we see in Laura Ackermann Smoller’s work with Vincent Ferrer, this method can relocate saints and miracles in political history.

­c hapter 14

The Mobilization of Thought

A Narratological Approach to Representations of Dream and Vision in Late Medieval Miracle Collections in the Low Countries Jonas Van Mulder 1 Introduction* Students of medieval hagiography have recently renewed their commitment to tackle the elusive topic of lay visions by studying their textual representation in miracle accounts and other hagiographic texts.1 The scholarly interest in narratives that describe spiritual dreams and visions experienced by lay men and women is part of a larger question about the negotiation between medieval clergy and laity on the accessibility of the divine to the latter. Crucial for such study is a keen understanding of how miracle accounts and their vision narratives are structured, and how they might have been applied as a means of communication on this matter between clergy and lay audience in their immediate parochial and cultic context. Scholars have introduced several approaches to attempt to work around the highly repetitive and formulaic discourse that characterizes the bulk of medieval miracle accounts. Recently, Byzantinist Stavroula Constantinou engaged with narratology to examine the structure of healing dreams in medieval

* This chapter draws on my dissertation Miracles of the Mind. Authenticity, authority and religious experience in late medieval miracle collections from the Low Countries (1381–​1534), University of Antwerp, 2016. 1 G. Klaniczay, “Dreams and Visions in Medieval Miracle Accounts”, Micrologus’ Library 48 (2012), pp. 147–​70; J. Keskiaho, Dreams and Visions in the Early Middle Ages: The Reception and Use of Patristic Ideas, Cambridge, 2015. Earlier key studies include W. Christian, Apparitions in Late Medieval and Renaissance Spain, Princeton, 1981; A.J. Gurevich, “Oral and Written Culture of the Middle Ages”, New Literary History 16 (1984), pp. 51–​66; i. Moreira, Dreams, Visions and Spiritual Authority in Merovingian Gaul, Ithaca, 2000; M.E. Goodich, Miracles and Wonders. The Development of the Concept of Miracle, 1150–​1350, Aldershot, 2007, pp. 100–​16; G.W. Adams, Visions in Late Medieval England: Lay Spirituality and Sacred Glimpses of the Hidden Worlds of Faith, Leiden, 2007.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2021 | DOI:10.1163/9789004468498_016

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Byzantine miracle accounts and their distinctive narratological functions in comparison with other dream narratives in Byzantine hagiography.2 Following earlier narratological approaches to medieval miracle accounts offered by Michael Goodich and Gábor Klaniczay, Constantinou employs the method of “morphology”, a technique that was first developed in 1928 by the folklorist Vladimir Propp to analyze folktales and their repetitive motifs and typical actors.3 Constantinou, Goodich and Klaniczay rely on Propp’s morphology to attempt to recuperate the historical “operative kernel” of the miracle. By piercing through the “concentric circles” –​i.e. the layers of reformulation, rhetoric, literary clichés, etc. –​that enwrapped and altered the Primärerzählung of the “original transcendent event” in the course of its transmission history, they deemed it possible to recover “precious, true elements” of the original event. Paradoxically, such eagerness to recapture “accurate representations of the richness of everyday life” through morphological analysis of miracle accounts has demonstrated, above all, the importance of approaching miracles as inherently historical constructs.4 These and other studies have contributed substantially to our understanding of the motives and aspirations of the individuals and groups that were involved in the recording process of medieval miracles, and have offered inspiring approaches that allow us to acknowledge historical transformations in a “seemingly immobile world of archaic religious stereotypes”.5 Yet, any “proof” of or reference to some form of “historical reality” in 2 S. Constantinou, “The Morphology of Healing Dreams: Dream and Therapy in Byzantine Collections of Miracle Stories”, in C. Angelidi and G.T. Calofonos (eds.), Dreaming in Byzantium and Beyond, Farnham, 2014, pp. 21–​34. 3 M.E. Goodich, “Filiation and Form in the Late Medieval Miracle Story”, Id., Lives and Miracles of the Saints: Studies in Medieval Latin Hagiography, Aldershot, 2004, pp. 305–​22; G. Klaniczay, “Ritual and Narrative in Late Medieval Miracle Accounts. The Construction of the Miracle”, in S. Katajala-​Peltomaa and V. Vuolanto (eds.), Religious Participation in Ancient and Medieval Societies. Rituals, Interaction and Identity, Rome, 2013, pp. 207–​23. 4 I wish to credit Klaniczay’s nuanced stance on this issue here. According to him, “miraculous events [concerning health issues]” are best approached as “healing fictions” in which the narration, reformulation and reinterpretation of the events by the beneficiaries of the miracles are already there in the “original” account, see Klaniczay, “Ritual and Narrative”, p. 212. 5 Klaniczay, “Ritual and Narrative”, p. 214. Other important contributions on the construction of miracle accounts include G. Signori, “The ‘Miracle Kitchen and its ingredients: a methodical and critical approach to Marian shrine Wonders (10th to 13th century)”, Hagiographica 3 (1996), pp. 277–​303; P. Mariani, “Racconto spontaneo o memoria costruita? Testi a confronto in alcuni processi di canonizzazione del secolo decimoquarto”, Mélanges de l’Ecole française de Rome. Moyen-​Age, Temps modernes 108:1 (1996), pp. 259–​319; L. Smoller, “Miracle, Memory, and Meaning in the Canonization of Vincent Ferrer, 1453–​1454”, Speculum 73:2 (1998), pp. 429–​54; J. Hanska, “The hanging of William Cragh: anatomy of a miracle”, Journal of Medieval History 27 (2001), pp. 121–​38.

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miracle accounts is, at the same time, always part of the instrumentarium of writers and editors who sought to underscore the miracle story’s authenticity and veracity. Therefore, instead of attempting to trace down the alleged historical origin of the miracles discussed, the objective of this chapter is to outline a narratological approach that unlocks information about how miracle stories and their visionary narratives could be used to “instruct” cultic audiences. For this approach, I found support in the ideas put forward in “Le merveilleux dans l’occident medieval” by Jacques Le Goff.6 In this text, the late Nouvelle histoire medievalist distinguishes between, on the one hand, the experience of the “marvelous” as an inherent element of lived religion, and, on the other hand, the “miraculous” as a feature specifically characteristic of the Church. Le Goff proposes to see the miraculous as a clerical regulation of the marvelous (“une règlementation du merveilleux”), as a way of setting “limits” to the way Christians can experience events of great marvel (“frontiers du merveilleux”). In other words, according to Le Goff, the miracle accounts we can study today represent an official narrative of the church whose primary purpose was to hold up an orthodox understanding of manifestations of the supernatural (“Il fallait pour l’Église, qui repoussait peu à peu une grande partie du merveilleux dans le domaine de la superstition, dégager le miraculeux (…) Pour les clercs, il y a du miraculeux, il n’y a pas de merveilleux.”). Le Goff’s view strongly influenced the analytical focus of the following paper and the very specific methodological emphasis on lexicon and syntax; I approach them as tiny portals into the late medieval functional context of miracles. The aim of this paper is twofold. First, by charting the terminology of visionary experience in the selection of late medieval miracle accounts and its genealogy, it will propose that this visionary language represents a specific position on the issue of the laity’s access to the divine through visions. Secondly, it will advance the argument that visionary narratives and other forms of “thought representation” can provide insight into how cultic miracle accounts in general have functioned as devotional instruction.7 The source material for this paper is comprised of a broad selection of cultic miracle registers that were written down in Middle Dutch (and one in Latin) in the Low Countries between 1381 and 1521. During this period, it became a widespread practice for the clergy of parish churches and chapels in the Low Countries, in cities as well as in more rural towns, to record miracle stories that pilgrims and local churchgoers had 6 J. Le Goff, “Le merveilleux dans l’occident médiéval”, in M. Arkoun, J. Le Goff, T. Fahd and M. Rodinson (eds.), L’Etrange et le Merveilleux dans l’Islam médiéval, Paris, 1978, pp. 22–​25. 7 ‘Cultic’, in this chapter, refers to the particular devotional context in which a miracle account was produced and in which it circulated.

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experienced and ascribed to the church patron saint or Madonna statue. The following analysis is based on a selection of such registers composed in Aalst; Bruges; Dadizele; Gullegem and Zaffelare (Flanders); Basse-​Wavre; Breda; Brussels and ’s-​Hertogenbosch (Brabant); Amersfoort and Delft (Holland); Bois-​Seigneur-​Isaac and Halle (Hainaut); and Bolsward (Friesland).8 2

Miracles in the Medieval Low Countries

Despite the presence of many important centers of hagiographic text production, during the Middle Ages not a single canonization process was started in the Low Countries.9 Miracle studies, focusing heavily on canonization records from regions such as Aquitaine, Anglo-​Normandy, England, Naples, and Bavaria, have subsequently largely overlooked this region. The absence of 8 Amersfoort: Brussels, Royal Library, kbr, ms. 8179–​80; Basse-​Wavre: Brussels, Royal Library, kbr, ms. nr. 22066; Bolsward: Utrecht, Het Utrechts Archief, ‘Franciscans in the Netherlands’, hua, 522/​2617; Bruges: Hospitaalmuseum Onze-​Lieve-​Vrouw van de Potterie; Brussels: State Archives of Belgium (Anderlecht), Old Archive of the Collegiate Church of St. Michael and St. Gudule, nr. 8462 (‘Descriptions and testimonies of miracles ascribed to the Sacrament of Miracle, 1529–​1671’) and Brussels Royal Library, kbr, ms. 21792, Miracles of the Sacrament of Miracle in Brussels (1481–​1531) and S. Ydens (ed.), Historie van het H. Sacrament van mirakelen, Brussels, 1605 (repr. 1608); Bois-​Seigneur-​Isaac: Brussels, Royal Library, kbr, ms. 3524; Dadizele: J. Bruyer, Kort begryp van de historie ende mirakelen van Onze Lieve Vrouwe van Dadizeele (Ypres, 1729); Delft (Mary Jesse and Holy Cross): Utrecht, Het Utrechts Archief, ‘Verzamelde stukken van de Oud-​Katholieke kerk in Nederland’, hua 88/​281; Delft (Lady of Sorrows): London, British Library, Additional Manuscripts, nr. 25050, Chronicle of St. Ursula’s Church in Delft. Edition: D.P. Oosterbaan (ed.), “Kroniek van de Nieuwe Kerk te Delft. Inleiding en aantekeningen”, Bijdragen Bisdom Haarlem 65 (1958), pp. 3–​304; Delft (Our Lady of Seven Sorrows): G. Colvenerius and J. van Coudenberghe, Miracula CCX confraternitatis VII dolorum sacratissimae Virginis Mariae, una cum Ortu et progressu eiusdem confraternitatis, Douai, 1619. Edition: Verhoeven, G., Devotie en negotie. Delft als bedevaartsplaats in de late Middeleeuwen (Amsterdam, 1992); Gullegem: Courtrai, State Archives of Belgium, Parish of St. Amand, rak, nr. 42; Halle: St.-​Martin’s Basilica, Guild Book of the Fraternity of Our Lady of Halle (ca. 1380–​1461); ‘s-​Hertogenbosch: Sint-​Janskathedraal, Miracle Book of Our Lady of ‘s-​Hertogenbosch (1382–​1388). Edition: H. Hens et al. (ed.), Mirakelen van Onze Lieve Vrouwe te ‘s-​Hertogenbosch, 1381–​1603, Tilburg, 1978; Niervaart/​Breda: Breda City Archive, Catholic Church, Parish of St. Barbara, ms. 133; Zaffelare: Parish Archive, Miracle Book of Our Lady of Zaffelare (1408–​1533). Edition: M. Daem & M. Gysseling (ed.), “Het mirakelboek van Onze-​ Lieve-​Vrouw van Zaffelare”, Jaarboek Heemkundige Kring de Oost-​Oudburg (1985), pp. 98–​133. 9 A. Vauchez, La Sainteté en Occident aux derniers siècles du Moyen Age d’après les procès de canonisation et les documents hagiographiques, Rome, 1981, pp. 150–​51; R.-​H. Bautier, “L’Historiographie en France aux Xe et XIe siècles (France du Nord et de l’Est)”, La Storiografia altomedievale, Settimane di Studio del Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medio Evo 18 (1970), pp. 751–​850.

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canonization processes and, consequently, the need to document posthumous miraculous accounts systematically, of course does not mean that no miracles were recorded in this area.10 Yet, while the proportion of miracles included in hagiographic texts steeply decreased between the second half of the twelfth century and the first half of the fourteenth, another miraculous text genre emerged outside the convent walls: miracle stories attributed to patron saints in secular churches, either preserved as registers or as notarial minutes or recorded in chronicles, started being written down with great zeal in parish churches and chapels throughout the Low Countries.11 These miracle accounts were not addressed to religious communities or to papal investigation committees, but to local parish audiences.12 The protagonists of these miracle stories are therefore, with some exceptions, mostly profane pilgrims and parishioners. One could say that, although monasteries and regular chapters still managed cults and kept miracle records, the epicenter of “miraculography” migrated from a monastic to a predominantly “secular” environment. This observation may be linked to the process of “secularisation” as described by Benedicta Ward: “What can only be called the vulgarization of miracles belongs to this later period [fourteenth and fifteenth centuries] and is significantly bound up with the decline of that unified and interiorized understanding of reality that is found in the monastic tradition of East and West from the fourth century to the fourteenth.”13 Indeed, in the cities and villages across all counties in the Low Countries of this era, it was secular clerks and professional clerks such as notaries and secretaries who received local devotees and pilgrims and recorded their miraculous experiences.14 10 On the relation between miracula and hagiography, see M. Heinzelmann, “Die Funktion des Wunders in der spätantiken und frühmittelalterlichen Historiographie”, in M. Heinzelmann a.o. (eds.), Mirakel im Mittelalter. Konzeptionen, Erscheinungsformen, Deutungen, Stuttgart, 2002, pp. 23–​61; Moreira, Dreams, pp. 125–​29. 11 J. Deploige, “Écriture, continuation, réécriture. La réactualisation des miracles posthumes dans l’hagiographie des Pays-​Bas méridionaux, ca. 920-​ca. 1320”, in M. Goullet and M. Heinzelmann (eds.), Miracles, Vies et réécritures dans l’Occident médiéval, Ostfildern, 2006, pp. 21–​66. 12 Research showed that miracles in monastic miracle collections or canonisation files seldom reached lay audiences during the high middle ages. See for instance M. Bull, The Miracles of Our Lady of Rocamadour. Analysis and Translation, Woodbridge, 1999, p. 92 and Vauchez, La Sainteté, pp. 545–​46. 13 B. Ward, Miracles and the Medieval Mind. Theory, Record, and Event, 1000–​1215, Philadelphia, 1987, p. 215. 14 Similar observations were made for other regions, see M. Goodich, Violence and Miracle in the Fourteenth Century. Private Grief and Public Salvation, Chicago, 1995, pp. 7–​11; B. Schuh, ‘Von vilen und mancherlay seltzamen Wunderzeichen’, die Analyse von Mirakelbüchern und Wallfahrtsquellen, Göttingen, 1989.

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Cities of the Burgundian Low Countries witnessed an explosive growth of intra muros churches, monasteries, hospitals, chapels and religious guilds’ altars, and an ever-​increasing and diverse group of religious professionals celebrated masses, offered prayer services and delivered sermons to an ever-​ expanding urban population.15 In this context miracles evidently served an important financial objective. Although the economic base of most parish churches was gained from tax revenues and assets, primarily land and real estate, devotional gifts by pilgrims and parishioners were an important addition to the church treasury. Secondly, miracle registration and publication was also a means by which church institutions could display and further their religious authority. In a highly competitive context of an accretion of religious institutions that were all offering the same services –​masses, hours, prayer services, processions, indulgences, confessions, et cetera –​it became increasingly important to attract parishioners and visitors. 3

The Useful Ambivalence of Dreams

The small number of references to visionary phenomena in this late medieval Middle Dutch cultic miracle writing suggests it was not a central nor a clearly delineated motive: they are mentioned in no more than 128 miracle accounts from the total of 3,000 accounts. The terminology used by Middle Dutch miracle writers to distinguish between “dreams”, “visions”, “apparitions” or other forms of divine “inspirations”, is remarkably inconsequent. The crucial Middle Dutch word visioen, for example, is mentioned in only twenty accounts and is used in a generic and typologically inconsistent manner, denoting both apparitions and dream visions, visual as well as auditory experiences.16 An 15 16

John Van Engen discusses these ‘local forces’ in his inspiring essay J. Van Engen, “Multiple Options. The world of the fifteenth-​ century Church”, Church History 77:2 (2008), pp. 257–​84. hua 522/​2617, fols. 17–​17v (nr. 56, no date) and fol. 19 (nr. 61, no date); Ydens, Historie, p. 195 (August 1536); Verhoeven, Devotie en negotie, pp. 255–​256 (nr. 61, June 19th 1509); Oosterbaan, “Kroniek”, 101 (nr. 30, 1423) and 142 (nr. 60, 1493); hua, 88/​281, fols. 1–​2v (nr. 1, 1386) and fols. 4–​6v (nr. 5, 1386); rak, nr. 42, fols. 9–​9v (nr. 13, 1478); Halle, St. Martin, fols. 28v-​29 (nr. 39, 1419–​1427), fols. 30v-​34 (nr. 41, April 3th 1428) and fols. 39v–​40v (nr. 54, July 26th 1442); kbr, ms. 22066–​22080, fols. 258v-​259 (nr. 101, 1453). The total number (3000) also covers miracles collections that lack visionary references altogether and thus were not included in this paper: miracles of St. Ursmar, Aalst (1423–​1436); miracles of St. Eusebius, Arnhem (1470–​1475), miracles of the Holy Cross, Dordrecht (1457–​1509), miracles of the Holy Cross, Breda (1430–​1434), and the miracles of St. Ontcommer, Steenbergen.

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illustration of this conceptual vagueness can be found in a miracle account written on 19 June 1509 by Dirck Adamsz, the minister of the cult of Our Lady of Seven Sorrows in the church of St. Hippolytus in Delft.17 In this particular account, Adamsz describes how a disabled (clauda) woman, called Geertruyt Arnautsdochter, participated in a procession, walking on crutches. Adamsz specifies the woman’s motivation for this painful promenade: the night before, Geertruyt had received a vision (visionem). While sleeping, voices had advised her to go to visit next day’s procession and leave her crutches behind after she completed it (vocem in somniis hunc in modum audivit: “Surge et vade cum processione, ibi instrumenta tua relictura”). Adamsz first uses the term “vision” to refer to the woman’s oneiric and purely aural experience, and later introduces the word “dream” (in somniis) when mentioning the vision again: while shambling in great pain amidst the other procession-​goers, Geertruyt started to doubt the veracity of the dream that had led her into this castigation (ita ut mulier dubitare coeperit ne in somniis delusa fuisset). On the one hand this passage exemplifies the aforementioned terminological inconsistency in representing visionary experience, which might suggest a level of inattention or even randomness on the part of the writer. On the other hand, the passage also unmistakably thematizes reservations about such experiences, indicating a notion of regulation and norm. The crucial difference between both interpretations is that while the former accepts typological arbitrariness, the latter implies an intentional authorial choice to employ vision narratives as a medium of instruction, in this case: “dream visions should be treated with caution”. In what follows, I will advance arguments in support of the second interpretation. Although miracle writers in the Low Countries did not resort to a clear-​cut typology to distinguish between “dreams” and other “visions”, many of their vision narratives display a correlation between the authenticity of a visionary experience and the level of sensorial consciousness. For example, an account registered on 20 May 1506, again taken from Dirc Adamsz’ series of miracles attributed to Our Lady of Seven Sorrows in Delft, tells the case of a man, called Aernout Gijsbrecht, who was cured from an unspecified leg ailment after he received a consoling vision (apparuit ei beata Virgo, ipsum consolans).18 Adamsz added: “[the beneficiary of the miracle] was not sure whether he was awake or asleep” (utrum vigilanti vel dormienti nescit) during this visionary experience. it is possible that Adamsz’ consideration of the beneficiary’s

17 Verhoeven, Devotie en negotie, pp. 255–​56 (nr. 61, June 19th 1509). 18 Verhoeven, Devotie en negotie, p. 232 (nr. 2, 1506).

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level of consciousness originated from him questioning the man about it, but his subtle addition also resonates with a more general medieval alertness to the difference between dream visions and apparitions. Similar references to the visionary’s state of consciousness can be found in several late medieval exemplum compendia, in which the level of consciousness is underscored as a distinction between dream and apparition and, by extension, as a token of authenticity and reliability.19 In fact, exemplum writers practically avoided dream vision narratives altogether. In his popular Dialogus miraculorum, the Cistercian novice master Caesar of Heisterbach (c.1180-​c.1240/​45) shows a clear preference for apparitions over dream visions.20 Consider the first two chapters from the second book of the Middle Dutch translation as an example. They comprise no less than 117 vision narratives out of a total of 156 exempla, of which only twelve describe dream visions. The Middle Dutch translation of the famous Legenda aurea by Jacob de Voragine (1228–​1296) includes 56 post mortem miracle accounts with descriptions of apparitions, while only sixteen accounts describe dream visions.21 The 206 exempla that were incorporated into an extensive Middle Dutch compendium known as Miracles of Our Lady (Onser liever vrouwen miraculen) contain no less than 159 apparitions but only eighteen dream vision narratives.22 When compared to the visionary language 19

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For example, a posthumous miracle of Saint Leonard related in the Legenda aurea describes the apparition of the saint to an imprisoned man, asking: “Are you sleeping, or are you awake? It is me, Leonard, the one you desire!” (slaepstu ofte waecstu? Sich hier es Leonart dien du begheers.). See: A. Berteloot, A. Claassens and W. Kuiper, (ed.), Gulden legende. De Middelnederlandse vertaling van de Legenda aurea door Petrus Naghel uitgegeven naar handschrift Brussel, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, 15140, Turnhout, 2011, p. 445. An exemplum from the Middle Dutch compendium Miracles of Our Lady mentions: “with clear and waking eyes, he saw Mary, Queen of Compassion, coming towards him” (daer sach hi mit claren wakenden oghen dat maria die coninghinne der ontfermherticheit tot hem quam), emphasizing the sensorial perception of a visionary phenomenon. See De Vooys, Middelnederlandse Marialegenden, vol. 1, pp. 187–​189. Descriptions of the two oldest versions from 1481 and c.1454 can be found in C.C. de Bruin, Middelnederlands geestelijk proza, Zutphen, 1940, pp. 199, 200 and 342; J. Deschamps, Middelnederlandse handschriften uit Europese en Amerikaanse bibliotheken, Leiden, 1972, pp. 177–​79 and pp.187–​88. Some of the rare dream visions in the first two chapters contain expressions of doubt about the veracity of dreams (e.g. Dialogus miraculorum ii, distinctione 1, cap. 42). The oldest known version of this Middle Dutch translation was written by Petrus Naghels (d.1395) from Brabant. Most of the protagonists experiencing dream visions are lay people. Only one version of this collection of Marian exempla is known. The work is nevertheless important because it offers a sample of tales excerpted from a range of popular compendia –​such as Gregory’s Dialogi, the Legenda aurea, the Dialogus miraculorum, de Vitae patrum, John Gobius’ Scala celi, the Speculum historiale and the Biënboec by Thomas

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of exempla compendia, the degree to which compilers of Middle Dutch miracle registers preferred dream narratives over apparitions is significant: from the total of 128 visionary narratives identified in the larger selection of miracle accounts, 49 are described as “apparitions” (38%) and 68 as “dream visions” (52%).23 Thus, while cultic miracle writers of the long fifteenth century preferred the “format” of the dream vision, exemplum-​writers tended to avoid it. In general, the low number of vision narratives in miracle registers contrasts with the abundant usage of visionary motifs in exempla. Do both genres then represent two coexisting, opposed perceptions of the potential significance of dream vision and sensorial apparition or their credibility, or does their different visionary language relate to the texts’ different intended audiences? While exempla collections were adapted, translated and reiterated over time by preachers to moralize to their lay folk, most of these stories originated in monastic contexts or clerical schools and were aimed at edifying young novices or priests with exemplary tales of good (or bad) conduct.24 The late medieval cultic miracle, on the other hand, was intended to shape, instruct and finance cultic and parish communities of lay burghers and villagers. Unlike dream and vision narratives in miracle accounts in canonization files, whose primary function was to create a particular image to investigate the putative saint’s sainthood,25 the principal audience was the local parish and cultic community itself. Did miracle writers judge (certain) visionary references to be inappropriate for lay reception? And why did they opt for dream visions while other contemporary texts hardly mentioned them? As a starting point for formulating answers to these questions, I will explore the possibility that the appropriateness of dream visions for miracle writers was not determined by their epistemic reliability, but precisely by their ambiguous character. The general medieval attitude towards dreams was characterised by ambivalence. Medieval writers and theorists approached dreams with fascination as well with caution; they could be misleading, demonic and treacherous, yet by the same token they could contain divine revelations. This medieval double

of Cantimpré –​that were considered relevant at the time of its creation in the year 1479 and stylistically adapted to a late fifteenth-​century audience. See C.G.N. de Vooys, Middelnederlandse Marialegenden, vol. 2, Leiden, 1902–​1903, pp. xv–​xviii. 23 Moreover, when vision narratives that describe ‘demonic’ apparitions (11) are taken out of the dataset, the proportion of apparitions decreases to 29% of the total number of visionary representations. 24 See Jussi Hanska’s chapter in this volume. 25 Goodich, Miracles and wonders, p. 111.

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stance was inherited from classical and late-​antique philosophy.26 From the Greek philosophers medieval writers on the subject took diverse standpoints towards the trustworthiness and the transcendent source of dreams. Some argued that most dreams were either “accidents” caused by an interaction of internal psychological and physiological processes or by demonic intrusions, while others considered dreams as intrinsically divine. Fourth-​century Neo-​ Platonist thinkers such as Iamblichus, Calcidius and Macrobius advocated a “middle way” –​dreams were always potentially “human” (and thus possibly deceitful or meaningless) and “divine” (authentic and significant) –​and engaged in developing complex dream typologies and incorporating earlier classifications.27 Macrobius, for example, distinguished between five different types of dreams, three of which he considered “authentic” (oraculum, visio and somnium) and two “false” (insomnium and visum). Macrobius’ typology can be seen as a sliding scale between the transcendent and the profane, with the somnium at the center, functioning as a sort of intermediate link between the ordinary visum and the visio, partly transcendental but still dependent on earthly imagery. This somnium would subsequently become the central medieval model. The classical and late antique epistemic ambivalence of dreams influenced the most imperative of early Christian writers on the subject, Augustine of Hippo (354–​430). In De genesis ad litteram, Augustine introduced a typology of vision and cognition that would become highly influential in medieval Christianity, distinguishing between three types of perception, ascending from

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S.F. Kruger, Dreaming in the Middle Ages, Cambridge, 1992, pp. 17–​33; J.S. Hanson, “Dreams and Visions in the Graeco-​Roman World and Early Christianity”, in W. Haase (ed.), Aufstieg und Niedergang der Römischen Welt: Principat, Berlin, 1980, 1395–​1427; P. Cox Miller, Dreams in Late Antiquity: Studies in the Imagination of a Culture, Princeton, 1994; Keskiaho, Dreams and Visions in the Early Middle Ages. Such as the Greek Stoic Posidonius’ De divinatione (135–​51 B.C.), the Oneirocriticon by Artimidorus of Daldis (second century) and Porphyrius’ commentaries Timaeus (c.234–​ 305) on the Timaeus. Macrobius and Calcidius were among many other encyclopaedists who excerpted and paraphrased classical texts between the fourth and sixth centuries. Despite the fact that their work contains many factual and interpretative errors caused by the inaccessibility of original ancient texts, their seminal compendia had an important share in the transmission of classical literature, philosophy and science into the Middle Ages. For example: Macrobius’ commentary on Cicero’s Somnium Scipionis and Calcidius’ translation and commentary of Plato’s Timaeus are considered among the most important sources for medieval Neo-​Platonism and Scholasticism. See W.H. Stahl, Macrobius. Commentary on the Dream of Scipio, New York, 1952 (repr. 1990), pp. 9–​11. For a discussion of the work of Artemidorus, Macrobius and Calcidius, see C. Blum, Studies in the Dream-​ Book of Artemidorus, Uppsala, 1936 and Stahl, Macrobius, pp. 23–​39.

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visual sight (visio corporalis, ordinary physical vision with the “bodily eyes”), to visionary perception (visio spiritualis, spiritual or imaginative visions perceived with the “inner eye” or oculus cordis) and finally to pure intuitive imageless insight (visio intellectualis).28 Augustine Christianized the Macrobian “middleness” of dreams by describing all oneiric experiences as “spiritual visions”.29 Dreams, “imaginations of sleep” (De Trinitate ix, 4.7), can relate to banal worldly matters (De genesi, xii, 30.58, 221) and transmit divine revelations (De genesi, xii, 22.45, 209). Some dreams are false, some are important (De genesi, xii, 18.39, 203). Also, according to Gregory, dreams were potentially divine inspirations, but could equally be enticed by a full or empty stomach or by demonic delusion.30 The massive manuscript survival of the works of Calcidius, Macrobius and Augustine testifies to a lasting interest in their ideas and classifications well into the fifteenth-​century.31 In line with the traditional ambivalent attitude to vision and dream interpretation, late medieval texts show reservation, skepticism or outright resistance to the dream. Pejorative qualifications of dreams occur frequently in Middle Dutch catechetical 28

Augustinus of Hippo, “On Genesis”, in E. Hill and M. O’Connell (eds.), The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century, New York, 2002, pp. 464–​75. Augustine discussed dreams elsewhere in his work oeuvre: De Trinitate 11.4.7; Epistolae 9 and 159; De Divinatione Daemonum 5.9; De Civitate Dei 4.26 and 11.2. On Augustine’s visionary epistemology, see B. Newman, “What Did It Mean to Say ‘I Saw’? The Clash between Theory and Practice in Medieval Visionary Culture”, Speculum 80 (2005), pp. 1–​43; F. Tobin, “Medieval Thought on Visions and its Resonance in Metchtild of Magdeburg’s Flowing Light of the Godhead”, in A.C. Bartlett, T. Bestul, J. Goebel and W.F. Pollard (eds.), Vox Mystica: Essays in Medieval Mysticism in Honour of Professor Valerie M. Lagorio, Suffolk, 1995, pp. 41–​53; and V. Fraeters, “Visio/​Vision”, in A. Hollywood and P.Z. Beckman (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Christian Mysticism, Cambridge, 2012, pp. 178–​88. Augustine’s typology is paraphrased in Caesar of Heisterbach, Dialogus miraculorum, Book 7, ­chapter 20. 29 Kruger, Dreaming in the Middle Ages, p. 41. 30 Gregory the Great, The Dialogues of Saint Gregory the Great, ed. E.G. Gardner, London, 1911, pp. 244–​45: “(…) there are six kinds of dreams. For sometimes they proceed of too much fullness or emptiness of the stomach: sometimes by illusion: sometimes both by thought and illusion: sometimes by revelation: and sometimes both by thought and revelation. The two first all by experience know to be true: and the four latter we find mentioned in holy scripture. (…) seeing dreams do grow from such divers roots, with so much the more difficulty ought we to believe them: because it does not easily appear unto us, from what cause they do proceed. Holy men, indeed, by a certain inward spiritual taste, do discern between illusions and true revelations, by the very voices or representations of the visions themselves: so that they know what they receive from the good spirit, and what they suffer by illusion from the wicked: and therefore, if our mind be not herein very attentive and vigilant, it falleth into many vanities, through the deceit of the wicked spirit (…).” 31 Kruger, Dreaming in the Middle Ages, pp. 58–​60.

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treatises and confession manuals and in Middle Dutch worldly literature, such as epic poems and drama, the word for dream (droem, droom or drome) is often employed to ratify an idea or event as untrustworthy, insignificant or trivial.32 The near-​absence of dream visions in exempla fits within this age-​old attitude of reserve and caution. Then how should the frequent use (relatively speaking) of dream vision narratives in cultic miracle accounts be understood? First, visionary representations in Middle Dutch miracle accounts lack any reference or connection whatsoever to medieval dream or visionary theories. On the contrary, the “miraculous context” in which vision narratives are situated correspond to what in both Neo-​Platonic and Aristotelian theoretical tradition is referred to as a basis for false, illusory or demonic dreams and visions (Macrobius’ insomnium and visum). By definition, protagonists of miracle accounts find themselves in moments of crisis, suffer extreme physical ailments or are mentally troubled. Whereas both classical and medieval theory disqualify visionary experiences under such extreme conditions, they are conditional for supernatural intervention in Middle Dutch miracle accounts.33 How would medieval dream theorists evaluate, say, the dream vision experienced by a mentally ill Dutchman locked up in a Flemish hospital, or the apparition that befell a Delft burgher who had slipped into a state of frenzy after five days of pain, food deprivation and insomnia?34 Middle Dutch miracle accounts often deploy a particular syntactic construction as a lead-​in to the vision narrative: hem/​haar dochte (from the verb Middle Dutch dunken), literally “he/​she thought that (she “saw”/​“heard” that or “felt like”, et cetera)”.35 Similar to modern Dutch, the Middle Dutch verb dunken 32 33

34 35

For examples, see E. Verwijs and J. Verdam, Middelnederlandsch Woordenboek, vol. 2, The Hague, 1889, p. 436. In her study of the medieval reception of Macrobius, Alison Peden suggests that little correlation existed between medieval theoretical and literary visionary texts. According to Peden, the connection between visions and physical or mental crises in many medieval texts demonstrates the overall limited influence of dream theory on medieval authors. Peden, “Macrobius”, p. 69: “Until the later Middle Ages, at least, the stimuli provided by dream theory and by dream literature seem to be largely separate things. Classical and patristic sources legitimized the use of dream and vision to convey philosophical, religious and moral truths, and provided an analysis of dream and vision experience. But the dream and vision literature of the early Middle Ages was not a simple translation of theory into practice, and was only rarely located in a theoretical classification. Classical, biblical and apocryphal dreams were what inspired and shaped early mediaeval dream accounts.” For early medieval hagiographic inconsistencies with Macrobian classification, see Moreira, Dreams, pp. 6–​7. kbr 8179–​80, fol. 40 (nr. 301, 1449); Verhoeven, Devotie en negotie, p. 232 (nr. 2, 1506). J. Verdam, Middelnederlandsch Handwoordenbook, The Hague, 1911, p. 132.

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either refers to a thought process, with an expression of opinion, memory or doubt, or is used to introduce narratives of dream or imagination. The latter connotation can be found in profane Middle Dutch epic and allegorical poems of the era. In the Middle Dutch translation of Guillaume de Deguileville’s Pèlerinage de la vie humaine (1330–​31), for example, dunken is used to introduce the oneiric onset of the central allegory: “As I lay down and slept, I imagined (mi dochte) I was a pilgrim, travelling to the city of Jerusalem.”36 Dochte’s ambivalent meaning is situated on a sliding scale between imagination and actual dreaming, embodying the medieval aporetic attitude towards dreams. Middle Dutch cultic miracle writers, in particular, were eager users of this construction. Dunken can be found in 39% of all vision narratives, a number that contrasts significantly with the near-​absence of its usage in Middle Dutch exempla. In miracle collections, duncken is used in almost half of the dream vision narratives but considerably less in descriptions of apparitions.37 This elicits the suggestion that miracle writers wished to highlight the subjectivity of oneiric visionary experience, an idea that gains plausibility when we zoom in on the most “precise” format of visionary representations: those that contain verbatim citations “within” the visionary experience. While duncken appears in only three out of eleven cited aural apparitions, it is used in fourteen out of 29 dream visions that include “cited” divine messages. More than being simply a standardized syntactical affix adding a hint of doubt or imagination to the narrative, in line with the ambivalence of dreams inherited by classical and early Christian oneirocriticism on the epistemology of the vision representation, it also subtly transforms the visionary experience into a thought experience and divine inspiration into human thought. 4

Vision as Thought Representation

The following narratological reading of vision narratives in miracle accounts implies the supposition that their recording and their phrasing reflect an authorial decision that could be taken independently. In that case they would

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I. Biesheuvel, Die pelgrimage vander menschliker creature. een studie naar overlevering en vertaal-​en bewerkingstechniek van de Middelnederlandse vertalingen van de Pèlerinage de vie humaine (1330–​1331) van Guillaume de Digulleville met een kritische editie van handschrift Utrecht, Museum Catharijneconvent BMH 93, Hilversum, 2005, p. 186: “Mi dochte alsoe ic lach ende sliep dat ic een pelgherijm was, gaende ter stadt wert van Jherusalem.” 48% and 27% respectively. These proportions confirm earlier findings in J. Van Mulder, “The Prosaic Supernatural” (2017).

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depart from the original testimony of the pilgrim, even though it is possible that miracle collections do contain authentic reports of visions and dreams. As narratological constituents, descriptions of visionary experiences can be considered as variations of two crucial components of the miracle narrative. Firstly, vision narratives were only one of many other possibilities to indicate the tipping point in the sequence of events described in the miracle account. In this specific role, visions and dreams function as “narrative engines of closure”, at once highlighting the culmination of the central issue or situation (disease, a shipwreck, imprisonment, etc.) and announcing its resolution.38 No less than 86% of the vision narratives are introduced near the kernel of the plot of the miracle account. In many of these vision narratives the saint either offers instructions to the person who experiences the miracle or actually performs the healing or resolution of the crisis situation (e.g. by laying hands on a sore limb during an oneiric vision). Secondly, vision narratives can also be approached as narratological variations to another common element in Middle Dutch miracles: the representation of “thought”. To indicate the discursive representation of mental experiences, narratologists have deployed the concepts of “reported thought” or “consciousness representation”. Why these are of interest for the purpose of understanding vision narratives in Middle Dutch miracle accounts is shown by the Belgian linguists Luc Herman and Bart Vervaeck: The central problem of consciousness representation comes down to the relationship between the representing agent and the one who is being represented. If a narrator represents a character’s thoughts, one may ask to what extent this representation will be pure and authentic. The reader may think that he or she gets the character’s actual ideas, while in fact he or she may only get formulations and opinions belonging to the narrator, who paraphrases the ideas in question.39

38 Verhoeven, Devotie en negotie, p. 79; Constantinou, “The Morphology of Healing Dreams”, p. 22. Vision and dream narratives and vows share a central narrative function. In a reading of miracle stories following Victor Turner, Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors: Symbolic Action in Human Society, Ithaca, 1974, pp. 38–​41, vision narratives and invocation almost invariably form the decisive moment that inaugurates the kernel of the plot; the restoration of the “dramatic rupture” in everyday reality caused by the central issue discussed in the miracle account. Sometimes the described visionary experience is the redressing action: the cure is effected during or immediately after the dream or vision. 39 L. Herman and B. Vervaeck, Handbook of Narrative Analysis, Lincoln/​London, 2005, p. 23.

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The same dynamic can be ascribed to representations of visionary experiences: the mere inclusion of such narratives in miracle accounts was determined by the intention of the author at least as much as by the pilgrim’s alleged report of his/​her miraculous adventure. Moreover, because representations of consciousness enabled writers to penetrate and structure their protagonists’ thought experience, they functioned as an important mechanism for edification. The two most common types of consciousness representation used in Middle Dutch miracle accounts are so-​called “psychonarrations” and “quoted monologues”. Psychonarrations are a fairly common form of mental representation in medieval texts.40 Middle Dutch miracle writers employed several syntactic indications or “markers” to signify such passages, such as a verbum cogitandum,41 or references to memory or reflection. Often, the narratives refer to the specific locus of the protagonist’s “thought”, such as moet (“mood”, “mind”), designating either the seat of an individual’s will, nature or reason, such as in the phrase “And Sir Willem van Wijldert (…) thought in his mind (dochte in sinen moet) (…)”;42 memorie (“mind” or “memory” ’) in the phrase “Suddenly, Mary, Our Lady of Zaffelare, came to his memory (quam in zijn memorie), and he prayed humbly and devoutly for Her assistance”;43 or harte (“heart”) in the phrase “But in her heart (in haer harte) she thought of the Holy Cross and vowed she would make a donation”.44 By far the most common 40 The topic of consciousness representation in medieval fiction is underexplored. According to the Austrian philologist linguist Monika Fludernik this lacuna is largely due to a conviction in classical narratology that literary representation of consciousness only emerged in the nineteenth-​century modernist ‘novel of consciousness’. M. Fludernik, “Through a Glass Darkly; or, the Emergence of Mind in Medieval Narrative”, in D. Herman (ed.), The Emergence of Mind, Representations of Consciousness in Narrative Discourse in English, Lincoln/​London, 2011, pp. 69–​100. Fludernik convincingly demonstrated that Middle English texts profusely articulate internal speech and thoughts. 41 “Doe wart hy denckede op Ons Vrouwe tot Tsertoghenbossch” (Hens, Mirakelen, pp. 177–​ 179, nr. 6, November 1382), “ende si peinsde hoe si mochte /​verblijt werden van deser noot” (Halle, Guldenboek, fol. 23, nr. 31, October 1st 1410), “[een dove vrouw] heeft gedachtigh geweest van de genaden ende Mirakelen die de H. Moeder Godts tot Dadizeele dede” (Bruyer, Kort begryp, 36, nr. 23, 1412), “Doe vielen hoer gedachten op” (Alberts, “Sint Eusebius”, p. 4, nr. 3, no date); “Maria quam in huer ghedochte” (Brugge, Potterie, nr. 14) and “en laetsten haer quamen te vooren de wonderlijcke wercken Godts ende Mirakelen die tot Dadizeele … geschieden” (Bruyer, Kort begryp, 37, nr. 24, 1413). 42 Hens, Mirakelen, p. 529 (nr. 314, February 17th 1384). 43 Daem and Gysseling, “Het mirakelboek”, p. 132 (nr. 12): “Met dien quam in zijn memorie van maria de moeder gods van Saffelare, de welcke hij oetmoedelic ende devotelic bat om bijstant dat zu hem vertroosten.” 44 hua 88/​281, fols. 17v–​18 (nr. 20): “Mer in haer harte docht si opt theylige cruus voirseit ende loofde mit goeder begheerten ende mit ynnicheden haers harten als si best mocht den heyligen cruce te offeren.”

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structure for consciousness representations however is centered on the Middle Dutch term sinne. In the anthropological and philosophical sense, sinne refers to the human sensitive soul, but its usage in miracle accounts generally allows for the translation “mind”.45 The miracle collections of Amersfoort and Delft (St. Ursula) in particular are interlaced with phrases like these: “Suddenly Our Lady in Distress came to his mind (quam hem in zijnen sinne)”;46 “Then, he thought of (quam in zijn sinne) the image of Our Lady of Amersfoort that was found in the water”;47 “At night, it occurred to him (quam in zijn sinne) that he should pray to the Virgin Mary: he got up and prayed five Ave Marias”48 or “And she received an inner thought (zij chreech een sin inwendich): she should go on pilgrimage to Our Lady of Amersfoort dressed in a woolen blanket”.49 The parallels between representations of self-​generated thought, supernatural inspiration and visionary and oneiric experiences are striking, and it is often difficult to distinguish them. Phrases like “He fell asleep, when thoughts about Our Lady of Amersfoort came to his mind”50 or “That night, it came to his 45

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47 48 49 50

For an introduction into the role of the senses in the process of perception, in general and in the religious sphere, see R. Newhauser, “Introduction: The Sensual Middle Ages” and B. Caseau, ‘The Senses in Religion: Liturgy, Devotion, and Deprivation’, in R. Newhauser (ed.), A Cultural History of the Senses in the Middle Ages London, 2014, pp. 1–​22 and pp. 89–​ 110. A inspiring analysis of late medieval theories of spirit physiology and theological and medical approaches to the physiology of the spirit can be found in N. Caciola, Discerning Spirits: Divine and Demonic Possession in the Middle Ages, Ithaca, 2003, esp. ­chapters 3 and 4. On the role of the heart and its relation to the brain in spiritual and physical sensory experiences in late medieval theory and spirituality, see H. Webb, “Cardiosensory Impulses in Late Medieval Spirituality”, in: S.G. Nichols, A. Kablitz and A. Calhoun (eds.), Rethinking the Medieval Senses. Heritage, Fascinations, Frames, Baltimore, 2008, pp. 265–​ 85 and the 2003 issue of Micrologus: Revista della Società Internazionale per lo Studio del Medioevo Latino (ed. A. Paravicini Bagliani) which is dedicated to the physical and metaphorical importance of the heart in medieval thought. kbr 8179–​80, fol. 13v (nr. 10, 1444): “Terstont quam hem in zijnen sinne van Onser L. Vrouwen genade t’Amersfoert”. In an account from the collection of Den Bossch, the ‘immediateness’ of thought is highlighted as follows: “Soe quam hem roekeloos in sinen sin, dat Ons Lieve Vrou ten Bosch dagelix groot mirakel dede”. Hens, Mirakelen, 667 (nr. 476, August 1520). kbr 8179–​80, fol. 14r (nr. 11, 1445): “Die quam in zijn sinne van Onser L. Vrouwen beelde t’Amersfoert, dat inden water gevonden was.” kbr 8179–​80, fols. 26r-​26v (nr. 158, 1445–​1448): “Hem quam in zijn sinne, dat hij aenroepen soude die Maghet Maria ende hij is des nachts opgestaen ende viel op zijn knijen ende las vijff Ave Maria.” kbr 8179–​80, fol. 36r (nr. 255, 1449): “Ende zij chreech een sin inwendich dat zij Onse L. Vrou inden water gevonden t’Amersfoert soude versoecken, wollen en bervoets.” kbr 8179–​80, fol. 14r (nr. 12, 1445): “Hij viel in een slaep, daer hem in zijn sinne quam van Onser L. Vrouwen ghenade t’Amersfoert.”

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mind he should go on pilgrimage to Our Lady in Distress in Delft to recover his health”51 evoke associations of dream vision narratives, but cannot unambiguously be identified as such. An explicit reference to an aural vision in a phrase like “At night it came to his mind –​as if he was spoken to (gelijck off hem toe gesproecken had geworden) –​that he should make an offering to Our Lady of Amersfoort”,52 remains unclear about the actual nature of this “thought experience”. Additionally, in some collections, particularly in the Dordrecht collection of miracles ascribed to a local Holy Cross relic, descriptions of “memories”, “ideas” or “edification” are phrased as divine “inspirations”: “As advised by the Holy Spirit, he decided to pray to the Holy Cross”;53 “Inspired by the Holy Spirit, he vowed to go on pilgrimage to the Holy Cross in Dordrecht”,54 or “Suddenly God (…) showed the parents where to find the right instrument [to take out their child’s splinter]”.55 According to Gerrit Verhoeven, the editor of the Dordrecht and Delft miracle collections, these “vague indications” resulted from the inability of involved actors and notaries to identify or nominate these experiences.56 But why not assume instead that their terminology was deliberate? This hybrid representation of human thought and divine inspiration links up with the tendency of Middle Dutch miracle writers to conflate consciousness and visionary experience. The second most common type of consciousness representation is the “literal” representation of a protagonist’s thoughts in the first-​person singular. The miracle collection of Our Lady in Distress in particular contains a remarkably high number of such “quoted monologues”, which may be related to the notarial character of this particular collection: the reproductions of “speech” and​“thought” could be remnants of the notarial recording of interrogations of people who claimed to have experienced miracles. An example from a miracle account registered in the year 1384 states “Then it came to Machtelt’s mind 51

Oosterbaan, “Kroniek”, p. 105 (nr. 26, 1416): “In der selver nacht, so quam hem in den sinne, dat hi bevairt souden love totter Nootgoods hier te Delft ende hi soude gesont worden.” 52 kbr 8179–​80, fol. 43v (nr. 330, 1449): “Item het quam een man uuijt Zeelandt en was blijnt geworden ende was wel een maent dat hij luttel off niet sien en conde. Dien quammet des nachts in zijn sinnen, gelijck off hem toe gesproecken had geworden, dat hij Onse Lieve Vrou t’Amersfoert soude versuecken. En rechtevoert loefde hij zijn bevaert. En des smorgens als hij op stonde doe voelde hij baet. Ende hij wert siende en heeft zijn bevaert gedaen.” 53 Verhoeven, “Het mirakelboek”, p. 113 (nr. 3, 1458): “Bij inspreken des Heylighen Geest geloeffde hij theylighe Hout te versoecken.” 54 Verhoeven, “Het mirakelboek”, p. 113 (nr. 4, 1458): “bij ingheven van den Heylighen Geest (…) [the miraculé vowed to] theylich Hout te besoecken ende in peregrinagye te gaen.” 55 Verhoeven, “Het mirakelboek”, p. 125 (nr. 41, June 27 1459): “Terstont God … gaf den ouders verstant dat sijt met een instrument uuyt creghen.” 56 Verhoeven, Devotie en negotie, p. 77.

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(dairna quam Machtelt, die Moeder, in den sinne, denckende), ‘You travel far and wide to find a cure for your child; haven’t you heard of the divine grace and benevolence to be found here [in St. Ursula’s church], where you can receive consolation for a weary heart, a cure for disease, and solutions to other problems?’ ”57 An account recorded by a notary on June 17th 1470 contains the following cited monologue: “And she thought, ‘I want to go there [St. Ursula’s church], and if I can, so I will’.”58 In some cases the verbatim character of the quoted monologue is specifically accentuated. An eighteen-​year-​old woman had been struck mute during a storm, and around one o’clock in the afternoon of 14 October 1456, “an idea came to her mind, and she thought to herself (quam hair in den sinne ende worde denckende in hoirselven aldus), ‘How wonderful and gracious is the glorious Virgin Mary in the figure of Our Lady in Distress here in the New Church in Delft’.”59 Although it is tricky to make conclusive statements about the intentions of miracle writers when using such quoted monologues, we can try to assess the possible impact of quoted speech in consciousness representations as a rhetorical device based on the following miracle account from the same miracle collection. In the year 1510, after a long but fruitless quest for medical treatment for an obstinate leg ailment, the Delft tanner Jan Pieterszoen is lost in thought: “by divine instigation, he hit upon the following idea, ‘Why am I looking for help from other people, while I should seek consolation from Christ and his Mother Mary, whose grace surpasses human caretaking.’ ”60 Notary Johannes Walteri Brant, who registered the miracle story, decided to include the following verbatim reproduction of Pieterszoen’s contemplation in his prayer: “He prayed ardently to the Blessed Mother of God, and said, ‘O Mary, mother of our Lord Jesus Christ, through the pains you suffered at the foot of your Son’s cross, I ask thou to grant me pardon and health for my 57

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Oosterbaan, “Kroniek”, p. 91 (nr. 7, 1384): “Dairna quam Machtelt, die Moeder, in den sinne, denckende: ‘Ghi reyst hier ende dair verre om uwes kints gesontheyt; mercti nyet wat groter gracien ende genaden dat God ende die wairde moeder Goods hier werct ende gonnet allen bedructen harten van alrehande ziecte ende versoken’ ”. Oosterbaan, “Kroniek”, pp. 127–​28 (nr. 47, 1470): “Ende si dochte: ‘Ick wil darwairt, ic coem dair of ic mach’ ”. Oosterbaan, “Kroniek”, pp. 117–​18 (nr. 38, 1456). Oosterbaan, “Kroniek”, pp. 161–​63 (nr. 74, 1510): “So viel hem door verheugenisse Goods in den sin aldus: ‘Ick soecke troost an creaturen, het wair beter dat ic mijn troost sochte eerst an Gode van hemelrijck ende sijn lief moeder Maria, want hoor hulp gaet boven allen meesteren’ ”.

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salvation, so I can be cured from this sore leg. I will donate all the money I planned to spend on medication and doctors to the restoration of your sanctuary in the New Church [St. Ursula’s church], and I will be your pilgrim in the yearly procession my whole life’.”61 Directly following this prayer, Pieterszoen’s leg wound healed. This particular passage allows for an assessment of the imaginable effects of such usage of verbatim citation of a protagonist’s interior monologue and prayer on the churchgoers of the New Church in Delft. Whether these citations were based on actual thoughts and words, or sprang from Brant’s or a subsequent copyist’s imagination, is of less importance here. A first conceivable “impact” of this rhetoric has to do with a practical, devotional level. Of course, it was no coincidence that some of Pieterszoen’s reflections relate to the most elementary aspirations of the cultic organisation: 1) people should seek comfort in the supernatural (Gode van hemelrijck ende sijn lief moeder Maria) rather than in the worldly practice of medicine (troost an creaturen);62 2) Christians should not spend money on futile medical treatments (alle datgeen dat ic vermeesteren soude), but replenish the church’s collection boxes to finance the renovation works (geven totter reparacien van der nyewer kercken); and 3) pilgrims should commit themselves to a long-​term relationship with the parish church and its ministry (ic sal dair toe alle mijn leven lange u pelgherim dair wesen). As such, this miracle writer aimed to offer an all but sublimated stimulus for visitors to become subsidizing members of the parish community. But his message was not limited to monetary interests; the miracle story also broaches a devotional and spiritual dimension and fulfils a catechetical function. When the protagonist, Pieterszoen, solicits for help, he makes a reference to the sorrows experienced by Mary at the foot of the cross (het bedructe liden dat ghi leedt 61

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Oosterbaan, “Kroniek”, pp. 161–​63 (nr. 74, 1510): “Dit overdenckende aldus, so anriep ic mit herteliker vuericheit die gebenedide moeder Goods Maria ende seyde: ‘O Maria, moeder ons heren Jhesu Christi, door u bedructe liden dat ghi leedt mit uwen gebenediden soone onder der galgen des cruys, wilt mij doch gracie ende gesontheit verlienen tot mijnre salicheit, dat ic van desen ongesonden bien mit lief mach comen. Ick wil u alle datgeen dat ic vermeesteren soude moeten gairne geven totter reparacien van der nyewer kercken uwen uutvercoren goodshuyse, ende ic sal dair toe alle mijn leven lange u pelgherim dair wesen als men u beelde ter Noot Goods dair ommedraecht’ ”. In Middle Dutch cultic miracles, physicians are not yet the central protagonists they would become in post-​Tridentine miracle accounts. On the role of physician testimony in the investigation of miracles in canonization files from the seventeenth to the twentieth century for declaring the hopeless prognosis, see Jacalyn Duffin, especially “The Doctor was surprised; or, how to diagnose a miracle”, Bulletin of the History of Medicine 81 (2007), pp. 699–​729.

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mit uwen gebenediden soone onder der galgen des cruys), an iconographic allusion to the New Church’s main cult, the Nood Gods, a pietà. Imagine a setting wherein churchgoers and pilgrims heard the priest reciting the miracle narrative from the pulpit.63 Narratively speaking, the cited prayers and thoughts are not the preacher’s, but the words of a common Delft tanner. By inserting a quotation from the protagonist’s interior monologue, the positions of preacher and recipient of the miracle are temporarily merged and the mental religious experience of the latter is used as a narrative framework for the devotional propaganda of the former. This rhetorical technique conceivably appealed to many listeners, who were invited to identify with the miracle narrative’s main character, a man who could have been their neighbor, relative or friend, and was now appointed the exemplary protagonist of a religious account preached by the pastor. As such, this particular story not only illustrates how miracle narratives could have functioned as models for devotional behavior and mind-​set, it actually allows us to observe this dynamic at work in a performative context. We can also apply this line of reasoning to the use of visionary experiences as quoted monologues. From a narratological point of view, the use of quoted speech in the representation of visionary experiences is an exceptional case, as they consist of a “literal citation” within a consciousness representation of another subject than the miracle account’s protagonist. Auditory elements occur in 68 of 128 vision narratives. In 43 of these “aural visions” the visionary subject is quoted directly.64 The miracle collection of Den Bosch accounts for more than one third of the total number of these quoted visions (36 vision narratives, dated between 15 November 1382 and 6 June 1387). In sixteen of these visions, the protagonist is addressed by a voice, phrased in quoted speech and often explicitly attributed to the Virgin Mary.65 A peculiar example is included in the miracle story of Gerard Dullich from Geertruidenberg, who was

63

Middle Dutch miracle accounts contain many references to the public recitation of reported miracles during liturgical and para-​liturgical events in and outside the parish church and in other localities by priests and itinerant messengers. 64 They were found in the collections of ‘s-​Hertogenbosch (16, dated between 1382 and 1387), Amersfoort (7; 1445–​1545), Delft –​Our Lady in Distress (6; 1381–​1426), Halle (4; 1405–​1443), Delft –​Our Lady of Seven Sorrows (4; 1506–​1517); Bolsward (2; c.1534); Niervaart (1373); Delft –​Our Lady Mary Jesse (1386), Zaffelare (after 1408) and Bois-​Seigneur-​Isaac (c.1468). 65 Hens, Mirakelen, pp. 175–​77 (nr. 5, November 7th 1382), pp. 197–​98 (nr. 20, March 1st 1383), pp. 288–​90 (nr. 113, June 2nd 1383), pp. 309–​10 (nr. 132, June 11th 1383), pp. 361–​62 (nr. 187, August 1st 1383), pp. 375–​76 (nr. 199, August 14th 1383), pp. 393–​94 (nr. 216, August 19th 1383), pp. 489–​90 (nr. 281, October 20th 1383), pp. 584–​86 (nr. 369, June 26th 1384), pp. 586–​87 (nr. 370, June 26th 1384), pp. 590–​91 (nr. 375, August 10th 1384), pp. 624 (nr. 428, June 25th 1386), p. 638 (nr. 450, June 6th 1387).

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imprisoned in the city of Dordrecht for breaching the peace.66 Gerard’s brother received a vision of Our Lady of ‘s-​Hertogenbosch and went to visit his brother to convince him to pray to Her. This visionary message, reproduced in quoted speech, is encapsulated in the conversation between the two protagonists that is, in its turn, also represented in quoted speech: “His brother approached him and said, ‘Our Lady of the heavens appeared to me in my sleep and said “Tell your brother to come to my chapel s’-​Hertogenbosch dressed in linen clothes and a pilgrim’s hat; he will manage to escape without problems”.’ ” It almost seems as if this miracle’s writer plays –​consciously or unconsciously? –​with the usage of quoted speech in dialogue and in visionary representation. Research has shown that medieval authors used quoted speech in (vision) narratives as a technique to grant authority to the “spoken” words in their texts.67 According the American literary historian Barbara Zimbalist, “oratio recta” functioned as a legitimizing strategy to claim to represent the visionary event with verisimilitude. In first instance, the quoted speech evokes a personal participation in the visionary experience, and thus elevates the level of authenticity of its narration.68 Secondly, it is also deployed as an educational device. Zimbalist studied the citation of Christ’s speech in the literary visions of the Brabant mystic Hadewijch and concluded that the use of quoted speech complemented the mystic’s mystagogical project in which she offered her own visionary experiences as a guide to the readers/​recipients of her texts.69 66 Hens, Mirakelen, pp. 310–​11 (nr. 134, June 11th 1383). 67 B. Zimbalist, “Quotation and Imitation in Hadewijch’s Visioenen. The Visionary and the Vernacular Voice of Christ”, Ons Geestelijk Erf 83 (2012), pp. 216–​42; Id., “Imitating the Imagined: Clemence of Barking’s Life of St. Catherine” in M. Cotter-​Lynch and B. Herzog (eds.), Reading Memory and Identity in the Texts of Medieval European Women, New York, 2012, pp. 105–​34. For an analysis of the rhetorical trope of oratio recta, see H. Specht, “ ‘Ethopoeia’ or Impersonation: A Neglected Species of Medieval Characterization”, Chaucer Review 21 (1986), pp. 1–​15. On the use of quoted speech to invoke eyewitness authority, see: J. Beer, In Their Own Words. Practices of Quotation in Early Medieval History-​ Writing, Toronto, 2014. 68 Zimbalist, “Quotation and Imitation”, p. 220: “The narrating Hadewijch says that she ‘sees’ and ‘hears’ Christ, reinforcing the authenticity of her visions through her personal participation in the events described; her description insists upon the text’s verisimilitude by employing a level of eyewitness authenticity and immediate verbal interaction between the visionary speaker (Christ) and the visionary narrator/​listener (Hadewijch).” 69 Zimbalist, “Quotation and Imitation”, pp. 218–​19: “Such speech functioned rhetorically as an educative mode requiring and consisting of the narrator’s imitation of the quoted visionary speaker. The use of oratio recta thus signals the narrator’s desire to inhabit not only the subject’s speaking position, but also the moral and spiritual context affiliated with that position. The direct, dialogic nature of verbal encounter within the visionary frame establishes visionary speech, in Bakhtinian terms, as an utterance that requires and even determines the hearer’s or reader’s response.”

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Zimbalist’s approach to Hadewijch’s mystagogical compositions can also, to some extent, be applied to our sources. Miracle writers essentially aimed to achieve the same effect: by presenting the miracle story as the verbatim record of a personal experience of a divine revelation, their words gained legitimacy and authority. The preference of notaries and copyists for literal citations created an objectifying effect on at least two levels: they increased the credibility of the described visionary event because of the literal reproduction, and they added a dash of trustworthiness to the miracle story in its entirety. The cited narrative is a reproduction of both the divine speech,, and the words used by the miracle recipient to report the notary of his/​her miraculous experience. In absolute numbers, there is a clear delineation between the use of direct speech in vision narratives that describe “dreams” and “apparitions”. Quoted speech is used in only 12 of 49 (24%) apparitions, whereas it can be found in 26 of 64 (45%) dream visions. Besides this numerical difference is also a thematic distinction: whereas almost all of these dream visions have an instructive character, apparitions show more variation in content, from being instructive, to “performative”, “signaling”, and “edifying”.70 Most of the instructive auditory visionary experiences that are phrased in quoted speech are dream visions.71 Also, the much rarer variant of deathbed visions, mentioned in only eight miracles in the source corpus, contain passages in quoted speech.72 This different use of quoted speech in dreams and apparitions seems at odds with my earlier proposition that dream visions enjoyed the preference of miracle writers as a framework for a credible visionary experience because, following from their oneirocritical genealogy and syntactical structure, “dreams” allowed for an emphasis on the subjectivity of lay visionary experience. Why then were saintly voices, tangible attributes of supernatural presence, so often embroidered into dream vision narratives? Was a high degree of quoted speech 70

‘Instructive’ (e.g. a directive to visit a particular shrine) (6 accounts): Oosterbaan, “Kroniek”, pp. 86–​87 (nr. 1, 1381), pp. 98–​99 (nr. 16, 1399); hua 88/​281, fols. 4–​6v (nr. 5, 1386); Halle, Guldenboek, fols. 42–​44 (nr. 58, September 16th 1443); hua 522/​2617, fols. 22v–​23 (nr. 75, 1534); kbr 8179–​80, fol. 69v (nr. 542, 1545). ‘Performative’ (e.g. operating as a healer) (2 accounts): Oosterbaan, “Kroniek”, pp. 86–​87 (nr. 1, 1381); kbr 8179–​80, fols. 37–​37v (nr. 265, 1448). ‘Signalling’ (e.g. giving crucial directions in order to solve a given problem) (2 accounts): Oosterbaan, “Kroniek”, p. 90 (nr. 6, 1384); Halle, Guldenboek, fols. 20v-​21 (nr. 27, 1405). “Edifying” (e.g. elaborating on a theological or devotional subject) (1 account): Verhoeven, Devotie en negotie, pp. 283–​88 (nr. 126, 22 juni 1510). 71 34 out of 42 auditory visions that include quoted speech (29 are dream visions) contain instructions. 72 Hens, Mirakelen, pp. 222–​23 (nr. 47, April 24th 1383) and 489–​90 (nr. 281, October 20th 1383); kbr 8179–​80, fol. 29v (nr. 193, 1445); Zaffelare, Miracles, fols. 6–​6v (nr. 5, 1408) and fols. 8–​8v (nr. 8, 1408–​1533); hua 522/​2617, fol. 19 (nr. 61, 1534).

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considered to entice the lay public to believe in and urge for direct contact with the supernatural? Was the non-​sensorial dream vision considered to be a safe “narratological environment” for the representation of such interaction? Or were literal citations in dream visions inserted to keep the right balance between human subjectivity and divine authority? All are valuable hypotheses. Whether the use of quoted monologues in dream vision narratives relates either to the construction of authenticity, or whether they were implemented for rhetorical and edificatory motives, and how this related to the subjective narrative framework, could be the subject of comparative analysis. 5

Phasing Out the Visionary? The Case of Our Lady of Sorrows (Delft)

So far, the discussion on vision narratives and their representation as consciousness representation did not focus on chronological developments during the period under study.73 This is mainly because very few Middle Dutch miracle collections allow for a diachronic examination, from the start until registration came to an end. The collection of Our Lady of Sorrows at St. Ursula’s church in Delft, is the only miracle collection that contains a sufficient number of visionary representations to analyze the use of visionary experiences throughout the full period of committing them to writing, from 1381 until 1516. Throughout this period, maintaining cultic miracles in St. Ursula’s church was closely linked to its institutional development. The creation of the Zevengetijdencollege (a college of priests appointed to sing the Hours, analogous to a cathedral chapter) was accompanied by a growing precision in the recording of miracles and the level of clergy involvement. This process of clericalization and bureaucratization seems to relate somehow to the attitude towards (re)producing visionary experiences in the miracle accounts. There was a declining interest in recording visionary representations: of the 36 miracle accounts registered before the advent of the chapter in 1456, nine accounts include visionary passages, while only five of 52 accounts dated after 1456 contain vision narratives.74 Four 73

74

Concentrations of vision narratives in the voluminous collections of ‘s-​Hertogenbosch, Amersfoort and Delft (respectively 1382–​1387, 1445–​1449 and 1506–​1517) would lead to a distorted image. A separate analysis of these collections did not show significant chronological or typological patterns. According to Irina Metzler healing miracles “take a numerical nosedive from the fourteenth century onwards” and gave way to “visions”, see I. Metzler, “Indiscriminate Healing Miracles in Decline: How Social Realities Affect Religious Perception”, in M.M. Mesley and L.E. Wilson (eds.), Contextualizing Miracles in the Christian West, 1100–​1500: New Historical Approaches, Oxford, 2014, pp. 155–​76 (esp. p. 155 and p. 164). With regard to cultic miracle

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significant alterations between vision narratives from both registration phases stand out. A first difference relates to the “attitude” of three of the five visionary beneficiaries of miracles mentioned in the second writing phase, the first of which was registered in 1469. This account describes how a blind woman, Heilwich Willem Aerntszoenswijf, from The Hague, receives a vision in which she was encouraged to visit Our Lady of Sorrow in Delft to restore her sight.75 Heilwich “reacted with surprise to these revelations” (hoer verwonderde van deser openbaringen) but eventually vowed to make a pilgrimage. Another miracle recounts how in 1493 the eighteen-​year-​old Jacob Gerrytszoon was taken into the Delft hospital to have his impaired legs treated.76 When on 15 February of that year Jacob recounted his miraculous cure to the priests of St. Ursula’s church, he remembered that he had received a vision on 4 February, in which he saw himself praying before the statue of Our Lady of Sorrow, and that his paralysis was then cured. He shared his vision with a hospital nurse, who advised Jacob to have trust in his vision and to go to visit the shrine in St. Ursula’s church and offer two wax legs, which he did. A similar storyline can be found in an account dated 1505.77 A daughter of Ariaen Rijckendochter from Delft had been suffering from a mysterious paralysis and was about to give birth to a second child, when one night, on her childbed, she was struck by panic and a sensation of desolation before she fell asleep. In a dream vision, Our Lady of Sorrows appeared next to her bed. The Virgin compassionately looked at her but addressed her with a stern voice. Ariaen woke up and “marveled” about what had happened (si verwoenderende hoer). When she told her nurse about her dream vision, the latter advised her to take her child to St. Ursula’s church and pray to Our Lady in Distress. In one way or another, each of these three vision narratives highlights a form of consideration of the visionary experience. The miracles of 1469 and 1509 refer to the “wonder” or

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collections in the Low Countries, this alleged evolution moves in quite the opposite direction between the fourteenth and the seventeenth century. Healing miracles, already predominant in medieval collections, only become the norm in seventeenth-​century catholic miracle books. References to visions or apparitions, already rather rare in the long fifteenth-​century, are highly exceptional in early modern miracles. We might suggest that the case of Our Lady of Sorrow foreshadows this evolution. On the insistence on somatic aspects of illness and suffering in seventeenth-​century miracle accounts in the Southern Low Countries, see J. Van Mulder, “Het Miraculeuze Lichaam. Lichaamsvertogen in Zeventiende-​Eeuwse Genezingsmirakelen uit de Zuidelijke Nederlanden”, Trajecta 21 (2012), pp. 249–​94. Oosterbaan, “Kroniek”, p. 127 (nr. 46, July 17th 1469). Oosterbaan, “Kroniek”, p. 142–​43 (nr. 60, February 15th 1493). Oosterbaan, “Kroniek”, pp. 148–​49 (nr. 64, 1505).

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“puzzlement” experienced by the beneficiaries of the miracles. According to the miracle accounts recorded in 1493 and 1509, the protagonist immediately shares his visionary experience and receives feedback from bystanders. Nowhere in the first registration phase can such a reference to reflection or confusion be found. The contrary is illustrated by a miracle account dated in 1423, in which a paralyzed man wakes up after a dream vision, feeling “relieved” (seer verlicht) and “happy to have received such a vision” (tevreden dat hi sulcken visioen gehadt hadde) and had himself transported to St. Ursula’s church without further deliberation.78 Parallel with the increase of clerical involvement in the registration of miracles, more vision narratives started referring to the level of attentiveness that visionary experiences required. A second feature of descriptions of visionary experience in the second registration phase concerns their more “blurry” character, as opposed to more clearly outlined apparitions in the first phase. Four of the ten vision narratives from the latter registration period explicitly mention the New Church’s cultic Madonna: the Virgin makes her appearance “in the image of her statue in St. Ursula’s church” (in der figuren der Nootgoods or in der scijn des beelden staende hier in deser kercken).79 In the second part of the collection, visionary pilgrims are instructed to vow a pilgrimage “in a vision”, in “two or four dreams”, or “in recurrent dreams”; more particular information about the content of these visionary and oneiric experiences is left out.80 One miracle account does mention that the beneficiary/​recipient of the miracle experienced a vision of himself “standing in front of and worshipping Our Lady of Sorrows in the New Church”, but lacks the introduction of an actively intervening Virgin. A third difference between visionary narratives from both registration phases relates to the changing use of quoted speech. In vision narratives recorded during the first phase, quoted speech is used frequently to emphasize the Virgin’s speech, such as in the first miracle account of the collection: “Suddenly, he thought he heard the Virgin speak to him as follows, ‘If you want to be released [from this prison], then go to my new sanctuary in the city of Delft in Holland and worship me’ ”.81 Such emphasis on direct contact, accentuated by the insertion of clauses, disappears in the course of the recording

78 79 80 81

Oosterbaan, “Kroniek”, pp. 108–​09 (nr. 30, 1423). Oosterbaan, “Kroniek”, pp. 97–​98 (nr. 15, 1396); pp. 98–​99 (nr. 16, June 18th 1399); pp. 100–​ 01 (nr. 18, 1401); pp. 106–​07 (nr. 28, 1420). Oosterbaan, “Kroniek”, p. 127 (nr. 46, 1469), pp. 136–​37 (nr. 55, June 12th 1477), pp. 137–​38 (nr. 56, July 12th 1479). Oosterbaan, “Kroniek”, pp. 86–​87 (nr. 1, 1381); 90 (nr. 6, 1384); pp. 97–​98 (nr. 15, 1396); pp. 98–​99 (nr. 16, June 18th 1399).

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history of this miracle collection, while the overall use of consciousness representations throughout the entire registration period remains constant.82 Quoted monologues make way for psychonarrations. Combined with less precise descriptions, the use of reported, indirect speech further con­tributes to the abstraction of discursive representation of the visionary experience. A fourth remark concerns a particular type of consciousness representation that is designed as a reference to a visionary or oneiric experience to which I referred earlier.83 According to the 76th miracle from the collection, an eighteen-​year-​old boy called Huych Pieter Hugenzoenssoon, was suffering from the plague. At some point, Huych’s caretaker throws a quick prayer to Our Lady in Distress and he suddenly awakes, “as if he had awoken from a dream” (gelikerwijs of hi uut een droem gesprongen hadde).84 Another miracle story at the end of the collection describes the healing of a child. The child had been paralyzed for three weeks without showing signs of improvement, “but one night (…) she [the mother] received inspiration, as if someone had spoken to her (recht oft hoir van yemant toegesproken hadde geweest), and she thought she had heard a voice saying the following: ‘Don’t give up on your child. Pray to Our Lady in Distress, worshipped in the New Church [St. Ursula’s church] in Delft. Did you not know that she consoles those in misery?’ ”85 In general, references to the sensorially perceived intervention of a saint are gradually omitted in the course of the registration. The decrease in number and precision of vision narratives in the collection of Our Lady of Sorrow in the New Church suggests that visionary representation gradually fell into disuse during the second half of the fifteenth century. A comparative analysis with other similar miracle collections in other European languages based on these four parameters is necessary, in order to point out whether these observations indicate a more widespread development in the perception and representation of lay visionary experience.

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84 85

The ratio of the number of conscious representations per miracle account remains almost exactly the same in the pre-​and post-​1456 period. The first 36 miracle accounts contain 7 consciousness representations (19.4%), the 52 miracle accounts that constitute the second writing phase contain 10 consciousness representations (19.2%). Similarly in kbr 8179–​80, fol. 49 (nr. 330, 1449): “A man from Zealand had become blind. For a month, he could see little or nothing. When night fell on him, it seemed as if he was told (gelijck off hem toe gesproecken had geworden) that he had to visit Our Lady in Amersfoort. Immediately he promised his pilgrimage. By the time he got up in the morning, he felt better, was able to see again and completed his pilgrimage.” Oosterbaan, “Kroniek”, pp. 164–​65 (nr. 76, 1510). Oosterbaan, “Kroniek”, pp. 170–​73 (nr. 80, August 20th 1511).

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Conclusions

The scholarly focus on medieval canonization files lead to a somewhat distorted picture of the importance of the long fifteenth century for the genre of miracula. For example, Diana Webb set the momentum of the publication and distribution of miracles in the eleventh century; Ben Nilson stated that miracles were limited to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries; and in a historical sketch of the genre, Giselle de Nie jumps directly from Albertus Magnus to David Hume.86 The perspective of the Low Countries, which witnessed a significant, widespread increase in the practice of recording miracle accounts at a parish level, casts a different light on this period. At the same time, it raises questions about the differences (or similarities) between miracle accounts that we find included in canonization files, and those that were produced for a specific local, cultic context and audience. One way to approach this question is by focusing on how these texts represented, authenticated and mediated the modalities of their protagonists to experience the divine. As a first stage of this potential comparative study, this chapter proposes a narratological approach to narratives of visions, dreams and thoughts found in a broad selection of late medieval Middle Dutch miracle accounts relating to saints’ cults in parish churches and chapels. The aim was to show that Middle Dutch miracle writers invested in emphasizing the subjective character of the described experience, often without even representing the actual content of the experiences to which they were referring. They most manifestly attempted to achieve this by framing visionary experience primarily as dream visions, a narrative type that outnumbered more direct forms of the conscious, sensorial perception of saints (apparitions). Syntactical constructions, commonly affixed to dream narratives in Middle Dutch texts, attributed to dream visions a quality of “thought” experiences. This dream vision served as a kind of “narrative space” in which visionary protagonists could have visual and audible contact with the supernatural in a way that was explicitly subjective and thus required caution. Thus, while users of these texts were clearly not concerned with fitting in with classical and medieval taxonomies, on a more subtle level they were setting the limits of religious agility by tapping into classical and early Christian oneirocriticism. On the one hand, these late medieval dream vision narratives share with the 86

D. Webb, Pilgrims and Pilgrimage in the Medieval West, London, 1999, p. 21; B. Nilson, “The Medieval Experience at the Shrine”, in J. Stopford (ed.), Pilgrimage explored, Woodbridge, 1999, p. 95; G. de Nie, Poetics of Wonder. Testimonies of the New Christian Miracles in the Late Antique Latin World, Turnhout, 2011, pp. 22–​23.

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classical somnium its epistemological ambivalence; on the other hand they were standardized to the point that little of its content required auxiliary clarification. From the viewpoint of dream interpretation, vision narratives in these miracle accounts operated in a way that was exactly opposite to medieval somniaria; they needed no further interpretation, or as Le Goff would say, the marvelous was converted into the miraculous.

­c hapter 15

Miracle Types and Narratives The Case of Saint Margaret of Hungary Ildikó Csepregi 1

Introduction: From Miracles to Miracle Stories

Before1 the era of canonization trials, several miracle records were created at the personal initiative of a hagiographer, or originated from a literate beneficiary of the miracle who collected the stories attached to the cult site out of gratitude. From here, it was only a small step to the next formative phase of the miracle collections: the systematic gathering, redacting, and archiving of stories, often by a specialist (a scribe, a hagiographer or redactor of miracles). They could also develop a structure: thematic, linguistic units and organizing principles, the grouping of miracles based on chronology, geography, afflictions, similar gestures in the cure, etc. However, it is important to recall Michael Goodich’s caveat, that the “blatant similarities” of miracle stories are often due to the general rules of an oral composition.2 With the spread of miracles in liturgical use, the miracle-​narratives received a new function: the intention of deepening the faith of the believer. As a result, the actual event of the miracle and its written record accord with certain criteria, for example the demand for witnesses and the need for proof of cures and of the original illnesses; and so special attention was paid to sacral objects and acts, and to the piety and truthfulness of the patient –​a processes more traceable in Western hagiography.3 In this chapter I focus on the different versions of the Life and the canonization records of Saint Margaret of Hungary, and establish and analyze various 1 The research leading to these results in this chapter has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/​2007–​ 2013) /​ erc grant agreement No. 324214. 2 M. Goodich, “Filiation and form in the late medieval miracle story”, in Idem, Lives and Miracles of the Saints: Studies in Medieval Latin Hagiography, Aldershot, 2005, pp. 305–​22, at p. 305–​06. 3 See Roberto Paciocco’s chapter in this volume; also M. Heinzelmann, K. Herbers, and D.R. Bauer (eds.), Mirakel im Mittelalter: Konzeptionen, Erscheinungsformen, Deutungen, Stuttgart, 2002, and D. Aigle, (ed.), Miracle et Karama. Hagiographies médiévales comparées, Turnhout, 2000, and S. Boesch Gajano and M. Modica (eds.), Miracoli. Dai segni alla storia, Rome, 2000.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2021 | DOI:10.1163/9789004468498_017

328 Csepregi typologies of miracles. Her miracle records combine the narrative patterns of the earlier miracle tradition and the juridical nature of the processes, and present a rich and unique picture of how miracles developed and were used in different social, monastic and literary contexts. It is interesting to note, however, that miracle records that did not aim towards canonization continued to follow the old narrative rules –​such was the case, for example, with the miracles of Saint Paul the Hermit, a third century saint of the Egyptian desert, whose relics were treasured in Hungary to the point of establishing first a community in the mid-​thirteenth century and subsequently a religious order (1309).4 His fifteenth-​century miracles totally ignore the narrative developments of contemporary miracle records compiled for a possible canonization, the tangible and accountable proofs of the miraculous events. In Paul’s miracle stories there is no trace of the obsession for carefully naming the witnesses and providing details of their town, profession, economic status or relation to the beneficiaries of miracles. Only general terminology is used, just as in the early Christian miracle accounts; for example, “many people saw the miracle”, or “many trusted people” witnessed the event. We also learn that the miracles of Paul the Hermit were recorded in a double way, once in the Annals kept in the monastery; and also in a more literary form, by several hagiographers. In contrast, the miracles recorded in the canonization acts, from the thirteenth century onwards, combine the narrative patterns of the earlier miracle tradition and the juridical nature of the processes. The change can be precisely pinned down: the manner of questioning the witnesses during the canonization procedure had been established by a letter of Pope Gregory ix in the mid-​thirteenth century (October 1232) to the Archbishop of Mainz and Konrad of Marburg, in which he commissioned the inquisition about the miracles of St Elizabeth of Hungary (or St Elizabeth of Thuringia, 1207–​31, canonized in 1235).5 To receive legal acceptance from the papal court, the questions regarding the witnesses had to include the following: How did people come to know about the miracle? Where did it happen? What day? What hour? Who were present? Who invoked the saint? With what words? In addition, all details about the names of the beneficiaries of the miracles, their parents, neighbors,

4 G. Sarbak (ed.), Miracula Sancti Pauli primi heremite. Hadnagy Bálint pálos rendi kézikönyve, 1511, Debrecen, 2003. 5 The original text of the bull is in L. Auvray, (ed). Les Registres de Grégoire ix, Paris, 1895, vol. i. fasc. 3, col. 548, nr. 913.

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other witnesses, the duration of the illness, the speediness of the recovery and so on were required.6 This was the procedure applied in the second canonization trial of Margaret of Hungary, my case study, whose canonization documents are unique for giving us the entire set of questions and answers, for every single testimonial. These precise questions are not only a precious source to see how such a cross-​ examination had been conducted and what interested the questioners, but give us a cluster of tiny details of everyday life from a period and region that scarcely provides other sources.7 2

The Texts Related to the Canonization of Saint Margaret

Saint Margaret of Hungary (1242–​1270) was the eighth daughter of King Béla iv (1206–​1270, reigned from 1235) and Maria Laskaris, Byzantine imperial princess. She was born in the midst of the Mongol invasion. After a devastating defeat in 1241, while fleeing the country, the royal couple decided to offer up their future child, if a daughter, to the church, which is why Margaret entered the Dominican convent at Veszprém at the age of three. A few years later she moved into the nunnery built by the king for her and similar noble oblate girls, on the island of the Danube near Buda where she lived until her death. Margaret’s body was buried on the Danube island, in the cloister, and her relics remained undisturbed until the middle of the sixteenth century. In 1541, however, the Dominican nuns had to flee from the Ottoman Turks, and together with their precious relics and books, they also took along Margaret’s body. When the papal legates completed their work in 1276, they immediately made a copy of the canonization acts. While the original rotulus was sent to Rome and was then transferred to Avignon, where Garinus used it for his Legenda minor and Legenda maior in 1340, it was later lost. The copy of Margaret’s miracles, in a codex format, which remained in Hungary, fared better, and during their flight with Margaret’s relics, the nuns, in order to prevent further damage and loss of the codex, placed it in her coffin with her body. They eventually settled in the Clarissan convent in Pozsony/​Bratislava, and 6 J. Ziegler, “Practitioners and saints: medical men in canonization processes in the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries”, Social History of Medicine 12 (1999), pp. 191–​225. The topic of illness is addressed elsewhere in this volume. 7 See G. Klaniczay, “Ritual and narrative in late medieval miracle accounts: the construction of the miracle”, in S. Katajala-​Peltomaa and V. Vuolanto (eds.), Religious Participation in Ancient and Medieval Societies: Rituals, Interaction and Identity, Rome, 2013, pp. 207–​24.

330 Csepregi when the last Dominican nun died in 1637, Margaret’s relics and the codex with her miracles were left to the Order of Saint Clare. When the archbishop of Esztergom, Imre Lósy, opened Margaret’s coffin in the Clarissan nunnery at Pozsony on 26 February 1641, the 1276 acts of canonization were discovered next to her skeleton, and became the basis of further copies. Margaret’s relics were eventually destroyed by the order of King Joseph ii in 1789, together with a number of other relics.8 Although she was the object of veneration throughout the Middle Ages, and in early modern times not only in her native land but across Europe,9 and while several attempts were made to canonize her both by the Hungarian royal houses and the Dominican Order, this only eventually happened in 1943.10 Margaret’s miracles, partly those included in her Legend, but also the greater numbers of those recorded by the inquisition committee, were instrumental not only in the initial canonization attempts in the thirteenth century but also in their modern revival.11 8

9 10 11

Some contemporary parallels: King Andew ii (reigned 1205–​1235), the father of Béla iv and Saint Elizabeth, had allegedly participated in the Fifth Crusade with the chief aim of collecting relics (which he did, quite successfully). Another case in point concerns the relics of Saint Paul the Hermit, which also bears the stamp of the military events of the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries. Although he was a fourth-​century eastern saint, some of his relics were carried from Constantinople to Venice in 1240. When the Hungarian-​Polish king Louis was at war with Venice, he made a vow that if he won, he would carry the relics of Saint Paul from Venice to Buda and give them to the Hungarian order of Saint Paul the hermit. This is what happened in 1381, when Paul’s body was carried secretly to Buda as part of the booty, but without the head, which had gone earlier to the Czech king Charles iv; body and head were joined eventually in 1523, by King Louis ii, at that time both the Hungarian and Czech king. The relics of a far more famous saint also became part of war booty, or was simply given as a war gift: in 1489 the relics of Saint John the Almsgiver, the sixth-​ century patriarch of Alexandria, were sent by the sultan to Buda as a gift for King Matthias Corvinus, and they also ended up in Bratislava when the Ottoman Turks seized Buda. A thorough historical context is given in G. Klaniczay, Holy Rulers and Blessed Princesses: Dynastic Cults in Medieval Central Europe, Cambridge, 2002, pp. 195–​294. Inquisitio iussu sanctissimi domini nostri Pii Papae XII peracta de vita Beatae Margaritae ab Hungaria sanctimonialis ordinis praedicatorum deque cultu ei praestito (Sectio historica, 30), Vatican City, 1943. The edition of Latin and English text of the canonization records and the oldest life, together with all related sources: I. Csepregi, G. Klaniczay and B. Péterfi (eds.), I. Csepregi and C. Flanigan (trans.), Legenda Vetus, Acta Processus Canonizationis et Miracula Sanctae Margaritae de Hungaria –​The Oldest Legend, Acts of the Canonization Process and Miracles of Saint Margaret of Hungary (Central European Medieval Texts Series, 9), Budapest, 2018. References to Margaret’s miracles and quotations are from this edition; to her Life: Oldest Legend and chapter number; to the canonization acts: Witness and number (other editions use the same numbering). The first edition of the Latin text is in V. Fraknói (ed.), Monumenta Romana episcopatus Vesprimiensis (mrv), Budapest, 1896, vol. i, pp. 162–​383.

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Margaret’s Oldest Legend was written around 1275, most likely by Marcellus, the prior provincial of the Dominican Order in Hungary and Margaret’s confessor, and was enlarged later with her first miracles.12 The year after Margaret’s death (1271) a miracle happened at her tomb and this event was a catalyst both for the following numerous miracles and for the first inquest about her miracles. This first official but still local investigation recorded at least ten further miracles from her life and 29 miracles soon after her death, and these stories were added to the Legenda vetus. Out of these first witness accounts new, shorter story-​units were made. The legend, together with these miracles, was sent to Rome, along with the royal family’s request for the canonization. This attempt, however, was unsuccessful, partly because of the deaths of the involved parties (Philip, archbishop of Esztergom, King Stephen iv, as well as Pope Gregory x). During the summer of 1275, the young king of Hungary, Ladislas iv, then thirteen years old, became the beneficiary of a miracle through a cloth-​relic of Margaret, and not only did he send a new request to the Pope, he even asked for the intervention of Rudolf of Habsburg, who also wrote to the Pope to start the canonization process. The new Pope Innocent v–​who was a Dominican –​ was quick to dispatch two Italian papal legates to start a second investigation in 1276, which observed closely the narrative and legal requirements of recording Margaret’s miracles. Ubert Bianchi, a canon from Piacenza, and La Corra, decretorum doctor, a canon from Verona, were the legates who questioned the witnesses, following the by then standard questions prescribed by the papal curia; those established by the canonization of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, Margaret’s aunt. The original canonization documents suffered some losses over the centuries. As we have them now, they present 110 witnesses, who report 39 miracles presented to the first committee and 54 new miracles, including further testimonies about the previously known cases as well. While the miracles that entered the Legend were grouped together according to their types, the canonization acts present them in chronological order, but the hearings themselves 12

Both the Life and the canonization records of Margaret had a rather dramatic history, with manuscripts either disappearing, reappearing, and even being buried in Margaret’s coffin and coming to light centuries later. The Life went missing, but at the beginning of the twentieth century the Dominican friar and scholar Kornél Bőle was so convinced that it existed that he searched through several Italian archives until he discovered it in Venice. For the vicissitudes of the manuscripts see my Preface in Csepregi, Klaniczay and Péterfi (eds.), Legenda Vetus, pp. 32–​40; the earlier Latin edition of the Legenda vetus is in I. Szentpétery (ed.), Scriptores Rerum Hungaricarum tempore ducum regumque stirpis Arpadianae gestarum, Budapest 1938 (revised edition by K. Szovák and L. Veszprémy, Budapest, 1999), vol. ii, pp. 685–​709.

332 Csepregi were already structured according to the status of the witnesses. Hence the nuns who knew Margaret and lived on the island come first, then the brothers who were in some way associated with the convent, followed by the noblemen and women and burghers from Buda and the neighbourhood, and eventually people of lower social standing. To complement the work of the papal legates and to secure the judicial character of the testimonies, a state notary and professional interpreters were also involved. As a result of the legal character of all such documents, not just in Margaret’s case, these miracle accounts became painstakingly detailed, giving information about the beneficiaries’ name, provenance, age, profession, and social status; the exact nature of the illness, with its symptoms, duration, and remedies applied; and an equally careful examination of the witnesses themselves. When necessary, the witnesses were cross-​examined or listened to repeatedly, in cases of contradictory narratives. 3

Miracles Outside the Context of Canonization

The collecting of miracles did not stop after the thirteenth century canonization attempts and although no papal legates were sent, the nuns around the monastery, the Dominican order and the royal court kept the issue of Margaret’s sainthood current and from time to time several other attempts from various sources were made to canonize Margaret. Twelve charters were recently found, kept in the Archivio Orsini in Rome, which are deeds of the Buda chapter (capitulum ecclesie Budensis), authorized by the chapter itself as well as by one or two public notaries.13 The miracles recorded in these charters at the end of the fifteenth century also show that the careful recording of ongoing miracles went on in cases of saints like Margaret, even after the canonization records were finished; it was not considered sufficient to only record the events in the monastery, at the site of her tomb, but it was also done at the chapterhouse, so that it could receive a legal authentication. 3.1 Different Aspects of Margaret’s Miracle Records One of the basic distinctions between miracles, just as they are usually divided in most hagiographic sources, is first, in vita miracles and secondly, post mortem miracles. In early medieval miracle accounts the in vita and post mortem miracles are, on one hand, chronologically different from each other, and 13

Csepregi, Klaniczay and Péterfi (eds.), Legenda Vetus, Part v.

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on the other hand convert the direct, personal intervention of the saint into an indirect one. The direct transmitter of the miracle-​working power of the saints could have been the place of their death, tomb, martyrion or chapel, or a church erected to their memory; then, with the spread of the cult of the relics, the miracle could be transmitted not only via pieces of their bodily remains, but through any objects that were in physical contact with them during their lifetime or were in the proximity of their tomb/​coffin/​reliquiary. Here also belong the appearing saints in visions and dreams and the increasing number of distance miracles; they were either an answer to a call of help or a prayer, or a result of the saints’ spontaneous intervention. The canonization procedures greatly altered the picture: when and what miracles were to be recorded and approved, that is, what events qualified as miraculous enough and which were also sufficiently provable. 3.2 Margaret’s Lifetime Miracles and Her Conduct Just as miracles are a violation of nature’s order, so the lifetime conduct of a saint is, on many occasions, a violation of the surrounding social and even ecclesiastical order. Margaret was often depicted as disobeying her parents, turning her back on what befitted a royal princess, from small gestures such as soiling her expensive clothes and giving away her parents’ gifts, to her harsh conduct confronting her father’s wish to make her marry. Similarly disturbing was her behavior with her superiors in the convent, such as when she taught a lesson to Marcellus, her confessor, the future Dominican prior, so that he believed her; or when she forced the Friars Preacher to stay by performing a punishment miracle. Likewise, she challenged the rules of conduct of the monastery by applying outstanding ascetical practices on herself, or asking her fellow nuns to beat or flog her in secret, fasting more extremely than others, skipping sleeping hours, or letting the lice eat her body by not washing herself. In this context of disobedience and challenging the surrounding order, monastic and social, the lifetime miracles serve not only to characterize her figure but also to interpret her otherwise questionable conduct. There is a similar correlation between Margaret’s everyday behavior and what I will call household miracles in my typology below. Besides challenging authority, Margaret had another trait that characterized her in the convent: the refusal of her royal status and the often ostentatious humility with which she turned away from her privileges (unlike other royal and aristocratic girls who lived in the same convent). She willingly took over the most unpleasant duties, from washing in ice-​cold water to cleaning the latrines and attending the physical needs of sick people. It is along these lines that we can better interpret those miracles of hers that concern these everyday chores, such as snatching

334 Csepregi the burning pot out of the fire or keeping the heaps of earth to clean the furnace safe from the storm. 4

Parallel Narratives

Margaret’s miracles during her lifetime and those after her death are present both in the Oldest Legend and in the canonization acts of the second inquest. There are even a few cases when we have both accounts, as the nuns around Margaret were alive during the papal inquest and were asked again to give their testimony. From the perspective of how the miracle narrative is formed, it is very telling to compare such cases. The miracles in the Oldest Legend are condensed episodes, proper short stories, with Margaret in their center. The same events told in the testimonies –​besides having, quite obviously, a different narrative form –​provide points of views not mentioned in the shorter narratives, and mostly revolve around the beneficiaries of the miracles and/​or the testimonies. From their structured question and answer scheme we gain more details, but in a certain sense the miraculous event loses its immediacy. This process also works in the opposite direction when the canonization acts serve as source material for the later Vitae;14 in extremely fortunate cases we can read the same story in Margaret’s Oldest Legend (1275); in her canonization acts (1276); in Garinus’s Legenda Maior based on the acts (1340);15 as well as in the Hungarian Legend (1510).16 14 15

16

Focused on the Legenda maior, V. Deák’s book deals extensively with the relationship between these sources: La légende de sainte Marguerite de Hongrie et l’hagiographie dominicaine, Paris, 2013, esp. Chapter 3, pp. 225–​322. Legenda Maior (= Vita Sancte Margarite Verginis) [bhl 5331] A. Gombos, (ed.), Catalogus fontium historiae Hungariae. Vol. iii, pp. 2481–​525; on it see V. Deák, “The Birth of a legend: the so called ‘Legenda Maior’ of St Margaret of Hungary and Dominican Hagiography”, Revue Mabillon 20 (2009), pp. 87–​112. The text of the Hungarian vernacular Szent Margit élete [Life of Saint Margaret] was preserved in a copy made by the nun Lea Ráskai in 1510 in the convent on Margaret Island. The legend combines the text of the Legenda Vetus with testimonies from the Acts of the canonization process. The date of the translation and the compilation is unknown, but most scholars place it in the fourteenth century. Its editions: György Volf (ed.), “Szent Margit élete”, Nyelvemléktár, vol. 8, Budapest, 1881; Adrienne Dömötör and Katalin Pólya (eds.), Szent Margit élete 1510. A nyelvemlék hasonmása és betűhű átirata bevezetéssel és jegyzetekkel [The 1510 Life of St. Margaret: Facsimile and literal transcription with introduction and notes] (Régi magyar kódexek, 10), Budapest, 1990; G. Érszegi (ed.), “Szent Margit legendája” [The legend of St. Margaret], in Árpád-​kori legendák és intelmek [Legends and admonitions from the Árpád age], Budapest, 1983, pp. 110–​80, 2nd edition, Budapest, 1999, pp. 104–​77.

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In other parallel cases, when we have the same event told from several viewpoints within the canonization acts, we can observe on the one hand how the status of a witness is elevated, becoming more important than the saint or the beneficiary of the miracle, and how the many details we learn about the witnesses make them the proper protagonists of these narratives. On the other hand, we see how the witness’s relation to the event and to the beneficiary of the miracle, as well as the expectations to which they believe they have to conform, do not just alter the narrative but can sometimes even turn the course of events upside down. A case in point for such contradictory statements is the miracle told from several points of view by witnesses 81, 82, 83, and 84. For this miraculous recovery of a little boy we have four testimonies, none from the boy himself, but from four different perspectives: that of his father, the parish priest, the neighbor, and a family friend who helped to carry the sick boy. These four reports attest to how the witnesses themselves could overturn the story, each of them adding something they thought the witnesses were expected to say. Furthermore, we can observe how meticulously the legates cross-​examined the witnesses and kept pressing for more details in contradictory matters. With a twist in the events, we even see how a witness transformed himself into the recipient of a miracle when he felt he had his occasion to tell his very own story before the papal legates. 5

Miracle Typologies

Researchers with very different backgrounds concentrated on the narrative grouping of miracle accounts, pinpointing important survivals, recurrent themes, folk-​motifs, and all sorts of hagiographic topoi. In Margaret’s case, with such a great number of miracles in a single collection, there is good research material for establishing various groups of miracles: what percentage of them concern cures; what were the illnesses; what were the proportions of men, women, children involved; what was the social status of the witnesses and beneficiaries of miracles; to what extent were members of the religious orders and the clergy represented, and so forth. Such charts and quantitative examinations are infinitely useful and from a region and period which both lack other sources on everyday life, they are a treasure trove for contemporary social and medical history.17 Especially in Margaret’s lifetime miracles, 17

To name but a few: P.A. Sigal’s book that addresses more than two thousands miracles: L’homme et le miracle dans la France médiévale (XIe-​XIIe siècle), Paris, 1985; R. C. Finucane, Miracles and Pilgrims: Popular Beliefs in Medieval England, Totowa, 1977,

336 Csepregi however, the classification of pilgrims according to their gender, age, social status and geographical provenance is necessarily influenced by the context of the (royal) nunnery, both for the major presence of women as well as the prominence of aristocrats. I briefly illustrate the categories into which Margaret’s miracles can be grouped on the basis of their content. Parts of these groups are based on the common research questions mentioned above (e.g. on the basis of illness types), whereas some others have been established by myself (e.g. practical or household miracles). The typology is based on the miracles in the Legenda vetus (Oldest legend) and on the canonization acts of Margaret, with some instances with miracles that were lost from the acts but which figure in the later Legenda maior. That means 86 post-​mortem miracles, 25 lifetime miracles with Margaret’s own mystical experiences, and finally eight miracles that accompanied her death. In Margaret’s case, I have established for my own use five broader categories. This approach centers on the story types, and while it may not give an exhaustive picture of Margaret’s miracles, I believe that it contributes to an understanding of the uniqueness of her collection. In order to highlight this, I will occasionally bring in parallel examples from contemporary Central European miracle collections, which will provide a broader context, as well as a sharp contrasting background in that period. I cannot emphasize enough that these categories, just as in any kind of typology, more often than not overlap. It is not a clear-​cut division but a way to characterize the types of miracle stories of this saint, and as such is a useful interpretative tool to formulate an overall picture of Saint Margaret’s hagiography in particular, and to give a very fine example of how miracle narratives operate in general. 1. age-​old patterns, not confined to Christian miracles but typical of miraculous healing in general 2. carrying on the tradition of Gospel miracles and earlier Christian miracle stories 3. miracles that highlight theological issues 4. typical to the region and period 5. unique to the collection

or more recently J. Kuuliala, Childhood Disability and Social Integration in the Middle Ages: Constructions of Impairments in Thirteenth-​and Fourteenth-​Century Canonization Processes, Turnhout, 2016; the contributions in Mesley and Wilson (eds.) Contextualizing Miracles in the Christian West, 1100–​1500, especially that of Irina Metzler “Indiscriminate healing miracles in decline: how social realities affect religious perception”, pp. 155–​76.

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5.1 General Miraculous Healings The most numerous miracles in the collection are of those of healing, observing also the narrative pattern that was most common for centuries: introduction of the afflicted person, details of the illness, its intensity, duration, the vain attempts to cure it by medical or other means, and the person’s turning to the saintly healer, including, in most cases, reaching the sacred site. This narrative culminates in the miraculous moment, followed by the reaction of the witnesses and thanksgiving.18 Since the healer and the sacred site in this case were Margaret in her tomb, the variants mainly come at this point of the story: the worshipper might touch the relics, lie on the tomb, walk around it or establish physical contact with some of Margaret’s contact relics (her cilicium, veil, any cloth used by her, or the water she used for washing herself). The second major type shows a relatively new concept, which substitutes the immediacy of the saint’s physical presence with an invocation, prayer, the making of a vow, or the saint’s apparition in dreams; all circumstances that work as catalysts to the miracle. It is important to note, however, that even on those occasions when miracles happened at a distance from the relics, visiting Margaret’s tomb was part of the pattern (either in fulfilment of a vow or as thanksgiving). Among these miracles there are the following sub-​types that regard healing/​ saving (including miracles of both the 1. and 2. group): Lifesaving miracles: 4 Captivity: 2 Possession/​demon: 3 Madness/​epilepsy: 6 Punishment miracles: 2 Deaf/​dumb: 4 Blindness: 10 Fever: 14 Paralysis: 29 18

The literature on the patterns of healing miracle narratives is vast, so I highlight here only a few reference works, focusing particularly on the pre-​Christian healing context, all of them with a rich further bibliography: L.R. LiDonnici, “Tale and Dream: The Text and Compositional History of the Corpus of Epidaurian Miracle Cures”, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1989; G.E. Tinker, “Medicine and Miracle. A Comparison of Two Healing Types in the Late Hellenistic World”, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Graduate Theological Union, University of California, 1983; M. Dorati, “Funzioni e motivi nelle stele di Epidauro e nelle raccolte cristiane di miracoli incubatori”, συγγραφή 3 (2001), pp. 91–​118.

338 Csepregi Other physical ailments: 20 (toothache, headache, dropsy, hemorrhage, hernia, swellings, “grave illness”) Most of the healing miracles were performed after Margaret’s death, yet there are some cases that concerned the nuns living in the convent during her lifetime. It can be seen clearly that the greatest number of ailments regards paralysis of hands or feet, followed by blindness. These are the two groups of illnesses that had always been the leading affliction in miraculous healing for centuries. Partly because these are the paradigmatic afflictions that Jesus cured, but mainly for other reasons –​and this is why they figure prominently in pre-​Christian miracles and in the New Testament as well –​paralysis and blindness were the two most debilitating illnesses that limited physically normal life (especially the work capacities of adult males). These were the types of illnesses that contemporary medicine could hardly treat and, not least because they often lacked visibly external causes, and so those who suffered from these two illnesses (and often those around them) often attributed to these some supernatural cause. Consequently, for all three reasons, people with these illnesses turned in great numbers to religious specialists (ritual healers, saints etc.). The explanation for the frequency of fever is twofold: first, it was often regarded as a separate illness, and second, its disappearance was easily attributed to some miraculous intervention. It is also interesting to note that there is a marked division in Margaret’s miracles between madness/​epilepsy and the similarly manifesting possessions –​among her miracle cures it is very rare that an illness was attributed to a demon. Among the healing miracles there are cases where it is not just that the affliction is similar to many well-​known New Testament stories, but direct reference is made to the Bible. For these instances I established a separate category: 5.2 Biblical Miracles The second category refers to biblical patterns, and to the early Christian miracle typology.19 First, a rather simple feature that should be mentioned in connection with this type of miracle is a narrative one: when explicit references are made to healing episodes in the New Testament. Sometimes only the illness is paralleled with a well-​known biblical story. Other times, direct quotations or names are used to highlight a character trait or an analogous miracle situation. If taken together, Margaret’s miracles performed during her lifetime and posthumously also encompass all the miracle types of Jesus: healings (on a great number of paralytics and blind people), dealing with mental disorders, 19

G. Theissen, The Miracle Stories of the Early Christian Tradition, Philadelphia, 1983.

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resuscitation of the dead, fights with demons, and miracles over nature. In addition, we find other types such as thought-​reading, foretelling the future, and punishment miracles. More complex is whenever the saint’s miracles incorporate something more essential to New Testament miracles. As for its form, the beneficiaries and witnesses, as well as the hagiographers, knew that relating the miraculous event to the Gospel patterns provided an already familiar narrative, conforming to a model that is undoubted. As for its content, what sets aside Jesus’s healings from healing miracles in general, discussed above, is the underlining concept that miracle cures represent an external aspect of salvation.20 In cures, the healing of the soul becomes manifest in the physical restoration of the body. In such contexts, both cures and illnesses are viewed, and often even described, as metaphors. What was most frequently labelled as sickness of the soul? All kinds of theological errors, starting from the very first one of not recognizing the Messiah in Jesus, to be unwilling to convert to Christianity, or professing an unorthodox credo. Conversion, heresies and doubts –​these are the key aspects of this archaic type of miracle that is my third type. 5.3 Miracles with a Theological Message In the early Christian context, conversion was a self-​evident issue, but surprisingly it remained central well until the late Middle Ages –​only the original faith of the would-​be-​Christians changed. After Jews, Greeks, and pagans in general, Muslims also entered into miracle narratives from the seventh century onward, while doubters and heretics remained constant opponents or the successfully convinced beneficiaries of miracles thorough the Middle Ages. In the case of thirteenth-​century eastern European miracle collections, the non-​ Christian group that figures prominently as the chief enemy were the Tartars.21 These nomadic Mongol people were united under the rule of Genghis Khan and, commanded by his two grandsons, Batu Khan and Kadan, they attacked the eastern part of Europe with several raids between the middle and the end of the thirteenth century, leaving behind devastation and massacre unseen before and not seen again for a long time after them. In the late thirteenth-​ century canonization acts of Saint Margaret, we often read about the Tartar invasion as a point of reference in time.22 When asked about their age, the 20 21 22

Ferngren, “Early Christianity as a religion of healing”, pp. 1–​15. On both on the Tartars and the Cumans in the region, see N. Berend, At the Gate of Christendom. Jews, Muslims and ’Pagans’ in Medieval Hungary, c.1000-​ c.1300, Cambridge, 2001. In a somewhat similar manner the plague is used as a reference point in time by Nicole Archambeau, who also points out how different crises were used in this way in different

340 Csepregi witnesses often say: I was six years old at the invasion of the Tartars; I was a small child when the Tartars invaded the country, I was already alive when the Tartars came, and so on. The case, however, is rather different with the Cumans, another borderland, non-​Christian people, who were settled in the eastern borders during the thirteenth century. They were also nomadic warriors who, after attacks in the previous centuries, became rather friendly borderland settlers of the region, partly because they were also fleeing from the Mongol Tartars, but mostly because they were called by the rulers of these territories to inhabit the war zones, both prior to and after the devastations. In exchange for land and certain privileges they gave both military help and repopulated the emptied regions, and became integrated into Bulgaria, Serbia, and Hungary, just as they had done in Byzantium. Not surprisingly we find a story about a Cuman among the posthumous miracles of Saint Margaret, which must have come from the now lost folios of the canonization acts, but which survived in her Legenda maior.23 This story presents a non-​Christian, an unbeliever doubting in Margaret’s miracles and Christ’s salvation, as well as incorporating an archaic miracle type, that of conversion. The miracle story concerns a well-​known pagan, a Cuman man called Zerte, with a blind horse. He overheard some Christians discussing the miracles of Saint Margaret, but he was incredulous, and almost laughing he said that if Margaret could heal the eyes of his blind horse, he would believe in “your” God, and convert and be baptized together with his family. After the immediate cure of his horse, he and his family were baptized. It was Margaret’s father and his brother, the kings Béla iv and Stephen v, who invited the Cumans to settle on the eastern borders and relied heavily on them in their fights against the Tartars. Thus, a well-​known Cuman was most suitable as a protagonist of Margaret’s miracle. And although horses are frequently cured in miracle accounts, here there is a further reason why it is not the man but his horse which figures in the story: it would have been rather odd if we had seen a Cuman becoming sick or hurt or who was in any physical need, since they were warriors and were valued precisely because of their virtues in combat. Thus, we have the Cuman’s horse that needs a cure, and when Margaret miraculously grants it, the pagan man converts and receives baptism together with his whole family.

23

geographical areas: “Healing options during the plague: survivor stories from a fourteenth century canonization inquest”, Bulletin of the History of Medicine 85 (2011), pp. 531–​59. Legenda maior, ii.31.

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Miracles involving heretics, and further, miracles used against heretics, could be so explicit and were even quoted in the canonization bull of Saint Elizabeth, a few years earlier than Margaret’s canonization trial: you became a sublime warrior against the enemies of our salvation; you conquered them with the shield of faith, as the Apostle says, the breastplate of justice, the sword of the spirit and of fervor, the helmet of salvation and the lance of perseverance. […] by virtue of [your miracles] faithful Catholics have grown strong and are gloriously fortified in faith and hope and charity, infidels are enlightened and taught the true way of salvation, and hardened heretics stand abashed, covered with shame and confusion. For the enemies of the Church see plainly, without any possibility of contradiction, that by the merits of her who during the imprisonment of this life was a lover of the poor, full of sweetness and mercy […] they see that through the invocation of this faithful spouse of Jesus Christ, life is restored to the dead in a divine manner, sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, speech to the mute, and the power of walking to the lame. And thus the unhappy heretics, full of anger and hatred, in spite of their rage, and in spite of the poison with which they claimed to have infected all Germany, are compelled to witness in this same country the religion which they endeavored to destroy bursting forth gloriously and with unspeakable joy, to triumph over their malice and impiety.24 There is another way to represent the battle between the saints and evil forces, which relies strongly on Biblical models: when the saint is addressing demons. I do not mean the simple madness, or when raging or mental problems are loosely attributed to some kind of possession, but where evil forces are more personified and confronted directly. Such is the case when Margaret restores the mind of a girl who was attacking her parents under the influence of a huge black dog, and involving three men: When asked if she wanted to say anything about miracles, she replied, “In the month of Saint Martin, during the vintage, I went to a certain vineyard where my father was, and I stayed there until Vespers, and when I came home I fed a dog that was tethered to my house, and then a big black dog, really awful to look at, passed close by me, and I was so terrified that I left 24

Pope Gregory ix’s bull canonizing Elizabeth of Hungary (1235) in Count de Montalembert, Life of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary: Duchess of Thuringia, trans. F. Deming Hoyt, New York, 1904, pp. 414–​20.

342 Csepregi that house and went into another, and I saw through the windows that in it were three men so beauteous and bright that I could not look upon them, and I became even more afraid than before, not knowing what was happening to me, and I lost my mind. I got a sword and ran over to my mother and father, but I did not know who they were nor where I was; but I do know that they tied my hands behind my back and put a horse shackle round my legs, as tight as they could, and those shackles had an opening so that I could walk, while they stayed on. I have many a clear memory of this. I stayed in this condition until the feast of Saint Anthony, when it came, and on that feast day I was led to this tomb of saint Margaret, and was cured and got my wits back right away.”25 From the formation of early Christian miracle stories, these narratives often focused on communicating a theological message. Sometimes in a symbolic way, sometimes openly, miracles expressed the hagiographer’s or the community’s view about certain dogmatic issues, very frequently on the nature of Christ, on the true form of performing rituals, on the significance of Christian sacred acts and on countless other issues that occupied the contemporaries’ minds. Sometimes such miracle stories were cited at synods and in ecclesiastical works to confirm a point, but sometimes what they articulated remained on the unofficial fringe. From the realm of thirteenth-​century Central Europe, I bring two such examples to show how these issues can be represented in the miracle narrative: in the miracle collection of Blessed Salomea of Poland (or of Cracow),26 who was Margaret’s older contemporary, we read something interesting about the Tartars, which presents a new theological opinion –​although it is dubious to what extent it was shared by the higher authorities of the contemporary Church –​that everybody who was killed by the Tartars obtains salvation.27 Similarly controversial is the idea permeating some contemporary saints’ miracle collections, according to which the universality of the saint 25 26

27

Witness 73. Blessed Salomea of Poland (1211/​12–​1268) was a Polish princess and queen of Halych as wife of Coloman, son of the Hungarian King Andrew ii. In 1245 she entered the Order of the Poor Clares after a chaste marriage with Coloman who died in 1241, killed in the same battle against the Tartars that forced King Béla iv and the royal family to flee the country. Her legend had probably been written by 1292, by her confessor, and survived in a version re-​written in the fourteenth century. It is edited in W. Kętrzyński (ed.), “Vita sanctae Salomeae reginae Haliciensis auctore Stanislao Franciscano”, Monumenta Poloniae Historica 4, Lwów, 1884, pp. 770–​96; B. Kürbis (ed.), “Kronika Wielkopolska”, Monumenta Poloniae Historica, series nova 8, Warsaw, 1970 (=Life of Blessed Salomea). Life of Blessed Salomea, Chapter vii. p. 12.

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is given up in favor of becoming a close associate or patron of a community, monastery or religious order. In such instances the saints perform miracles and protect only a limited group of people. A good example of the saint being more closely linked to a local and social community, which even influences the range of persons that saints prefers to provide with a miracle, is that of Saint Kinga. Kinga’s miracles were so closely linked to the Clarissan community, that, interestingly enough, we do not have any miracle where she heals men or even poor people; she is concerned only with usually high-​standing female patients, burghers’ wives or the Queen. Blessed Salomea, on the other hand, heals men as well, but they are, without exception, all associated with the Franciscan monastery in some way, and the women likewise either belong to the local aristocracy or to the convent. Such a selection could have been, of course, a deliberate choice of the community itself, with the church personnel sifting through the cases and dropping the unimportant ones from the records. Whenever scribes or the clergy chose to keep certain types of miracle records, they always served to enhance the fame of the cult site and attract a certain type of clientele. Other theologically-​charged concepts can be seen in several miracles of Margaret. We have a long story about an imprisoned aristocrat, which points to several new aspects of Central European saints’ cults and deserve a closer look:28 Lord Alexander of the Cals kindred, of the diocese of Veszprém, swore as above. When asked about the life and behavior of the aforesaid virgin Margaret, he replied, “I have taken no interest in this”. When asked if he wanted to speak about miracles, he replied, “I was in prison among the Germans in Austria, in a place called Falkenberg,29 and I was in a dungeon of a certain tower, just as if I were in hell, and loaded with chains; and a messenger, whom I had sent to my superiors in Hungary, came and said to me, “Do not be afraid, you have a new saint in Hungary, Saint Margaret, the daughter of King Béla, who is doing many miracles, straightening hands and feet, lengthening legs and restoring sight, and the whole kingdom is going to her, including myself”. And after I had great faith in her, and served her by saying the “Our Father” and addressing requests to her; and later there appeared to me in the night a certain 28 29

The text is in the canonization acts (witness nr. 108); it also figures in Garinus’s legend (Legenda maior, ii. 68) as well as in the Hungarian Legend. He fell into captivity in the 1270s, during the wars of Ladislaus iv with the Habsburgs, and had been in Falkenberg near Krems.

344 Csepregi girl in the said tower. I was neither asleep nor awake. She was clad in a large piece of white samite; large and billowing it was, with no hood. And she said to me, “Have as much faith in this saint Margaret as you have in Saint Elizabeth”; and after that he who was keeping me in prison died like a dog at the hands of the people of that land. I had given him three hundred marks and he was asking four hundred more, but his wife at once sent me away, the minute he was dead, without any money needing to be paid.” There are fascinating issues raised by this narrative: the first one, and theologically perhaps the most challenging concept, used elsewhere as well in medieval hagiography to highlight the saints’ special character, is the idea that a new saint is somehow better than another one.30 This is how the messenger argues and suggests to his lord that he should pray to Margaret, rather than to anyone else. Besides being a new saint, there are four pillars mentioned in the text that inspire faith in her: her being a royal princess; as the daughter of not just any but a great king; the fame of her previously performed miracles; and the devotion of the whole country manifest towards her. Later, the already miraculous apparition voices a direct connection between Margaret and Elizabeth and relates them to each other, already close relations through their family line, but now also by the faith that stems from the well-​known sainthood of her royal aunt to strengthen the efficacy of Margaret’s future miracles as well.31 The narrative focuses on the theme of rescue from captivity –​and this leads us to the next major theme in the miracles of Margaret, which she holds in common with other saints from the region and period, that is, war-​related miracles, which I choose as a chief example for the miracle type typical of the period and region. 5.4 Miracles Typical of the Time and Region: War and Military Conflicts. I chose the theme of war-​related miracles as being regionally and chronologically typical because it unites several features that build up various miracle

30 31

See Vauchez, La Sainteté en Occident, 1988, pp. 152–​53, n. 10. For the extensive scholarship on dynastic sainthood see R. Folz, Les saints rois du moyen âge en Occident (VIe-VIIe s.), Brussels, 1984; P. Corbet, Les Saints ottoniens: Sainteté dynastique, sainteté royale, et sainteté feminine autour de l’an mil, Sigmaringen, 1986; for Central European examples, see Klaniczay, Holy Rulers and Blessed Princesses: Dynastic Cults in Medieval Central Europe. I thank Jenni Kuuliala for her remark that even living saints could seek to secure their “power” through this idea, as, for example, Charles of Blois, who venerated St Yves of Tréguier in a very visible way.

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patterns in Margaret’s collection. It allows the inclusion of in vita miracles when the saint may participate actively in military events, it extends her powers to rescue people fallen into captivity, and nonetheless it gives a rare glimpse into the historical reality of a borderland region, with the presence of enemies and the hardships of a war-​stricken country.32 Military action and war situations are already present in the actual life of these saints. In the case of Saint Margaret she herself was a kind of price paid for the safety of the country. We read in her Oldest Legend: When Margaret’s mother was still carrying her in her womb, during the Tartar persecution of Hungary, the mother and the King her husband, as a kind of pious offering for their own safety and the deliverance of the kingdom, vowed that if a daughter were born they would make her a nun. For, before Margaret, no female of the royal Hungarian house had ever become a nun.33 Military prophecy was among Margaret’s miraculous capacities while she was still a toddler: Once, when Margaret was about [four] years old, and her father the lord king was leading an army against Austria, and she was with her mother, who asked her what the fortunes of the army would be. In order that the Lord might show forth the Spirit that would guide her when she was grown, she answered like a prophet: “My Lord the King will return safely. His army will be routed, but the duke of Austria will be killed”. Soon after, the outcome of the event confirmed her prophecy. The lord king returned safely, though not without the loss of many of his men, and the duke of Austria fell in battle at the hands of Hungarian soldiers fighting loyally in the king’s army.34 32 33

34

See the chapters by Archambeau and McCleery in this volume for protection miracles. Oldest Legend, 2. Although the thirteenth-​century popes and even the mendicant orders expressed their disapproval of this practice, we find several royal children offered to God, some of them within the immediate circle of Margaret in the cloister. Even Saint Elizabeth and Louis of Thuringia offered, in 1227, their fourth child, blessed Gertrude, to God, and she went to live in the Premonstratensian monastery of Altenburg. Oldest Legend, 3. The legend alludes to the battle near the Austrian border, at the river Lajta (Leitha) on July 15, 1246, during the wars with Frederick ii (1210–​1246), prince of Austria and Styria, last representative of the Babenberg dynasty. The event is told in the Oldest Legend and also in the canonization acts, with slight differences (witness account 6); the version of the Oldest Legend, was rewritten by Garinus as well, which is one of the

346 Csepregi Later, besides the acts of charity and caring for the sick, Margaret was also a military peacemaker during a civil war that broke out between her father and her brother.35 When Stephen v of Hungary, his first-​born son, demanded a greater part of the country from his father, King Béla iv seemed at this time to favor his younger son Béla (1242–​1269). To avoid civil war, two treaties were concluded between Béla iv and Stephen in 1262 and 1263, dividing the country in half between the father and the son; the latter received the titles “younger king” and “lord of the Cumans” and reigned in the eastern part of Hungary. Their animosity was renewed in 1264, when Béla led an attack against the territories of his son, capturing Stephen’s wife and children. Margaret’s Oldest Legend records these events with the following words, describing the reality of a war-​stricken region: A war arose with her parents on one side, and her brother and his court on the other. The fights were so devastating that many thousands of innocent men perished without the equity of fair judicial procedure, for the administration of justice had become disordered, and prelates and barons had turned their backs on the fear of God. Amidst these evils, this holy virgin’s tears were her food, both day and night. She considered that a war of this kind could not take place without imperiling many souls, and that it put a dangerous strain on both her parents, who were already well on in years, and she feared that her brother king Stephen would be killed, as those who were cruelly persecuting him intended. She heard and understood that even Holy Mother Church was being trampled not only in different parts of her own kingdom, but in many parts of Christendom through the tyranny of various nations. Convents were being ripped down, and religious houses in the Lord’s service were being emptied of their inhabitants. As those who reported these things told her, the cry of the poor and the innocent seemed to rise up to heaven, and they seemed to be unjustly treated without regard for sex or age.36

35

36

strongest arguments that he knew the Oldest Legend, or at least its beginning, and did not rely on the canonization acts only. Another hagiographic topos, a theme prominent not just with royal saints but with martyrs and preachers. See R. Folz, “La sainteté de Louis IX, d’après les textes liturgiques de sa fête”, Revue d’histoire de l’Église de France 57:158 (1971), pp. 31–​45 (pp. 41–​42); C. Polecritti, Preaching Peace in Renaissance Italy. Bernardino of Siena and His Audience. Washington, DC, 2000. Oldest Legend, p. 17.

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To stop these sufferings Margaret used extreme forms of prayers, shedding tears, and she turned to rather harsh penitentiary practices, such as wearing a hair shirt made of hedgehogs’ skin with the spines turned towards her body. After a counterattack in 1265 the hostilities ended only with the peace treaty concluded at Rabbit Island, probably in the presence of Margaret, whose intervention mentioned in the legend might in fact be historically correct. In the thirteenth to fifteenth-​century miracle collections of these Central European saints a great number of miracles are related to the events of contemporary history, with its battles and dangers typical of borderlands.37 Besides the military actions mentioned by the miracle stories, miracle accounts are useful sources because they always give the beneficiaries’ hometown. From these indications we can learn the geographical range of the fame of a particular cult.38 In addition, the provenance of the beneficiaries also shed light on social mobility, on who travelled and what distances; not surprisingly we see here mostly noblemen, monks, and people in the army. Being wounded in a battle, falling into captivity, being sold as a slave, or being kidnapped for 37

38

Miracles related to war are, again, a well-​researched topic; see for example M.E. Goodich, Violence and Miracle in the Fourteenth Century. Private Grief and Public Salvation, Chicago and London, 1995, esp. Chapter 7: The Ravages of War; or, closer to the region, where military action is at the core of all the saint’s lifetime and most of his post-​mortem works, see Andrić, The Miracles of St John Capistran; see the footnote below. Among the miracles we see several cases, in almost all collections, of wounds from the enemy. More complex are the stories of those who fell into captivity and were freed by the saint’s long-​distance intervention. They constitute the second largest group after the healing miracles and are a good reflection of the military situation of their time. In Paul’s miracle collection that covers most of the fifteenth century (1422–​1505), 20 per cent of miracles tell of cases when he saved people from captivity (16 out of 46). The other important saint of the region, the Italian Giovanni Capestrano/​John Capistran (1386–​1456) was himself an active participant of war preparations almost two centuries after Margaret. As a papal legate sent to help the Crusaders, he went around the whole region to preach and encourage people to enroll against the Turks. Before his ecclesiastical career John Capistran was himself a feudal lord and judge and he himself fell into captivity. Allegedly, it was after he was taken into prison in Rimini that he decided to give up his worldly career and entered the Franciscan order at Perugia in 1416. After being one of the most powerful inquisitors of his time and combatting heresies all over Europe, he was sent as a papal legate to John Hunyadi, and helped him with his powerful speeches to gather a Crusader army against the Turks. He was already 70 years old when he heroically led the army against the Sultan Mehmet ii at Nádorfehérvár/​Belgrade in 1456 and contributed greatly to the victory. He died in the plague that followed the battle and was buried in Újlak/​Ilok, in today’s Croatia. His miracle collection after his death contains stories from the years 1458–​1461, and includes a significant number of rescue miracles and tales of people being saved from Turkish captivity. See also Iona McCleery’s chapter in this collection.

348 Csepregi ransom are all occasions on which to call upon the help of a saint. But these life situations related to war and displacement are also occasions for learning about a saint’s cult, or experiencing (I may even go as far as to say testing) a saint’s efficacy.39 With war-​related and border-​related events we arrive at the presence of foreigners. Foreigners or people coming from afar have always been a substantial motif of miracles. They serve to attest the spread of the miracle worker’s fame, and thus enhance the prestige of the pilgrim-​site. I would like to underline the point that stories involving foreigners could refer to actual events but are very often a literary motif. In both cases –​which cannot be told apart without other indications –​their presence in the narratives has the same goal: whereas the majority of miracles in any context is usually aimed at the locals, the idea of a “domestic saint” can often be replaced by a universal one. The saints healing foreigners confirm their miracle-​working capacity that overcomes borders and language-​barriers and could also serve to address a wider spectrum of an “audience”, all of whom had heard, read or learned about the saint’s activities, many of whom would identify themselves with such outsiders. Besides the aforementioned Cumans, another once-​nomadic nation is mentioned in Margaret’s miracles: the Pechenegs (besenyő). They were a nomadic people living east of the Hungarians in the seventh and eighth centuries, and later, at the end of the eleventh century, they caused trouble with their attacks against Hungary. Eventually they were attacked by the Cumans, and soon settled in Hungary. In Margaret’s Oldest Legend we read of two cases where Pechenegs were miraculously cured by her: they both suffered from blindness and they both seem to have been accommodated to Christianity, although they relied on the help of others in seeking Margaret’s tomb.40 The legend probably followed some kind of thematic grouping, because after the two Pecheneg miracles comes a German woman, Elsa, also blind, who walked more than twenty miles to Margaret’s tomb.41 There is an interesting parallel in the contemporary miracle collection of the Blessed Salomea of Poland, where we read about a German woman also miraculously healed of blindness, who brought eyes made of wax to the

39

40 41

This is how, for example, in the fifteenth-​century miracles of Saint Paul the Hermit (mp 37), a Croatian nobleman (after being captured by a Hungarian one) learns about Saint Paul and turns to him; whereas in mp 32 we read about a man from Transylvania who made several vows to visit several saints, until the mention of Paul’s pilgrim site in Buda caused there to be a miracle in relation to that site. Oldest Legend, pp. 35, 36. Oldest Legend, p. 37.

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monastery. She communicated her blindness in this way, because the friars could not speak with her, as she spoke only German and the friars only Polish.42 Foreigners figure in the same way in the other collections as well, to attest how the fame of a new saint starts to spread and overcomes linguistic, ethnic and geographical boundaries. For example, among the miracles of Saint Kinga we read of a Hungarian family that lived near her cult site and, dubiously at first, started to venerate her. Elsewhere, still in Kinga’s miracle collection, we learn about a noblewoman from the territory of Hungary, from Krivány near the border, who started to venerate Kinga; this reference is in fact the first trace of the cult outside Poland.43 Just as earlier Christian miracle collections included what their actual audience regarded as their enemies, such as pagans, Greeks, Jews, heretics and later Muslims, these medieval collections also depict the foreign enemy, who were not theologically threatening but coincided with the military enemy on the surrounding battlefields. They are not, of course, always Tartars or Ottomans, but stand for the combatting seigneurial lords among the Hungarian, Czech, Serbian, German, and Austrian nobility and military men. 5.5 Miracles Unique to the Collection When reading through miracle collections, that is, hundreds of stories, one can easily become numb by the overwhelming similarity of the most common miracle pattern(s). This is perhaps the reason why it is so easy and so refreshing to find those miracles that are unique in the collection. What stands out in Margaret’s case, in her miracles performed while alive, is her command over the elements narrated with the utmost simplicity, her practical relationship to the physical world. The miracles performed in Margaret’s life and those that surround her death are, obviously, smaller in number than the big bulk of posthumous (mostly healing and saving) miracles, but these were the ones that served as the basis for the fame of Margaret’s sanctity, already in her life and immediately after her death. These are: mystical experiences, including the states of ecstasy and light-​phenomena; this first category almost borders on the second, Margaret’s command over the elements (sun, wind, water); and the story of her breaking the axis of the cart brings us to her most unique characteristics, the “practical” miracles that I also call “household miracles”, and to the lack of dramatization with which such miracle stories represent her starkly humble and down-​to-​earth figure.

42 43

Life of Blessed Salomea, Chapter vii.20. Miracle nr.11 in Vita et miracula sanctae Kyngae dicissae Cracoviensis.

350 Csepregi These events can happen independently of her will: when she undresses, the room becomes brighter; her face becomes radiant with light after prayer; she sees the sun and the moon together at midnight; she bears a flame above her head; or, they can happen as a result of her impact, as she brings out the sun with her prayer.44 This last instance best illustrates its uniqueness. Such phenomena of brightness and miracles involving light were, of course, common in the lives –​both actual and written –​of medieval saints. However, in Margaret’s case the amazing feature is played down, and it becomes part of the everyday. In the case of making the sunshine, what happens is embedded into a children’s game. As the witness explains: When we were children and I was playing with some of my schoolmates, and the virgin Margaret was a girl among us, and the day was so overcast that the sun was not out, the virgin Margaret said, “Do you want me to make the sun appear?” And we answered, “Yes”. And then she said, “I’ll show you a certain spot, and before I go there and come back to you, you will see the sun”; and she prayed, and went to that spot, and before she got back to us, the sun came out. Thus, the miracle over the elements, instead of being told as dramatic and spectacular, becomes the innocent wish of a little girl, bravely or timidly teasing her little friends: “do you want me make the sun appear?”. The same is true of the miracle of calming the wind that tore off the roof of the chapter house, for a “down-​to-​earth reason”: with another sister, Margaret had been carrying earth to clean the furnace and did not want the wind to blow away those heaps of earth.45 Similarly practical, even personal, motivation lies behind her making the rain continue incessantly, when Margaret wished to make the Dominican brothers who were visiting the monastery stay; at the time she was only ten years old and the miracle is more the triumph of a child’s obstinacy than a saint’s spectacular power over the elements.46 The same almost childish stubbornness is shown in Margaret’s other miracle of forcing a brother to stay, so that she could listen to him longer; the saint is merely eight years old: a certain Friar Preacher by the name of Benedict, had preached in the presence of the said girl and the other sisters, and when he wanted to 44 45 46

Witnesses 12, 13. Witness 27. Witness 2.

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leave, the said girl asked him not to go, because she was listening with pleasure to his sermon, and when that friar again tried to leave, the said girl asked God that his carriage would be broken, so that he could not leave; and as that friar was leaving, his carriage was broken, and the friar returned to the said monastery.47 The peak of practicality and the miraculous grounded into reality is the story of making the Danube rise; its content is a real anti-​miracle. The initial personal motivation behind the miracle is again, very practical, namely to prove that her confessor Marcellus had told the truth; but there is also the downplaying factor: initially there was a flood and when Margaret showed to the prior provincial how high the water level had been, he did not believe it, so this was when Margaret made the river rise to the same height, to show that it was “naturally”, “physically” possible.48 How marked is this everyday aspect and the lack of dramatization in the thirteenth-​century miracle narratives of Margaret is shown most clearly when compared to Garinus’s description from his 1340 Life, where he gives a passionate account of the unbridled river, the nuns’ terror, and even compares the withdrawing water to the forces at creation, transforming it into an “epic, almost Baroque narrative”.49 A clearly-​visible feature of these miracles is their tendency towards the simple, commonplace, playful, even childish, and towards the practical, truthful or even to the naturally possible aspects. With these stories there are neatly matching humble deeds that aim at the practical running of the household, like the “miracles at the kitchen stove” where Margaret grabbed pots in flames to save the meal and her hands remained unhurt.50 This ordinariness was so obvious that Garinus felt the need to deal with it –​in the stories he takes over in the Legenda Maior he did not only enlarge the narrative but added exactly what the original miracles lacked: the dramatic. He, for example, closes the practical miracle of the breaking of the cart-​axle by saying that he who acted out all that is obviously the same as the one who cast the pharaoh and his army into the sea.51 47 48 49 50 51

Witness 1. The miracle of making the Danube rise is told by several witnesses (4, 5, 6, 7, 14, 22); the most detailed account is that of Marcellus himself. The comparison of the two passages and styles is from G. Klaniczay, “Sacred sites in medieval Buda”, in B. Nagy et al. (eds.), Medieval Buda in Context, Leiden, 2016, pp. 229–​54 (p. 244). As in Witness 10. Legenda Maior i. 43. When analysing the miracle, Klaniczay calls Margaret’s original gesture a “pious prank”, and also underlines that Garinus complemented the narrative not only by way of the Old Testament simile, and by adding more visual details, but in order

352 Csepregi 6

Conclusions

By way of conclusion, I would like to underline again this lack of dramatization in the first two, yet very different, miracle accounts of Margaret; the downplaying of the important or the smoothing of the mighty into the ordinary are more than characteristic miracle features or a narrative device. In Margaret’s behavior while she was alive there are other deeds and gestures that point to this same direction, even outside the context of the miraculous. It can be found whenever, for example, she tried to shy away from the privileges of her royal status, by hiding the presents she got from her parents, by dirtying her royal clothes, giving away money to the needy, or threatening to render her face ugly when faced with the prospect of a royal marriage.52 The writer of the Oldest Legend certainly knew about this characteristic of Margaret, and he himself probably contributed to give shape to this modesty in his unpretentious accounts. But this aspect can also be seen in several testimonies of the canonization acts, and thus perhaps it is not hasty to say that this simple way of melting the miraculous into the practical ordinariness deeply belonged to Margaret’s personality, and to the image formed about her. And this image, of course, was shaped by both the witnesses, the hagiographers and even by Margaret herself. Furthermore, the framework given by the canonization trial, with its exhaustive list of questions, also strengthens this phenomenon, to see and show the miraculous event embedded into the details of everyday life. This sober and down-​to-​earth tone is so strong that it manifests itself even in quite dramatic miracle stories. At the resuscitation of a dead child, the reader is plunged into the details of the everyday life of that family, their past infant deaths, their deserted former home, the isolation of their house, the patting of

52

to heighten the dramatic effect he also made Margaret repeat the miracle in reverse, that is, he described even the reconstruction of the carriage, in a rather spectacular way, writing how the wooden pieces immediately started to draw near each other: G. Klaniczay “A csodatörténetek retorikája a szentté avatási perekben és a legendákban [The rhetoric of miracles in the canonization acts and legends]” in B. István and O. Szabolcs (eds.) Religió, retorika, nemzettudat régi irodalmunkban, Debrecen, 2004, pp. 29–​49 (p. 42). This was a hagiographic topos, and it is precisely from Margaret’s Life that we learn that taking a vow was often not enough for a royal nun to avoid marriage, as kings could obtain papal dispensation. On the distortion of the face, also as a form of punishment see V. Groebner, Defaced: the Visual Culture of Violence in the Late Middle Ages​, New York, 2004; P. Skinner, Living with Disfigurements in Early Medieval Europe, New York, 2017, as well as Eadem, “The gendered nose and its lack: ‘medieval’ nose-​cutting and its modern manifestations”, Journal of Women’s History 26 (2014), pp. 45–​67.

Miracle Types and Narratives

353

the still warm little body. While witnesses at other contemporary canonization hearings were also expected to give facts and countless details, this narrative feature here, perhaps involuntarily, is in accord both with the more intentional tone of Marcellus in the Oldest Legend as well as that of this young royal princess, who instead of courtly life threw herself head over heels into the most humble and physically most revolting menial tasks, between greasy pots to be washed with icy water and dealing with vomiting sick nuns. Although it is clear that we can at best only get a glimpse of her representations, it is still one of the most fascinating questions about a saint: what characterizes her deeds and gestures.

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Index Aalst 302 Acta Sancti Sebastiani 126, 127, 128, 132–​138 Acre 289 Adrian i, pope 55 Adrian vi, pope 76 Æbbe of Coldingham, saint 20, 23, 28, 255 Admont 44 Aernout Gijsbrecht 305 Afonso de Viseu, miracle beneficiary 249, 256, 262, 271 Afonso Henriques (Afonso i of Portugal), king 269 Afonso Saco, witness 273 Agnes Green, miracle beneficiary 176 Agnes di Mescizano, miracle beneficiary 173 Aix-​en-​Provence 283, 291–​292 Alban, saint 42, 43 Albert of Armagh 33–​34 Alberto Brentatore, disputed saint 119 Albertus Magnus 325 Albufeira 273 Aldonça, wife of Rui Nogeira 259 Alexander of the Cals, miracle beneficiary 343 Alexander iii, pope 57–​59, 79 Alexander iv, pope 67, 72 Alfonso x of Castile, king 257 Alicia, witness 85 Álvaro Gil, witness 271 Álvaro Afonso 271 Amata, miracle beneficiary 90 Amersfoort 302, 314 Ambrogio Taegio 114 Ambrose of Massa, saint 68 Ambrose of Milan, saint 127 Ambrose of Siena, saint 118 Ambrosius, decretalist 63 André de Resende 260 André Dias 258 Andrea dicto Papaleo 159 Angelucza de Symone, midwife 241–​243 Angers 214 Anglo-​Normandy 302 Anno of Cologne, saint 58

Anthonius Mayni, notary 294 Antoninus of Florence, saint 75–​76 Antonius Andree Morello, witness 241, 243 Antony of Padua, saint 65–​66 Aquitaine 263, 302 Aragon 288 Archambeau, Nicole 6, 14, 249–​251, 256, 263, 265 Arcoid 27 Ardennes 169 Ariaen, witness 322 Aristotle 125 Armanno Pungiluppo of Ferrara, disputed saint 119 Arnobius the Younger 127 Arras 54 Articuli/​ articles 6, 69, 77–​101, 137, 138, 180–​ 181, 147, 232, 275 Augustine of Hippo 71–​72, 102–​103, 215n27, 275, 308–​309, 309n29 Austria 44, 343, 345, 345n34, 349 Auxerre 197 Avice de Bernevile, miracle beneficiary 193 Avignon 71–​74, 122, 282, 290, 293–​297, 329 Azambuja 249 Baldwin, abbot 23 Bamberg 57 Barcelona 286, 288 Barlassina 112 Bartholomeo Albizi 216 Bartholomeus Anglicus 235 Bartlett, Robert 6, 100, 251–​252, 263 Basilea 237 Basse-​Wavre 302 Batu Khan 339 Bavaria 302 Beatrice, wife of Charles i of Anjou 282–​ 283, 283n39 Beatriz, daughter of King João i 262 Beatriz de Coutinho, wife of Pedro de Meneses 259 Beja 272 Béla, son of Béla iv 346

370 Index Béla iv, king 329, 340, 342n26, 346 Bell, Rudolph 275 Benedict, friar 350 Benedict of Nursia, saint 41 Benedict of Peterborough 20, 21, 27, 31n86, 255n30 Benedictines 11, 23, 31, 36, 38, 41, 44, 46, 49, 50, 52, 169 Benno of Meissen, saint 75–​76 Bérenger of Saint-​Affrique 91 Bernard of Clairvaux, saint 48, 49 Bernard of Compostella 63 Bernardino of Siena, saint 74–​75, 197, 219–​220, 226, 226–​248, 231n17, 237n45, 244n71 Bernon of Hildesheim, bishop 59 Bernward of Hildesheim, saint 58–​59 Bertold 56 Bertrandus Mostolli, witness 213 Birgitta of Sweden, saint 74, 88, 172, 214, 214n24, 215–​216, 223–​224 Birkett, Helen 40 Black Death 132, 276 Blanche of Aragon, sister of St. Louis of Anjou 286 Blanche of France/​Infanta of Castile, daughter of Louis ix 187 Bois-​Seigneur-​Isaac 302, 318n65 Bologna 18, 106–​107, 109 Bolsward 302 Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, saint 75 Boniface viii, pope 70–​72, 286 Boniface ix, pope 74, 296 Boninsegna di Mesciazano, witness 173 Bonvisus, friar 106 Bossy, John 278 Boureau, Alain 218 Bourges 69, 131 Brabant 302, 306n22, 319 Breda 302 Brescia 115 Breitenstein, Mirko 44 British Isles  Brittany 87 Bruges 302 Brussels 302 Bucia, witness 237–​240 Buda 136, 329, 332, 348n39

Bulgaria 340 Bull, Marcus 27, 32 Burgwindheim shrine 51 Burkhard ii of Ebrach, abbot 51 Bury St Edmunds 23 Bremond, Claude 126 Butler, Sara M. 207 Byland Abbey 38, 39 Byzantium 340 Caciola, Nancy 221, 223 Caesar of Heisterbach 43, 49, 130, 306 Calcidius 309 Calixtus ii, pope 56 Canon Law 18, 24, 63, 78, 80, 85, 89, 98, 120, 124, 211, 218 Canterbury 20, 21, 27, 29, 61 caregiving 16, 158, 201, 230–​231, 247–​248, 252 Casa da Suplicação 267 Cassandra, witness 244–​245 Cassidy-​Welch, Megan 264 Castelo de Vide 271 Castile 257 Castro Bono 90 Cathars 112 Catherine of Siena, saint 74–​75 Celas de Guimarães 260 Celestine iii, pope 57–​59 Celestine v, see Peter of Morrone 70, 72 Ceuta 259, 262, 264 Chapel of Saint Stephen 152 Charlemagne 52 Charles i of Anjou 81, 187n2, 282–​285, 285n51, 296 Charles ii of Anjou 283–​286, 289, 289n73, 296 Charles v of France 296 Charles vi of France 296 Charles of Blois, Duke of Brittany, saint 73, 81–​84, 92, 93, 95, 203, 214, 344n31 childbirth 4, 13, 134, 226–​248, 251, 252, 322 children 5, 88, 97, 157n36, 161, 183, 200n59, 202, 202n66, 217, 224, 226–​248, 229n12, 245n74, 257n43, 261, 324, 345n33, 350–​351 Church of St. Hippolytus 305 Church of St. Maximin 283, 284 Cicero 125, 308n28

Index Cintius 59 Ciomea, miracle beneficiary 174 Cistercians 11, 22, 23, 36–​53, 117, 123, 144–​163, 260, 261n59, 268n91 Cîteaux 48, 49 The City of God 102 Clairvaux 44 Clare of Assisi, saint 68, 71–​72, 85, 113 Clare of Montefalco, saint 85, 90–​91, 197, 200n60 Clark, Anne L. 51 Clement iii, pope 58 Clement iv, pope 69 Clement v, pope 293, 294 Clement vii, pope 296 Coimbra 258, 268n91, 269 Coldingham shrine 28 Collacia, witness 226, 233, 234, 235 Collectio Romana 63 Commissioners 34, 78–​101, 114, 117, 139, 180, 192, 194, 198, 201, 211–​212, 214, 218, 224, 227, 231–​232, 234–​236, 238, 239–​240, 242, 244–​247 Comtat Venaissin 293 Conrad of Constance, saint 56 Conrad of Eberbach 49 Consilium pacis 73 Constance 55 Constantino di Orvieto 104 Constantinou, Stavroula 299, 300, 312n39 Constantinople 131, 330n8 Contamine, Philippe 278 Coutinho 259 crimes 207, 262–​263, 267 Cromatius, miracle beneficiary 127–​138 Csepregi, Ildikò 14 Cuman 340, 346, 348 Cunigunde of Luxembourg, saint 60, 61, 63, 115 Curia (papal) 9, 61–​62, 68, 69, 70, 72, 80, 88, 106, 110, 112, 117, 120–​121, 123n52, 124, 139, 219, 219n38, 221 Cuthbert, saint 22, 42, 43, 46, 47 Cyprus 277 Czech 349 Danube 329, 351, 351n48 De Proprietatibus Rerum 235

371 De septem donis Spiritus Sancti 143 Delft 302, 310, 314–​318, 321–​324 Delphine of Puimichel, saint 6, 83, 91, 94, 256, 281, 289–​294 demons, see also possession 10, 13, 89–​90, 107, 114, 171, 174, 206–​225, 251, 276, 307–​ 310, 337–​341 Devil 120, 206–​207, 222–​224 Dialogus Miraculorum 44–​46, 49, 306 Dirck Adamsz 305 disability 8, 13, 87, 97, 184, 186–​205, 207, 229n12, 234, 305 doctors, see physicians 34, 71–​72, 123, 156n35, 158–​160, 209, 217, 219n38, 228, 240, 240n54, 317 Dominguez, Lidia Zanetti 268 Dominic of Caleruega, saint 12, 65–​66, 104–​112 Dominic of Silos, saint 264 Dominicans 12, 42, 45, 47, 65, 66n48, 68, 69, 72, 102–​124, 125–​143, 144–​163, 260, 284, 329–​333, 350 Dordrecht 315, 319 Dorothea of Montau, saint 92 dreams, see also visions 2, 14, 28, 299–​326, 333, 337 dualism 111, 116 Duarte of Portugal, king 261, 267, 269 Dunstan, saint 30n81 Durham 43, 46–​47 Ebrach Abbey 51–​52 Economics 1, 16–​17, 32, 42, 161, 166–​167, 184, 265, 274, 304, 328 Egypt 328 Elliot, Dyan 223 Edith, miracle beneficiary 212–​213, 224 Edmund of Abingdon, saint 22, 23, 26, 33, 34 Edmund of Bury, saint 20–​30 Edmund of Canterbury, saint 117 Edward the Confessor, king, saint 56 Egidius de Fuscarariis 69 Elizabeth of Hungary, saint 62, 64, 67, 67n54, 79, 88, 199, 328, 331, 341, 344 Eloy, saint 186 Elsa, miracle beneficiary 348 Elsakkers, Marianne 233 Elzéar of Sabran, count, saint 290–​291, 294

372 Index emotions 6, 7, 46, 96, 100, 151, 201–​205, 278 England 2, 11, 16, 35, 199, 207, 258, 262, 265, 272, 277, 298, 302 Engelhard of Langheim 44 Entre-​Tejo-​e-​Odiana 271 Erkenwald, saint 27–​28, 255 Estêvão, cantor of Lisbon Cathedral 259 Estêvão Gonçalves Pimentel, witness 271 Esztergom 330–​331 Ethelburga, saint 28 Étienne of Bourbon, preacher 135, 138 Eugene iii, pope 57, 71 Eustache de la Fosse 267 exécution 13, 249, 253, 261–​262, 266–​268 exempla 12, 38, 44–​45, 66, 102, 125–​143, 177, 215, 277, 292, 306, 306n23, 307, 310–​ 311, 318 exorcism 107, 208, 210, 220–​222, 251–​ 252, 279 Exordium magnum 44 Fernão Pires, abbot of Sendim 272 Fernão Vaz, witness 262 Finucane, Ronald C. 6, 7, 76, 251, 254, 260, 278, 298 Five Franciscan Martyrs of Morocco 75, 258 Fleury Abbey 41 Foscati, Alessandra 233 Fossanova 42, 117, 122–​124, 144–​163, 198 Foy of Conques, saint 254, 263 France 11, 16, 35, 69, 70, 81, 131, 186, 187, 207, 220–​221, 254, 256, 263–​265, 277, 283, 296 Frances of Rome, saint 85, 243, 244n70 Franceschino of Ravenna, saint 73 Francis of Assisi, saint 59, 65–​67, 76, 104 Francis of Paola, saint, 75–​76 Franciscans 65, 68, 72, 82, 109, 113, 120, 131, 136, 242–​243, 261, 286–​287, 343 Franciscus, miracle beneficiary 223 Frankfurt, council of 55 Fresolino 155 Frideswide of Oxford, saint 27–​32 Galgano of Chiusdino, saint 58–​59 Gandolphus of Binasco 73 Gaposchkin, M. Cecilia 81 Gardanne 292

Garinus 329, 334, 345n34, 351, 351n51 Gauffridus de Serveriis, miracle beneficiary 287 Gaufridus Bonnio, miracle beneficiary 193 Gaul 127, 159, 283 Gauvard, Claude 207 Geary, Patrick 183 Geertruyt Arnautsdochter, miracle beneficiary 305 Geltner, Guy 264, 265 gender 1, 7–​8, 85–​86, 116, 145, 189, 200, 205, 225, 232, 246, 269, 336 Genghis Khan 339 Gerald de Frachet 104 Gerald of Aurillac, saint 254 Gerald of Sauve-​Majeure, saint 58, 66 Gerard Cagnoli, saint 174, 216 Gerard Dullich 318–​319 Giacomo Castellano 75 Giacomo of Ravenna, saint 73 Gil de Santarém, saint 260 Gil Fernandes 262 Gilbert of Sempringham, saint 33, 61, 63 Gilbert, witness 212 Giordano da Pisa, friar 131 Giovanni Francesco de Pavinis 74 Godehard of Hildesheim, saint 56 Godiva, miracle beneficiary 21 Godric of Finchale, saint 255 Golinelli, Paolo 148 Gonçalo de Penela, witness 273 Gonçalo Fernandes, witness 271 Goodich, Michael 7, 102, 232, 263, 276–​279, 295, 298, 300, 327 Goscelin of Saint-​Bertin 15–​35 Goswin of Clairvaux 44 Craig, Leigh Ann 12–​13 Gratian 24, 57, 71, 236 Gregorius de Sancto-​Stephano, witness 159 Gregory of Tours 63 Gregory i, The Great, pope 44, 63, 71, 309 Gregory ix, pope 59, 64, 65, 67, 79, 105–​106, 107, 108, 328 Gregory x, pope 70, 331 Gualterius of Aversa, bishop 58 Guelphs 84, 86 Guerra Gulferame de Piperno, witness 161 Guibert of Nogent 31

Index Guillamecta, miracle beneficiary 95, 214 Guillaume de Deguileville 311 Guillaume de Saint-​Pathus 187, 196n44, 255 Guillaume Grimoard, abbot 294 Guillelmo de Tocco 122 Guillelmus Henrici, witness 291–​293 Guillot le Potencier, miracle beneficiary 186–​205 Guimarães 258. 260 Guingamp 82 Gullegem 302 Hadewijch, mystic 319–​320 The Hague 322 Halle 302 Hambyria, witness 24 Hanska, Jussi 12 Heiligenkreuz 44 Heilwich, miracle beneficiary 322 Heleas 287 Herman, Luc 312 Henricus Schorne, proctor of the Cantilupe process 93 Henricus, witness 33 Henry of Langenstein 73 Henry of Segusio 72 Henry ii, Emperor, saint 57 Henry vi of England, king, saint 162–​185 Herbert of Clairvaux 44 Hereford 72, 93, 140, 211–​212 heresy, see also Cathars; dualism 45, 63, 11, 102–​124, 226, 252 Herman the Archdeacon 25, 30 Hildesheim 59 Hillner, Julia 264–​265 Himmerod 44 Honorius iii, pope 64, 67 hospitals 87, 237, 239, 304, 310, 322 Hugh Farsit 50 Hugh of Grenoble, saint 56 Hugh of Lincoln, saint 23, 47 Hugo le Barber, miracle beneficiary 86–​87 Huizinga, Johan 278 Hundred Years War 276 Hungary 94, 289, 293, 327–​353 Huych, miracle beneficiary 324 Hyacinth Bobo, see Celestine iii 59

373 Iberia 264, 279 Iacobus, called Rubeus de Fresolino, witness 155, 156 illness, see also disability 1, 5n16, 13, 91, 95, 100, 101, 107, 137, 156, 161n51, 162, 164, 186–​205, 206–​225, 229, 251–​252, 253, 260, 269–​270, 275–​276, 327, 329, 332, 335–​339 Imre Lósy, archbishop of Esztergom 330 incarnation 108, 124 Innocent ii, pope 56 Innocent iii, pope 60–​61, 63, 67, 107–​ 108, 113n31 Innocent iv, pope 63, 67–​68, 75, 113, 115–​117 Innocent v, pope 331 insanity, see madness 176, 206, 207 Interrogatorium 79–​80, 91, 93, 99 Iohannes de Neapoli, witness 156, 156n35 Iohannes Rotgerii, witness 287 Isabel of Aragon, saint 258, 268 Italy 69, 119, 122–​123, 155, 216–​217, 226–​248 Ithmar of Rochester, saint 31 Jacob Gerrytszoon, miracle beneficiary 322 James of Narni, bishop 73 James of Varazze 104, 107n16, 114, 124, 127, 133–​138 James of Velletri 70 Jamroziak, Emilia 11, 270 Jan Pieterszoen, miracle beneficiary 316, 317 Jansen, Katherine Ludwig 103, 283 Jean Gobi 284 Jean de Thama, notary 96 Jerome 63, 71 Jerusalem 165–​166, 311 Jervaulx Abbey 38–​39 Joanna i of Naples, queen 289–​297 João i, king 259, 262, 269 João Anes de Valedo, miracle beneficiary 273 João Cide from Castelo de Vide, miracle beneficiary 271 João Bartolomeu, witness 271 João de Óbido, witness 271 João da Póvoa, royal confessor 261 João Rodrigues Çaquoto 259 João Vicente, witness 271 Jocelin of Furness, abbot of Melrose 40

374 Index Johannes Andreae 71 Johannes de Biblia 135–​136 Johannes de Sclavis, witness 159 Johannes Marienwerder 92 Johannes Storberni, miracle beneficiary 223 Johannes Walteri Brant, notary 316 John of Bridlington, saint 74 John Buoni, saint 97, 119, 202, 204, 216 John Dolder 51 John Gualbert, saint 58 John of Capistran, saint 256 John of Jervaulx, abbot 38 John iv of Montfort 82, 84 John xxii, pope 69, 120–​124, 146, 150n17 Johnson, Rebecca Wynne 237, 242 Jordan of Saxony 104 Joseph ii, Holy Roman Emperor 330 Katajala-​Peltomaa, Sari 13 Kinga, saint 343, 349 Kitzler, Petr 128 Klaniczay, Gábor 7, 281, 300 Kol of Sweden, king 58 Konrad of Eberbach 44 Konrad of Marburg 328 Koopmans, Rachel 181, 277 Krafft, Ottfried 98 Kuuliala, Jenni 11, 13 L’Aquila 74, 226, 237 La-​Chaise-​Dieu 49 La Corra 331 Ladislas iv of Hungary 331 Landulfus de Neapoli 156 Lawrence Kepherim, miracle beneficiary 32 Lawrence of Subiaco, saint 217, 68 Le Goff, Jacques 126, 301, 236 Leo iii, the Isaurian, emperor 55 Leo x, pope 75 Leonardus, witness 161 Leonardus de Piperno, witness 160 Leopold of Austria, saint 75 leprosy 33, 88 Lett, Didier 84, 275, 276 Levack, Brian P. 224 Libellus de Principiis Ordinis Predicatorum 104 Liber miraculorum beate Marie Magdalene 284

Liège 56 Ligny 296 Lincoln Cathedral 24 Lo Quel 288 London 140, 211 Lopo Pires, witness 272 Low Countries 14, 301–​305, 325 Louis of Anjou (Louis of Toulouse), saint 72, 89–​90, 95, 199, 213, 255, 281, 285–​295 Louis of Taranto 289–​291, 295 Louis i, Duke of Anjou 296 Louis ix of France, king, saint 70–​71, 81–​82, 87, 98, 186–​206, 203, 255, 293 Lourenço Pires, witness 272 Loÿs, miracle beneficiary 197 Lucca 216 Lucia di Ruimilli, miracle beneficiary 201 Lucius iii, pope 57 Lugano 115 Lyon 144 Mabilia 31 Macrobius 308–​310, 308n28 madness 4, 13, 206–​225, 337, 338, 341 Mainz, Council of 54, 328 Malachy of Armagh, saint 58 Manuel de Piperno, miracle beneficiary 42, 159–​160 Marbod of Rennes, abbot 49 Marburg 328 Marcellus, confessor of Margaret of Hungary 331, 333, 351, 353 Marches of Ancona 84, 216 Marcus, witness 161 Margaret of Hungary, saint 14, 94, 98, 118, 199, 327–​352 Margaret of Provence, widow of Louis ix 187 Margaret of Scotland, saint 20, 28, 33, 254 Margareta de Piperno, miracle beneficiary 198 Margarita Capite de Istrie, witness 237–​238 Margarita Petri de Subaudia, witness 238 Margarita de Basilea, miracle beneficiary 237–​238 Maria, queen of Sicily 297 Maria, miracle beneficiary 216, 224 Maria Fernandes 267

Index Maria Laskaris, Byzantine imperial princess 329 Mariana Vannini, witness 244, 246 Marseille 282, 285, 286, 286n59, 287 Martin Luther 76, 267 Martino Garati 74 Mary Magdalen 103, 171, 281–​285, 287 Maurice of Carnoët, saint 64 McCleery, Iona 13 McGuire, Brian Patrick 45–​46 medicine, see also physicians 12, 17, 100, 127, 159, 189, 208, 210, 214, 217–​218, 225, 317, 338 Melk 44 Melrose abbey 40–​41, 49 Metz 296 Metzler, Irina 193 midwife 230, 235 Milan 112–​113, 115 Modwenna, saint 255 monasticism 36 Mongols  329, 339–​340 Monte Cassino 41 Montefalco 91 Montesiepi 58–​59 Moriset de Ranton, miracle beneficiary 198 Nanna, witness 244–​246 Naples 87–​88, 92, 122, 144–​163, 281–​298, 302 Narbonne 72 Newminster Abbey 42 Nicaea, Second Council of 55 Nicholas of Tolentino, saint 74–​75, 83–​86, 90, 192, 216–​217, 242, 244, 256 Nicholas, abbot, witness 152 Nicolao de Atria, miracle beneficiary 296–​297 Nicolaus de Maximo de Piperno, miracle beneficiary 159 Nicolaus Loarenchi, procurator 91 Nicolaus Paulini, witness 243–​244 Nicolaus Zappus de Piperno, witness 160–​161 Nicole Orby, demoniac 221 Nie, Giselle de 325 Nilson, Ben 325 Nissi, Jyrki 13 Nobility 163, 166, 215, 283, 349

375 North Africa 6, 262, 266 Nossa Senhora da Oliveira 258 Notaries 22, 34, 62, 68, 79, 96–​97, 106, 123, 145, 202, 230–​231, 246, 280, 294, 303, 315–​316, 320, 332 Noyon 186, 203 Nuno de Santa Maria, saint 258 Oggerius de Lamar, witness 287 Omobono, saint 63, 115 Oneirocriticon 308n28 Order of Preachers, see Dominicans 111, 156 Ordo iudiciarius 69, 78 Orvieto 68–​69, 104 Osbern of Canterbury, saint 31 Osbert of Clare, saint 31 Othmar, saint 55 Our Lady at Rocamadour 21 Our Lady in Distress 314–​216, 322, 324 Our Lady of Amersfoort 314–​315 Our Lady of Guadalupe in Castile 257 Our Lady of Montserrat in Catalonia 257 Our Lady of Sorrows (Delft) 321–​323 Our Lady of Virtues (Azambuja) 249–​250, 261–​269 Our Lady of Zaffelare 313 Oxford 32 Paciocco, Roberto 11, 98 Paris 118, 290 Paul the Apostle 254 Paul the Hermit, saint 328 Pedro de Meneses 259 Pelbartus of Temesvar 136–​138 Pèlerinage de la vie humaine 311 Pellegrini, Letizia 219, 231 Peregrinus of Oppeln 134, 135 Pero Velho, miracle beneficiary 262, 272 Perrinetus Flamenqui, miracle beneficiary 295 Peter Colonna 70 Peter Martyr/​of Verona, saint 12, 67, 104, 111–​116, 121 Peter of Luxembourg, saint 89–​90, 281, 296–​297 Peter of Morrone (Celestine v), pope, saint 70, 72 Peter of Tarentaise, saint 58

376 Index Peters, Edward 278 Petrus, miracle beneficiary  preaching, see also sermons 12, 23, 38, 44, 102, 103, 108, 111–​112, 124, 125–​126, 129, 132, 138, 142–​143, 268, 283 Brown, Peter 6, 103, 182 penance 127, 129, 130–​131, 164, 166, 266, 279 Petrucius, witness 234, 236, 246 Petrus Rotgerii, witness 287 Petrus, miracle beneficiary 161 Petrus Andree Sancti-​Iohannis, witness  Petrus de castro Montis Sancti-​Iohannis, witness 152–​154 Petrus Francisci de Piperno, miracle beneficiary 159, 194n32 Petrus Gedde, miracle beneficiary 215, 223–​224 Petrus Grassus, witness 147 Petrus Letus, miracle beneficiary 162 Petrus Olavi, witness 223 Petrus de Rodulpho 292 Philip, archbishop of Esztergom  Philip, prior 28–​32 Philip of Bourges, saint 69 Philip iii, king of France 81–​82 Philippa, witness 197 Philippe Cabassoles, bishop of Cavaillon 290 Philippucia, witness 216 physicians 34, 123, 186, 208 Pieter Hugenzoenssoon 324 plague, see also Black Death 5–​6, 132, 267, 278–​280, 290, 293, 324, 339n22 Polycarpus 128 Pontigny abbey 22–​23, 33 Portel 272 Portugal 249–​273 possession, see also demons 4, 13, 26, 89, 206–​225, 276, 337–​338, 341 prisoners 265, 267, 271–​273, 289 procurators 83, 91–​92 Propp, Vladimir 193, 300 Provence 171, 250, 274–​298 Prussia 92 Prudlo, Donald S. 12  Quintilian 125

Ralph Baldock, Bishop of London 211 Raoul de Kerguiniou, proctor 92 Raymond of Peñafort, saint 118 Raymond Berenguer 282–​283 Raymond of Agoult 295 Raymundus Oliverii, miracle beneficiary 158 Raynaldus, miracle beneficiary 158–​159 Rayner, notary 68 Reformations 73, 220, 258 Reginald of Durham 43, 46–​47, 255 Reims 56 Rhône river 293 Ricardus de Insula, miracle beneficiary 204 Richard of Chichester, saint 31 Richart de Briqueville, miracle beneficiary 197 Rieti 226 Rimini 347n37 Robert of Naples, king 289–​296 Robert of Newminster, saint 42, 49–​50 Robert Reboule, cloth-​fuller 186, 191, 198 Robert the Wise, brother of St. Louis of Anjou 286–​287 Robert Vertlet, miracle beneficiary 170–​178 Rocamadour 22, 27, 30, 32 Roch, saint 132 Rodrigo Anes 272 Roger, witness 85 Roger of Middleton, miracle beneficiary 29 Rome 54–​77, 110, 127, 135, 137, 156, 164–​185, 226, 294, 296–​297, 329, 331–​332 Romica, witness 161 Rose of Viterbo, saint 245 Roulandus Taillari, miracle beneficiary 83 Rudesind of Dumio, saint 58–​59 Rudolf of Habsburg 331 Rui Nogeira 259 Rui Pires, miracle beneficiary 272 Räsänen, Marika 12, 184 Salomea of Poland, saint 342–​343, 348 Samouco de Ribatejo 272 Samson, abbot 21, 23 San Lorenzo, village of 158 San Lorenzo in Lucina 59 Santa Lucia of Priverno 161 Sancta Petrutii, witness 241 Santiago de Compostela 166, 174

377

Index Sancia of Majorca, queen of Naples 290 Sara, miracle beneficiary 33 Sargent, Steven 263–​265 Scandinavia 2 Schmitt, Jean-​Claude 6, 126 Sebaldus of Nuremburg, saint 75 Sebastian, saint 125–​143 Sendim 272 Serbia 340, 349 sermons, see also preaching 9, 30, 31, 35, 45, 70, 92, 116, 125–​143, 167, 172, 260, 266, 277, 280, 283, 287, 295, 304, 351 Shrenoute, saint 37 Sicily 288, 293, 297 Siena 74, 226, 268 Sigal, Pierre-​André 6–​7, 102, 194, 251, 252, 263, 276 Signori, Gabriela 44 Signy Abbey 49 Simon of Collazzone, saint 70 Simon of Polirone 54 Simon of Trent, saint 73 Simone da Todi, saint 173 Sixtus iv, pope 73 Sluhovsky, Moshe 221–​222 Smoller, Laura Ackermann 87, 92, 97, 191, 278, 298 Soissons Abbey 50 Solomon of Constance, bishop 55 Speculum iudiciale 69 Spoleto 91 St Gall 55 St-​Maximin-​de-​Provence 171 St Michael of Hildesheim 59 St Ursula’s Church, 316–​317, 321–​324 St Victor of Marseille 294 Stanislaus of Szczepanów, saint 70 Stephen of Bourbon 125–​143 Stephen of Fossa, cardinal 110 Stephen of Muret, saint 58 Stephen of Obazine, saint 42 Stephen iv of Hungary 331 Stephen v of Hungary 340, 246 Suffolk 29 Summa super titulis decretalium 63 Swansea 140–​141, 253 Sweden 277, 298

Taranto 289, 290, 291, 295 Teixeira, Igor 120 Temesvar 136–​138 Tertullian 125 Thama 96 Theobaldus de Beloczac, witness 203 Thionville 54 Thomas Agni of Lentini 105, 114 Thomas Aquinas, saint 12, 42, 92, 104, 105, 117–​124, 139, 144–​163, 198, 215 Thomas Becket, saint 20–​23, 27, 29, 43, 58, 178, 255, 263 Thomas Fowle, miracle beneficiary 172–​173 Thomas Cantilupe 72, 84, 86, 89, 98, 100–​ 101, 140, 204, 211–​212 Thomas of Celano 104 Thomas of Monmouth 20–​21, 26–​28 Thomas Walsingham 43 Thompson, Augustine 103, 119 Tiburtius 128 Toulouse 87–​88, 106, 109, 286 Tractatus de canonizatione sanctorum 74 Trapan, sea of 287–​288 travel 13, 19, 32, 147–​148, 164–​185, 249, 288, 298, 311, 316, 347 Troilo Malvezzi 74 Turner, David M 199 Twemlow, Jesse Alfred 74 Ubald of Gubbio, saint 58 Ubert Bianchi 331 Ulrich of Augsburg, saint 55 Ulrich, bishop 56 Unterlinden, nunnery of 47 Urban iv, pope 69 Urban v, pope 73, 96, 281, 294–​295 Urban viii, pope 73 Ursula, saint 314 Vadstena 214–​215 Valeran of Ligny 296 Valerius Maximus 125 Van Mulder, Jonas 14 Vannucia, midwife 233–​235 Vannucia, miracle beneficiary 226, 232–​236 Vauchez, André 6–​7, 97, 148–​149, 175, 228, 256, 277 Vervaeck, Bart 312

378 Index Velletri 70 Venice 115, 166 Verhoeven, Gerrit 315 Vervaeck, Bart 312 Veszprém 329, 343 Vézelay 171, 283, 284 Vicente Lourenço, proctor of Holy Mary of Virtues 271 Vie et miracles de Saint Louis 187 Vila Real 259 Vincent, saint 259, 260, 268–​269 Vincent Ferrer, saint 87, 92, 278, 298 Virgil of Salzburg, saint 59 Visions 2, 14, 40, 42, 45–​46, 108, 114, 123, 251–​ 252, 259, 262, 273, 284, 299–​326, 333 Viterbo 245 Vita of Gil de Santarém 260 Virgin Mary 3, 39, 43–​45, 47, 50, 169, 177, 257, 261–​262, 272–​273, 314, 316, 318 Walafrid Strabo 55 Walter, miracle beneficiary 33 Waltheof, abbot of Melrose 40 Walz, Angelo 149 Ward, Benedicta 36, 303 Webb, Diana 167, 325 Weinstein, Donald 275 Wetzstein, Thomas 98 Willem Aerntszoenswijf 322 Willem van Wijldert 313

William, abbot of Melrose 40 William Cragh, miracle beneficiary 140–​ 143, 253 William de Testa 211 William Durand, Bishop of Mende 69, 211, 244 William le Lorimer, miracle beneficiary 85 William of Canterbury 21–​23, 27, 29, 263 William of Norwich, saint 20–​21, 26, 28 William of Malmesbury 60, 141 William of Norwich, saint  William of Tocco 105, 146, 148, 150 William of York, saint 26–​27 Wilson, Louise Elizabeth 11 Winchester 170 Wrocław 130–​131 Wulfstan of Worcester, bishop, saint 23–​ 29, 60, 63 Yarrow, Simon 32 Ysabella, witness 33 Yves of Tréguier, saint 88, 92, 96, 97, 193, 256 Zaffelare 302 Zerte, witness 340 Zimbalist, Barbara 319–​320 Zita of Lucca, saint 216 Zwetti 44 Östergotland 223