Pilgrimage: An Image of Mediaeval Religion

by Jonathan Sumption

  At these churches it seems likely that the cult of the saints was superimposed upon a pre-existing body of medical lore, some of which may conceivably have been sound. Some of the miraculous streams visited by the sick probably had a genuine therapeutic value. Pilgrims came from as far away as Burgundy and Aquitaine to the one which flowed past the Norman monastery of St. Evroul, thus causing great distress to local farmers whose crops were trampled down by the crowds. St. Thomas is said to have recommended a variety of homely medicines to his devotees. One woman was healed after he had instructed her in a vision to drink the juice of certain herbs in her garden and then to have a long sleep. A physician of Bergerac was told to cure his dropsy by making an incision in his stomach in accordance with contemporary surgical practice. The daughter of Ralph Raison, who for two years had suffered from boils on her feet, was recommended by a vision of St. Gilbert to go to his shrine at Sempringham and there apply a poultice to them. If the treatment was successful it was, of course, attributed to the saint on the ground that no medicine could be effective without God’s merciful intervention. Baldwin of Bury himself hesitated before claiming the credit for healing a patient. When he successfully healed the bishop of Thetford’s eye, the feat was acclaimed as a miracle of St. Edmund for, as the bishop’s amanuensis pointed out to him, ‘not even Hippocrates or Galen themselves could have cured you unless you had been found deserving of God’s mercy.’

  The less spectacular miracles can often be explained in psychological terms. In addition to the physical ailments suffered by pilgrims, a very high proportion of them suffered from mental illnesses signified by dumbness, delirium, epilepsy, and the like. This is particularly true of the Merovingian and Carolingian periods; approximately half the miraculous cures recorded by Gregory of Tours involved some form of insanity or mental abnormality. Moreover, contemporaries were only too ready to diagnose insanity in persons who were suffering from nothing more than temporary depression or nervous tension. The English peasantry, according to William of Canterbury, looked upon melancholy or broodiness as symptoms of insanity. Even purely physical afflictions may have been cured, at least temporarily, by psychosomatic means, for physical discomfort, even severe physical discomfort, can be induced by hypochondria, a fact which was not realized by orthodox medical practitioners until the nineteenth century. It almost certainly explains the supposedly miraculous cures achieved by some clergymen and Christian Scientists to this day.

  The powerful belief that sin was the cause of sickness may itself have been responsible for a number of maladies of psychological origin. ‘Punitive’ miracles in particular are well attested in primitive societies today, where those who have broken a universally accepted taboo go into a state of excitement and panic which can have serious effects culminating often in paralysis, occasionally in death. The victim’s expectation of death is a powerful factor in bringing on his illness. Recent research into Voodoo and battle shock has suggested that this can be explained by prolonged adrenal over-excitement and a sharp fall in blood pressure, leading to a state analogous to surgical shock. Such seems to have been the fate of Waldo, a youth of Matrignac at the close of the eleventh century, who had a spell laid on him by a witch whom he had slighted; as a result, he lost his memory and became dazed, aimless, and finally delirious. Similarly fourteen-year-old Luciana Torel of Austrey (Worcestershire) lost her speech and was partially paralysed when her father cursed her for sewing on St. Cecilia’s day. The closeness of mediaeval society greatly intensified the feelings of guilt experienced by those who had flouted the more formidable moral canons. Helen of Luttershall arrived at St. Frideswide’s, Oxford, in the 1180s suffering from chronic insomnia and nervous exhaustion, the result of having allowed herself to become the concubine of a priest for three months. After confessing her sin and praying at the shrine, her anguished feelings of guilt appear to have been relieved and she made a complete recovery. Such conditions as hysterical loss of appetite can almost invariably be traced to psychological causes and were consequently amenable to psychological treatment. In this category falls the case of Nicholas of Dover, who refused all food and drink for eighteen days and was saved from death only by being carried to the shrine of St. Thomas.

  Sickness, even when it is not caused by stress, is easily aggravated by it. Illnesses tended to be long lasting for lack of the simplest curative measures, and in the absence of a comprehensive system of ‘social security’ they posed a serious threat to the economic survival of a family. They were therefore accompanied by very considerable emotional stress. William of Malmesbury gives us the case history of a woman of Malmesbury ‘of moderate means’ who was suddenly paralysed. For five years she was bedridden and paid out the bulk of her wealth in medical fees. Her family were gradually reduced to poverty until at length they were unable even to buy bread. The husband at this stage deserted her, leaving her dependent on charity. It is clear from the sequel that her paralysis was not permanent but had been prolonged by the distressing social consequences which it produced. The woman was ultimately cured at the shrine of St. Aldhelm in Malmesbury.

  In circumstances such as these, ‘miraculous’ cures contained two essential ingredients which had the effect of relieving psychological stress. First came the diagnosis (i.e. sin) accompanied by the confident assurance of the possibility of a cure. Then followed the ceremonies at the shrine or the making of a vow, accomplished with formality and pomp, marking the moment of dramatic recovery. The patient, given his desire to be cured and his conviction that he would be, usually persuaded himself that he had recovered and may actually have done so. ‘Hope invited her; faith instructed her,’ Thomas of Monmouth percipiently remarked of a woman healed in Norwich cathedral. Persuasion was the most important element of miraculous healing in the middle ages. Modern research has suggested that persuasion, or ‘faith-healing’, can have marked physiological effects, which can be observed by injecting saline into a hypochondriac who believes it is morphine; the patient’s symptoms are relieved by the strength of his own belief. Caesarius of Heister-bach admitted that a man might be cured by a false relic, provided that he believed that it was genuine. Benedict of Peterborough told an unusually candid story of a young man who lay on his death-bed and begged his friends to bring him some ‘water of St. Thomas’.

  ‘But unfortunately none of them had any, so one of the friends ran to a nearby fountain and filled a glass with fresh water. “Here”, he said, “here is the saint’s water for which you asked.” The sick man believed it and drained the glass. Happily deceived, he immediately felt himself much improved; and thus, he who had lately been staring death in the face, got out of bed feeling nothing worse than a slight stiffness.’

  If the sickness was a serious one, a psychosomatic cure would normally have been short-lived. But any relapse would have occurred after the pilgrim had left the shrine and returned to his former environment. The authors of the miracle stories either did not know of them, or chose to ignore them. The Miracles of St. Thomas are unique in that they not only describe the symptoms and case histories of each patient, but sometimes they record what became of him. From this it appears that relapses were remarkably common. A madwoman of Rouen recovered her sanity at Canterbury but lost it when she returned home. A monk of Poitiers found that his leprosy returned once he had left Canterbury. A Fleming called Gerard was only temporarily relieved of his ulcer. The authors found it hard to explain such occurrences. In one case the relapse is attributed to the patient’s immediately engaging in hard agricultural labour. Very common are cases in which the patient relapsed because he omitted to express proper gratitude to the saint, or did not fulfil a vow of pilgrimage, or did fulfil it but failed to make a sufficiently generous offering. But there are others where the authors are frankly mystified and are driven to the conclusion that the patient had committed some obscure and horrible sin. Ralph of Langton was cured of leprosy in May and relapsed in December ‘owing to some hidden judgement of God, … for the cause of this rela
pse only He can know.’ Defective cures at one shrine were commonly recorded by the clergy of another, and from this it is plain that relapses were by no means confined to Canterbury pilgrims. Thus Ralph Attenborough, a mental defective, was cured as soon as he accepted from a priest the staff of a pilgrim of St. James; but his afflictions returned three months later, after he had come back from Santiago, and he was finally cured at Sempringham in September 1201. Hubald, archdeacon of Salisbury, was relieved of pains in his neck by touching the shrine of St. Aldhelm, but on his return home the pains began once more and continued until he made a second pilgrimage to Malmesbury.

  Some of those who visited the great sanctuaries of the middle ages did undoubtedly enjoy a genuine recovery, for reasons which can quite easily be explained in the light of modern medical and anthropological knowledge. It is possible to accept most of the facts as contemporaries stated them while maintaining scepticism as to their miraculous causation. The British Medical Association has suggested six factors which account for most miraculous cures reported in modern times: 1. mistaken diagnosis; 2. mistaken prognosis; 3. apparent alleviation of symptoms; 4. periodic remission of the symptoms; 5. spontaneous cure; 6. simultaneous use of physical remedies. All these factors can be found in the exceptionally well-documented miracles of St. Thomas of Canterbury, and some of them are present in almost every miracle collection. Such considerations will not, of course, explain every miraculous cure. Many stories must be regarded as fabrications or pious legends. But it should be remembered that a very small number of genuine cures will suffice to excite general belief in a large number of fictitious ones. To cite a modern parallel, in the last century less than a hundred cures at Lourdes have been officially certified by the Roman Catholic Church as being of miraculous origin; but this tiny proportion has been enough to draw many millions to St. Bernadette’s grotto in the Pyrenees. In an earlier age, ill-equipped to understand the mysteries of sickness and health, it would be surprising if men did not put their faith in unorthodox medicine and magic rituals.

  Notes

  1 Fatalism: Journal d’un Bourgeois, p. 295. Boccaccio, Il Decamerone, introd.

  Ten bushels an acre: Walter of Henley’s Husbandry, ed. D. Oschinsky, Oxford, 1971, p. 325.

  John of Norwich: Ralph of Diceto, Ymagines Historiarum, in Opera Historica, ed. W. Stubbs, vol. i, RS, London, 1876, p. 416.

  Famines: See F. Curschmann, Hungersnöbte im Mittelalter, Leipzig, 1900; M. J. Larénaudie, ‘Les famines en Languedoc aux xive et xve siècles’, Annales du Midi, lxiv (1952), pp. 27–39. On the transport of food, see J. Glénisson, ‘Une administration mediévale au prise de la disette’, Moyen Age, lvii (1951), pp. 303–26.

  2 Diet: for England, J. C. Drummond and A. Wilbraham, The Englishman’s Food, 2nd. ed., London, 1957, pp. 40–1, 54–5, 75–86; Bonser, pp. 351–6. The conditions described in L. Stouff, Ravitaillement et alimentation en Provence aux xive et xve siècles, Paris, 1970, probably obtained in most of southern Europe. On central and eastern Europe, M. Dembinska, Konsumpcja zywnosciowa w Polsce sredniowiecznej, Warsaw, 1963 (with English summary).

  Constant discomfort: Gregory of Tours, De Virtut. S. Martini, II. 60, III. praefat., 1, IV. 1, pp. 629–30, 632, 649–50. Peter the Venerable, Letters, vol. ii, pp. 247–51.

  Digestive complaints: Miracles de Rocamadour, I. 45, p. 148 (Robert of Leicester). William, Mirac. S. Thomae, IV. 40, pp. 350–1 (Geoffrey of Binbrooke). Benedict, Mirac. S. Thomae, II. 45, pp. 92–3.

  3 Ergotism: John of Coutances, Mirac. Eccl. Constantiensis, XVI, XXVII, pp. 376, 381. Farsit, Mirac. S. Mariae in Urbe Suessionensis, I, VII, cols. 1777–9, 1781–2. Translatio S. Geremari, V–VI, Aa. Ss. Sept., vol. vii. p. 705 (Chartres, 1132). L. Bourgin, La chaire Francaise au xiie siècle d’après les manuscrits, Paris, 1879, pp. 365–8 (Paris, 1206). The disease was not yet associated with the Virgin in the 1040s, when a grave outbreak occurred in the Limousin, see Mirac. S. Benedicti, IV. 1, pp. 174–7. Prior of Sauxillanges: Miracles de Rocamadour, II. 21, pp. 215–16.

  4 Peter the Venerable’s doctor: Peter, Letters, no. 158b, vol. i, p. 383. Doctors harm patient: Philip, Mirac. S. Frideswidae, XL, p. 577. Miracles de Rocamadour, II. 32, p. 238.

  Pilgrimage after doctors fail: Benedict, Mirac. S. Thomae, I. 15, II. 23, VI. 7, pp. 47, 73, 280. William, Mirac. S. Thomae, II. 20, 32, pp. 176, 187. Surgeon guilty of murder: Philip, Mirac. S. Frideswidae, CX, p. 589. Cf. Owst, pp. 349–51.

  5 Witches: Langland, Piers Plowman, B. xiii. 335–42, p. 228. Mirac. S. Benedicti, VIII. 47, p. 354 (Tortaire). On Merovingian charm-healers, Marignan, pp. 186–93.

  Physicians denigrated: Gregory of Tours, In Gloria Martyrum, XXX, pp. 506–7 (‘Why waste your breath…’). Mirac. S. Donatiani, MGH. SS. xiv 180. Liber S. Jacobi, I. 6, p. 50.

  Saints rivals of physicians: Caesarius, Dial. Mirac, VII. 24, vol. ii, p. 34 (Montpellier). Guillaume de St.-Pathus, Miracles de S. Louis, XII, p. 40. On Raoul le Cavetier, ibid., XX, pp. 68–9.

  St. Thomas as healing saint: Benedict, Mirac. S. Thomae, IV. 15, 51, pp. 195, 219. William, Mirac. S. Thomae, II. 37, p. 196. Canterbury Tales, 11. 17–18, p. 1.

  6 Punitive illnesses: Vita S. Hilarii, III. 17, Aa. Ss. May, vol. ii, p. 30. Vita S. Germani, XXIII, MGH. Auct. Antiq. iv (2). 16. Gregory, De Virtut. S. Juliani, X, p. 569; De Virtut. S. Martini, III. 56, pp. 645–6.

  7 All sickness caused by sin: John Chrysostom quoted in Delaunay, p. 10. Jacob of Voragine, Legenda Aurea, CXC, p. 877.

  ‘Incursio diaboli’: Gregory of Tours, De Virtut. S. Martini, II. 20, III. 14, pp. 616, 635. Peter the Deacon, Historica Relatio, I. 1, p. 288. Guibert, De Vita Sua, III. 20, pp. 229–30.

  Infection explained: Foréville (ed.), Livre de S. Gilbert, p. 49.

  ‘Possession by the Devil’: Bede, Hist. Eccl., III. 11, p. 248. Mirac. S. Wulfstani, I. 13, 15, II. 19, pp. 122–3, 123–4, 177. Mirac. S. Egidii, XXX, An. Boll., ix (1880), pp. 421–2.

  8 Church opposes medicine: Cone. Lateran, canon XXII, in MC. xxii. 1010–1. Cone. Paris (1429), canon XXIX, in MC. xxviii. 1110. Jacques de Vitry quoted in Lecoy de la Marche, p. 486. Maillard quoted in Samouillan, pp. 278–9. On opposition to Jewish physicians, Cone. Beziers, canon XLIII, in MC. xxiii. 702; Delaunay, pp. 11–12. These attitudes were still common among English Protestants of the seventeenth century, see Thomas, pp. 85–9.

  9 Gonorrhoea: William, Mirac. S. Thomae, IV. 25, p. 340; cf. VI. 19, pp. 431–2. Samson, Mirac. S. Eadmundi, II, 20, pp. 204–5.

  Sterility: Cartulaire de l’abbaye de la Sainte Trinite du Mont de Rouen, no. 108, ed. A. Deville, Paris, 1841, p. 452 (Normans in 1063). Cartulaire de Conques, no. 373, pp. 281–2. Liber S. Jacobi, II. 3, p. 263. Gesta Principum Polonorum, I. 30–1, MGH. SS. ix. 442–3 (Wladislaw Hermann). See also Mirac. S. Fidis, III. 9, pp. I44–5; William, op. cit., III. 6, pp. 264–5; Miracles de Rocamadour, I. 23, p. 112.

  10 Woman at St.-Gilles: Mirac. S. Egidii (interpolated), MGH. SS. xii. 317. Brandea eaten: Gregory of Tours, In Gloria Confessorum, X, p. 754; De Virtut. S. Martini, III. 50, II. 51, pp. 644, 626; In Gloria Martyrum, VI, L, pp. 491–2, 523.

  Relics dipped in liquid: Mirac. S. Benedicti, VIII. 21, 25, pp. 308–9, 318–19. Thomas of Monmouth, Mirac. S. Willelmi, III. 22, p. 162 (Norwich). MS. Gloucester cathedral, 1, fols. 171vo, 172, 174vo (Reading).

  11 ‘Water of St. Thomas’: William FitzStephen, Vita S. Thomae, in Becket Materials, vol. iii, pp. 148, 150. Benedict, Mirac. S. Thomae, I. 12, II. 4, 50, III. 19, 21–2, IV. 6, pp. 42–3, 59–60, 96, 131, 133–5 186–7. Found repulsive: Mirac. S. Michaeli, pp. 886–7.

  12 Medical libraries: M. R. James, The ancient libraries of Canterbury and Dover, Cambridge, 1903, pp. 55–62; William of Canterbury quotes Galen in Mirac. S. Thomae, IV. 20, pp. 332–4. M. R. James, On the abbey of St. Edmund at Bury. I. The Library; II. The Church, Cambridge Archaeological Soc, xxviii, Cambridge, 1895, PP. 14, 66, 67–8. L. Delisle, Inventaire des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Nationale. Fonds de Cluny, Paris, 1884, pp. 166–75. Catalogue of medical boo
ks at St. Martial, including many translations from the Arabic, in Bulletin de la Soc. Archéologique du Limousin, xxv (1870), pp. 397–400.

  Monastic physicians: Herman, De Mirac. S. Eadmundi, XXII, p. 56 (Baldwyn). William of Malmesbury, Gesta Pontificum, V. 274, pp. 437–8.

  Stream at St. Evroul: Orderic Vitalis, Hist. Eccl., VI. 9, ed. Chibnall, vol. iii, p. 276.

  Medical instructions in visions: William, Mirac. S. Thomae, II. 4, III. 4, pp. 160, 261–2. Mirac. S. Gilberti, II. 19, pp. 68–9.