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Strange stories of medieval saints
00:40:18
Luke Daly explores what the lives of medieval saints can tell us about the thoughts and fears of the Middle Ages
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- [00:01]
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Emily Briffet
Welcome to the History Extra podcast. Fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History magazine. What can St. Augustine tell us about attitudes to grief in the Middle Ages? What made women steer clear of the shrine of St Cuthbert? And why did pilgrims bring gifts of wax to the dead? St William of Norwich, in his new book, Medieval Saints and Their Sins, Luke daily reveals what the lives and afterlives of saints can tell us about the thoughts and fears of the Middle Ages. Luke spoke to Emily Briffet for today's episode.
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Luke Daly
Today we're going to be talking all about your book, Medieval Saints and Their Sins. But first off, I think we need to get to grips with the Saints, the Saints 101, as it were. So to put it broadly, what exactly were saints in the Middle Ages? What was the definition?
- [01:31]
Yeah, that's a difficult question because it changes. And so there's a very clear kind of before and after, which is with the Norman Conquest, because the Normans bring in these sort of rules and regulations about what it means to be a saint. So it's very easy to kind of understand what that is from that point onwards. In general terms, a saint was a holy figure. They were someone who lived a very pious life, an exemplary life, and was in a way a case study that people could follow. But in terms of then veneration and becoming a saint after the Norman Conquest, that's when we get more of a standardized layout on how to become a saint. So usually you have a sort of cult following. So a bishop dies, let's say, and people really liked him, they look up to him and so they start kind of worshiping him and then he starts doing some miracles. So people get healed, they get protection, they get alleviation from taxation, whatever it may be, and it starts to build up popularity. And then you kind of again go through your official bureaucratic roots and you have to get then a papal legate to check these miracles. That's where we get the word devil's advocate, because you would put forward these miracles and then someone would then try to kind of put forward a rebuttal. And then if all was well and they Decided that, yes, these were, you know, miracles, it was divine intervention, then they could become canonized and as a saint. So we have saints such as Simon de Montfort, who became a saint but weren't canonized and were just venerated. We have then some saints that go the full way through all the processes and become very popular saints, such as Thomas Becket. So that's kind of the broad strokes. I mean, there's so many others. You've got martyrs and once you get into the Reformation, you've got Reformation saints. It's pretty wild, but broad strokes. There you go.
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I want to also ask you, you've mentioned there some qualities, attributes and actions that might lead to someone becoming a saint or generated as such. But were all saints perfectly angelic their whole lives? Did they lead these very clean, saintly lives all the time?
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So this is a subject that the Church jostles with for centuries, because in an ideal world, a saint was, as we say, a holy person, an exemplary life. And so often it was a bishop or a holy figure, a monk or a nun, whoever it may be. But then you sort of see ushered in from the Vikings onwards, the rise in what we call warrior saints, kings who were venerated, such as St. Edmund over in Bury St Edmunds, but also other knights and lords who were secular people who were becoming ecclesiastical religious people. And this was difficult for the Church because how do you venerate someone who killed, who taxed people who, you know, put people through a lot of difficulty and struggles and all this and that? And one of the things we see is, for one, Saint Gerald of a saint, his writer, who writes his life and what we call a hagiography, which is the saint's life, jostles with these ideas and finds it very difficult to try and rationalise. And so he says things like, oh, you know, in battle, Gerald wouldn't hit people with the sharp edge of the sword, but rather the flat. He would just tap them. And so he didn't kill people, although he was this knight, he didn't kill combat in those ways. And so there's a lot of different twists and turns and a lot of tweaking the narrative in order to get around these things. But it is a very hard question for the Church, which is, how do you venerate someone who's not necessarily holy throughout their life?
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Speaking about the veneration, how would saints appear in people's ordinary lives?
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So when someone dies, they would be translated, which means that their body would be moved into an altar and you would have these beautiful altars. There's this one for a young girl called Saint Foy in France, and they call her the Golden Girl because it was this glistening figure of gold and jewels. And people would then come and venerate them and worship to them, but they would also see them in visions and dreams. There's one person in particular in Durham during what was known as the Harrying of the north, which was this kind of post Norman conquest regime where William the Conqueror, you know, although he took England, he had to really kind of assert his rule and so he goes north and St. Cuthbert helps protect the people. And there's this one vision that someone has where, you know, it's almost like this kind of avengers assemble of saints. There's Cuthbert and Oswald and all these other saints that kind of come together in his dreams. And so, you know, saints permeate through these different mediums in a sense that you have this kind of physical display of power, but also this ethereal presence as well in dreams and visions that often direct people to the altar. So it's kind of this ecosystem that there is really.
- [07:13]
I want to ask you, actually, was the veneration of saints shaped as much by the communities around them that worship them as the communities were shaped almost by that veneration? Does it kind of go both ways?
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If anything, it's actually how it starts off, and a lot of it is guided by that because essentially this is a history that is an oral history. As much as there's a lot that's written. It begins through, you know, they call, like pilgrimage routes, like, you know, gossip routes, because people would hear, you know, oh, I got cured by. Swallowed a coin at St Cuthbert's shrine or something, and I was cured. And these things would become popular. But there's plenty of examples of people coming up with these weird and wacky ideas that don't take off, or alternatively, where they do become popular. But the cathedral says, we're not going to endorse this. So one of which was at the shrine of Thomas Beckett, something along those lines of a guy saying he got a vision from Beckett that he should swallow three coins and. And sleep in this particular stone slab. And everyone thought he was absolutely nuts. So nothing happened. But alternatively, there was an instance where people started to. To drink a kind of concoction of what was St. Becket's blood. And the church was really like, well, you know, we shouldn't be endorsing this, but then sees that there's some miracles and that actually that could be working. And so Then they endorse it and they actually then switch and they go, okay, we' we're going to go for this. And so it's very much so led by the everyday person. And then church follows and tries to fit in and impose its kind of institution on it. But yeah, it's an oral history and that's what you kind of have to.
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Remember from what you've said, there seems to be such a wide variety of different people who could be saints. Was this the case or are we just getting a sort of narrow glimpse in this?
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To give you an idea on saints, I always use this example. There was a group of people in Belgium in something like the 1700s who attempted to write down every feast day of every saint in Christianity. They began in 1700s and they went through each month. And I believe by about the mid-1900s they got to about October, which kind of gives you an idea. There's about 100,000 saints. It's insane. And they're not only holy figures. We have kings such as St Edmund in Bury St Edmund's we have knights such as Gerard Auriac. But you also have others such as you look at Saint Gwynethought in Wales, who's a dog. So you have dog saints and you have dog headed saints, you have people who have the head of a dog and, you know, you get really weird and wild. And so it's not only just bishops, it really can be absolutely anyone that can become a saint.
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So presumably this can give us a much broader view of society than maybe if we were just looking at the lives of kings and that kind of thing.
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No, exactly. I mean, when you look at something like for instance, the Anglo Saxon chronicle or any sort of chronicle that looks at history in a contemporary view, it often focuses on the king, their activities and sort of high level figures. But through looking at saints, you can get a lot of different variety of lives. Many saints were nobles, a lot of high level ecclesiastical people were obviously from noble families. But you also get many people who were everyday pilgrims, who were minor lords or minor ladies. And so it can give you a very good glimpse, especially into the lives of women, kind of their history and bringing to light their history.
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Were there notable differences in how male and female saints were venerated or perceived in this period? Maybe what skills or qualities that were attributed to them?
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Yeah. So you find that amongst female saints, chastity is the prevailing attribute. And the reason was is because in the Bible, in Genesis, obviously the punishment of Eve and the curse of women was lust and the original sin, being tempted by the snake. This then leads, especially through the Greeks and the Romans, to culminate in the medieval period where women were branded as being lustful. And so in order to become a saint, chastity was therefore celebrated. Now, that's not seen amongst men. With men it's more so things like piety and strength and protecting the kingdom, whatever it may be. But amongst women it is things like chastity, but also as well, piety. So there's some crossovers, but chastity is definitely something that is a major component of female saints.
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Do you think this can tell us a bit more about more broader society as well?
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Yeah, 100%, because like I say, it's these components that are picked on and that are emphasized which reflect the wider goings on. And so by looking at a female saint, you can see how people viewed women. Why is it that they chose that chastity was such a strong attribute? Well, it's because of these reasons. Why is it that St Cuthbert, we find that there's a larger number of male pilgrims than female pilgrims that visit the shrine? Well, actually in his life you can see that he was actually quite misogynistic and stopped women, even the Queen, from visiting Durham. And so these saints become what is essentially a little case study microcosm for the wider things going on. And that's essentially what the book is looking at these wider themes which can sometimes be really difficult to understand. But looking at it in a very small and specific case study, I found.
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The idea of microcosms a really interesting part of your book. This idea of being able to get close to events that took place in the medieval past, but also the feelings and attitudes of society at that time, outside of attitudes towards gender. In what way can saints lives bring us close to world changing events at this time?
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Yeah, I mean, classic example there is to go back to the beginning with St. Augustine, who provides us with the Confessions and the City of God, two incredible pieces of literature that influence Christianity and medieval theology for centuries to come. Now, from our point of view in the modern day, it's also really useful because we see here St. Augustine's own thoughts and feelings, a very emotional outpour of how he feels about the world around him. He lived a very tragic life. Pretty much everyone in his family died, including his mother that he really loved, his. His mistress that he really loved. And so not only does he have that going on, but it's also in the context of the fall of Rome. So he's on the outskirts in Africa in North Africa, and sees these pouring in of tribes into the heart of Rome and tries to, as best he can, defend Christianity. Now, once you peel back that surface, you see his fears, his anxieties around Christianity, you know, he's really trying to defend it because this is essentially more or less the first time in history that such a cataclysmic event has happened. And people are saying, is it to blame that we've switched from these Roman gods to these Christian God? And so he says, you know, one of the things he says, for instance, is, no, this has happened before whilst we had the Roman gods. But in his confessions, which is more about his own life, you know, there's things about his own anxiety, a lot of things about, well, being that we really are talking about in today's world. And it just shows that also that humans, despite being 1700 years away, are in many ways the same. In one such section, paraphrasing it, he basically says, don't listen to the haters. And so it's things like these that give us a really special insight into people's personal feelings about the world around them. And that's something that is a great component of saints, because a lot of these saints produce their own works.
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Do the type of events or moments captured in these saints lives change at all between the early and late Middle Ages?
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Yeah, and I think you also see that there's a common theme which is that people are very quick to, whenever there is sort of a cataclysmic event, they're very quick to come to the defence of Christianity, because obviously, whether it's the fall of Rome, the invasion of the Vikings or the Black Death, people blame God essentially, that, you know, have we lost touch with God, whatever it may be? And so no matter where it is on the continent or in England or in Italy, there's that kind of commonality between them. But the ways in which the saints are utilized and the way that saints discuss these events are very different. Comparing the fall of Rome, where Augustine had a very outsider perspective in that he was on the kind of the boundaries of the empire looking within, compared to the Black Death, where we see, you know, Mary, we see other Saints, we see St. Michael the Archangel having a real integral part to play as a way that people could cope with the deaths of their loved ones and that grief. And so there's a lot of different ways in which saints interplay with these events. But you do also have those then those common themes.
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It's lovely that you get to see almost the Chart topping events. But you also get these really lovely little glimpses into the human side of history, that real intimate side you mentioned there about St. Augustine. Could you tell us more about some moments like that that you found in your research?
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St. Augustine definitely is one that is such an emotional kind of outpour because of how he discusses his family and things like that. I think there are plenty of others for sure. Mary is a very, very interesting one. Especially when you look at female saints. They have a big connection to Mary. Mary isn't actually really venerated until a lot later because of perceptions towards women. But during the plague and the Black Death, she does become this sort of symbol of grief. And we see this incredible outpour, this really amazing emotional text by a chap called Guibert of Nonjon. And he talks about his mother and how that she almost died in childbirth and that his dad promised to God and said if she gets through this, because obviously many women would die during childbirth in these days. If she gets through this and both her and the baby survives, you know, I will dedicate them to God. And he runs to the altar of Mary. And the reason is because there's obviously these, these grand images of, of Mary at the foot of the cross of Christ, who faints at the sight of him when he's brought down. And it's really vivid and really descriptive images. And so a lot of times when people experience that grief, whether it's Guibu of nanjon in the 12th century or later during the plagues, there are these really strong and emotional outpours that you see. And it's really extraordinary. And you see that. You know, there's this kind of common medieval myth that because of mortality rates, people didn't quite have that connection with their family or with their children. But really what you see from these sources, especially from saints like Mary, is that it was anything but. Guiba writes how that when his mother dropped him off at the monastery that he was gonna be then a monk at, he says that he was torn from her heart and really has this emotional outpour. And so, you know, these weren't just kind of bland people, these were real lives. And you can learn a lot about them.
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I think looking back, we can almost lose the humanity sometimes. And we also, I think we look back at the medieval period and think of it particularly backwards. Yet we live in a world today where we are constantly questioning or confronting perceived norms or societal inequalities. Do you think the saints lives you've looked at in your research reflect that sense of the Medieval period being backwards.
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Well, that's an interesting one. I think that you definitely have a mix. And I think that often what is the great pursuit behind that is the people that look after these saints. Because you have, for instance, William of Norwich, who was briefly a saint and became a saint through being martyred by the Jewish community, who then committed what is known as a blood libel, is the first example of that in history. And it's sort of a gruesome event where they, you know, sacrifice this child and drink his blood and all this other stuff. Now it was actually seen that and the papacy, even themselves, after investigating it, shut it down because they were, they said this is absolute nonsense, this is antisemitism. And it was something that even in the 12th century that they saw. And so you see kind of progressiveness, but also this sort of backward narrative play out within a saint. But there are definitely throughout all saints really elements of being backwards, such as again, Saint Cuthbert with his kind of misogyny, not allowing women to come to the shrine. But then on the flip side, you've then got other saints, such as Saint Friedenswide, who we see the opposite. We see that a majority of women would go to that saint because of the narrative that that saint provided, which was that they were a great proponent of women. And so it's a forward thinking one. And you've also then got someone like Simon de Montfort, who was an anti royalist saint. You know, people would go to him, not necessarily for aid or cure, but as protest. And so each saint has this element of progression or I guess backwardsness. And I mean, that's the problem is that there's so many saints to count. You know, where do you even begin? But no, for sure you can definitely see that it was a society in that they were thinking very heavily about the world around them. And it's something that, you know, in many ways that we need to do more of because, I mean, especially when you look at the 12th century, you had people who were thinking about the ways of rule, you know, what was best. Is it a king, is it an elective emperor, is it a city state? Political thought was at the forefront and people like Simon de Montfort as a saint really helped perpetuate that. And it's kind of been lost to the ages. Nowadays we just think of it as this kind of like that feudal pyramid where everyone was a king, but it was anything but.
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I think it's really interesting to not necessarily overthrow a perceived image, but maybe complicate it, maybe nuance it make it more human. And I think this is what you're giving us a wonderful glimpse into with the development of Christianity. How did the way that saints were perceived more broadly change? And also how did their approaches to their veneration change as a whole?
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So you definitely see that as each century passes, the role of saints change, especially as the Church changes. So there's a big correlation between saints and the Church. You know, in its early days, in a way, saints are kind of borrowed from this old Roman world of the Roman gods. There was tons of different ones. People would have these altars dedicated to each God. They would go to them, pray, donate. It's very similar to how saints were. And so you can almost see this inherited practice. So in the early days, they were, I would just say, merely an extension of Christianity, where saint was, as we say, just a holy figure. It was something to look up to. It was an easier way to pray to God because there was this understanding that God is too busy, there's hundreds of thousands of people, how is he going to listen to me? So the alternative was to be able to pray to a saint, you know, someone who was this sort of bridge between this world and the next. As the Church solidifies its position and becomes rather than a tool that people like. For instance, we see Justinian in the Byzantine era trying to use the Church to unite his empire. He sees that the reason why the Romans failed was because they were not united. So one of the ways we can unite people is through religion. So he uses the Church to help unite people. The Church then kind of grows to become a power of its own, and then it begins to use its saints as a tool. And so we see that when the Vikings invade, because people are turning towards Christianity, the Church, then suddenly we see a massive spike in martyrs because the Church is trying to instill a sort of, you know, in a way, this kind of crusading spirit, this we need to fight back against these foreign invaders. And then as time goes on, you then see ways in which the Church uses their saints to capitalize on them. So one of the best examples is down in Bury St. Edmunds is an instance where Archdeacon Herman and Abbott Baldwin would invite people who had a pretty penny to spend into the crypt to see the tunic of St. Edmund that was pierced by the arrows that were shot into him from the Vikings. And it was this kind of blood stained tunic with holes and blah, blah, blah. They were actually charged with what's called simony, which was a crime in Christianity that was essentially making money out of Saints, and they both then actually coincidentally died about two weeks after. So you have many instances of that. Again, William of Norwich, we see him say countless times that in visions come to the shrine, but make sure you bring wax. And you're like, why is that? Why is it that all these miracles are saying we want to bring wax? Well, it's because wax was expensive and so the cathedral was. It was kind of inserting these little passages into these miracles that people would then hear in order to cut their costs. So as time goes by, saints go from being just this accessory to them being this tool. And then when you get onto the Reformation, where then Christianity is under attack, you then have anti Reformation saints, defenders of Christianity, who were revered for a purpose. And I think that kind of comes down to really is the idea of purpose, and that's what changes.
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So it seems that saints have gone from being these ardent church supporters to almost being tools utilised by the Church.
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Yeah. And I mean, there's still instances, as we say, you know, the Black Death comes along and for many people, outlet was Mary and Archangel Michael. And so, you know, it doesn't necessarily mean that that original understanding has been lost, but I guess it expands, it umbrellas out. And you see many instances of people that do then see saints as a way to make money or control a certain narrative.
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Were they also used by anybody else to perhaps bolster their authority or power or just for use, for their own gain?
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Yeah, you know, it's an interesting one, because you would imagine so. But I think you find that there are more examples where royalty comes up against saints than uses them, especially because, you know, when you look at the most popular, popular saint in England, Thomas Becket, obviously there was a lot that went down between him and the king. So when he became venerated, the king didn't like it. When you look at Saint Cuthbert, he fought against William the Conqueror, and so William the Conqueror didn't like him. When you look at all these different saints, a lot of the times the monarchy didn't like it because it was almost a lord in itself, because the difficulty of being king was to keep your lords in check. And so when you see a saint becoming very powerful and influential, you know, that's something very difficult to tackle because you can't necessarily invade, you know, you can't capture their castle or disinherit them or whatever it may be. And so a lot of the times saints can rub up against higher powers, and especially when you've got someone like, again, Edmund down in Bury St Edmunds you know, he was a protector saint because he was a martyred king. And so people went to him for protection, for example, when they were taxed, you know, people that didn't like it would go and pray to him. And so when you're looking at, not only were saints this bridge between the everyday person and the divine, but they also this bridge between the everyday person and royalty. And so often there were clashes when it came to saints.
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Could you share with us a few of your favourite medieval saints, or perhaps ones that you think are lesser known, that should be more well known? And could you tell us about what you like about them? What's so significant about them?
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One of my favourites for sure is definitely the likes of St. Augustine for what he gives us. You know, the City of God, the Confessions, in terms of studying history, it's one of the foundational texts. There's definitely some, as I say, some more weird and wacky ones. A great one is, as we say, Saint Guinefort, who was this kind of dog saint, because it kind of turns out that really it was this sort of medieval invention and that actually it comes from a story from India which shows this great way in which. How is it that this story from India gets all the way to this small village in Wales? And it's a great way to kind of understand the sort of transformation of information across landscapes, essentially going from a mongoose to a dog. But there's all sorts of other weird and wacky and wild saints out there. But no, for sure, I think I lean more towards the likes of St. Edmund for that kind of corruption and capitalization on the saint. But then also someone like Augustine for what he provides.
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We've spoken so much about what saints lives can reveal to us. What do you think that modern audiences could perhaps learn from medieval saints that would still resonate today?
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I think that there's a few things depending on how in depth you want to go. In a way, because saints can give you so much information, it's a great way to understand the past. But then in a sort of more reflective sense, you know, like I say that there's an interesting story about the guy who discovered the City of God, and he was a staunch atheist and he translated it, as historians like to do, and by the end of it, he became staunchly religious. And it's things like that that is quite interesting in a sort of reflective sense, because a lot of saints, they were big proponents of church reform, faith, understanding, faith. And so you can learn a lot about their lives, about their own struggles and their own struggle with faith from their works. And so, you know, if someone is wanting to understand a bit more about their own faith, then saints do allow that and do provide that sort of interesting outlet, especially when you look at more contentious ones like St. Gerald of Auriac, where the church has to really jostle with what it believes in. And so, you know, there's a lot of there is a lot of things that people can get out of them, whether you're religious or not.
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Emily Briffet
That was Luke Daly. His book, Medieval Saints and Their Sins, is out now, published by Pen and Sword. You can hear more about one of the saints that Luke mentioned in our episode with Joanna Dale, as she looks at how the Northumbrian king Oswald became so significant across medieval Europe and why he is said to have had so many heads.