SOURCE: Bertram Colgrave, "Bede's Miracle Stories," in Bede: His Life, Times, and Writings, edited by A. Hamilton Thompson, 1935. Reprint by Russell & Russell, 1966, pp. 201-29.

[In the following excerpt, Colgrave summarizes many of Bede's miracle stories, contending that Bede did not write of miracles as a strict historian, but to satisfy the demand of popular taste, to venerate saints, to inspire, and to tell a vivid story.]

It probably comes as a shock to the reader unacquainted with medieval literature who approaches Bede's Ecclesiastical History for the first time, to find that a miracle occurs on almost every page. What reliance can be placed on the historian who tells us in his very first chapter that 'scrapings of leaves of books that had been brought out of Ireland being put into water have cured persons bitten by serpents',¹ who goes on to deal with the life of Alban and to describe how the river dries up to allow the holy man the more rapidly to receive his martyr's crown, while the executioner's eyes drop out at the same moment as the martyr's head drops off.² We read of saints who heal the blind and raise the dead, who quell storms and quench fires, who visit the lower regions and return to tell their story, who see visions of angels prophesying their death and whose bodies after their death remain uncorrupt while heavenly lights tell the faithful where they lie; and the miracles performed by the saint are even more numerous after his death than during his life.

And yet a fuller study of contemporary literature shows us that if there were none of these strange and incredible tales in Bede's History we should have had every reason for astonishment. The only cause for surprise, to the student of the ecclesiastical literature of the times, is that there are not more of them. It was as natural for Bede to relate these marvels as it is for the modern historian to avoid them. As Dill says, dealing with the same aspect in the works of Gregory of Tours, 'had he not done so, he would have done violence to his own deepest beliefs, and he would have given a maimed and misleading picture of his age'.³ Science had not yet given men a conception of a universe ruled by unchanging laws. It was left for the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to do that, and perhaps it is the natural reaction of the twentieth century to ask whether after all it may not be possible that there is something more in these strange stories than the earlier editors of Bede believed, and that these holy men, living lives of incredible hardships and asceticism, actually reached a state of being in which they possessed powers—hypnotism, clairvoyance, telepathy—call them what you choose—which are not perhaps miraculous in the strict sense of the term but would certainly be considered so in the early middle ages. The age of Bede was primitive in its outlook; it was naturally credulous, and the nature of evidence was but vaguely understood. All around them men saw inexplicable phenomena, and the most marvellous explanation was always the easiest and the most readily accepted; the pious and the simple-minded were naturally ready to explain a phenomenon as the direct interposition of God on their behalf or on behalf of those who were especially dear to Him, such as the saints and martyrs. The immediate forefathers of Bede and his contemporaries had imagined themselves to be surrounded by multitudes of unseen powers: every bush held its demon and every grove its god. There was in their minds an elasticity about the order of nature which made it seem probable to them that certain chosen people, magicians and medicine-men, should be able to alter events. When the Western lands accepted Christianity these popular beliefs were too deeply rooted to be lost all in a minute. Gregory the Great recognized this in his letter to Mellitus which Bede himself quotes: Gregory recommends that the people who had until recently slaughtered oxen and built themselves huts of the boughs of trees about their heathen temples, shall now celebrate the nativities of the holy martyrs and other feasts with like ceremonies—so that whilst some outward and visible joys are permitted them, they may more easily learn to appreciate inward and spiritual joys. 'For undoubtedly it is impossible to efface everything at once from their obdurate hearts, because he who seeks to climb the highest peak ascends step by step and not by leaps.⁴ Bede himself provides us with other evidence that the change from paganism to Christianity was a slow and often painful process. There is, for instance, an illuminating story in the Life of Cuthbert.⁵ A party of monks from the monastery near the mouth of the Tyne were fetching home some wood on rafts, when the wind changed and drove them out to sea. A crowd of people watched them from the shore, jeering at their plight. When the youthful Cuthbert who stood among them, rebuked them for their brutality, they answered, 'May God have no mercy on any one of those who have robbed men of their old ways of worship; and how the new worship is to be conducted, nobody knows.' And again in the same work⁶ we read that when Cuthbert was at Melrose, he used to take journeys into the neighbourhood, teaching the common people, who, in times of plague, 'forgetting the sacrament of the Gospel which they had received, took to the delusive cures of idolatry, as though, by incantations or amulets or any other mysteries of devilish art, they could ward off a stroke sent by God their maker'. Another curious instance related by Bede is the story of Redwald, king of the East Saxons, who in the same temple had an altar to Christ and another one on which to offer sacrifices to devils.⁷ But perhaps one of the most striking proofs of the mixture of paganism and Christianity is to be found, not in any literary work, but in an artistic production of the period. The famous Franks casket which is usually attributed to this period has, on the same panel, carvings representing on one half the horrible heathen tale of Wayland the Smith and his vengeance on King Nithhad, and, on the other half, one of the most beautiful of the Gospel stories, the Adoration of the Magi.⁸ We need only refer to the penitential literature or to the charms and leechdoms of the Anglo-Saxon period to show how long the earlier pagan faith continued to hold sway in this country.

And what is true of England is equally true of the whole of western Europe.

It is clear then that the peoples of western Europe who accepted Christianity, very often under compulsion, would expect of their new Master and His saints powers no less than they had previously associated with their gods and heroes. A naïve illustration of this is found in the story of the conversion of Iceland in the year A.D. 1000. Thrangbrand the Saxon priest in his missionary journey through that island was opposed by an old woman who made a long speech on behalf of the heathen faith. 'Have you heard', she said, 'how Thor challenged Christ to single combat and how He was afraid to fight with Thor?' 'I have heard', answered Thrangbrand, 'that Thor would have been only dust and ashes, if God had not permitted him to live.'⁹ The miracle stories of the Bible partly provided them with the satisfaction they sought and miraculous stories very soon came to be told of the saints as well. At first indeed the Fathers of the Church were inclined to answer this demand for miracles in much the same terms as their Lord used to those who sought for a sign. Origen, for instance, affirms that there are wonders comparable to those of past days, but nevertheless declares that they are only the vestiges of a power that has disappeared: instead of the material interventions of past days we have now the spiritual miracles worked in the souls of men.¹⁰ It was the lives of the founders of monasticism which gave the miraculous such an important place in the stories of the saints. These stories seem to have arisen first of all in Egypt, to be repeated in the East and very soon in the West, to satisfy the craving for tales of marvels, a craving which grew rather than diminished all through the Middle Ages. In this way it came about that the legenda, the histories to be read on the feast of a saint, gave to the word 'legend' its modern meaning of 'any unhistoric or unauthentic story'. But it is important to notice that these stories are, from the first, popular creations and the editor of the life is no more than the transmitter of the story: for, as we shall see, even though he claims to be an eyewitness of the events he relates, or, as is more often the case, to have received the account from dependable witnesses, his claims need not be taken too seriously.

The first Latin life to attain to any considerable popularity in the West seems to have been Evagrius' Latin translation of Athanasius' Life of St. Antony, which appeared some time before 374. Somewhere about the beginning of the fifth century appeared the Life of St. Martin by Sulpicius Severus. Both these works became models for a vast number of later lives of saints, and passages were often lifted from them bodily.¹¹ The whole arrangement of many of them is on the model of the Life of St. Antony; beginning with a prologue in which the editor humbly declares his lack of eloquence and his inability for the task set him by his superior, they go on to describe the youth and vocation of the saint, his virtues, his search for solitude, his asceticism, his stout defence against the attacks of the devil and his satellites, his miracles and prophecies, and finish with a fairly full account of the last exhortations of the saint to his followers, his death and the miracles performed at his tomb.¹² It will be seen that Bede's Life of Cuthbert follows this model fairly closely. But we must remember that all these writers of saints' lives, including Bede, were merely the people who put into writing the floating traditions. As Delehaye points out, there are two main sources in all hagiographical literature. First of all we get the people, whose imagination perpetually creates fresh products of its fancy and attaches wonders drawn from the most diverse sources to the name of its favourite saints, and secondly we get the writer whose function it is to put these floating traditions into literary shape; he has to take the material that is given him, but his ideas and standards determine its permanent form.¹³ And it is here that the earlier models such as the Life of St. Antony and the Life of St. Martin show their influence.

Let us now consider in more detail the miracles described by Bede and endeavour to see how he is influenced by the hagiographical interests of his age. In the first place we notice that his miracle stories are almost confined to the Ecclesiastical History, the Prose and Verse Lives of Cuthbert, and of course the Martyrology. It is very noticeable that the Lives of the Abbots contain no miracle whatever, but recount ordinary and everyday occurrences throughout. We know indeed from the Anonymous Lives of the Abbots, which contain a contemporary account of Ceolfrid, that miracles came to be associated with that abbot after his death.¹⁴ Bede must have known about these stories, but he refrains from mentioning them.

In the Ecclesiastical History the miracles related are chiefly grouped round the accounts of Alban, Germanus, Oswald, Aidan, Chad, the nuns of Barking, Hild, Cuthbert, John of Beverley. To these must be added a somewhat special form of miracle, the visions of the other world which are associated with the names of Dryhthelm and Fursey, and two other similar visions. There are a few separate miracles associated with other saints (such as Æthelthryth), but these are the chief groups. In every group except that of Hild we either know his authority independently or he informs us himself. Thus the Alban group is borrowed from an ancient life of St. Albanus, of which only a few traces have come down to us.¹⁵ The miracles of St. Germanus are taken from Constantius' Life of St. Germanus; and, as a glance at Plummer's edition of the text will show,¹⁶ he has borrowed in a wholesale way from the earlier life. The account of the miracles at Barking is borrowed, as he himself tells us twice,¹⁷ from an earlier authority, probably a life of Æthilburg. For the miracles connected with Hild he suggests no authority and we know of none. As he mentions no names of informants, it is possible that he was depending upon some life of the saint which would almost certainly exist at Whitby and might well be known to many of his northern readers. For the miracles connected with Oswald, Aidan, Chad, and John of Beverley, he mentions the names of various authorities like Bothelm, Acca, Cynimund, Trumberht, Egbert, Berhthun, and others, nearly always insisting that their authority is unimpeachable. For the vision of Fursey, he acknowledges his source to be the 'book of his life'¹⁸ while Dryhthelm's vision was learned from one Haemgils, a monk who was still living when Bede wrote. Of the other two visions of the beyond, one was vouched for by Pehthelm the first Anglian bishop of Whithorn, while Bede himself vouches for the other one. It is worth noting in connexion with these groups of miracles, that only one is related of Wilfrid of York. It is very clear, as Raine points out,¹⁹ that there was little sympathy between Wilfrid and Bede, hence it is interesting to note that of all the miracles described by Eddius, the only one he relates is that with which Bede's friend Acca, bishop of Hexham, is associated. It almost looks as though Bede refrained deliberately from relating any miracles about a man who had been the bitter opponent of so many of his heroes.

Bede's account of the miracles attributed to Cuthbert is worth careful study. They occur both in the Ecclesiastical History and also in his Prose and Metrical Lives of the Saint. In the History he gives two of which he learned after the other two lives had been written.²⁰ His chief authority was the Life of Cuthbert written by an anonymous monk of Lindisfarne. He has given us a fairly elaborate account of his methods in the prologue to his life of the saint.

'I decided', he says, 'to remind you (Eadfrith) who know and to inform those readers who perchance do not know, that I have not presumed to write down anything concerning so great a man without the most rigorous investigation of the facts, nor to hand on what I had written, to be copied for general use, without the most scrupulous investigation of credible witnesses. Nay rather it was only after diligently investigating the beginning, the progress and the end of his glorious life and activity with the help of those who knew him, that I began to set about making notes; and I have decided occasionally to place the names of my authorities in the book itself, to shew clearly how my knowledge of the truth has been gained.'

He goes on to say further how he had shown the notes to Herefrid and others for their judgement, and when all this was done, he had sent the book to Lindisfarne to be read before the elders and teachers of the community there for a final revision, though such had been his care that no changes were made. Curiously enough he does not in this introduction mention the fact that he had all through depended very fully upon the earlier and smaller life written by the anonymous monk of Lindisfarne. In the preface to the Ecclesiastical History, however, he states that he had used the earlier life 'yielding simple faith to the narrative'. Of the forty miracles he records of Cuthbert in his Prose Life, only eight are not found in the Anonymous Life, and of these eight, two are mentioned by the earlier writer but passed over.²¹ In every instance except one where he introduces a fresh miracle, he adds the name of his authority, such as Herefrid, Cynimund, or unnamed monks from Wearmouth and Jarrow. The two Cuthbert miracles added to the Ecclesiastical History²² are vouched for by the authority of the two brethren on whom the miracles were wrought. In the metrical Life no authorities are given, but as it contains only the miracles found also in the Prose Life, we need not consider it further.

Here then is an imposing array of testimony: let us next consider what is the nature of the miracles which he so abundantly vouches for. In the first place a large proportion of them are obviously based upon scriptural precedents. One of the early miracles in the Ecclesiastical History describes how the river dried up to allow Alban to reach his place of martyrdom quickly.²³ A blind girl is healed by Germanus²⁴ a blind man by Augustine,²⁵ a dumb and scurvy youth by John of Beverley;²⁶ evil spirits are cast out²⁷ and various other cures are performed, sometimes with the aid of holy water²⁸ or oil,²⁹ sometimes with consecrated bread,³⁰ and once with the saint's girdle³¹ In addition, there are the stories of the calming of a storm by Lupus,³² by Aidan,³³ and by Æthelwald.³⁴ Springs of water are miraculously produced from a hill or a rock by Alban,³⁵ and by Cuthbert;³⁶ food is miraculously provided on four occasions for Cuthbert,³⁷ and on one occasion water is turned into wine for his benefit.³⁸ These scriptural miracles abound in the legends of the saints: for instance, there are, quite literally, hundreds of saints to whom the miracle of turning water into wine has been attributed. In fact, if one were to take any single volume of the Acta Sanctorum at random, it would be possible to find analogues of practically every one of the miracles related above. But it is worth noting that Bede nowhere relates the miracle of a dead person being restored to life, an extremely common miracle in other lives of saints.³⁹

These scriptural miracles found in the legends naturally became standardized and usually preserved certain features of the biblical miracles on which they were based. Thus in the account of the cure of the sick maiden by John of Beverley,⁴⁰ we learn that the saint on arriving at a 'monastery of virgins' learns that the abbess's daughter is at the point of death. After much entreaty she persuades the apparently unwilling saint to see the maiden. He goes in, taking his disciple Berhthun with him, blesses her and leaves her. In due course the maiden recovers and asks to see the disciple. 'Do you desire that I should ask for something to drink?' she said to Berhthun. 'Yes,' he replied, 'and I am delighted that you are able to drink.' The story has clearly preserved most of the details of the miracle of the healing of Jairus's daughter though the main thread is different.⁴¹ The ruler of the synagogue becomes the abbess of a monastery; the daughter in one case is dead, in the other, dying: it is only after entreaty that our Lord goes to the maiden. Peter, James, and John go in with him just as Berhthun goes in with John; and refreshment is duly given to the healed maiden just as to the daughter of Jairus. In precisely the same way the thane's servant who is healed by John of Beverley asks for refreshment to be brought to him. Many other instances could be brought of the standardization of the miracle stories. But perhaps the most striking illustration is the comparison between the story of the healing of the thane's wife related of John of Beverley by Berhthun,⁴² and the stories of the healing of the thane's wife and the thane's servant in the Prose Life of Cuthbert.⁴³ In the first account we learn that when John of Beverley, as bishop of Hexham, was consecrating a church in the neighbourhood of a certain thane, the latter begged him to dine in his house after the ceremony. This the bishop refused to do, but after many entreaties, he finally consented. Now this thane had a wife who had long been ill and, before going to the house, the bishop sent some consecrated water by one of the brethren. This he commanded them to give her to drink and with it to wash the parts which were most painful. The woman recovered and served the bishop and his followers with drink till the meal was over, thus following, as Bede points out, the example of Peter's mother-in-law. In the Prose Life, Bede describes how Cuthbert while bishop of Lindisfarne was attending a meeting at Melrose. On his way home a certain thane met him and earnestly sought him to return home with him. On his arrival at the thane's house, he was told that a servant of his had long been ill. Cuthbert consecrated some water and gave it to a servant, namely, the priest Baldhelm, bidding him give it to the sick man to drink. The messenger poured the water into the mouth of the patient, who forthwith fell into a tranquil sleep and was cured by the next morning. The second story in the Life describes how Bishop Cuthbert was preaching in his diocese when he called at the dwelling of a certain thane, who eagerly welcomed him in. After a hospitable greeting he told him of his wife's grave illness and besought him to bless some water wherewith to sprinkle her. The bishop did so and gave it to a priest who sprinkled her and her bed and poured some of the water into her mouth. She was immediately cured and went in to the bishop, offering him a cup of wine, and like Peter's mother-in-law she ministered to him and to his followers. For purposes of comparison it is worth while to add a similar story related of Wilfrid, bishop of York, by Eddius.⁴⁴ While Wilfrid was in prison by the command of Ecgfrith, king of Northumbria, the wife of the reeve of the town in which he lay, was suddenly overtaken with a palsy. The reeve went in to the bishop, and, falling on his knees, implored his help, for she was dying. The bishop was led forth from prison and taking some consecrated water sprinkled it drop by drop upon the woman's face. She was promptly cured and like Peter's mother-in-law she ministered to the bishop. It is not always clear how far these miracle stories, which are apparently imitations of scriptural miracles, may not also be influenced by Jewish or classical sources. Thus the miraculous provision of food for St. Cuthbert and his followers by an eagle,⁴⁵ or by the timely arrival of the porpoises,⁴⁶ or by the angel in the monastery at Ripon⁴⁷ or by the fortunate discovery made by his horse of the bread and meat in the thatch of the shepherd's hut,⁴⁸ are most likely reminiscences of the food provided for Elijah by the ravens, of Elijah under the juniper-tree, of the miraculous draught of fishes, or of the angels ministering to our Lord in the desert, but we must not forget classical stories of miraculous feeding such as the nourishment provided by Dionysus for the Maenads, described by Euripides,⁴⁹ or Hebrew stories such as that of the poor man who had no food to prepare for the sabbath, but whose wife used to heat the oven on the eve of the sabbath and put something in to make it smoke so as to hide their poverty from their neighbours. But a suspicious neighbour peered into the oven to see what was inside, and lo! a miracle— it was full of bread.⁵⁰ Or again when we read of springs of water miraculously produced by the saints, the source may be not merely such texts as Bede quotes in connexion with the spring which Cuthbert miraculously produced in his cell upon Farne:⁵¹ 'God … turned the rock into a pool of water, the flint into a fountain of waters' and 'thou shall make them to drink of the river of thy pleasures'; it may be that the stories of Hippocrene and Helicon, of Peirene and the spring behind the temple of the Acrocorinthus⁵² also played their part in the development of this miracle so often repeated in the legends of the saints.

Closely connected with the biblical miracles are the many visions and instances of prophetic foresight which Bede relates. Aidan foretells the storm which is going to overtake Utta on his way to fetch Eanfled, daughter of Edwin, to be the wife of King Oswiu and gives him holy oil to pour upon the troubled waters when it occurs. This he does and the storm is calmed.⁵³ A certain monk called Adamnan prophesies the destruction of the double monastery at Coldingham over which Æbba ruled, as a punishment for the careless life of the inmates.⁵⁴ A series of prophecies are connected with various kings and rulers. Thus Aidan predicts the death of King Oswald⁵⁵ and Cedd predicts the death of King Sigeberht of Essex.⁵⁶ A whole chapter in the Prose Life of Cuthbert is devoted to an interview between Cuthbert and Ælfflæd, the successor of Hild as abbess of Whitby. The saint and the abbess met on Coquet Island and the abbess put him through a sort of cross-examination in the course of which she elicited the facts that her brother Ecgfrith was to die the following year, that Aldfrith was to be his successor and that Cuthbert himself was to be made a bishop, to hold the office for two years and then was to return to his retreat in Farne.⁵⁷ A year afterwards, having become bishop, he was being taken round the walls of Carlisle; as he reached a certain fountain, a relic of Roman times, he suddenly stopped and became sorrowful. His followers ascertained that at that very moment Ecgfrith had been slain in his disastrous fight against the Picts at Nechtansmere in 685.⁵⁸

Another type of prophetic vision very commonly met with in the lives of the saints, and one of which Bede is very fond, is the vision granted to the saints or to their followers, foretelling the day on which the saint was to pass away. Sometimes the day was prophesied by the appearance of angels in a vision. An example of this is the long and charming story told of the vision of the heavenly choir which appeared to Chad, a vision which was also seen by Owini, one of the brethren of the monastery, who was working in the fields. Owini learned from Chad that the 'loving guest who was wont to visit our brethren'⁵⁹ had appeared to him also and had summoned him to come with him seven days afterwards. A vision of men in white was seen by Earcongota, the daughter of Earconberht, king of Kent, a nun in a double monastery in Brie; they announced to her that they were to take with them 'that golden coin which had come from Kent';⁶⁰ Sebbi, king of Essex, was also visited by three men in bright garments, one of whom informed him that he was to depart from the body after three days:⁶¹ the only miracle Bede records of Wilfrid is the story of how when he was at Meaux, he lay four days and nights in a trance, and, on awaking, told his companion Acca, afterwards bishop of Hexham, Bede's close friend, that Michael the archangel had visited him and promised him four further years of life through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary.⁶² Eddius⁶³ adds that in return he was to build a church in honour of St. Mary ever Virgin. Sometimes it was a well-known friend who came in a vision to give the warning—as in the case of Chad mentioned above. Thus one of the nuns at the monastery of Barking on her death-bed told how a certain man of God, who had died that same year, had appeared to her, to tell her she was to depart at daybreak. Another of the sisters named Torhtgyth was heard conversing with an unseen visitor. A curious conversation took place of which only Torhtgyth's part was heard and recorded. Evidently the nun was urging her unseen visitor that she might be taken from the body as soon as possible; when she had finished talking to her heavenly visitant, she told those who sat around that she had been talking to her 'beloved mother Æthilburg'. This was the abbess of the Barking monastery who had died three years before.⁶⁴ In other instances Bede infers that the saints knew of the day of their death even though we hear of no prophetic vision. Thus in the beautiful account of Boisil's death we learn how he proposed to read the Gospel of St. John, of which he had a copy, with his disciple Cuthbert. The manuscript⁶⁵ had seven gatherings, one of which was to be read every day, for Boisil declared that he had only seven days in which he could teach him. After the seven readings were ended Boisil passed away.⁶⁶ Cuthbert, too, was warned by a divine oracle⁶⁷ that his death was approaching, though we are not definitely told that he knew the exact date. It is interesting to note that the author of the Anonymous Life knows nothing of this prophetic knowledge.

This particular form of prophecy is of course a commonplace in the lives of the saints from the Life of St. Antony onwards. It was possibly based on the story of Hezekiah who was promised fifteen more years of life by the word of the Lord through the mouth of Isaiah.⁶⁸ The idea underlying this widespread tradition was that the saint was thus granted time to prepare himself for the great change and to be fortified by receiving the Communion. The dread of sudden death was very widely spread throughout the middle ages in Christian lands, so that it was not unnatural that the saints should be granted this special grace. So far as the martyrs were concerned, the very fact of their dying for the faith was a sufficient proof of their eternal welfare. Even though a martyr were unbaptized, as was the soldier who was slain for refusing to execute Alban, he was 'cleansed by being baptized in his own blood'.⁶⁹ So they needed no divine admonition. One might even suggest that this is why the anonymous writer of Cuthbert's Life relates no such vision about his saint. For him he is a martyr because of his ascetic life and in one place he calls him such, while he frequently refers to him as confessor.⁷⁰

Many of the visions in Bede refer to the departure of the soul of a saint. Thus a priest in Ireland saw the soul of Cedd with a company of angels, taking the soul of Chad to heaven.⁷¹ A nun Bega, in the monastery at Hackness, thirteen miles from Whitby, heard the passing bell tolling and saw Hild's soul being carried to heaven by angels,⁷² while a young novice in the remotest part of the Whitby monastery itself saw an identical vision.⁷³ The brethren of the men's part of the double monastery of Brie saw a similar vision of angels when Earcongota died,⁷⁴ and Cuthbert when keeping sheep near the river Leader saw a vision of Aidan's soul being taken to heaven by angels. This vision led to his decision to take up the monastic life.⁷⁵ A similar vision came to Cuthbert one day, when he was dining with Ælfflæd, of the soul of a shepherd attached to one of Ælfflæd's lesser monasteries, being carried to heaven by angels. He had been climbing a tree to get food for his flock.⁷⁶ It will be seen that all these visions are of exactly the same type. The soul of the dying person is surrounded by a band of angels and the person to whom the vision is granted is invariably absent from the death-bed. A whole series of such visions is related in Adamnan's Life of St. Columba and in every case these two traits appear. Such visions were commonly related of the saints and these two features are almost invariably present. The vision related of Torhtgyth clearly belongs to a different type. She saw a body wrapped in a sheet being drawn up to heaven by golden cords; the body was that of Æthilburg who shortly afterwards died.⁷⁷

One type of vision has more obviously didactic intention. It is that of the future life. Bede relates no less than four of these. One of them, at least, was more than a vision, for Dryhthelm actually died and saw the joys of the blessed and the tortures of the damned before he was restored to life.⁷⁸ Fursey's vision of the other world is the best known of all.⁷⁹ The third vision is related of a dying layman in Mercia who saw a very small and beautiful book brought to him by two beautiful youths, which contained an account of all his good deeds, and another prodigiously large book containing all his evil deeds, borne to him by a host of devils, who claimed him as their own and struck him with ploughshares.⁸⁰ The last vision is related by Bede himself of a brother whose name he will not mention, who resided in Bernicia in a 'noble monastery but himself lived ignobly'. On his death-bed he saw hell open and Satan and Caiaphas and the others who slew the Lord being consigned to everlasting perdition;⁸¹ he also saw the place in their midst which had been appointed for himself. He died soon afterwards without receiving the viaticum and none dared to pray for him.

These visions and stories of journeys to the other world are extremely ancient and widespread. They are found in ancient Egypt and amongst the Greeks and Romans. Odysseus, Theseus, Pollux and Orpheus all visited the lower world, while Plato⁸² tells the story of Er, son of Armenius, who was killed in battle, and after visiting the abodes of the dead was restored to life on his funeral pyre. Latin writers, too, notably Virgil, deal with the same theme. Saintyves has collected similar modern stories from a variety of sources from the Algonquin and Ojibway Indians, from northern Asia and Greenland, from Zululand and Oceania.⁸³ The literary tradition of these stories is preserved in the apocalyptic literature of the pre-Christian and early Christian period. It is found in the Book of Enoch, in the Apocalypse of Abraham and elsewhere in Jewish literature, while in the Apocalypse of Peter, a second-century work, we get the first Christian adaptation of the theme and at the end of the fourth century we get the Apocalypse of Paul which had a great influence on this branch of medieval literature. The tradition is carried on in the visions especially of the African martyrs. For our purpose it is important to notice that similar legends are told in Sulpicius Severus' Life of St. Martin⁸⁴ and in Gregory the Great's Dialogues. In these dialogues Gregory relates a whole series of these visions, most of which to some extent resemble the visions of Fursey and Dryhthelm. The didactic nature of these visions in Christian times is strongly marked. 'It is plain', says Gregory, after telling the vision about the priest Stephanus, 'that these punishments of hell are revealed so that they may be an encouragement to some and a testimony against others.'⁸⁵ Dryhthelm, Bede tells us, only told the story of his experiences 'to those who being either terrified by the fear of torment or delighted by the hope of everlasting joys, desired to win from his words advancement in piety'.⁸⁶

One more vision is worth relating, because of the possible light it throws on Bede's methods. He relates in his second book of his Ecclesiastical History⁸⁷ the well-known story of the attempt on Edwin's life by the hand of an assassin sent by Cwichelm, king of Wessex. The king promised Paulinus that if he recovered from the wound he had received and succeeded in avenging himself upon the people of Wessex, he would accept Christianity. The conditions were fulfilled and Edwin renounced his heathenism, and allowed his daughter to be baptized, but refused to accept Christianity until he had had further teaching and had consulted his immediate followers. He was further encouraged by a letter from Pope Boniface. The conference with his counsellors is one of the best-known incidents in the History, containing the famous simile of the sparrow.⁸⁸ The king and his followers as a result of the conference were all baptized together. All this seems natural and has the appearance of strict history. But meanwhile Bede interpolates somewhat awkwardly a long account of a vision which Edwin had had when he was an exile at the court of Redwald, king of the East Angles, and in great danger. An unknown stranger had come to him and promised him safety if he would accept the teaching of one who, as a sign, was to lay his right hand on his head. The king accepted the condition. Paulinus, coming upon the king in meditation, had placed his right hand on his head, asking him if he knew the sign. The king tremblingly accepted the sign and thereupon hesitated no more. What was Bede's object in adding this story? Perhaps he felt that the conversion of his own land to Christianity was an event of such importance that it could hardly have happened without an accompanying sign from heaven: more probably it was a piece of popular tradition which was well known in Northumbria and which Bede, writing, as he acknowledges in his preface, a history that was to be 'pleasing to the inhabitants', dared not omit. Beyond all this, it was a picturesque story, and appealed to Bede's artistic sense. [This incident also occurs in the Life of Gregory the Great, written by an anonymous monk of Whitby. It is just possible that Bede did not see this until after he had written his own account of Edwin's life. Hence the awkwardness of the interpolated incident. This theory might also account for Bede's remarkable omission of the miracles associated with the relics of Edwin which are related in the Whitby Life of Gregory.]

A very considerable number of the miracles in Bede are associated with the bodies and relics of the saints. Bede relates how on one occasion Cuthbert's girdle healed the Abbess Ælfflæd and one of her nuns⁸⁹ just as the handkerchiefs and aprons carried from Paul's body healed the sick.⁹⁰ But from the earliest period of Christianity, the tomb, after the death of the saint, became a place of the greatest sanctity and anything which had been in contact with it acquired holiness and miraculous power. At first, in western Europe, the strict Roman laws protected the actual bodies of the saints themselves from the many translations and dismemberments which they afterwards suffered, and these representative relics sufficed; but by the middle of the fourth century translation of the bodies of the saints had become frequent. Later on grew up the miracles associated with the finding of the tomb of a martyr or saint and gradually there arose the habit of sending abroad bones and fragments of the body. The extent to which the rage for possession of relics grew is illustrated by the history of the bones of Bede himself and by the story of how Ælfred Westou during the eleventh century stole them from Jarrow in order to add to the collection he had already made around the incorruptible body of his patron.⁹¹ But most of the miracles in Bede are associated with relics of the less gruesome type. Germanus, we read, had with him the limbs of saints brought together from several countries.⁹² Benedict Biscop, Acca, Wilfrid, and others who travelled to Rome frequently, never failed to bring relics home to England. Occasionally a visiting prelate like Germanus brought some or else they were sent as presents from Rome. The relics of the Apostles Peter and Paul—of the holy martyrs Laurentius, John, Paul, Gregory and Pancratius were sent by Gregory the Great to St. Augustine,⁹³ others were sent by Pope Vitalian to King Oswiu.⁹⁴ It was customary to deposit relics in a church at its dedication, and the underground crypts at Ripon and Hexham, both of them almost the only remains left of the original churches built by Wilfrid, were intended specially for the exhibition of such relics. Pope Gregory in his letter to Mellitus bids him not destroy the temples of the idols; but, having destroyed the idols, he is to sprinkle the temples with holy water, erect altars, and place relics therein.⁹⁵ Whether these relics and the many other relics he mentions were portions of the bodies of the saints or merely some article connected with their tomb, Bede does not say.

There is sufficient testimony then to show the great reverence paid to the relics of the saints by Bede and his contemporaries, and miracles performed by these relics are very frequently related. Bede relates the story of how Germanus healed a girl of blindness by taking a reliquary from his neck and placing it on the girl's eyes. But generally the relics with which miracles were associated by Bede were those of English saints or saints connected closely with England such as Oswald, Aidan, Cuthbert, Fursey, Earconwald and Æthilburg. It may be helpful to consider in detail the miracles which were associated with the body of Oswald. Oswald was slain fighting against Penda, king of the Mercians, at the battle of Maserfeld⁹⁶ in 642. The place where he had fallen in battle was discovered in the following way: a man shortly after the king's death was travelling on horseback near the site, when his horse was suddenly taken ill and began to roll about in anguish. By chance it rolled over the very place where Oswald fell, and arose cured. Shortly afterwards the rider came to an inn where the daughter of the house lay stricken with paralysis. She was placed upon a cart, put down on the exact spot which the traveller had previously noted, and was speedily cured.⁹⁷ A Briton, travelling near the same spot and noting its unusual greenness, took some of the dust of the place and put it in a linen cloth. Proceeding on his journey he came to a certain village, and entered a house where the villagers were feasting; he hung up the cloth with the dust in it on one of the wall posts. The feasting and drinking went on merrily until the huge fire in the middle of the room set the roof alight, which, being made of wattles and thatch, speedily blazed up. The whole house was burnt expect for the post on which the dust was hanging.⁹⁸ As a result of the fame of these cures, earth was taken from this place and being put into water produced a healing drink for many; so famous did the place become that a hole as deep as a man's height remained there. His niece Osthryth, queen of Mercia, then decided to transfer his bones to the monastery of Bardney in the province of Lindsey. Did she take the body from the place where he fell? It would seem so, though Bede does not state clearly whence the remains were translated; but the miracles already described correspond with the usual miracles in the passions and legends associated with the invention of the body of the saint. The bones were taken on a wagon to the monastery, but the brethren did not care to receive the remains of their late enemy, and left the relics outside, spreading a tent over them. But all through the night a pillar of light, reaching to heaven and seen all over the province, stood above the wagon and convinced them.⁹⁹ The bones were washed in water and placed in a shrine. This water was thrown in a corner of the sacrarium. The earth on which it was thrown acquired the power of curing people possessed of devils.¹⁰⁰ Soon after this a boy was cured of fever at Oswald's tomb. At this point Bede tells us that the head, arms, and hands had been cut off the body by Penda and hung upon stakes. The head was taken to Lindisfarne¹⁰¹ and the hands to Bamburgh.¹⁰² In fact we are told in another place¹⁰³ by Bede that his right hand and arm, in accordance with a prophecy of Aidan, remained uncorrupt and were kept in a silver shrine in St. Peter's Church. A chip of the stake on which his head was placed was put in water by Willibrord when he was a priest in Ireland, and given to a man suffering from the plague. He was cured.¹⁰⁴ Stories are also told of how chips from the cross which he set up at the battle of Heavenfield, when put into water, healed both man and beast.

Now there is not a single detail in all these stories of Oswald's relics which is not met with time and time again in the Acta Sanctorum. In fact we need not go further than Bede himself to find analogues of most of them. Thus the burial-place of Peter, first abbot of the monastery of St. Peter and St. Paul at Canterbury, who had been drowned, was revealed by a heavenly light at Ambleteuse and his relics were translated to a church in Boulogne.¹⁰⁵ A heavenly light also revealed the place where the nuns of Barking, who died of the pestilence, were to be buried.¹⁰⁶ A heavenly light together with a vision revealed the whereabouts of the bodies of the martyrs Hewald the White and Hewald the Black after their bodies had been miraculously carried up stream for forty miles.¹⁰⁷ The post against which Aidan was leaning when he died, twice remained unharmed when the rest of the building was burnt down.¹⁰⁸ The water in which the body of Cuthbert was washed was poured into a pit on the south side of the church. A little of the dust from this pit, placed in water, cured a boy possessed of devils.¹⁰⁹ Chips from the post against which Aidan died, placed in water, cured many people and their friends.¹¹⁰ Chips from the horse-litter used by Earconwald were also responsible for many cures.¹¹¹ Dust from Hæddi's tomb wrought many cures and so much of the holy earth was carried away that a great hole was left.¹¹² Dust from Chad's sepulchre put in water cured both man and beast.¹¹³

Various other cures at the tombs of saints and martyrs or by their relics, are also related by Bede. Thus the wife of a certain thane was cured of blindness by the relics of the saints at Barking;¹¹⁴ the linen clothes which wrapped the body of Æthelthryth cured people possessed of devils, and the wooden coffin in which she was first buried healed the eye-diseases of those who prayed with their heads touching it. A white marble coffin was miraculously found near the ruined Roman site of Grantchester;¹¹⁵ it exactly fitted her and in this she was placed at her translation.¹¹⁶ A somewhat similar story is told of the coffin which had been provided for Sebbi, king of the East Saxons; when they came to bury him, it proved to be too long; but after various vain efforts to make the coffin fit Sebbi, or Sebbi fit the coffin, it was found to have miraculously adapted itself to the size of the body.¹¹⁷ Several cures, besides those mentioned above, were effected by the relics of Cuthbert; some of Cuthbert's hair, removed from the uncorrupt body when it was translated, cured a boy of a disease of the eye;¹¹⁸ a brother called Baduthegn was healed of paralysis at his tomb;¹¹⁹ Clement, bishop of Frisia, prayed at his tomb and was cured of a hopeless malady whose nature is not stated.¹²⁰ Felgeld, the anchorite who inhabited Cuthbert's cell at Farne after Cuthbert's successor Æthelwald was dead, had to reconstruct the cell which had fallen into decay; while doing so, he cut up a calf's hide which Æthelwald had placed there to protect him against the weather: pieces of this he gave to the numerous people who asked for relics of his predecessors. He placed a piece of this calf's hide in water, and washing his face with the liquid, he was cured of an inflamed swelling of the face which had long troubled him. 'But whether this ought to be ascribed to the merits of Father Cuthbert or of his successor Æthelwald … he alone knows who judges the heart. Nor does any reason forbid us to believe that it was wrought by the merits of both accompanied also by the faith of Felgeld.'¹²¹ Bede gives only one example of a widespread type of relic miracle, in which, other relics having proved ineffective, the relic of the particular saint whose virtues are being extolled is successful in working the cure. This occurs in the story of the boy possessed with a devil who was cured by the dust gathered from the place where the monks had thrown water in which Cuthbert's body had been washed. He had first vainly tried those relics of the martyrs which were at Lindisfarne, but the holy martyrs of God would not grant the cure that was sought, in order that they might show what a high place Cuthbert held amongst them.¹²²

We have already referred several times to the uncorrupt body of St. Cuthbert and the uncorrupt right hand and arm of Oswald. The phenomenon of the undecayed corpse is a fairly common one and has been known in all lands from the earliest times. The body of Alexander, for instance, according to Quintus Curtius, was found seven days after his death as fresh as though he were still alive.¹²³ Pausanias also refers to the same phenomenon¹²⁴ and there are many examples to-day of corpses preserved in a mummified form such as those still to be seen in the crypt of St. Michel at Bordeaux or in the catacomb of the Capuchins at Palermo. The preservation of the body may be due to various natural causes and sometimes just to embalming, a fact which might possibly explain the perfume so often associated with the disinterment of the uncorrupt bodies of the saints as Bede relates in connexion with the translation of the body of Earcongota.¹²⁵ The incorruptibility of the body was usually attributed, at least by the Church, to previous holiness of life. Bede tells us about Fursey's body in order that 'the sublimity of this man may be better known to my readers'.¹²⁶ He tells us of the discovery of Cuthbert's body after eleven years 'in order to show still further in what glory the holy man lived after his death'.¹²⁷ Occasionally the saints were canonized on the testimony of their undecayed remains,¹²⁸ but the Church has never made the incorruptibility of a body a certain sign of sanctity, though it is recorded of a very large number of saints and martyrs that their bodies were found uncorrupt after periods varying from a few days to hundreds of years. There are about forty examples in the first twelve volumes alone of the Acta Sanctorum. In popular belief, this very phenomenon was sometimes regarded with the greatest suspicion. There was a long and lingering tradition that the bodies of excommunicated people would not perish in the grave.¹²⁹ Witches and wizards too were popularly supposed to be preserved in the same way. When William of Deloraine and the monk of Melrose opened the grave of the Scottish wizard Michael Scott

Before their eyes the wizard lay
As if he had not been dead a day.¹³⁰

Bede mentioned four instances of saints whose bodies were found undecayed: Æthilburg,¹³¹ Fursey,¹³² Æthelthryth,¹³³ and Cuthbert.¹³⁴ The tradition concerning the body of the latter lingered on until modern times. Eleven years after his burial the brethren found his body uncorrupt: 'Nay his very funeral weeds', as Hegge says in his delightful description of this event, 'were as fresh as if putrefaction had not dared to take him by the coat'.¹³⁵ Ælfred Westou, the eleventh-century sacrist at Durham, often used to open the coffin of the saint, and in 1104, when it was translated to its historic shrine in the Cathedral, the body was again found whole. In 1538 Henry VIII's commissioners visiting the monastery at Durham found the body in just the same condition. But when the tomb was opened in 1827 the mere bones were found. There are some, however, who maintain that the bones found on that occasion were not those of Cuthbert and that the incorruptible body still remains in the Cathedral in a secret spot known only to three Benedictines.

On the whole there are comparatively few examples in Bede of what one could call mere fairy-tale wonders, such as the stories of saints hanging their cloaks on sunbeams, or being miraculously protected from a shower of rain, of having their forgotten belongings, such as staves and cloaks and books, marvellously discovered for them, often by being transported through the air to where the saint was. But there are certain miracles which perhaps may not unfairly be classed under this head. There is the story of St. Alban's executioner whose eyes dropped out as the saint's head fell to the ground.¹³⁶ There is the story of the Northumbrian captive whose fetters continually fell from him as often as they were put on him; this was due to the intercession of his brother, a priest, who, thinking he was dead, was saying masses for him.¹³⁷ There is the story of Hewald the White and Hewald the Black whose bodies were carried for forty miles against the current of the stream.¹³⁸ Apart from these, most of the more extravagant miracles are related about Cuthbert and are due to the influence of the Anonymous Life of which Bede made use. The animal and bird stories so popular in Irish hagiography are represented here and nowhere else. There is the account of how Cuthbert drove away the birds from the barley he had sown on his island, by reproving them:¹³⁹ there is the amusing and picturesque tale of the two crows who began to tear the thatch from off the roof of the guesthouse he had built on Farne; these, too, he reproved and soon after one of the crows returned and alighted at his feet, spreading out its wings and uttering humble notes in token of asking forgiveness. The saint forgave the crow and gave it permission to come back with its mate. In return they brought him the half of a piece of swine's fat with which to grease his shoes.¹⁴⁰ Another story relates that, after he had spent the night in prayer, up to his neck in the sea, at Coldingham, seals came and dried him with their fur and warmed his feet with their breath. He blessed them and they returned to the sea.¹⁴¹ Other fairy-tale stories are the provision of some building wood of exactly the right length, which was washed up by the sea on the Farne when the brethren forgot to get him the wood he had asked for;¹⁴² the marvellous crop of barley produced out of season;¹⁴³ the story of the huge stones he carried unaided to build his cell;¹⁴⁴ and the interesting story of how he gave a goose to some of the brethren who came to visit him on Farne and told them to cook it; having already enough food of their own, the brethren did not do so; but a fierce storm arose and kept them in the island for seven days. At the end of this period the saint visited the dwelling in which they were living and saw the goose still uncooked; thereupon he reproved their disobedience very gently but told them that the sea would not become calm until the goose was eaten. This incident does not appear in the Anonymous Life, but Bede learned it 'not from any chance source but from one of those who were present, namely from Cynimund, a monk and priest of reverend life, who is still alive and well'. The story, although it may seem at first sight somewhat childish, throws light on Bede's view of the religious life and on the didactic nature of his miracle stories. The incident is, from our point of view, a simple ordinary occurence and no more than a coincidence is involved. It is a common enough happening nowadays for Farne Island to be cut off by storms for days at a time. But there could be no doubt in the mind of Bede that the two events, the eating of the goose and the calming of the sea, were intimately connected. Nor would it seem to him in any way disproportionate that the elements should rage for seven days merely because a few brethren had forgotten to eat a goose. The question of holy obedience was involved and even nature herself was at one with the saint in impressing the heinousness of their offence in disobeying even his simplest command. The story provided Bede with an opportunity of exalting the saint and of teaching a vital lesson which he was not slow to take advantage of.

And his love of a picturesque incident may have played no little part in inducing him to include it: for it is abundantly clear that Bede did not fail to realize the value of miracle stories as picturesque additions to his narrative.

Such then are some of the miracles of which Bede tells us, backing them up as we have seen by appeals to numerous authorities—books which he had read or trustworthy witnesses—often eyewitnesses of the events, as in the story just related. But when we turn to the other lives of the saints we find the most extraordinary miracles related with precisely the same asseverations of truth. This feature goes back to Athanasius' Life of St. Antony, where in the preface Athanasius declares that he is writing what he himself knows and has learned from Antony himself. Then follow the stories of Antony's combats with devils, of miraculous springs, of visions of souls being carried to heaven, and of many miracles of healings. The sixth-century life of Samson of Dol is, we are told, written in a 'catholic and truthful manner' and yet we read how the saint learned to read in a day, how a dove rested upon him all through the ceremony of his ordination as deacon, how he drank poison with impunity, how a well sprang from the rock for his benefit.¹⁴⁵ Adamnan prefaces his Life of St. Columba with a warning that credence should be given to the stories, and very often names the witness as in the story of the pestiferous rain which the saint foresaw would destory both men and cattle in Ireland. He sent Silnan at once to Ireland, who took some bread blessed by the saint and, putting it in water, used the infusion to heal both man and beast. 'That in all respects these things are most true, the above mentioned Silnan … bore witness in the presence of Seghine, the abbot, and of other aged men.' Bishop Jonas of Orleans, in the first half of the ninth century, wrote a life of St. Hubert, in the preface of which he professes to give the account as an eyewitness. But St. Hubert died in 727—Jonas in 843! It is clear then that when Bede produces his witnesses, he is acting in accordance with the hagiographical tradition of his times. This does not of course necessarily mean that he did not get the evidence as he said he did. Some of the miracles he relates, such as those connected with the life of Fursey, or of Germanus or of Cuthbert or of the nuns of Barking, are, as we have seen, based upon the lives in his possession. The stories had been written down and it is too much to expect of a historian of his age that the should have refused to give them credence. Speaking of the Anonymous Life of Cuthbert in his preface to the Ecclesiastical History, he tells us how he has 'yielded simple faith to the narrative'. It would almost have been an act of heresy if he had refused to believe these stories. And Bede was, as we know, particularly sensitive to any aspersion of this kind. But having the authority of tradition for finding his eyewitnesses, he would willingly accept their stories, coming as they did from the mouths of men of weight: nor need we expect that he would examine them after the manner of a modern barrister in a court of law to assure himself that the stories told by the eyewitnesses were not coloured by their imagination, or heightened in the retelling. We have learned nowadays how difficult it is to get the truth from perfectly trustworthy eyewitnesses and how often two such people, describing the same incident a few hours after its occurrence, will contradict one another flatly. How much more difficult was it to describe an incident which had happened years before: when the public opinion of the time demanded that a saint when alive, and his relics, when he was dead, should perform miracles: when, above all, there was the incentive to honour one's own patron saint above all other saints, and consequently to make him more glorious in his miracles! Bede has in fact done no less than he claimed to do, namely to 'labour to commit to writing with sincerity such things as we have gathered from common report, which is the true law of history'.¹⁴⁶

What, we may ask ourselves, was his object in describing these miracles in his works? In the first place he has attempted to put down those things which 'were most worthy of note concerning the separate provinces or the more distinguished places, and pleasing to the inhabitants'. Popular opinion demanded that the traditions concerning the more famous saints should be duly recorded. Then the miracles of the saints were the means of testifying to the trustworthiness of the Gospel they preached. Æthilberht, for instance, was led to put his trust in the 'most pleasing promises' made by St. Augustine and his followers by the miracles they performed, as well as by the example of their lives.¹⁴⁷ St. Augustine healed a blind man to prove that he was a preacher of the divine truth, as opposed to the British party who were unable to cure the man.¹⁴⁸ Another reason was to extol the glory of the saint. For this reason he tells the story of the uncorrupt body of Fursey¹⁴⁹ and the miracles of Cuthbert;¹⁵⁰ for the same reason Gregory had collected the miracles of the saints in his Dialogues.¹⁵¹ We have already seen that the visions of the underworld were intended to warn sinners and strengthen the faithful; so also the vision of Adamnan about Coldingham served, for a few days at any rate, to lead the inhabitants of the monastery to a better way of life.¹⁵² We may look upon many of the miracles Bede relates in much the same light as the illustrative anecdotes with which preachers nowadays sometimes brighten their sermons; and how many of these stories, which, in all sincerity, are put forward as true, would bear a close investigation? Another, and perhaps by no means the least potent, reason was because of Bede's love for a picturesque story. His miracle stories provide some of the most famous passages in his Ecclesiastical History, such as the account of the death of Chad or the vision of Fursey. The Prose Life of Cuthbert is full of these picturesque narratives and although it cannot compare in historical importance with Eddius' Life of Wilfrid, it is much more readable. Few who have once read them could forget the stories about the birds on Farne Island or the vivid story of the angels who visited Ripon on a snowy day, or the account of Cuthbert's visit to the Roman ruins at Carlisle. Bede does not merely describe the incidents in threadbare language like many of the writers of legends of the saints. He so evidently takes pleasure in recounting the story with vivid details, that his pleasure transfers itself to the reader. And his skill as a literary artist makes the dry bones of many a traditional tale live again.

It has been pointed out that many of the miracles related by Bede need not necessarily be miraculous at all but merely 'coincidences brought about by perfectly natural means, though a devout mind will gladly believe that they have been divinely ordered'.¹⁵³ Such is the miracle which Bede describes as having happened to himself, when, singing the praises of Cuthbert, he was healed of an affection of the tongue,¹⁵⁴ or again the occasion when the young Cuthbert was cured of a swelling of the knee by applying a poultice according to the instruction of an angelic vistor on horseback.¹⁵⁵ Bede seems to feel a little compunction about this miracle, for he goes on to refute from scripture those who would doubt that an angel could appear on horseback. Poulticing is the remedy which the modern physician would prescribe for what he would probably diagnose as synovitis. Another similar miracle is the divine provision of wood from the sea for the building which Cuthbert was engaged upon on Farne.¹⁵⁶ And even Bede himself sometimes heightens the miraculous element in his stories as may be seen by comparing some of the incidents in Bede's Life of Cuthbert with the corresponding incidents in the Anonymous Life.¹⁵⁷

There can be no doubt that Bede himself sincerely believed that the miracles he described really happened, but his views on the miraculous as set out in other parts of his writings seem to be hardly in keeping with his work as a hagiographer. He seems to have taken up much the same position as Gregory the Great whose works he knew so well. In one passage in the Ecclesiastical History he quotes at length a letter in which Gregory exhorts Augustine not to be puffed up by the miracles which he was performing. He was to remember the Master's answer to those who rejoiced in their power to cast out devils. 'In this rejoice not.… But rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven'.¹⁵⁸ They placed their joys in private and temporal affairs when they rejoiced in miracles, but these words recall them from private to public, from temporal to spiritual joys. For all the elect do not work miracles and yet all their names are written in heaven. And those who follow in the truth ought to have no joy except that which is common to all, a joy which knows no end.¹⁵⁹

In another place Bede, borrowing from Gregory,¹⁶⁰ declares that miracles were necessary at the beginning of the church, just as when we put in a plant, we water it until we see that it has taken root: then we need no longer water it. And yet Gregory filled his Dialogues with the marvellous and Bede wrote his two Lives of Cuthbert. And further, neither Gregory nor Bede makes any references to these stories of marvels in their sermons and commentaries. It is true, Bede further declares that the cessation of miracles is largely due to man's sin and that some men by special holiness gain a power over creation which we have lost, because we neglect to serve the creator as we should.¹⁶¹ But there seems to be in Bede as in most of the doctors of the Church, as Delehaye points out,¹⁶² the voice of two men in each of them on the subject of miracles. Perhaps we ought to recognize three men in Bede, the theologian, the hagiographer, and the historian. To some extent the three were not altogether in harmony. When he was writing his homilies and commentaries, he was the theologian who accepted the general theory that the day of miracles was past, or at any rate that contemporary miracles were not altogether on the same footing as those of the days of Christ; when he wrote his Lives of Cuthbert he wrote as a hagiographer; when he was writing the Lives of the Abbots he wrote as a historian; but in the writing of the Ecclesiastical History both Bede the hagiographer and Bede the historian took part.¹⁶³ To exalt his heroes, to teach his lessons, and perhaps also for the sake of adding picturesque incident, he wrote down the miraculous stories which tradition provided and which he was not too careful to submit to close examination, and by quoting his authorities he cast the responsibility upon others. So, to some extent, the historian was satisfied. And when, as we have seen, his stories grew in the telling, it may well have been that the legend had grown even under his hands, for the saint's legend is essentially a popular growth: it is the people who make it and the hagiographer who writes it down. Bede the hagiographer was only a little in advance of his times. Bede the historian was far in advance of them. But how far the historical fact lies behind his hagiography is a difficult matter to decide.

We live in a time when the rapid advance in knowledge, both of the external world and of the human mind, has overwhelmed the self-confident materialism of the recent past, which, with its rigid principles, relegated most things for which it could not account to the realm of mere fiction. We can now afford to admit that there is a substantial basis of fact embedded in the stories we have considered. We may not regard the underlying facts in precisely the same light as did Bede and his contemporaries; but we are bound to treat with reverent sympathy the forms in which they embodied those facts and thus projected their own faith and hope upon the external world.

Notes

1. H.E. [Baedae Historia Ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum] i. 1.
2. Ibid. i. 7.
3. Dill, Roman Society in Gaul in the Merovingian Age, 1926, p. 395.
4. H.E. i. 30.
5. Vit Cuth [Vita Cuthberti auctore Baeda], iii.
6. Ibid. ix.
7. H. E. ii. 15.
8. See B.M. Guide to Anglo-Saxon Antiquities, 1923, Pl. VIII.
9. Saga of the Burnt Njal, xcviii.
10. See H. Delehaye, Saint Martin et Sulpice Sévère, Anal. Boll, xxxviii. 73.
11. Thus the prologue to the Anonymous Life of St. Cuthbert consists entirely of a patchwork of borrowings from Evagrius' Live of St. Antony, Sulpicius Severus' Life of St. Martin, the Life of St. Silvester, and an epistle of Victor of Aquitaine to Hilarius, the proper names being changed to suit the context.
12. See B. P. Kurtz, From St. Antony to St. Guthlac, California, 1926, passim.
13. H. Delehaye, Les Légendes hagiographiques, Brussels, 3rd ed., 1927, p. 11.
14. See Plummer [Venerabilis Baedae opera historica, ed. C. Plummer. 2 vols. Oxford, 1896] 1. 403 ff. Though there are several verbal likenesses between the two accounts it does not seem to be quite clear whether Bede made use of the Anonymous Lives or vice versa.
15. See H. Delehaye, Origines du culte des martyres, 1933, p. 362.
16. Plummer, 1. 34 ff.
17. H.E. iv. 10, 11.
18. Ibid, iii. 19
19. H.C.Y. [The Historians of the Church of York and its Archbishops, ed. J. Raine. 3 vols., 1879-94] 1. xxxiv. See also Plummer, 11. 315 ff.
20. These two miracles were usually added by the scribes to the various manuscripts of the Prose Life.
21. See Stevenson [J. Stevenson, Ven. Baedae opera historica Minora. 2 vols. 1841] ii. 284.
22. H.E. iv. 30, 31.
23. Ibid. i. 7.
24. Ibid i. 18.
25. Ibid. ii. 2.
26. H.E. v. 2.
27. Vit Cuth. xxx.
28. Ibid. xxv, xxix.
29. Ibid. xxx.
30. Ibid. xxxi.
31. Ibid. xxiii.
32. H.E. i. 17.
33. Ibid. iii. 15.
34. Ibid v. 1.
35. Ibid i. 7.
36. Vit. Cuth. xviii.
37. Ibid, v, vii, xi, xii.
38. Ibid. xxxv.
39. It is true that he described Dryhthelm as having been restored to life, but this was without the intervention of a saint and necessarily precedes the account of his vision of the life beyond.
40. H.E. v. 3.
41. St. Luke viii.
42. H.E. v. 4.
43. Vit Cuth. xxv, xxix.
44. Eddius, [The Life of Bishop Wilfrid by Eddius Stephanus: text, translation and notes by B. Colgrave. Cambridge, 1927] xxxvii.
45. Vit Cuth. xii.
46. Ibid. xi.
47. Ibid. vii.
48. Ibid. v.
49. Euripides, Bacchae, 704-11.
50. Quoted by H. Günter, Die christliche Legende des Abendlandes, Heidelberg, 1910, p. 96.
51. Vit. Cuth. xviii.
52. See Günter, op. cit., p. 58.
53. H.E. iii. 15. The phrase 'to cast oil on troubled waters' can scarcely be derived from this incident as is usually asserted. The idea was widespread and goes back as far as Aristotle. See Plutarch, Moralia (De primo frigido), xiii. 5.
54. H.E. iv. 23.
55. Ibid iii. 14.
56. Ibid. iii. 22.
57. Vit. Cuth. xxiv, and compare ch. viii.
58. Ibid. xxiv.
59. H.E. iv. 3. The 'loving guest' was his brother Cedd, as is explained in the latter part of the same chapter.
60. Ibid. iii. 8.
61. Ibid iv. 11.
62. Ibid v. 19.
63. Eddius, lvi.
64. H.E. iv. 8, 9.
65. The Stonyhurst Gospel was once supposed to be this very manuscript; but Baldwin Brown (vi. 8) pointed out that the Stonyhurst MS. has not seven but twelve gatherings.
66. Vit. Cuth. viii.
67. H.E. iv. 26.
68. Isaiah xxxviii. The passage is actually quoted by Eddius (c. lvi) in his account of Wilfrid's vision at Meaux. Possibly Ps. xxxix. 4 and similar passages may have influenced the belief.
69. H.E. i. 7.
70. Stevenson, ii. 282, 283 (chaps. 44, 45). For the whole subject of the equivalents of martyrdom cf. H. Delehaye, Sanctus, Brussels, 1927, pp. 109 ff.; L. Gougaud, Devotional and Ascetic Practices, London, 1927, pp. 205-23.
71. H.E. iv. 3.
72. Ibid. iv. 23.
73. Ibid. Plummer (ii. 248) sees an apparent contradiction between this story and the account in the same chapter of how Hild called the nuns together to deliver her dying exhortation. But surely the explanation is that the nun who saw the vision was a novice and would therefore be separated from the others present at the death of the abbess.
74. H.E. iii. 8.
75. Vit. Cuth. iv.
76. Ibid, xxxiv; Vit. Metr. xxxi.
77. H.E. iv. 9.
78. Ibid v. 12.
79. Ibid iii. 19.
80. Ibid v. 13.
81. Ibid. v. 14.
82. Republic, Book 10, 614 B.
83. P. Saintyves, En Marge de la Légende Dorée, Paris, 1930, ch. iv. See the whole chapter on which the above account is based. See also Plummer, ii. 294.
84. Sulpicius Severus, Vita Martini, vii.
85. Gregory, Dialogues, iv. 36.
86. H.E. v. 12.
87. Ibid ii. 9.
88. H.E. ii. 13.
89. Vit. Cuth. xxiii.
90. Acts xix. 12.
91. See p. 37 above.
92. H.E. i. 18.
93. Ibid. i. 29.
94. Ibid iii. 29.
95. Ibid i. 30.
96. Usually identified with Oswestry. See Plummer, ii. 152.
97. H.E. iii. 9.
98. Ibid. iii. 10.
99. The monks of Bardney never afterwards closed their doors to any stranger. Hence the Lincolnshire proverbial saying to a person who leaves the door open: 'You come from Bardney, do you?'
100. H.E. iii. 12.
101. This head was afterwards transferred to Durham with Cuthbert's body and is probably the skull that was found within the innermost coffin when the tomb was opened up in 1827. See Raine, St. Cuthbert, 187.
102. The body, however, was translated about 909 from Bardney, which had been laid waste by the Danes in 876, to St. Oswald's at Gloucester. See Trans. Bris. and Glouc. Archaeol. Soc. xliii. 89.
103. H.E. iii. 6.
104. Ibid. iii. 13.
105. Ibid. i. 33.
106. Ibid. iv. 7.
107. Ibid. v. 10.
108. Ibid. iii. 17.
109. Vit. Cuth. xli.
110. H.E. iii. 17.
111. Ibid. iv. 6.
112. Ibid. v. 18.
113. Ibid. iv. 3.
114. Ibid. iv. 10.
115. The coffin was probably a Roman one. Compare the white marble sarcophagus found in Clapton and now in the Guildhall Museum: see Royal Commission on Historical Monuments, Roman London, p. 164 and pl. 57.
116. H.E. iv. 19.
117. Ibid. iv. 11.
118. Ibid. iv. 30.
119. Ibid. iv. 31.
120. Vit. Cuth. xliv.
121. Vit. Cuth. xlvi.
122. Ibid. xli.
123. Quintus Curtius, x. 10. Quoted by Saintyves, op. cit. 284.
124. Pausanias, v. 20.
125. H.E. iii. 8. For a discussion of the natural causes which may lead to the uncorruptness of the body see Saintyves, op. cit. 284 ff.
126. H.E. iii. 19.
127. Vit. Cuth. xlii.
128. Saintyves, op. cit. 306 ff.
129. Ibid. 286.
130. Scott, Lay of the Last Minstrel, canto ii. 19.
131. H.E. iii. 8.
132. Ibid. iii. 19.
133. Ibid. iv. 19.
134. Ibid. iv. 30.
135. Quoted in Raine, St. Cuthbert, 38.
136. H.E. i. 7.
137. Ibid. iv. 22.
138. Ibid. v. 10.
139. Vit. Cuth, xix.
140. Ibid. xx.
141. Ibid. x.
142. Ibid. xxi.
143. Ibid. xix.
144. Ibid. xvii.
145. Quoted by Günter, op. cit. 171.
146. H.E. preface, ad fin.
147. Ibid. i. 26.
148. Ibid. ii. 2.
149. Ibid. iii. 19.
150. Ibid. iv. 30.
151. Ibid. ii. I.
152. Ibid. iv. 25.
153. Cf. Plummer, i, p. lxiv.
154. Vit Metr. pref.
155. Vit Cuth. ii.
156. Ibid. xxi.
157. Cf. for instance ch. iv, v with the corresponding chapters in the Anonymous Life.
158. St. Luke x. 20.
159. H.E. i. 31.
160. Giles [Opera Ven. Baedae quae supersunt, ed. J. A. Giles. 12 vols. 1843-4] x. 261; Gregory, Hom. in Evang. xxix, P.L. lxxvi. 1215.
161. Giles, vii. 27, Vit. Cuth. xxi.
162. Analecta Bollandiana, xxxviii. 77.
163. We have to remember, too, that Bede knew and used Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History and Rufinus' translation and continuation of it. So he may have been deliberately modelling his own history upon these works, in which the hagiographical element is kept in the background.