Prenatal, natal, and postnatal indications of an infant's future (or,
indeed, present) sanctity are by no means universal in hagiography, but
they are quite common. See, for example, C. Grant Loomis, White Magic:
An Introduction to the Folklore of Christian Legend (Cambridge, Mass.:
The Mediaeval Academy of America, 1948), pp. 17-19; Michael Goodich,
"Childhood and Adolescence Among the Thirteenth-Century Saints," History
of Childhood Quarterly, 1 (1973), 283-309 (early in the article; I have
only a reprint available); Shulamith Shahar, "Infants, Infant Care, and
Attitudes Toward Infancy in the Medieval Lives of Saints," Journal of
Psychohistory, 10 (1982-1983), 281-309, here p. 308, n. 137. In the case
of Christina of Markyate the omen of future holiness is the first episode
in a vita that contains remarkably few miracles; C. H. Talbot, ed. and
tr., The Life of Christina of Markyate, a Twelfth Century Recluse (Oxford,
1959), p. 34.
Felix, in his Life of St. Guthlac, c. 5 (in Colgrave's translation),
declares, "For when the time of his birth had arrived, marvellous to
relate, a human hand was seen shining with red-gold splendour, and
reaching from the clouds of the heavenly Olympus as far as the arm of a
certain cross, which stood in front of the door of the house in which the
holy woman, now in labour, was bearing a son destined to greatness."
Also, if I remember correctly , one of the lives of Thomas Becket
excerpted in Douglas and Greenaway's English Historical Documents, vol. 2,
states that his pregnant mother dreamed that she had Canterbury cathedral
in her womb.
For examples of both prenatal and postnatal predictions of sanctity, see
the index to Boninus Mombritius, Sanctuarium seu vitae sanctorum, 2 vols,
2nd edn. (Paris: Apud Fontemoing et Socios, Editores, 1910; repr.
Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 1978), 2:815, s. v. "prophetia."
John M. McCulloh [log in to unmask]
History Department 785-532-0373
Eisenhower Hall (Note new area code!)
Kansas State University
Manhattan, KS 66506
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|