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.

Miracles and faith

Medieval people believed in miracles.  So does modern society.

How many times have you heard someone say, "It was raining so hard the morning of my party, but it cleared up at noon, it was like a miracle," or "Every new baby is a miracle come into the world," or "His car was totaled, but he was fine, it was a miracle," or "At dawn the world is all still and bright, like a miracle."

A miracle literally means something marvelous and wonderful, which is how modern society usually uses the term.  Medieval people used it this way too.  For example, they would speak of a noble lord who had been stealing a monastery's flocks as "miraculously" repenting, or a church architect "miraculously" finding timbers just the right size for the new beams.

The word's more specific meaning, then and now, is something that cannot be explained naturally.  The modern Catholic church requires verified miracles to declare someone a saint.  That generally means a healing where the doctors have said there is no hope of a cure.  This criterion for sainthood came in during the twelfth century.  A person who had lived a saintly life would no longer be declared a saint (as s/he would have been for the first millennium of Christianity) without some well-documented post-mortem miracles.

As I discussed earlier, it is important not to label medieval belief in miracles "superstition."  People then certainly did not believe every purported miracle.  Some eventual saints, like Bernard of Clairvaux, took a while to be officially recognized because his supporters didn't have enough well-documented healings.

Although the assumption now is that "over-educated elitist university types" are least likely to have strong religious beliefs, which are found instead in the simple, hard-working folk of the heartland, this assumption was upside down in the Middle Ages.

Instead, it was the best-educated in the Middle Ages who clung the most strongly to religion and who battled most desperately any doubts that might come wandering in.  This is because the smartest minds of the age all went into theology.  Their religion and theology were certainly not simple, and nobody believed the Bible was meant to be read literally, but there are plenty of indications that the most devout churchmen and churchwomen intermittently found themselves wondering if God cared a farthing for His creation.

This carving, from the twelfth-century church of Saulieu, shows the story of Balaam from the Old Testament.  He was understandably startled when his donkey stopped dead and started to speak.  This is because the donkey, but not Balaam, could see the angel with a sword ahead of them.  Balaam was a doubter, the kind of doubter the monks wanted to remind themselves not to be.

The biggest doubters were among the peasants.  Such doubters appear in all the accounts mocking the saints, making fun of relics, saying, "How can some old bone heal, Mr. Monk?  I could get better results with a stone I picked up in the field!"  Then they'd laugh and try to steal the offering.

Because Christianity was the dominant belief system they'd essentially adhere to it, get their children baptized, try to get Grandpa last rites, but it was quite startling when they were told that they were supposed to go to church and partake in the mass at least once a year, whether they needed it or not.

© C. Dale Brittain 2015

For more on medieval religion, see my ebook, Positively Medieval:  Life and Society in the Middle Ages, available from Amazon and other ebook platforms.