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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
The vision of a canon of Watten near St. Omer, northern France which preceded his miraculous recovery from a paralytic illness was recorded in 1091, three years after the event, by an anonymous colleague, and is appended to the Chronicle of Watten. Although the writer’s style is florid to the point of obscurity, the tale he tells is not, in outline, complex or unusual; it resembles scores of similar stories from this period. But we have in this instance the means to see the relation between the content of the vision and the writer’s interest in recording it.
This paper is a tiny piece of a proposed comprehensive study of visionary literature C1050-1150, supported by a grant from the British Academy. In addition to them my thanks go to: Professor C. J. Holdsworth, for his encouragement and helpful comments; Downside Abbey Library and Fr Philip Jebb OSB, Headmaster of Downside School, for their kindness in allowing me to use their facilities; and B. A. F. Hubbard, whose discussions with me of the text of the vision clarified its obscurities.
1 [Holder-Egger, O., ed] Miraculum[Satuti Donatiani: Miraculum de auodam canonico Guatinensi per Sanctum Donatianum curato. MGH Scriptores 14,] pp 176–182.Google Scholar [Holder-Egger, O., ed] Chronica [Monasterii Watinensis. MGH Scriptores 14] pp 161–175.Google Scholar On the dating of both sources see Chronica, preface pp 161-2.
2 Miraculum p 78 lines 18—20, 26.
3 Chronica p l67 1ines 21—22.
4 Miraculum p 178 lines 20: Quos ille suscipiens, paterne mutrivit.… On Odfrid‘s departure see below p 18.
5 I am grateful for the opinion of Dr Christopher Gardner-Thorpe, MD, MRCP, Consultant Neurologist, on this matter.
6 Miraculum p 182 lines 49—50.
7 [ Holder-Egger, O., ed, Ex miraculis S. Richarii Auctore] Hariulf [o. MGH Scriptores 15] vol 2 pp 919–20.Google Scholar
8 Hariulf († 1143), a monk of Centulense or Saint Riquier, and after 1105 abbot of Saint Peter of Aldenburg near Bruges, wrote his account between 1099 and 1105 (Hariulf, preface p 915) so, in theory, he might have been using the Miraculum, which, as it had been commissioned by the archbishop of Rheims, may have been in circulation. But Hariulf’s considerable omissions and his substitution of Ansbert for Gudwal as the second saint argue against it. On the question of the second saint, see below p 19-20.
9 Chrottica pp 165-66. See Moreau, [E.] de, [Histoire de l’Eglise en Belgique, vol 2 (Brussels 1945) pp 213-14Google Scholar.
10 Hariulf p 919 lines 16-17.
11 See Little, L. K., Religious Poverty and the Profit Economy in Medieval Europe (London 1978) pp 101-4Google Scholar, on the reform movement and regular canons before Norbert.
12 Hariulf p 919 line 49 - p 920 line 11. Hariulf tells a story of how Odfrid appeared to a nun after his death and said that he had been tortured by the eternal fires. When she asked if Saint Nicholas, to whom Watten had been dedicated, had helped, Odfrid replied that it was Saint Riquier who had, after all, provided his succour. Hariulf claims, in addition, that even while living Odfrid had to admit the rights of Saint Riquier in the place (lines 29-32). Clearly Hariulf’s nose is out of joint over the matter, and we must suspect that he wasn’t the only one.
13 Chronica pp 170-2, 175, 175 note 2. De Moreau, pp 213-14. On the bishops of Thérouanne and the Investiture Controversy, see dc Moreau, pp 65—73.
14 Miraculum pp 176-77.
15 Miraculum p 176 lines 29-34; Nam sunt plures … qui mox cum me e latebris, quas elegi, tam publica apud te emersione prodire cognoverint, quas putas calumpnias, quas nocendi occasiones non connectent? Nocuit olim apud aliquos mihi tua, qua compte fuebar, notitia, quorum foeda cupiditate ac dolenda morum corruptione, dum moliebar, ut purgaretur ecclesia, Zenonis tormento, Platonis invidia, Socratis veneno pene interieram. The writer continued in this vein some considerable way further, attacking that sort of man quem extollit diabolus et pecunia, and praising the archbishop for cleansing the archdiocese (Miraculum p 176 line 34-p 177 line 9.)
16 De Moreau pp 92—93.
17 Miraculum p 180 lines 4-23.
18 On the various saints discussed here see the Bibliotheca Sanctorum Vols 1, 4, 7 (Instituto Giovanni XXIII, Rome 1966).
19 Miraculum p 180 lines 12-16: Diversis tamen questibus lucrantur medici, diversis imposturationibus acquirunt medici, diversis modis se ipsos extrudunt medici, multis assertionibus promittunt, multis promissionibus fallunt: tu autem, omni ambiguitate posposita, multilaquio non uteris, aviditate precii non caperis, sed ‘Laudo’quinque litteris et duabus sillabis totum hominen sanare confidis.
20 Adversus Simoniacos, MCH Libelli de Lite 1, p 224 lines 43-47.
21 Miraculum p 180 lines 27—29.
22 Miraculum p 180 note 3. Holder-Egger gives no reason for his identification.
23 Miraculum p 180 line 56-p 181 line: ille namque Deo satisfacere de pervasa Uriaeuxore noluit, iste sponsam Christi, quam in se foedavit, confessione mundare contempsit...ille innocentis homicidium callida machinatione composuit, iste indesinenti plaga se ipsum petens, conamine quo valuit cotidie mori disposait...
24 Miraculum p 181 lines 12-15.
25 Miraculum p 181 lines 15-20: … Quod si devote compere voluerint, non frustrai remuneratione sine dubio affirmes, quia vir sanctus est et magni meriti, et in multa gratianum actione Deus suscipiet quod mando pro eo fieri. Gregory was not in fact canonised until 1609 and there is no evidence that there was agitation for his canonisation in the period after his death. Indeed, in an early adulatory vita, Paul of Bernreid († c. 1146) does not even go as far as the Miraculum’s writer in attributing to Gregory the term sanctus, but merely offers examples of the grace accorded to those who followed Gregory’s precepts. (MPL 148 cols 95-104). The Miraculum’s claim for Gregory is all the more striking, then, in its radical position. I am grateful to Professor Holdsworth for drawing this problem to my attention.
26 Miraculum p 179 lines 32-36: Quae ergo tantae te tenuere morae? Quibus ab horis expectate venis ut te post multa tuorum excidia, post varios filiorum locique labores defessi aspicimus? Dampnis affecti sumus: ubi eras? Incendiis tribulati: quid latebas? Insultationes hereticorum sustinuimus: quid interim agebas? Expulsiones et exilia passi sumus: quomodo tandem in hoc infirmo nos revisitas? ‘Profectus’, inquis, ‘a fide in fidem, profectus a specie in speciam, profectus a speculatione in visionem.’ The writer’s lament sums up the image the community at Watten had of itself in the perilous decade after Odfrid’s exile, a period about which the Chronica is virtually silent.
27 Miraculum pp 181 line 42-182 line 48. It is not absolutely clear that Tainard told the full vision on the spot. The author says that Stat medius, et argumenta fidei circumferens (p 182 line 33), which I take to mean that he revealed the proofs for the miraculous nature of his experience.