The Physicality of Miracles

 As I've discussed before, miracle stories were very much part of the elite culture of the Middle Ages.  The stories were written by highly educated churchmen, and the doubters in the stories were the uneducated.  These were not superstitious imaginings by the ignorant.

Yet they seem weird to the educated today.  One of the weirdest things is often the physicality.  People are not just healed of afflictions, they are healed dramatically, abruptly, often painfully.  For example, when someone who had been deaf was healed and given hearing, blood routinely poured from their ears.  Someone whose body had been contorted, so for example their legs were bent permanently so that their feet touched their buttocks (a common element in accounts of miracles worked by the Virgin), their legs wouldn't just be straightened but yanked into position so forcefully that the person being healed would scream in pain, and blood would pour from their buttocks as the feet ripped away.

The real miracle, those writing the stories all agreed, was the moral and spiritual regeneration, but physicality got everyone's attention.  Someone quietly mending their evil ways would not inspire others to do the same, but going from so deformed that they had to be carried everywhere to leaping and bounding in delight at their healing certainly got everyone's attention.

 

The Virgin (seen above being crowned Queen of Heaven in a twelfth-century carving) could be counted on to help even the worst sinners, as long as they prayed to her and mended their ways after healing.  In one story, a monk who was supposed to keep track of the hours at night (so that the other monks could be called for the night liturgy) took advantage of being unsupervised all night to row across a little lake to his mistress's house for a quicky.

But one night (you can see where this is going) his boat sank and him with it.  But wait!  Every night before heading out on the lake he'd pray to the Virgin, and again when he got back.  So as the demons arrived to take the drowning man's soul, she fought them off, giving him one last chance.  Meanwhile, back at the monastery, the other monks realized they'd never been called for the night offices, looked for the man who'd been supposed to ring the bell, and realized both he and the boat were missing.  When his body washed up, they were sure he was dead, but surprise! he sat up and related his vision of being saved by the Virgin from the demons.  No more midnight quickies for him! you can be sure.

But suppose the Virgin didn't come through?  Of course one prayed harder, but again physicality played a role.  At one shrine noted for healings by the Virgin, pilgrims who had come to seek her aid would become irritated after a week or two if she didn't respond.  They would strip off every stitch of clothing and crawl on their bellies to her altar, asking people to whip them as they went, to show how penitent they were.  According to the stories, the Virgin always came through after such a clear demonstration.

© C. Dale Brittain 2023


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.