Traces the journey from ill health to miraculous cure through the lens of hagiographical texts from twelfth-century England. The cults of the saints were central to the medieval Church. These holy men and women acted as patrons and protectors to the religious communities who housed their relics and to the devotees who requested their assistance in petitioning God for a miracle. Among the collections of posthumous miracle stories, miracula, accounts of holy healing feature prominently and depict cure-seekers successfully securing their desired remedy for a range of ailments and afflictions. What can these miracle accounts tell us of the cure-seekers' experiences of their journey from ill health to recovery, and how was healthcare presented in these sources? This book aims to answer these questions via an in-depth study of the miraculous cure-seeking process, considering Latin miracle accounts produced in twelfth-century England, a time both when saints' cults flourished and there was an increasing transmission and dissemination of classical and Arabic medical works. Focused on seven shorter miracula (including Eadmer of Canterbury's Miracula S. Dunstani and Thomas of Monmouth's Vita et Passione S. Wilelmi Martyris Norwicensis) with a predominantly localised appeal, and thus on a select group of cure-seekers - including Abbot Osbert of Notley who suffered from an eye complaint, Leofmaer the bedridden knight, and Gaufrid who experienced a bad tooth extraction - the volume brings together studies of healthcare and pilgrimage, looking at the alternative to secular medical intervention and the practicalities and processes of securing saintly assistance.

About the Author
RUTH J. SALTER is a Lecturer in Medieval History at the University of Reading.

Reviews
Salter's book will be valuable to medievalists for thoughtful close reading of texts, well-situated in relevant historiography. [...] the careful analysis in Salter's work will make it useful to medievalists, and its engagement with broader questions should enable scholarly comparison with the experiences of cure-seekers in other historical periods and today. -- BULLETIN OF THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE
[A] masterclass in unpacking all that the rich genre of miracula has to offer. -- H-NET REVIEWS
[Accessible] and appealing to informed non-specialists and subject experts, as well as to students of this period [...]. Through this extraordinary lens of the miraculous, we catch a glimpse of mundane. -- SOCIAL HISTORY OF MEDICINE
Salter should be commended for doing so much with sources that are, by their very nature, formulaic and not particularly forthcoming with narrative detail. [...] her book is packed with demographic data that historians of medieval English medicine will find useful. Armed with this data and a handful of compelling miracle stories, she constructs a comprehensive picture of the journey from suffering to health for cure-seekers in twelfth-century England. -- THE MEDIEVAL REVIEW (TMR)
Salter's study is particularly commendable for offering thick description of the learned medical culture and spatial context in which the narratives were produced; indeed, chapters 2, 5, and 6 would make worthwhile introductions to their respective topics for use in undergraduate classrooms. * SPECULUM *
Her [Ruth Salter's] book does provide a thoughtful commentary on her chosen miracle collections, perhaps especially welcome for those-from Burton and Coldingham-edited and translated in the past twenty years. -- James G. Clark * JOURNAL OF ENGLISH AND GERMANIC PHILOLOGY *



Book Information
ISBN 9781914049002
Author Ruth J. Salter
Format Hardback
Page Count 262
Imprint York Medieval Press
Publisher York Medieval Press
Weight(grams) 1g