Miracle Stories, Part 2

 In my previous post, I discussed miracle stories, the kind that would be collected at a shrine to extol the power of the local saint in healing the sick.  But how about saints like Mary, who were not nearly as closely tied to a specific locale?  (Though she too would have special veneration in certain places; the most important healing shrine today, that of Lourdes, is dedicated to Our Lady of Lourdes.)

Miracle stories of the Virgin would be told and retold in many places.  Although she was entirely capable of healing, many of her miracle stories involved other sorts of intervention in human affairs.  At one time modern scholars tended to be a little embarrassed by some of these stories, and tried to pass them off as the superstitious tales of the unlettered.  But these were stories told by monks and clergymen.

They may have been embarrassing (now) because a lot of them lacked what you might call a clear moral lesson.  Rather, they emphasized the power of the Virgin in helping those who called on her.  In one story, a knight on the way to a tournament stopped at a shrine to Mary to pray, and he prayed so long and so hard that he forgot all about the tournament.  In the evening, he proceeded into the town where it had been held to find a place to stay and was shocked to be heralded as winning the tournament!  It turned out that Mary had been so impressed by his piety that she put on armor, took his horse and lance, and fought disguised as him, winning the prize.

Okay, you can see why some scholars would rather not talk about this as the product of learned priests.  In another story, a criminal, caught and deservedly condemned to death, prayed so hard to the Virgin that she came to the gallows where he was to be hung and, when the trap door opened to drop him and break his neck, she held him up.  After a few hours the authorities realized there was a miracle going on (man with a noose around his neck hovering, unhurt, in the air) and carefully lowered him and set him free.  In this story at least the criminal was reformed, having learned his lesson, and lived the rest of his life very virtuously.

So what is going on?  These were stories both about the power of the saint and stories to tell sinners that anyone can turn to the saints for help.  The greatest sin has always been despair, feeling that you are so evil that you are beyond redemption (which of course requires pride in one's wickedness).  These stories say that anyone, even knights (routinely branded as sinful) and criminals, could count on mercy if it was sought with a truly contrite heart.  Mary took the role especially of the mother who always will love you, no matter what.  (That's a medieval wooden statue of her below.)

 

Other saints would also listen even to sinners.  In fact, a lot of miracle stories were quite subversive, with those in authority, both secular lords and church leaders, being given their comeuppance by the saint.  For example, at Conques (see previous post), Saint Foy routinely broke the chains of escaped criminals, and when the monks tried to lock the church doors to keep poor pilgrims out, she swung the doors open herself.  Not just sinners but the poor and downtrodden were depicted in the miracle stories as helped by the saints.

The New Testament parallels were entirely deliberate.

© C. Dale Brittain 2022


For more on religion, saints, and other aspects of medieval history, see my ebook Positively Medieval, available on Amazon and other ebook platforms.  Also available as a paperback.

Miracle stories

 Medieval people, like modern people, believed in miracles, as I've discussed previously.  But miracles were not free floating events, being usually attached to a place, a relic, and a saint.

Miracles were one of the chief attributes of saints.  All saints worked miracles, and from the twelfth century onward one could not become a saint without sufficient post-mortem miracles, all properly verified.  (This is still the case for the modern Catholic church.)  Throughout the Middle Ages, an account of a saint's life and activities, his or her vita as it was called, was routinely accompanied by a second volume, stories of the miracles the saint worked after death.

Major shrines to particular saints all had collected stories of miracles their saint had performed.  By far the majority of these miracles involved healing, everything from the pox to a broken arm to gout, even an infected toe.  In an era without modern medicine, when few people could expect to live past their 50s, they turned to whatever healing procedures might be available.  And they may well have worked!  Who are we to dismiss their testimony, when we weren't even there? (and are in a society that has seen some, well, unlikely "cures" promoted for Covid-19).

Miracle stories tended to be very detailed.  The person who was healed was named, as was the specific ailment for which they had suffered.  We often learn a lot about such a person, their social status, their occupation, even which friends and relatives helped them reach the shrine if they did not walk there themselves.  (Pilgrims on the Santiago route, from Burgundy to northwestern Spain, walked 20 miles a day, pretty impressive considering a lot of them were sick and seeking healing or redemption.)

The specificity of the miracle stories added a note of verisimilitude that would not have been possible if they just spoke of generic people being healed of generic diseases.  The stories always stressed that saints were ready to help even the poorest petitioner, and that even the mightiest might need their help.  The miracle stories also tended to stress one particular kind of healing if the saint had a specialty; Saint Foy of Conques, for example (village seen below), was noted for cures of the eyes.

 

Often the miracle stories would speak of someone who had long suffered from an ailment, had visited shrines to other saints without relief, but had finally found healing when appealing to this particular saint.  Those healed were expected to be suitably grateful.  They needn't make a monetary offering (though it was never refused), but they would leave their crutches as a marker of being able to walk again or the like, and they were expected to live a properly virtuous life in the future.  A sinner who had been cured of an ailment was likely to sicken again if he returned to his sin.  And of course it was hoped that those healed would spread the good word about the saint's power.

The miracle stories then could be seen as a form of advertisement for a particular shrine, but they also stressed that the saints listened to people of all economic or social status, and that a moral, virtuous life was needed to accompany a healthy life.

© C. Dale Brittain 2022


For more on religion, saints, and other aspects of medieval history, see my ebook Positively Medieval, available on Amazon and other ebook platforms.  Also available as a paperback.

Medieval summer

 We think of summer as vacation time, a break from school, a chance to get to the beach or just sit under a shady tree sipping lemonade in a welcome break from work.  A medieval summer had different expectations.

On the one hand, one didn't have to worry about keeping warm, a major worry in the winter.  On the other hand, one did need to worry about keeping cool.  We now take air conditioning for granted, but it only began to spread in the second half of the twentieth century.  Working outdoors on a scorching hot day (and most medieval work was outdoors work) was just as much a pain then as now.  Their only advantage is that the weather was overall cooler, before global warming really kicked in during the last generation or two.  (And Europe is still cooler than much of the US—parts of Britain recently recorded 104 F, the highest temperature ever recorded, though parts of the US get there repeatedly all summer.)

A medieval summer was a time to work, not to vacation.  For most of the population, who were all farming, the spring was the time to plow, sow, and plant.  Hay was cut in June, winter wheat in July.  Vegetables had to be tended all summer.  Their harvest began in August, along with dry beans and lentils.  September was time to reap the rye or barley and to pick and press the grapes, October to bring in the root vegetables and start planting winter wheat.  All spring and summer livestock farmers were busy helping with baby animals being born and getting established.  Life didn't calm down until after the great November pig-slaughter.

At least there was food.  Last year's grain would be mostly gone by early summer, as would last year's pork, but there were plenty of vegetables coming along (peas, beans, lettuce, celery, summer squash, cabbage), and once the winter wheat was harvested there would be lots of bread again.  Young animals (lamb, veal) and extra chickens could be eaten.  The woods and wild places provided song birds to be caught as well as mushrooms and wild berries.

And one could look forward to the root crops (turnips, onions, and the like) and especially the pork of autumn, before settling down for winter repose.  (Being cold a lot and wondering how long the food would last.)

All this summer work was why, when modern schooling was established in the nineteenth century, it was determined that children (and teachers) would not be in school during the summer.  They were needed to work on the farm.

For the aristocracy, summer was a time for activity and adventure.  It was hopeless trying to go to war in the winter, when you'd get bogged down in cold mud and have trouble finding food to scavenge.  Tournaments were always summer events, as were most trade fairs.  And landlords also wanted to keep an eye on their peasants.

In spite of the constant rush of work and activity in the summer, everyone was delighted in the spring to see winter go and to get outdoors again.

© C. Dale Brittain 2022

For more on  medieval food, see my new ebook, Positively Medieval: Life and Society in the Middle Ages.  Also available in paperback.