medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Dear Marjorie:
From Raymond Van Dam, _Saints and their Miracles in Late Antique
Gaul_, pp. 128-29:
'At two villages in the Touraine shrines to St. Martin featured
what we might call secondary tombs. Since saints were thought to be
sleeping in their tombs, their beds could readily serve as alternatives...
In the case of St Martin this assimilation was easier to accept, since his
beds had already closely resembled graves. At Candes, where St. Martin had
died... St. Martin had slept on cinders on the pavement and used a stone
as his pillow. Since the small cell in which he had slept had had only a
window as a door, it already resembled an oversize stone sarcophagus...
So a railing covered with a silk curtain surrounded the saint's bed, where
people knelt and were healed. Martin's monastery at Marmoutier advertised
another bed of the saint that also resembled a stone tomb.... A railing
surrounded this bed too, and pilgrims visited the site.'
Cheers,
Martin
Martin Howley, Humanities Librarian, Tel: (709) 737-8514
QE II Library, Memorial Univ of Newfoundland FAX: (709) 737-2153
St John's, NL, Canada A1B 3Y1 E-mail:[log in to unmask]
On Mon, 27 Jan 2003, Marjorie Greene wrote:
> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
>
> I don't think so. Earlier in her text, Moreira says:
> "Medieval authors did not distinguish...between
> dream-healings and healings effected through...contact
> with the saint's presance: potions...contact with the
> tomb railings OR [emphasis mine] those around the
> saint's bed..." She seems to differentiate here. What
> I inferred from the statement that prompted my query
> was that Martin's bed(room) was available for
> visitation in the 6th c., two centuries after his
> death. I realize he was a hugely important and popular
> saint and it is not beyond reasonable belief that his
> earthly dwelling place(s) was/were revered; it just
> never occurred to me that saints' dwellings were also
> kept as shrines, and visited. It certainly is a common
> practice today for homes of famous people.
> Thanks for your response.
> MG
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