Milagre Medieval

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R pr s n ing Wond r in M di vaMirac Narra iv s

Axel Rth

In a certain sense, Christian miracle narratives can be considered asearly precursors o the modern antastic. Many o the moti s re erredto in nineteenth-century antastic tales and novels are already to be

ound in medievalmiracula and mirabilia : strange natural phenomena, werewolves and revenants, the battle between good and evil. Obviousparallels can also be ound on the level o structural confguration,such as the reproduction o certain narrative patterns in the Frenchnovella.1

While the antastic has been more or less defned as a distinctivegenre, its main medieval precursor, themerveilleux chrtien , is a moreheterogeneous phenomenon. It seems appropriate to consider it asa exible set o patterns and themes, appearing in di erent sortso texts and in di erent pragmatic contexts, such as hagiographies,sermons and miracle collections. Miracles can be unctionalized asan argument or Christian belie , as a proo o the sanctity and the virtue o a person or a relic, or as a didactic means in order to impressand to convince an audience o a theological message. Thus, miraclestories do not constitute a genre, but rather a set o textual elements,

MLN 126 Supplement (2011): S89S114 2011 by The Johns Hopkins University Press

1See e.g. Ilse-Nolting-Hau , Die antastische Erzhlung als Trans ormation religiserErzhlgattungen (am Beispiel von Thophile GautiersLa Morte amoureuse ), Romantik.Aufbruch zur Moderne , ed. K. Maurer and W. Wehle (Mnchen: Fink, 1991) 73100,here 87: Soweit sie nicht au die Volkssage rekurriert, ist die Fantastik des rhen19. Jahrhunderts nmlich zum grten Teil ein trans ormiertesmerveilleux chrtien . AlsLie erant diesesmerveilleux kommen vor allem Heiligenvita und Mirakel in Frage (wir vermeiden hier die zu um assende und daher irre hrende Bezeichnung Legende), wobei das Mirakel im Vordergrund steht.


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susceptible o appearing in di erent textual and pragmatic contexts.2 They cannot be read without explicitly taking their unction within alarger textual ensemble into account.

Another important di erence between modern and medieval taleso the supernatural concerns the opposition o (modern) fction and(pre-modern) non-fction: antastic tales are based on the principle o narrative verisimilitude. Todorovshsitation 3 would not be conceivable without the category o the implicit reader ollowing the mysteries andperipeties o the story, vacillating between a natural and a supernaturalexplanation o the related events. Thehsitation indicates a textuale ect and there ore frst o all concerns not the character on thediegetic level, but the reader. That is completely di erent in medievalmiracle narratives: as non-autonomous components o a non-literary discourse, miracles are not subject to the logic o verisimilitude but rather to the logic o the exemplum. There are no mysteries aside

rom the ones explained in terms o theology. Furthermore, thesetexts do not have an implicit reader:4 signifcation is made explicit.It is not necessary to search or it by interpreting a textual structure. Accordingly, unlike thehsitation and the thrills coming along with

it, wondering is named explicitly, but can hardly be described as thee ect o a textual structure.5

2This defnition is widely accepted since the 1970s. See e.g. Hand D. Oppel, Exempelund Mirakel,Archiv ft Kulturgeschichte 58 (1976): 96114; Karin Fuchs,Zeichen und Wunder bei Guibert de Nogent. Kommunikation, Deutungen und Funktionalisierungen von Wundererzhlungen im 12. Jahrhundert (Mnchen: Oldenburg Verlag, 2008).

3Tzvetan Todorov,Introduction la littrature fantastique (Paris: Seuil, 1970). Vauchezargues convincingly that the notion o antastic does not exist in the Middle Ages,and even or the marvellous (merveilleux) one cannot fnd any correspondent spiritualor intellectual category (Andr Vauchez, Conclusion,Miracles, prodiges et merveilles au Moyen Age (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 1995) 31726. This position is incomplete agreement with the one to be ound in Jacques Le Go , Le Merveilleuxdans lOccident mdival,LImaginaire medieval (Paris: Gallimard, 1985) 1739, here:28, and Paul Zumthor, Essai de potique mdivale (Paris: Le Seuil Points Essais, 1972).

4Compare Paul Zumthor, Essai de potique mdivale 170 (although with re erence tothe novel): Mais il ny a plus, dans le texte mdival tel que nous le connaissons, delecteur implicite: il y a nous, par-del une distance de tant de sicles.

5There is an abundance o research dealing with the trans ormation o medieval (andreligious) storytelling into literary storytelling. The most representative case might bethe trans ormation o the Christian exemplum into the genre o the novella, i.e. thechange rom Christian didactics to sel -su fcient literariness. Among the more recent

contributions see particularly Niklaus Largier, Diogenes von Sinopegeistlich und weltlich. Zugleich ein Diskussionsbeitrag zum Verhltnis von Exempel und Novelle,Geistliches in weltlicher und Weltliches in geistlicher Literatur des Mittelalters , ed. ChristophHuber, Burghart Wachinger and Hans-Joachim Ziegler (Tbingen: Niemeyer, 2000)291304. A good though brie survey is to be ound in Claude Cazal-Brard, L Exemplum et la nouvelle,Les Exempla mdivaux: Nouvelles perspectives , ed. Jacques Berlioz and Marie Anne Polo de Beaulieu (Paris: Honor Champion, 1998) 2942.


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In what ollows I would like to examine how miraculous events andthe eelings they arouse (astonishment, wondering, terror, delight)are represented in two di erent hagiographic texts,Virtutes sanctae Geretrudis and the Libellus de miraculo sancti Martini , and also the De miraculis libri duo by Petrus Venerabilis. But be ore commenc-ing with this, the central notions o this line o argument shall becommented on: what is a miracle in the Middle Ages, and whichare the text types it appears in?6 For marvels and miracles are not reduced to merely textual existence, they are phenomena peoplebelieved in. While the modernmerveilleux is an esthetic category, themedievalmerveilleux is a mental category,7 and has been discussedand problematized as such.

Miracle and Wonder

Broaching the issue o saints, miracles and relics, but also o ghostsand revenants, we have to recognize that, in the Middle Ages, believ-ing in these phenomena was absolutely normal and a part o everyday

6Robert Bartlett,The Natural and the Supernatural in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: UP,2008), 134; Gabriela Signori,Wunder. Eine historische Einfhrung (Frank urt/New York:Campus, 2007); Michael E. Goodich,Miracles and Wonders: The Development of the Concept of Miracle , 11501350 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007);Mirakelberichte des frhen und hohen Mittelalters , ed. Klaus Herbers, Lenka Jirouskova and Bernhard Vogel (Darmstadt: WBG,2005) 117; Maria Wittmer-Busch and Constanze Rendtel,Miracula. Wunderheilungen im Mittelalter. Eine historisch-psychologische Annherung (Kln a.o.: Bhlau, 2003); MartinHeinzelmann and Klaus Herbers, Zur Ein hrung,Mirakel im Mittelalter. Konzeptionen, Erscheinungsformen, Deutungen , ed. Martin Heinzelmann, Klaus Herbers and Dieter R.

Bauer (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2002) 921; Dennis Quinn,Iris Exiled. A Synoptic History of Wonder (Lanham, MD: UP o America, 2002); Lorraine Daston/Katharine Park,Wonder and the Order of Nature. 1150 1750 (New York: Zone Books, 2001); Lorraine Daston,Wunder, Beweise und Tatsachen. Zur Geschichte der Rationalitt (Frank urt/M.: Fischer, 2001);Carolyne W. Bynum, Miracles and Marvels: The Limits o Alterity,Vita Religiosa im Mit- telalter. Festschrift fr Kaspar Elm zum 70. Geburtstag , ed. Franz J- Felten and Nikolas Jaspert with the collaboration o Stephanie Haarlnder (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1999)799817; Arnold Angenendt, Wunder. A. Allgemein. Christlicher Westen,Lexikon des Mittelalters (Stuttgart a.o.: Metzler, 1998) vol. 9: 35153; Carolyne W. Bynum, Wonder,American Historical Review 102. 1 (1997) 126; Alain Dierkens, R exions sur le miracleau haut Moyen Age,Miracles, prodiges et merveilles au Moyen Age (Paris: Publicationsde la Sorbonne, 1995) 930; Fritz Wagner, Miracula, Mirakel,Lexikon des Mittelalters (Mnchen/Zrich: Artemis-Winkler, 1993) vol. 6: 65659; Benedicta Ward,Miracles and the Medieval Mind. Theory: Record and Event (Aldershot: Wildwood House, 1987).

7Laurence Har Lancner, Merveilleux et antastique dans la littrature du Moyen Age: une catgorie mentale et un jeu littraire, Dimensions du merveilleux/Dimensions of the Marvellous , ed. Juliette Frlich (Oslo: Universit dOslo, 1987)1 : 24356.


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li e.8 Natural phenomena, madness, battles, catastrophes, healingprocesseseverything could be interpreted as the intervention o God, and all these cases can be ound in miracle narratives. Froma present-day point o view, miracle narratives resemble abulousimaginary productions, but in their contemporary context they wereconsidered as true stories. The act that it was also possible to criticizea miracle as unbelievable9 is nothing but a proo o the truth-claim o these texts, written and told by churchly authorities (church athers,theologians, bishops, abbots, simple priests).

As in the Middle Ages there are no clear borderlines betweennotions such as world and beyond or between God and Nature,10 it is di fcult to di erentiate the terms that have been used in order todesignate events evoking wondering, even more or the Middle Agesaltogether.11 Especially be ore the twel th century, di erent terms wereused to designate phenomena evoking wonder.12In the twel th century,the vocabulary became more specialized:miracula became the term todesignate phenomena that were considered as contrary to or beyondnature. Between Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, miracles, signs and

8 Ward,Miracles and the Medieval Mind 12: Events called miracula permeated li eat every level; Jean-Pierre Torrell and Denise Bouthillier, Introduction, Pierre le Vnrable,Les Merveilles de Dieu . Present et traduit par Jean-Pierre Torrell et DeniseBouthillier (Fribourg/Paris: Editions Universitaires Fribourg/Editions du Cer ) 147,here 45: Ce monde, o le merveilleux est pour ainsi dire chose naturelle, est caractrisen premier lieu par lirruption quasi continu de lau-del dans len-de. Le lieu concret dans lequel il devient perceptible est prcisment lunivers imaginal des songes et des visions. Di rent de lunivers des ralits sensibles dont il na pas la consistance, maisassez proche de lui pour en pouser les lois et les conventions, ce monde imaginal est assez rel pour que lhomme y rencontre aussi bien ses terreurs que ses espoirs, desenseignements autant que des exemples; Jacques Le Go , Le Merveilleux 26: Cest peut-tre ce quil y a de plus inquitant dans ce merveilleux mdival, le ait justement quon ne sinterroge pas sur sa prsence sans couture au sein du quotidien; Lutz E. von Padberg, Die Verwendung von Wundern in der rhmittelalterlichen Predigtsitu-ation,Mirakel im Mittelalter , 7794, here: 81.

9Bynum: Wonder 9; Signori:Wunder 2839.10Dierkens, R exions sur le miracle au haut Moyen Age 11.11Der Begri miraculum war schon im M[ittelalter] derart komplex, da die

Forsch[ung] bis heute noch nicht zu einer erschp enden Theorie oder gar allgemein-gltigen Eidologie desMirakels gelangte. Auch die im A[lten Testament] rmiraculum verwandten Bezeichnungen signa,virtus , prodigia , mirabilia , paradoxa sind r eineDefnition wenig hil reich. (F. Wagner, Miracula, Mirakel, 656).

12

In the early Middle Ages expressions such as sign, portent, mystery, monster(monstrumliterally, something that shows or points), tended to be used interchange-ably withmirabilia (wonders or marvels) andmiracula (miracles). A wonder wassomething that was great or di fcult o accomplishment, unusual or beyond the ordinary;it was something that startled, that engendered awe or terror; it was something that beckoned, pointed beyond itsel . (Bynum, Miracles and Marvels 802).


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wonders are not discussed to a large extent. The reason or that may be ound, as Benedicta Ward explains, in the act that miracles wereso closely woven into the texture o Christian experience that there was no incentive to examine or explain the presuppositions that lay behind them.13 This changed in the twel th century when the interest in the concept o nature increased.14

The most important distinction developing since is the one betweenmirabilia (marvels) andmiracula (miracles). What both have in com-mon is the evocation o wonder and astonishment, themirabilia towards things we do not understand, themiracula towards actionso God beyond or contrary to nature ( praeter/contra naturam ). Themarvellous can have many di erent reasons whereas the miraculouscan only have one. A marvel is generally something extraordinary,but not contrary to nature, whereas a miracle designates an interven-tion by God.15 Gervase o Tilbury draws a clear distinction betweenmiracula and mirabilia :

Ex hiis, duo proueniunt: miracula et mirabilia, cum utrorumque fnis sit admiratio. Porro miracula dicimus usitatius que preter naturam diuineuirtuti ascribimus, ut cum uirgo parit, cum Lazarus resurgit, cum lapsa

membra reintegrantur. Mirabilia uero dicimus quae nostre cognicioni nonsubiacent, etiam cum sunt naturalia; sed et mirabilia constituit ignorantiareddende rationis quare sic sit.16

13 Ward,Miracles and the Medieval Mind 12.14The texts that shall be read in this article are a case in point: theVirtutes Sanctae

Geretrudis (around 800) and theLibellus de miraculo sancti Martini (early ninth century)do not yet scrutinize the notion o miracle itsel , whereas later authors o miracle nar-

ratives like Gervase o Tilbury and Caesarius o Heisterbach have a more precise ideao it. For Albertus Magnus and, particularly, or Thomas Aquinas, the violation o thelaws o nature becomes the central aspect o the notion o miracle.

15Le surgissement inopin du divin dans le monde des hommes [. . .], une intru-sion du numineux, dunumen , sur terre (Dierkens, R exions sur le miracle au haut Moyen Age 11).

16From these causes arise two things, miracles and marvels, though they both result in wonderment. Now we generally call those things miracles which, being preternatural, we ascribe to divine power, as when a virgin gives birth, when Lazarus is raised romthe dead, or when diseased limbs are made whole again; while we call those thingsmarvels which are beyond our comprehension, even though they are natural: in act the inability to explain why a thing is so constitutes a marvel. The examples he thengives are taken exclusively rom Augustines De civitate Dei : the salamander living inthe fre, the volcanoes on Sicily, the peacock meat that does not decaythey all makeclear that mirabilia tend to deal with phenomena rather than with stories. (Gervase o Tilbury,Otia Imperialia. Recreation for an Emperor , ed. and tr. S. E. Banks and J. W. Binns[Ox ord: Clarendon, 2002] 55899).


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The distinction betweenmirabilia und miracula is not only onebetween phenomena, but also between textual genres. Althoughboth terms have the same origin, they belong to di erent textualtraditions, characterized by di erent conceptions o admiratio , dueto two di erent attitudes towards nature:17 admiration in ace o thenon-understandable in themirabilia produces astonishmentnot because the order o nature is disturbed but because the reasons or aphenomenon are unclear, whereasmiracula exceptionally abolish theorder o nature. As to the history o knowledge, the wondering o themirabilia , however abulous these stories and descriptions might be,belongs to the sphere o curiositas : it is a philosophical wondering.18 The wondering o themiracula is di erent: it shall createadmiratio o the saints virtues.

Jacques Le Go 19points out that mirabilia andmiracula have the sameetymological root mir(ari) , re erring to a visual aspect o the relevant phenomena.20 He distinguishes three distinctive adjectives or thetwel th and thirteenth century:mirabilis , magicus and miraculosus . Here,mirabilis re ers to the supernatural with origins in pre-Christian, paganantiquity.Magicus designates the satanic supernatural, whereas the

actual Christian supernatural, an action achieved by God, is re erredto by the term o miraculosus . Whilemirabilis is nearly the exact anal-ogon o todaysmerveilleux , miraculosus expresses the attempt o thechurch to control and to domesticate the feld o themerveilleux . Themiraculous had to be detached rom phenomena o superstition, asthe Christian supernatural was to have only one author: God. System-atizations like in ThomasSumma theologiae are a case in point. Thefrst two texts to be analysed here belong to what Le Go calls thefrst period: the early Middle Ages (f th to eleventh century) are, so it

seems, characterized by the denegation o themerveilleux as somethingpagan. The systematic problem o the Christian miracle consists inthe need to eradicate the unpredictability o the event. I everything,

17 Jean-Claude Schmitt,Les Revenants. les vivants et les morts dans la socit mdivale (Paris:Gallimard, 1994) 7778, 99100; Bynum, Wonder; Bynum: Miracles and Marvels.

18Curiositas. Welterfahrung und sthetische Neugierde in Mittelalter und frher Neuzeit ,ed. Klaus Krger (Gttingen: Wallstein, 2003); Lorraine Daston,Wunder, Beweise und

Tatsachen.19For the ollowing: Le Go , Le Merveilleux 1728.20The verbadmirare has the same root, and has there ore o ten to be translated as

visual astonishment, despite its semantic closeness to the modern admire. (See Fran-ois Pouliot,La Doctrine du miracle chez Thomas dAquin. Deus in imnibus intime operator (Paris: Vrin, 2005) 73.


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argues Le Go , even the irregular, depends on the will o the oneand only God and there ore becomes regular, the supernatural losesone o its undamental properties: the ability to evoke astonishment. As already mentioned above, miracles and marvels are closely linkedto visual perception. Apparition is o constitutive importance oritbut is, according to Le Go , nevertheless increasingly banished

rom miracle narratives.21 Miracle narratives indeed seem to be characterized by the paradox

that wonder and astonishmentdespite being named over and overagainvery o ten remain absent. We fnd most requently an auto-matic conception o miracle: someone has a problem, prays, is helpedby a saint, whose outstanding excellence is proved. This conceptionis due to the argumentative dimension o miracles, as a proo o thedevoutness and sanctity o the hero, or as an argument, or instance,

or the commeration o the dead in the case o the De miraculis libri duo by Peter the Venerable.

Pragmatic Contexts

I one agrees with Le Go (and others), during the Middle Ages wecan observe a development towards the domestication o the super-natural by means o interpreting it according to Christian moralmessages, i.e. by turning the multi aceted marvellous into a specifcmiraculous. Such miracles appear in di erent text genres, such aslegendaries,Passiones , Virtutes , Translationes , Vitae . These texts were very o ten written at the same places where saints and their relics were venerated. In the course o the ecclesiastical re orms o the eleventhcentury, the criteria o canonization became more severe: the written vita had to prove that a nominee or sainthood had lived a devout li eand, eventually, worked wonders during his or her li etime. Peopleseem to have been immensely interested inmiracula post mortem : i nomiracles happened at the saints tomb, people even re used to accept a dead person as a saint. Until the twel th century, canonization was

21Dans la mesure o le miracle sopre par les intermdiaires que sont les saints, lessaints sont placs dans une telle situation que lapparition du miracle par leur entremiseest prvisible. Je crois percevoir, malgr les mutations et les ressources de lhagiographie,une sorte de lassitude croissante chez les hommes du Moyen ge vis--vis des saintsdans la mesure o, partir du moment o un saint apparat, on sait ce quil va aire.Ds quil se trouve dans une situation on sait quil va procder une multiplicationdu pain, quil va ressusciter, quil va exorciser un dmon. La situation tant donne,on sait ce qui va se passer. Il y a tout un processus dvacuation du merveilleux (LeGo , Le Merveilleux 23).


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ruled by thevox populi , but by the end o the century, it became aninstitutional right claimed by the pope. Miracles were an essentialcondition o canonization. One can easily understand that underthese conditions wondering is not o great importance. As ar as therepresentation o wondering is concerned, other hagiographic genres,most o all sermons and edifcation books, are more promising as thesetexts are more susceptible to producing an e ect on their audiences.

In hagiographic texts, saints do not appear as individuals but asrepresentatives o Christian truths, norms and virtues. One text typeis there ore o particular importance or a description o the textual

unctionality o miracles: the exemplum. Its main lieu are sermons,but moral edifcation, and thus the logic o the exemplum, is a cen-tral issue o all hagiographic text genres. This becomes evident when we take a closer look at the interrelation between hagiography andhistoriography:

Die Hagiographie zielt zwar ober chlich gesehen wie die Historiographieau dieres gestae ab, verweist im Gegensatz zu dieser aber darber hinausau die O enbarung, au das Jenseits, indem sie den Helden, den Mrtyrer,zum Exemplum, zum Beispielha ten und Reprsentativen gerinnen lsst.22

In hagiography, the individual historical case o a holy person is alwayssimultaneously exemplary, i.e. a message concerning salvation history.It is realbut it is also a moral lesson, it is a act and a sign at once.

The Saints Li e contains two major elements. On the one hand, the histo-rian who writes about a saint writes, as did the New Testament writers, frst o all convinced o the plain existence o his subject. In nearly all saintslives there are historical details o names and places and dates and they are important because Christianity is not a myth, a philosophy or a moral

code; it is based on frm historical moments o living and dying in a timeand place. [. . .]But secondly, on the other hand, Christianity is not simply about the

historical Jesus and hagiography is not just about historical fgures. [ . . . ]The writers o saints lives [. . .] are concerned to show the work o God within a human li e as it relates to the person o Christ, and that willinclude both accounts o the breaking through o divinity in the orm o prophetic signs at his birth, o miracles as well as virtues during his li e, o the inner relationship he has through prayer with Christ. The miracles are

22Hedwig Rckelein, Das Gewebe der Schri ten. Historographische Aspekte derkarolingerzeitlichen Hagiographie Sachsens,Hagiographie im Kontext. Wirkungsweisen und Mglichkeiten historischer Auswertung , ed. Dieter R. Bauer and Klaus Herbers (Stuttgart:Steiner 2000) 125, here: 3.


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not seen or presented as miracula, things to be wondered at, but underthe biblical word signa, as signs o a new reality. Prayer or a saint, as orChrist, is the very centre o its being, not a pious extra.23

Just as miracles do not constitute a homogenous genre, the exemplumdoes not have the status o a genre.24 It should rather be called a unc-tional element,25 a rcit bre donn comme vridique et destin treinsr dans un discours (en gnral un sermon) pour convaincre unauditoire par une leon salutaire.26 O course, the pragmatic context in which an exemplum might be embedded does not need to be asermon; it can also be a part o an edifcation text, like the De miraculis

libri duo or the Dialogus miraculorum by Caesarius o Heisterbach. TheChristian exemplum is, frst, a narrative re erring to a truth existingautonomously and outside o the text, and second, it tells exemplary events rom which the audience shall learn a moral lesson. As its aimis undoubtedly to convince those who read or listen, it can be calleda rcit e fcace.27 It is a

narrative Minimal orm, die einen abstrakten, theoretischen oder thesen-ha ten Textsinn konkret beleuchtet (illustrare ), die in diesem enthaltene Aussage induktiv beweist (demonstrare ) und damit sowohl eine dogmatischeoder didaktische Interpretationshil e scha t als auchje nach dem dasExemplum bestimmenden Kontextmit moralisierender Implikation zurBelehrung, Erbauung oder Unterhaltung des Rezipienten [ . . . ] beitrgt (delectare ). Ziel des Exemplumgebrauchs ist die au seiner berzeugungsk-ra t ( persuasio ) beruhende Au orderung, sich am beispielha ten Vorbild zuorientieren (imitatio ). Es ist keine eigene, r sich lebens hige literarischeGattung, sondern seit der Antike Teil einer aus der Gerichtsrede hervorge-gangenen Argumentationstechnik.28

23 Ward,Signs and Wonders xiixiii.24E.g. Heinzelmann and Herbers, Zur Ein hrung 15.25Rudol Schenda, Stand und Au gaben der Exempla orschung, Fabula 10 (1969):

6985; Oppel, Exempel und Mirakel; the research about exempla is abundant. Goodsurveys are to be ound in: Christoph Daxelmller, Art. Exemplum, Enzyklopdie des Mrchens. Handwrterbuch zur historischen und vergleichenden Erzhlforschung , ed. Kurt Ranke (Berlin a.o.: de Gruyter, 1984) 4: 62759; Gerd Dicke, Exemplum,Reallexikon der deutschen Literaturwissenschaft (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2007) 1: 53437; Markus Schrer, Das Exemplum oder die erzhlte Institution. Studien zum Beispielgebrauch bei den Dominikanerund Franziskanern des 13. Jahrhunderts (Berlin: LIT, 2005) 5166.26 Jacques Le Go , Claude Bremond and Jean-Claude Schmitt,LExemplum (Turnhout:Brepols, 1982), 3738.

27 Jacques Berlioz, Le Rcit e fcace: Lexemplum au service de la predication (XIIIeXV e sicle),Mlanges de lcole Franaise de Rome 92 (1980): 11346.

28Daxelmller, Art. Exemplum, 627.


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The pragmatic context is o great importance or what could be calledthe poetics o the miracle. Combining aspects o orm and o con-tent, I would suggest defning the miracle narrative as a simple narra-tive orm (exemplum) embedded into a variable pragmatic context,relating an event ul intervention o the supernatural interpreted ascoming rom God or at least with Gods consent.

Vita, Sermon, Miracle Book: Three Textual Examples

In theological terms, miracles mean an intervention o God, whereas

in miracle narratives, God rarely acts directly but uses a saint to act asintermediary between Him and humanity. On story level, there areonly human persons and the saint while God is to be ound on thediscourse level, i.e. in commentaries and explanations given by thenarrator. In the story, everything is centred on the situation and thesaint. I there is wonder, it is frst o all the wondering o witnesses

acing the miracle in its very directness. For them, it is not so muchGod who is helping, but the saint.

Miracle narratives can ulfl their unction as arguments and exempla

only when they a ord credibility, authenticity, plausibility. The questionis to know how miracle narratives aim at establishing these qualities,and how wondering and related emotions are integrated into thesetextual strategies. In what ollows I would like to present three exampleso miracles. The frst text are theVirtutes sanctae Geretrudis rom theearly seventh century, the second text is theLibellus de miraculo Sancti Martini written in the early tenth century,29 whereas the third one, the De miraculis libri duo by Petrus Venerabilis, di ers rom hagiography in so ar as it does not tell the deeds o saints.

Virtutes sanctae Geretrudis

Gertrude, (626659), daughter o Pippin the Elder, the Frankish- Autrasian Mayor o the Palace o Austrasia and Saint Itta or Idaberga,

29De virtutibus, quae acta sunt post discessum beate Geretrudis abatisse,Mirakelberi-

chte des Frhen und Hohen Mittelalters , ed. Klaus Herbers, Lenka Jiroukov and Bernhard Vogel (Darmstadt: WBG, 2005 = Ausgewhlte Quellen zur deutschen Geschichte desMittelalters. Freiherr-vom-Stein-Gedchtnisausgabe) 5467; Libellus de miraculo sanctiMartini auctore Radbodo episcopo Traiectensi,Mirakelberichte 128147. This edition isbilingual (Latin-German). All translations rom Latin to English o the passages quoted

rom this book are mine, consulting the German translation as a check.


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is a typical noble saint o the early Middle Ages.30 Until her deathshe was abbess o the Benedictine monastery o Nivelles ounded by her mother. The miracula post mortem o theVirtutes , written downanonymously around 700, ollow the also anonymousVita Geretrudis , written thirty years earlier.31 The Virtutes are a piece o Pippinid cult propaganda: the cult o Gertrude, one o the most popular saints inthe Middle Ages, began in Nivelles (Brabant) and, rom there, spreadall over central Europe. The text primarily aims at commemoratingand distributing the miracles worked by Gertrude. In con ormity withChristian cult propaganda, theVirtutes sanctae Geretrudis aim to proveGertrudess sanctity and the use ulness o praying to her.32 Thus, themiracles ulfl the unction o arguments.

The most striking aspect o theVirtutes sanctae Geretrudis is that anabundance o miracles goes together with an absence o wonderinga correlation which is astonishing only at frst glance and, indeed, acentral characteristic o the genre: miracle collections tend to resemblecatalogues o episodes proving thevirtus (the quality o the saint allow-ing him or her to work miracles).33 Though di erent terms designat-ing the miraculous are used interchangeably in medieval texts, it is

interesting to see that the termmiraculum is used only three times,and signa is used only once, whereasvirtus appears all over the text.Typical terms designating emotions evoked by miracles are completely lacking. Perterritus is used once, but in explicit negation.34 The pre-ponderance o virtus clearly shows that in this text, wondering is not

30 Andr Vauchez, Art. Heiligkeit, 2015.31Bernhard Vogel, Gertrud von Nivelles und dieVirtutes sanctae Geretrudis , Mirake-

lberichte 5153.32Idcirco apud omnipotentem dominum promeruisse mani estum est, ut post obitum eius non minimas feri per ipsam virtutes, quatenus, ut omnibus innotisceret,

qui vitam eius vel abstinentiam corporis agnoverunt, nossent nunc etiam, quantumapud deum obtinere precibus valead, cum virtutes, que dominus, si petentium fdesexigit, dignatus est ostendere ad sepulcrum eius, si aliqua exinde commemoramuset ad medium deducamus (Mirakelberichte 54). (She thus clearly deserves rom thealmighty God that important miracles are worked through her; so that all those whohave heard about her li e and her carnal abstinence also learn how much she canobtain rom God through prayers; that is the reason why we tell and commemoratesome o the miracles which God, weighing the aith o the praying, considered to be worth happening at her tomb.)

33While a living holy person had numerous ways in which to exercise virtus, suchas asceticism and teaching the monastic li e, the posthumous exercise o that virtus was virtually synonymous with miracles. (Thomas Head,Hagiography and the Cult of Saints. The Diocese of Orlans 8001200 [Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge UP, 2005] 183).The termvirtus here simultaneously designates the virtue o the saint and the miracle.

34Mirakelberichte 56.


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a part o the textual strategy. Instead, emphasis lies on the aspect o proo which creates a specifc aesthetics. As the miracles unctionas arguments, authenticity and credibility are more important issuesthan wondering.

As in many miracle narratives, witnesses and their senses, most o all visual perception, are o great importance, in act on di erent text levels. On the level o narration, the narrator fnishes his text with these words:

Et ne cui hoc incredibile ortasse videator, testem deum invoco, quod oculismeis vidi et per idoneos testes didici hoc quod scripsi.35

The scale o witnesses ranges between the absolutely highest point,God, and the lowest point, ordinary men. It urthermore comprisesthe author himsel , his in ormants (o which we do not know what makes them idoneos, but they are), but also Gertrude hersel asshe is perceived talking to the abbess in a vision. This hierarchy o testimonies corresponds to di erent text levels: on the level o thestory, ordinary people beneft rom miracles, but again and again, wit-ness, observe and even check the miraculous events: the two simplest episodes tell the stories o enchained men, one as a victim o criminalabductors, the other, deservedly, as a detainee, because he committedgreat crimes. Both episodes are examples o automatic miracles:the men pray to Gertrude, and the saint breaks the chains, regardlesso the mens actual innocence or guilt. Perception o or emotionstowards the miracle are not o any importance.36

In the third chapter the text relates a fre that broke out in themonastery ten years a ter Gertrudes death. The nuns and the monksdo not have any hope to stop it and ee, when suddenly a caretaker

observes a miracle:Tunc vir unus, cui cura monasterii commendata uerit regere, repenteelevans oculos suos, viditque sanctam Geretrudem stantem in summitatere ectorii in ipsa specie vel habitu, qua ipsa uit, et cum ipso velamine,

35Mirakelberichte 66. (I invoke God as a witness, that what I have written is what Ihave seen with my own eyes and what I have been told by adequate witnesses, so that nobody shall consider this as unbelievable.)

36

The only phrase dealing with ear does not concern the miracle but the imprison-ment (Mirakelberichte 62). Chapter 7 o theVirtutes resumes well the automatic principleo the miracle: [. . .] qui nomen eius cum fde invocantes, de quacumque tribulationeobpressi uissent, statim eis angelus domini ad uit adiutor. (Mirakelberichte 60) (Those who invoked her name aith ully, a icted by whatever disease, were helped immediately by the Angelus.)


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qua erat cooperta, semper iactabat ammam de domo. Ille autem vir tante visione non perterritus, sed gaudio magno repletus, suos sotios ortabatur,ut constanter agerent. Ipse autem cursu concito ascendens sursum, ut videret exitum rei. Tunc mirum in modum cumsubito viderunt liberatummonasterium in ipsa hora de incendio.37

The representation o Gertrudes sudden appearance is initially boundto the perspective o the man (repente elevans oculos suos), but then the vision apparently becomes a miraculous act that can beobserved by everybody (viderunt). What seems most striking is themans reaction: the miracle does not seem to impress him because

o its supernatural character, but rather delight him because help isso urgently needed (non perterritus, sed gaudio magno repletus). A ter having urged on the other helpers he runs up a hill in order tosee the outcome o the catastrophe. Moreover, the coherence o therelation between the last two sentencesas condensed by way o nar-rativity as they areis ar rom being plausible (in act, the man is theonly observer, the others working to extinguish the fre), unless they are meant to ulfl only one unction: to emphasize that the miraclehas been accurately observed by many and there ore is a proven act.

The frst miracle episode is o particular interest, as the spirit o verifcation completely eliminates the slightest glimpse o wonder-ing in the ace o the miracle. It is about a vision that is abundantly approved on several levels. Signifcantly, the miracle in itsel does not have any e ect other than its per ormativity as an enunciation: in a vision, Gertrude appears to Modesta, abbess o a monastery in Treves.38 A ter having prayed to the virgin, lying on the oor, she stands up,looks around and suddenly sees Saint Gertrude wearing the clothesshe used to wear alive, telling her: Soror Modesta, certam tene hanc visionem et sine ulla ambiguitate scias me hodie in hac eadem oraabsolutam de habitaculo carnis huius.39 The authority (abbess) and

37Mirakelberichte 5658. (A man who was in charge o the monastery as a caretakersuddenly raised his eyes and saw Saint Gertrude standing on the re ectory roo , in thesame shape and the same appearance that she had when she was alive, and with the veil she used to wear she drove away the ames rom the house. And yet the man wasnot at all rightened but ull o great joy about such a power ul vision, and he encour-aged his brethren to go on. He himsel , running ast, climbed on a hill top in order

to see how things would end. Then they saw how the monastery was saved rom thefre in a miraculous way.)38Mirakelberichte 5456.39Mirakelberichte 56. (Sister Modesta, take this vision or authentic, and you shall

know without ambiguity that today in this same hour I have been released rom my eshly dwelling.)


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name (Modesta) o the nun having the vision are already cases inpoint, but the strategy o authentication goes urther and becomes aserious inquiry: instead o being impressed, Modesta is quite rational:Tunc illa intra se tacite cogitabat, quid tanta visio debuisset feri40 and does not talk with anybody about what she has seen. The next day,Chlodul , the bishop o Metz, visits the monastery. Modesta benefts

rom the visit to ask the bishop what Gertrude looked like. As thebishop describes Gertrude in detail (clothes, body height, beauty),Modesta is assured the truth o her vision and tells the bishop what she has seen the other day around the sixth hour. The bishop takesdown the day and time and continues the inquiries started by Modesta,and fnds out that it happened exactly the way the abbess has toldhim. The abbess and the bishop, both reliable authorities via their

unctions, act as detectives. The successions o the conversations andthe introduction o external evidence by means o fnal investiga-tions carried out by the bishop ultimately exclude all possibility o doubt. But more than that, in contrast to the othervirtutes told inthe text, in this episode Gertrude hersel , in her discourse, broachesthe issue o argument and thus anticipates the ollowing process o

authentication. One searches in vain or terms likeadmiratio or stupor in the Virtutes sanctae Geretrudis . The narration is characterized by theabsence o rhetorical devices. The absence o wondering is a result o a bible-like stylistic baldness. The signifcation o this semanticzero might lie, besides stylistic traditions, in the textual strategy o authentication and credibility.

Libellus de miraculo Sancti Martini

The Virtutes serve as an example o the hagiographic use o miraclesas arguments. The most important aspect o miracles is thus not won-der, but testimony and proo . In the next text to be considered here,eyewitnesses are equally importantnot only because they prove themiracle. They are part o a ramework o wondering, thus making visual perception something more important than just a proo .

Radbod o Utrecht (d. 917) is reckoned an author o great literary education.41 He wrote homilies as well as religious poetries. His workis characterized by a high literary sel -awareness: hisLibellus de miraculo

40Mirakelberichte 56. (Now she meditated in silence what such a vision should havemeant)



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sancti Martini (beginning o the tenth century) is written in rhymedprose, and Radbod embedded the story o the miraculous de enceo the town o Tours against the Normans in 903 into a sermon-like

ramework. Radbod also later trans ormed this narrative into poemsand liturgical compositions, namely a Divine O fce in honour o Martin, literally quoting thelibellus . It is most probable that, in thecourse o this o fce, thelibellus should ulfl, as anexemplum , the

unction o a non-liturgical address.42 The author obviously wrote histext with the intention o making an audience wonder. More thanonly the proof and the argument he wants to establish aneffect . I shallstress our aspects o the text, which can be considered as important premises o the evocation o wonder: historical authenticity, the use o narrative speed, the enhanced importance o perception, and fnally,a rich vocabulary serving the description o wondering.

Radbod tells the story o how the relics o Saint Martin helped theinhabitants o Tours in the de ence o their town against the Normansin 903. The miraculous events are embedded into a ramework o historical acts, but be orehand, the author presents Tours as the townharbouring a amous gemstone o great importance or Christianity.

The allegorical description o the stone requires a f th o the wholetext. The way in which Radbod switches rom the description o thegemstone to the narration o the miracle is interesting in respect tothe distinction made between allegorical and non-allegorical discourse:

Verum ne diutius auditores simplices, quos magis propria quam fgu-rata delectant, a promissae relationis intelligentia suspendamus, nudamevidentemque hystoriam deinceps proftentes, ea quae hactenus tropicacircumlocutione de gemma memoravimus, ad corpus beatissimi Martini,quo patrocinante inter cuncta pericula tuti sumus, absque ambiguitatis

nebula re eramus.43

Radbod in this passage explicitly distinguishes allegorical aspects(fgurata) o his discourse rom the specifc (propria), rom thenaked and apparent story (nudam evidentemque hystoriam),adding that by doing so he is applying the allegorical speech about

42

Mirakelberichte 127.43Mirakelberichte 13436. (But we shall no longer keep waiting those simple auditors who enjoy the specifc more than the allegorical and tell them the promised relation; by o ering the bare and apparent story we want to adopt, without any nebulous ambiguity, what we have recorded in elaborate speech about the gemstone with re erence to thebody o the most holy Martin, under whose patronage we are sa e rom any danger.)


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the virtues o the gemstone (tropica circumlocutione de gemma)to the body o Saint Martinwithout any nebulous ambiguities (abs-que ambiguitatis nebula), he saysbut ambiguity is exactly what hismost eloquent discourse tries to establish: the events shall be bothnaked and meaning ul, an absorbingreal report and an edi yingtrue exemplum.

He then argues that Martins preciousness has been estimated ashigh as that o the gemstone by Gallus, Postumianus and Sulpicius,and goes on comparing Martins corpse to such amous men as Alex-ander the Great, Xerxes and Augustus, whose military success was worth nothing compared to the victories coming rom the saintsremains, which, though enclosed in a small altar, are stronger andpraiseworthy.44 Owning such precious relics makes Tours a town moredignifed than Alexandria, more amous than Carthage, more ertilethan the soil o Palestine, and richer than Tyre and Sidon. As in theVirtutes sanctae Geretrudis , the miracle is unctionalized as proo andargument, but with one di erence: in theVirtutes , serial miracles areused exclusively as such. Being an argument legitimizes them, whereasin the Libellus de miraculo sancti Martini , a single miracle narrative is in

the very center o the text, which thereby becomes more appropriateor dramaticampli catio .The historicity o the miraculous events is most o all a device in

order to increase the credibility o the message illustrated by theexemplum. The same ambiguity characterizes Radbods justifcationo how he treats the events:

His ita gestis ego quoque vitandi causa astidii sermonis fnem paulo post acturus, omnes opusculi huius lectores raterna voce praemoneo, ne me

idcirco contra fdem hystoriae ecisse calumnientur, quia quod insertumest eo ordine digessi, quo ama id disseminante didiceram; qua in re darimichi veniam obsecro. Habens tamen in promptu excusationem, quacalumnia re ellatur: Tanto enim spatio ecclesia Traiectensis, cui ego deoauctore deservio, ab urbe Turonica distat, ut vix quempiam reperire pos-sim, qui, dum res ageretur, se ibidem uisse totamque ut gesta est se vidissetestetur. Profteor autem me contra veritatem pugnaciter non egisse, cumin his quae michi incerta erant aliorum potius opinionem quam meamposuerim assertionem, ut sunt illa de primo adventu piratarum ad Galliasitemque de insania Danorum et de numero occisorum, quae omnia neca frmo nec abnego, sed scrutatoribus importunis inquirenda relinquo.Ceterum de victoria, quam dominus noster Iesus Christus per merita et



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praesentiam beati Martini Turonensibus concessit, nec ego quicquamdubito, nec quibuslibet aliis dubitandum esse assentior, quoniam quod deea relatum est probatissimo illustruium personarum testimonio compro-batum inexpugnabilem acit fdem dictorum.45

[O]b praesentium consolationem et uturorum the ollowing story is told: The Danish and the Swabian came to France (Gallia) anddestroyed the once paradise-like, ertile country. The Christians lost a shame ul number o battles against these Northman, and thereis a reason or that, Radbod argues: God did not want the ChristianGauls (who are also called sinners) to become physically and mor-

ally degenerate. As or the historical moment, this happened when our sons born rom the same ather were fghting each other, anindication allowing to date these events between 841 and 843, whenthe sons o Louis the Pious (in act, there, were only three o them:Lothar I, Louis II the German, and Charles the Bald) and Peppin IIo Aquitaine ought against each other. A ter sixty years in Gaul, theNormans decide to move towards Tours. The country around the town,and with it the monastery o Saint Martin, is completely devastated.The inhabitants, trembling with ear, close the gates and prepare

themselves to de end the city walls (starting with this moment, thespeed o the narration slows down, and the presentation shi ts towardsscenic). But they are only ew, and as they see that the Normansare many, they see their last chance in asking God and Saint Martin

or help. While a ew men remain on the walls, the clerks and thenon-fghting inhabitants assemble in the church around the tombo Saint Martin and start praying and lamenting (presented quite at

45

Mirakelberichte 14244 (A ter these events, and in order to avoid displeasure, I willfnish my sermon soon; all the readers o this small opus I admonish in brotherly voicenot to criticize me or having o ended the authenticity o the story; I have insertedeverything in the sequence I have heard the story and in which it was divulged; thereinI ask or clemency. But, in order to re ute calumniation I have a clear justifcation: Thechurch o Utrecht, where I am serving at Gods behest, is so ar away rom the city o Tours that I could barely fnd anyone who had been there when the events happened,and who confrmed that he had seen everything the way it happened. But I promisenot to have contravened the truth, because in those things in which I was uncertain Ihave relied more on others opinion than on my own assumptions; this is most o allthe case in the passage about the frst arrival o the pirates in Gaul and also in the pas-sage about the madness o the Danish and the number o the killed; I do not confrmnor do I deny all this, but I leave it to the impertinent investigators to scrutinize it. By the way, I do not have any doubt about the victory which our Lord Jesus Christ andthe presence o Saint Martin have granted to the inhabitants o Tours, and I agreethat there is no reason or anybody to doubt, since everything that has been told isconfrmed by the most convincing testimony o well-known persons; the authenticity o what has been said is thereby invulnerable.)


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length in direct speech). Still lamenting and crying, they take the boxcontaining the relics in order to put them on the city gate, which is just then heavily attacked by the enemies. The de enders raise theirhands to God and are animated by the presence o the divine aid. Indoing so, they regain physical strength and audacity. On the Danish,however, the miracle exerts the opposite e ect: they get lost in won-dering, dread and madness, so that the inhabitants o Tours are ableto kill nine hundred o them. The very central passage o the miracleshall be quoted at length here in order to highlight the scenic modeo presentation and the use o terms describing the experience o wondering at the miracle:

Tum vero oppidani palmas quidem ad sidera, mentes autem ad divinamclementiam subrigentes, qui paulo ante metu propinquae, ut putabant,mortis exterriti uerant, mox praesentia tantae opitulationis animati, simulet corporis vires et animi audaciam resumpserunt. Danis e contrariostupor vehemens incussus est, post stuporem intolerabilis formido , post ormidinem, ut plerique asserunt,alienatio mentis obressit. Videre videor miseros primumtremere , deinde ugam conari, statimque id temptantesridiculo ambitucircum erri perplexosque invicem, cum alter impediretur ab altero, acsi perglaciem currerent, praecipites labi ludumque praebere spectantibus, palamdantes intellegi, quantas eisdem cuniculus ille, quem clerici illo ob periculasubmovenda convexerant, importasset erumnas. Igitur oppidani Christumsibi per Martini preces propitium sentientes, eruptione acta, persecuti sunt inimicos, quorum passim per agros palantes et per lucos male latinantes

ere ad nongentos inter ecerunt, detractisque manubiis velociter in urbemregressi sunt, magna voce laudantes et glorifcantes dei misericordiam,qui eis inopinatam victoriae dederat palmam. Porro corpus beati Martinicon estim restituerunt in locum suum, summas etiam ipsi gratias agentes,quod eos sua praestantissima interventione satis sollemniter adiuverat.46

46Mirakelberichte 142 (my emphasis). (But then the townsmen raised their palmstowards the stars, while their minds they turned to the Divine clemency, and they whohad been terrifed by their imminent death be ore were soon impressed by the presenceo such great help and regained their physical strength and their audaciousness. Incontrast, the Danish were caught by heavy perplexity, then a ter perplexity by unbearable

ear, and a ter ear, as most people tell, by insanity. It seems that one could observe how the miserable frst started trembling, then tried to escape, and in these attempts thenslithered around in ridiculous con usion, tumbling into each other, one constrainingthe other, as i they moved on ice; how they ell down headlong and o ered a spectacle

by which they mani estly revealed how much trouble the relic-box which the clergymenhad put there in order to avert danger caused them. So the townsmen understoodthat Christ was willing to help them through Martins petition, and made a break-out,pursued the enemies, killing nearly nine hundred o them, very o ten those runningaround on the felds or on clearances, and hence not being well hidden; they capturedaway their booty and quickly went back to the city; there they praised God aloud or


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The degree o scenic presentation in chapters fve and six is, o course, not as high as in e.g. nineteenth-century novels, but the authorstendency to slow down the speed o narration is obvious, particularly when compared to chapter 4, where the beginning o the Normanaggression is told. This mode o presentation makes it possible tomodel the emotions o the besieged as well as o the besiegers in amore detailed manner. Radbods narration o ers a wide range o terms

or wondering, all o them stressing the non-cognitive aspect o theemotions evoked in the enemies by the miracle: stupor, alienatiomentis, perplexos and the description o the Normans runningaround without any orientation or control, as i they were movingon a slippery rozen sur ace. As the power o the relics comes romtheir bare presence on top o the city walls, there seems to be nothingto understand, but only to wonder at. In the medieval cult o saints,admiratio is closely connected to the presence o the saint, a presenceperceived as real.47 In this text, the term praesentia appears twiceand, in both cases, with re erence to the saint (Oppidani [. . .] moxpraesentia tantae opitulationis animati [. ..] victoria, quam dominusnoster Iesus Christus per merita et praesentiam beati Martini Turo-

nensibus concessit).The representation o wondering is not limited to the level o thestory. For what Saint Martin did to the Northman is nothing lessthan the repetition o what the Church does all over the world, as we are told in the narrators discourse: de eating the aithless, bend-ing the necks o proud and haughty emperors. Con ronted with theChurch, the aithless are de eated by a power that makes them de eat themselves:

Ergo et usque hodie omnibus populis imperat, non carnali dominatione,sed spirituali potentia; nam et ipsos, a quibus plerumque contemnitur, ita

his merci ulness, him who had given them the palm o victory. Then they returnedthe body o Saint Martin immediately to its tomb, expressing their deepest gratitudealso to him because he had helped them so much by his outstanding intervention.)

47Die rhmittelalterliche Heiligenverehrung war vor allem von der als real er ahr-baren Prsenz des Heiligen bestimmt. (Christoph Daxelmller, Art. Heiligenverehrungin Liturgie und Volks rmmigkeit,Lexikon des Mittelalters [Mnchen: Artemis-Winkler,1984] 4: 2016). This belie explains the existence o pilgrimage and the importanceo physical contact with relics and holy places. For example, pilgrims positioned theirdamaged extremities where the ground had been soaked by the blood o Engelbert,massacred bishop o Cologne, and they even applied the soil to their su ering body parts. (Uta Kleine, Mirakel zwischen Kult-Ereignis und Kult-Buch: Die VerehrungErzbischo s Engelberts von Kln im Spiegel der Miracula Engelberti des Caesarius vonHeisterbach,Mirakel im Mittelalter , 271310, here: 289).


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sui maiestate opprimit, ut, dum deliberant pugnare, vi maiore superati ultrosuccumbant et miro modo se ipsos vincant, qui aliis invicti esse certabant.48

Radbod then claims to be thunderstruck by the magnifcence o this example. The individual story o the Danes de eated in Toursshall be told as an illustration o it, but also in order to create ane ect o wonder:

Huius exempli magnifcentia veluti quodam tonitruo excitati, miracu-lum istud, de quo in sequentibus dicetur, praedicandum esse censemusmutuisque relationibus divulgandum, quo per omnium ora volitans et persingular crescens, in aliis quidem timorem, in aliis autem con essionem, inomnibus vero divinae contemplationis operetur amorem.49

The vocabulary used in miracle narratives is o course topical ratherthan psychological: the use o terms o emotions does not mean that Radbod solely intends to evoke emotional reactions in the audience.Con ession and contemplation are more cognitive acts than emotions.But in the context o the question o how miracle narratives recount the supernatural and the e ects it evokes, it is interesting to see that,compared to miracle narratives which stress the aspect o proo (like

the Virtutes sanctae Geretrudis ), Radbods homiletic miracle narrativenot only uses a rich vocabulary but also tries to establish wonder andastonishment on di erent text levels. According to the prologue in which Radbod glorifes the e ects the Church per orms on the un aith-

ul, only the pagan aggressors lose their mind, whereas the Christiande enders use their reason: observing the miracle they understand (Igitur oppidani [. . .] sentientes) that they have to make use o theDivine aid by hunting and killing the Danes. Moreover, the passage that relates how the Danes went mad recounts not only the miracle itsel

but also how that miracle was perceived. In narratological terms, theevents are presented in a kind o collective internal ocalisation, theinhabitants standing at the top o their city walls being the ocalizer. As the miraculous is thus not only named, but shown in its e ects,this can rightly be called an aesthetics o wondering.

48Mirakelberichte 128. (Hence she [the Church] still rules over all peoples today, not by earthly authority but by spiritual power, or she also captures with her majesty those who despise her most to such an extent that they who compete or being invincible, once

determined to fght, succumb to a higher orce and wondrously de eat themselves.)49Mirakelberichte 128. (Excited and thunderstruck by the magnifcence o this example, we think that the miracle that will be told in the ollowing shall be preached about and divulged by being retold again and again, so that, running through all mouths, it will grow each time and evoke ear in some and a con ession o aith in others, but ineverybody Divine contemplation.)


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The description o the altering Danes, presented through theperspective o the inhabitants o Tours, surely exceeds the strategy o proo , but on the other hand this does absolutely not mean that it is written solely or the pleasure o the e ect. Although the passage issomehow literary, although it recounts not only the miracle, but alsothe perception o the miracle, it is still ar rom having its end in itsel ,

or the madness and its perception are unctionally subordinated to asymbolic signifcation, and re er to a systematic moral message: only the aithless alter, only the aith ul are able to observe the spectacleo how the Church de eats her haughty enemies. Thus, the aim o the scenic, perspective description is not sel -su fcient, but remainsa unctional correlate to an exemplary lesson.

Finally, the rich vocabulary or the description o the e ects and theperception o the miracle, and the obvious intent to create a textuale ect o wondering, fnd their analogue in the preponderance o the terms miraculum and mirabilisterms re erring to the visualdimension o the phenomenon, in contrast to virtus, stressing themoral aspect.

Thus, although this vivid style entails an increased aesthetic illu-

sion o the text, this observation does not mean that RadbodsLibel- lus should be considered as a step towards the literarization o theChristian miracle, rom simple to more complex orms. It can ratherbe explained by the pragmatic context in which a miracle is embed-ded: the more miracle narratives ulfl the unction o proo , the moretheir style tends to be simple. This is the case with miracle collectionand translation reports, the aim o which is to establish a cult withcatalogues containing a maximum o miracles.50 The stylistic di er-ences between theVirtutes sanctae Geretrudis and theLibellus de miraculo

sancti Martini are not evidence o literary evolution, but describetwo alternatives o the pre-literary representation o the supernatural.

50See e.g. a collection o Italian miracle reports o exemplary serial simplenesstranslated into French in the late sixteenth century: Discours veritable des grands miracles de Nostre Dame de Luques: descouvers nouvellement, & depuis continuez, multipliez de jour e jour, la confusion des blasphemateurs du nomde Dieu, & de la tresglorieuse Vierge Marie, & des contempteurs des Images. Jouxte la copie imprimee Luques, a Florence, & Rome,quotedin Gabriel-Andr Perouse, Miraculeuses nouvelle,Potique et narration, Mlanges of-

ferts Guy Demerson , ed. Franois Marotin (Paris: Honor Champion, 1993) 491504. An example: Barbe, flle de Pierre Samucconi, Luquois, aagee de 25 ans. Ayant estdurant six ans grie vement malade de la petite verole, tellement que sa veu estoit ort debilitee, et ses yeux devenus troubles et lousches, sestant voue cette Tresglorieuse Vierge Marie, a recouvr la veu, ses yeux sont beaux, et ne regarde plus de travers,comme elle avoit de coustume. (501).


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The idea that something in this world, as God had created it, is without signifcance, seems to have been unacceptable or medievalthinkers.51 This might be the reason why wondering, beyond themere use o the pertinent vocabulary, is such a rare phenomenonin miracles. I miracle narratives seem to o er amazement as well assymbolic signifcation, it is obvious that in most cases, they tend toa neutralization o wondering by stressing the hidden sense o thestory. Le Go s and others observation that the Christianmiraculum tends to abolish the un oreseeable and thereby wonder is true as aras its quality as proo and argument is concerned. But as ar as therepresentation o wonder is concerned, our readings neverthelessallow us to distinguish between di erent rhetoric strategies: one

ocusing on the predictable and stereotypical logic o the miracle, andanother emphasizing the way in which the predictable happens andis perceived. Both remain o course inside the horizon o medievalsymbolical thinking.

Miracles Without Saints

The previous observations concern miracles worked by saints. In his De miraculis libri duo , Petrus Venerabilis tells a number o miracles about encounters with normal revenants.52 What is interesting about theserevenants is their obvious pre-Christian, pagan character, and Petrusstrategy to integrate them into the Christian horizon. This goes along with a shi t to literary strategies. Although Peters revenants are ar

rom being saintsgenerally they are repentant sinnersthey are sent by God and thus miraculous, not marvelous.53 They do not appear inorder to help the living, but, on the contrary, in order to ask the living

or help, or only prayers could reduce their su ering in the a terli e.In I,23, Petrus tells the story o a dead knight who appeared threetimes to Etienne, a priest o impeccable reputation. The reliability o this witness is increased by a vow and by the presence o anotherpriest, listening, together with Petrus, to Etiennes intradiegetic story:Guy o Moras, a knight wounded in a battle, is going to die. Etienne

51 Armand Strubel, Littrature et pense symbolique au Moyen Age,Ecriture et modes de pense au MoyenAge (VIII e XV e sicle) , ed. Dominique Boutet and Laurence Har -Lancner (Paris: Presses de lEcole Normale Suprieure) 2745.52Petrus Cluniacensis Abbatis, De miraculis libri duo (Turnhout: Brepols, 1988). For aFrench translation with an important introduction, see Pierre Le Vnrable,Les Merveilles de Dieu , ed. and transl. Jean-Pierre Torrell and Denise Bouthillier (Fribourg: Cer , 1992).

53For example: Adhuc tamen tercio me tibi Deus apparere uoluit (Petrus Clunia-censis Abbatis, De miraculis libri duo 72).


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attends to the knights last con ession, made to the bishop. A ter hisdeath, Guy appears to Etienne three times. As there are no witnesses,Petrus tries to establish the credibility o these encounters by usingstrong vocabulary and by rendering the events only rom the emotionalperspective o the frst person narrator Etienne:

[. . .] timore perterritus, contiguam siluam occultandus ingredior.Quem ut uidi, primo exhorrui.Dixit hec, et statim ab oculis meis euanuit. At ego timore cumulatus, et quia cum mortuo uerba contuleram de uita di fdens, inde quam citius

potui recessi. At ego nimio terrore ere in amentiam uersus, in hec uerba prorupi: Exparte omnipotentis Dei, et omnium sanctorum eius adiuro te quicumquees spiritus ut discedas, meque tantis terroribus exagitare desistas [. . .].54

At the end o the story, Etienne helps the dead knight to fnd peace:he reimburses a peasant rom whom the knight once took away acow, he gives a pittance in the name o the dead, and he assembles anumber o priests to say Mass or him. In this story, wonder appearsas terror. The semantic strength increases in reciprocal proportionto the diminishing unpredictability o the three encounters betweenEtienne and the revenant. The miracle unctions as an exemplum witha very precise intention: it is an argument or the Cluniac practice o the memory o the dead:

Hec ad edifcationem fdei et morum scribens, quibusdam hereticis, uelerroneis nostri temporis hominibus benefca ecclesiastica mortuis fdelibusposse prodesse uel negantibus, uel dubitandibus ad uiam ueritatis et ecclesiedoctrinam redditum persuadere uolui, neque tamen spe spiritualium, uel

talium subsidiorum uitam mortalem sub negligentia transigendam, talibustamque lucidis exemplis admonere decreui.55

54Petrus Cluniacensis Abbatis, De miraculis libri duo 6971. (Terrifed, I enter thenearby wood in order to hide mysel . / When I saw him, I almost cringed. / A terhaving spoken, he disappeared rom my sight. As or me, in my biggest ear, I doubtedto be alive, since I had spoken to a dead man, and le t rom there as ast as I could./ My excessive ear brought me close to renzy, as I said these words: In the nameo the almighty God and o all the saints, I implore you, whoever you might be, spirit:go away rom here and stop haunting me with such great terror; translation mine.)

55

Petrus Cluniacensis Abbatis, De miraculis libri duo 86. (I wrote this or the edifca-tion o aith and morality, in order to convince certain people living in our times, who,heretic or mistaken, doubt or deny that the bene actions o the Church are salutary orthe aith ul dead, in order to lead them back to the path o truth and the doctrine o the Church; however, by giving you these lucid examples, neither did I want to invite

orget ulness about this mortal li e in the hope or such spiritual help.)


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But although Petrus stories ollow an exemplum strategy, and that once again, wondering fnds itsel in competition with the rationality o the exemplum, it is obvious that in the case o De miraculis , won-dering is ar rom being abolished by the exposition o theologicalsignifcance: the description o Etiennes ear in his encounters withthe revenant, the emphasis on visuality, and the absence o the typi-cal scheme o the helping saint seem to give a greater importanceto wondering than is the case in hagiographic miracles. The textuale ect o terror is all the stronger because wondering is not subject toallegorization, as e.g. in theLibellus de miraculo Sancti Martini .

These readings allow or the ormulation o some conjecturesconcerning the representation o wondering in miracle narratives:the more a text varies either rom the hagiographic mainstream or

rom explicit edifcation, the more it tends to stress wondering, upto creating an atmosphere o terror and the uncanny. The absenceo saints seems to be o special importance: the strongest tendency towards the uncanny variety o admiratio seems to be ound in thosemiracula which are not per ormed by saints. Very o ten this is the casein stories presenting miracles experienced by normal people, reli-

able witnesses, but without the authority o sainthood, like in Petrusrevenant encounters. Along with this goes a decrease o allegorization.It is di fcult to decide whether the increase o wondering is due to thepre-Christian popular quality o the themes (above all encounters with demons, revenants or shape-shi ters) or to the normal quality o the protagonists excluding theadmiratio o saintly virtues.

Although the three texts constitute a diachronic sequence, theserhetorical tendencies do not describe a historical evolution. They rather constitute concurrent choices depending on pragmatic contexts.

Encounters with the supernatural can be completely ree o terrorand ear, or stress precisely such e ects. The Dialogus miraculorum by Caesarius o Heiterbach, written a hundred years later than the De miraculis libri duo , contains many reports about encounters withghosts and revenants, and in most o them wondering is abolished by signifcation. For example, the novice does not wonder at all about aparticular miracle because he is able to establish a fgural link betweenElijahs ascension in 2 Kings 2:11 and one o the present day miraclesrecounted by Caesarius monk.56 But in some episodes, like in the

56Caesarius o Heisterbach, Dialogus miracolorum (Turnhout: Brepols 2009) vol. 4,dist. 10, ch. 2, 1901: Si Gerardus de Holenbach, sicut dictum est in distinctione octavacapitolo quinquagesimo nono, translatus est in ictu temporis ab India in provinciam


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amous one about the appearance o the white lady at Stammheim,57 the monk does not comment on the story, so that the uncanny e ect like the one created by the emale ghost killing children with silent glances remains in orce.

This observation brings up another question: why do all o thethree textsto a greater or lesser extentinsist so much on visual-ity? Gervase o Tilbury (who is an author o mirabilia rather than o miracula ) declares that nobody could wonder at something whichis not true. He there ore separates lies rom acts by re erring toancient authorities, to the Bible or to eyewitnesses.58 I authentic-ity is not assured, wonder or amazement is rendered impossible. It seems that the problem o visuality and wonder is closely linked tothe problem o credibility. This aspect concerns a central di erencebetween the ancient and the Christian exemplum: in the frst, it is thehero as a true historical person giving relevance to the exemplum.The ancient exemplum is inductive and possesses the auctoritas geschichtlicher Glaub- und Denkwrdigkeit.59 Its normativity comes

rom outside the text: the person it re ers to is already exemplary.In contrast, medieval, didactic-paraenetic exempla tell stories about

normal people without any moral authority and can there ore only illustrate norms, but are not able to establish a norm by re erringto extra-textual authority. Its authority does not derive rom history (the general truth illustrated by an exemplum could as well beexemplifed by a non-historical story, even by a tale or a able).60 It isthere ore extremely important or the credibility o the exemplum toemphasize again and again the veracity, yet the realness o the story.The insistence on eyewitnesses and perception might be interpretedas an important strategy employed in miracle narratives in order to

compensate or a lack o authority, all the more when the storiesare not about saints, but about nobodies.

nostram ministerio diaboli, Dei tamen praecepto, non hoc miror de coelesti nuncio. Antiqua nostris temporibus renovantur miracula. Helias Tesbites per currum et equosraptus est in paradisum; hic vero non minus miraculose per equum et equitem inmorula temporis transvectus est per multa spatia maris atque terrarum.

57Caesarius o Heisterbach, Dialogus miracolorum , vol. 5, dist. 11, ch. 63, 2170.58Gervase o Tilbury,Otia Imperialia 558.59Peter von Moos,Geschichte als Topik. Das rhetorische Exemplum von der Antike bis zur

Neuzeit und die historiaeim Policraticus Johanns von Salisbury (Hildesheim: Olms, 1996)122. See also Le Go , Bremond and Schmitt 4446.

60 Von Moos,Geschichte als Topik , 11920.


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That might be the reason why wondering is, despite occasionally existing literary qualities, never aimed or as a sel -su fcient e ect,but always and exclusively as a unctional correlate contributing, espe-cially rom the twel th century on, to rein orcing the ragile authority and thereby the e ectiveness o the miracle.Universitt zu Kln

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Milagre Medieval