(i) PERSONS MIRACULOUSLY CURED
In dealing with mediæval miracles it may not unnaturally be objected that we are wandering from the paths of history into the fields of fiction; but it is absolutely necessary to allude to them at some length because they played so important a part in the romantic tales of pilgrim-patients. We shall see that sufferers were constantly being carried about in search of cure, and in some cases were undoubtedly restored to health. This was an age of faith and therefore of infinite possibilities. It would appear that “marvels” were worked not only on certain nervous ailments, but on some deep-seated diseases. It is a recognized fact that illness caused by emotion (as of grief) has oftentimes been cured by emotion (as of hope). Possibly, too, not a few of the persons restored to health were suffering from hysteria and nervous affections, which complaints might be cured by change of scene and excitement. In the Book of the Foundation is the story of a well-known man of Norwich who would not take care of his health, and therefore “hadde lost the rest of slepe,” which alone keeps the nature sound and whole. His p093 insomnia became chronic, and by the seventh year of his misfortune he became very feeble, and so thin that his bones could be numbered. At length he betook himself to the relics of St. Bartholomew; there, grovelling on the ground, he multiplied his prayers and began to sleep—“and whan he hadde slepte a grete while he roys up hole.”
[♦ ] 14. ST. BARTHOLOMEW
(Twelfth-century seal)
On the other hand the conviction is forced upon us that many, perhaps most, of the so-called miracles were not genuine. Some diseases might have been feigned by astute beggars. Although experienced doctors and skilled nurses to-day are quick to detect cases, cleverly simulating paralysis, epilepsy, etc., the staff in a mediæval hospital would probably not discover the deception. When one such person became the hero of a dramatic scene of healing, the officials would joyfully acknowledge his cure, without intention of fraud. The narratives come down to us through monk-chroniclers, whose zeal for their home-shrines made them lend a quick ear to that which contributed to their fame. In those days people were uncritical and were satisfied without minute investigation.
There is, indeed, little information about early hospital inmates unless they were fortunate enough to receive what was universally believed in those days to be miraculous p094 healing. Startling incidents are related by contemporary writers, whose vivid and picturesque narratives suggest that they had met witnesses of the cures related. The twelfth-century chronicler of St. Bartholomew’s, Smithfield, gives us eyes to see some of the patients of that famous hospital.
(1) Patients of St. Bartholomew’s.—The cripple Wolmer, a well-known beggar who lay daily in St. Paul’s, was a most distressing case. He was so deformed as to be obliged to drag himself along on all fours, supporting his hands on little wooden stools. (Cf. Pl. XX.) His story is extracted from Dr. Norman Moore’s valuable edition of the faithful English version of the Liber Fundacionis, dating about the year 1400.
“There was an sykeman Wolmer be name with greuous and longe langoure depressid, and wrecchid to almen that hym behylde apperyd, his feit destitute of naturall myght hyng down, hys legges cleuyd to his thyis, part of his fyngerys returnyd to the hande, restynge alwey uppon two lytyll stolys, the quantite of his body, to hym onerous, he drew aftir hym. . . .”
For thirty winters Wolmer remained in this sad condition, until at length he was borne by his friends in a basket to the newly-founded hospital of St. Bartholomew, where his cure was wrought by a miracle as he lay extended before the altar in the church:—