CHAPTER IV

RELICS AND SHRINES

"A fouth o' auld knick-knackets, Rusty airn caps and jinglin' jackets, Wad haud the Lothians three, in tackets, A towmond guid; An' parritch pats, and auld saut backets, Afore the flood."—BURNS.

"For to that holy wood is consecrate A virtuous well, about whose flowery banks The nimble-footed fairies dance their rounds By the pale moonshine, dipping oftentimes Their stolen children, so to make them free From dying flesh and dull mortality."—FLETCHER.

"Ne was ther such another pardoner, For in his male he hadde a pilwebeer, Which that he saide was oure lady veyl; He seide, he hadde a gobet of the seyl That seynt Peter hadde, whan that he wente Uppon the see, til Jhesu Crist him pente. He hadde a cros of latoun ful of stones, And in a glas he hadde pigges bones. But with these reliques, whanne that he fond A poure persoun dwelling uppon lond, Upon a day he gat him more moneye Than that the persoun gat in monthes tweye. And thus with feyned flaterie and japes, He made the persoun and the people his apes."—CHAUCER.

A wide-spread movement developed in the early church as a result of which innumerable miracles of healing were credited to the power of saints, indirectly through the medium of streams and pools of water which were reputed to have some connection with a particular saint, or through the efficacy still clinging to the relics of holy persons.

On account of the growth of the belief in demonism in the Christian church, and the need of supernatural means to counteract diabolic diseases, saintly relics came into common use for this purpose, and afterward when demonism was not so thoroughly credited as the cause of diseases, relics were still considered to hold their power over physical infirmities. In addition to this, the missionary efforts and successes of the church had some influence in establishing and continuing cures by relics and similar means. The missionaries found that their converts had formerly employed various amulets and charms for the healing of diseases, and that they continued to have great faith in them for that purpose. To wean them from their heathen customs, Christian amulets and charms had to be substituted, or, as was sometimes the case, the heathen fetich was continued, but with a Christian significance.

The early Scandinavians carried effigies carved out of gold or silver as safeguards against disease, or applied those made out of certain other materials, as the mandragora root or linen or wood, to the diseased part as a cure of physical infirmities. Some of these images were carried over into Christianity, for in Charlemagne's time, headache was frequently cured by following the saintly recommendation to shape the figure of a head and place it on a cross. Fort tells us that "The introduction of Christianity among the Teutonic races offered no hindrance to a perpetuation, under new forms, of those social observances with which Norse temple idolatry was so intimately associated. Offering to proselytes an unlimited number of demoniacal aeons, similar in individuality and prowess to those peopling the invisible universe, Northern mythology readily united with Christian demonology."[21]

The relics of the saints came to be the favorite substitute for the heathen charms. With the acceptance of the demoniacal cause of disease, exorcism by relics gradually grew in importance until it was firmly established and a preferred form in the sixth and subsequent centuries. Down to this time there still existed a feeble recognition of a possible system adapted to the cure of maladies, so far, perhaps, as the practice was restricted to municipalities. The rapid advancement of saintly remedies, consecrated oils, and other puissant articles of ecclesiastical appliance, enabled and encouraged numerous churchmen to exercise the AEsculapian art; this, together with the ban put upon physicians and scientific means, soon gave the church the monopoly of healing. Perhaps the most thorough attestation of the contempt into which physicians had fallen, compared with saintly medicists, is the fact that cures were invariably attempted after earthly medicine had been exhausted.[22]

Islam, Buddhism, and other religions have their shrines where some pilgrims are undoubtedly cured, but Christianity seems to have had the most varied and numerous collection. As early as the latter part of the fourth century miraculous powers were ascribed to the images of Jesus and the saints which adorned the walls of most of the churches of the time, and tales of wonderful cures were related of them. The intercessions of saints were invoked, and their relics began to work miracles.[23]

St. Cyril, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, and others of the early church fathers of note maintained that the relics of the saints had great efficacy in the cure of diseases. St. Augustine tells us: "Besides many other miracles, that Gamaliel in a dream revealed to a priest named Lacianus the place where the bones of St. Stephen were buried; that those bones being thus discovered, were brought to Hippo, the diocese of which St. Augustine was bishop; that they raised five persons to life; and that, although only a portion of the miraculous cures they effected had been registered, the certificates drawn up in two years in the diocese, and by the orders of the saint, were nearly seventy. In the adjoining diocese of Calama they were incomparably more numerous."[24] This great and intellectual man also mentions and evidently credits the story that some innkeeper of his time put a drug into cheese which changed travellers who partook of it into domestic animals, and he further asserts after a personal test that peacock's flesh will not decay.

St. Ambrose declared that "the precepts of medicine are contrary to celestial science, watching, and prayer." When the conflict between St. Ambrose and the Arian Empress Justina was at its height, the former declared that it had been revealed to him that relics were buried in a certain spot which he indicated. When the earth was removed, there was exposed a tomb filled with blood, and containing two gigantic skeletons with their heads severed from their bodies. These were pronounced to be the remains of St. Gervasius and St. Protasius, two martyrs of gigantic physical proportions, who were said to have been beheaded about three centuries before. To prove beyond doubt the genuineness of these relics, a blind man was restored to sight by coming in contact with them, and demoniacs were also cured thereby. Before being exorcised, however, the demons, who were supposed to have supernatural and indubitable knowledge, declared that the relics were genuine; that St. Ambrose was the deadly enemy of hell; that the doctrine of the Trinity was true; and that those who rejected it would certainly be damned. To be sure that the testimony of the demons should have its proper weight in the controversy, on the following day St. Ambrose delivered an invective against all who questioned the miracle.[25]

Late researches concerning the Catacombs of Rome have thrown much light upon the early use of relics. The former opinion of the Catacombs was that they were used for secret worship by the persecuted Christians, but now we know that they were burial-places under the protection of Roman law, with entrances opening on the public roads. Their chapels and altars were for memorial and communion services. Great reverence was felt for the bodies of all Christians, so that for the first seven centuries the bodies were not disturbed, and relics, in the modern sense of the word, were unknown. People prayed at the tombs, or if they wished to take something away, they touched the tomb with a handkerchief, or else they took some oil from the lamps which marked the tombs. These mementos were regarded as true relics, so that when the Lombard Queen, Theodelinda, sent the abbot John for relics to put in her cathedral at Monza, he came back with over seventy little vials of oil, each with the name of the saint from whose tomb the oil was procured, and many of them are still preserved.

The oil from altar lamps was of therapeutic value, as St. Chrysostom tells us in speaking of the superiority of the church over ordinary houses. "For what is here," he asks, "that is not great and awful? Thus both this Table [the altar] is far more precious and delightful than that [any table at home], and this lamp than that; and this they know, as many as have put away diseases by anointing themselves with oil in faith and due season." If the body of a saint lay beneath the altar, the oil was then known as the "Oil of the Saints," and was even more efficacious for healing. Notice the following quotations on the subject taken from Dearmer's work.

"Far more common are stories of healing by oil from a lamp burnt in honor of Christ or the saints. The following examples are from the East. The wounded hand of a Saracen was healed by oil from a lamp before the icon of St. George."

"St. Cyrus and St. John appeared to a person suffering from gout, and bade him take a little oil in a small ampulla from the lamp that burnt before the image of the Saviour, in the great tetrapyle at Alexandria, and anoint his feet with it."

"Similar stories are found in Western writers. Thus Nicetius of Lyons, by means of the oil of the lamp which burnt daily at his sepulchre, restored sight to the blind, drove demons from bodies possessed, restored soundness to shrunken limbs," etc.

"An epileptic was cured by oil from the lamp that burnt night and day at the tomb of St. Severin."

"It was revealed to a blind woman, that oil from the lamp of St. Genevieve would restore her sight, if the warden of the church were to anoint her with it. A week after she brought a blind man, who was healed in the same manner."[26]

At the time of Gregory of Tours, application was made of sainted reliquaries as a remedy against the devil and his demons. Gregory narrates the miraculous efficacy of a small pellet of wax, taken from the tomb of St. Martin, in extinguishing an incendiary fire started by his Satanic majesty, which was instigated by malicious envy, because this omnipotent talisman was in the custody of an ecclesiastic! This Turonese bishop records many instances of cures being effected at Martin's tomb. He himself was relieved of severe pains in the head by touching the disordered spot with the sombre pall of St. Martin's sepulchre. This remedy was applied on three different occasions with equal success. Once he was cured of an attack of mortal dysentery by simply dissolving into a glass of water a pinch of dust scraped from the tomb of St. Martin and drinking the strange concoction. At another time, his tongue having become swollen and tumefied, it was restored to its natural size and condition by licking the railing of the tomb of this saint. He knew of others who had been equally successful. An archdeacon, named Leonastes had sight restored to his blind eyes at the tomb of St. Martin, but unfortunately the fact that he later applied to an Israelitish physician caused his infirmity to return. Even a toothache was cured by St. Martin's relics.

The following is an apostrophe to the relics of St. Martin by Bishop Gregory: "Oh ineffable theriac! ineffable pigment! admirable antidote! celestial purge! superior to all drugs of the faculty! sweeter than aromatics! stronger than unguents together; thou cleanest the stomach like scammony, the lungs like hyssop, thou purgest the head like pyre-thrig!"[27]

From the end of the fifth century the exercise of the medical art was almost exclusively appropriated by cloisters and monasteries, whose occupants boldly vended the miraculous remedial properties of relics, chrism, baptismal fluids, holy oil, rosy crosses, etc., as of unquestioned virtue. In these early days living saints seem to have rivalled dead ones in their power over diseases, but of these we shall speak in a later chapter.

A renewed interest sprang up when pilgrims began to return from their journeys to Palestine, bringing with them, as was natural, some souvenirs of their sojourn. A most interesting quotation from Mackay reveals the condition of these times. "The first pilgrims to the Holy Land brought back to Europe thousands of apocryphal relics, in the purchase of which they had expended all their store. The greatest favorite was the wood of the true cross, which, like the oil of the widow, never diminished. It is generally asserted, in the traditions of the Romish Church, that the Empress Helen, the mother of Constantine the Great, first discovered the veritable 'true cross' in her pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The Emperor Theodosius made a present of the greater part of it to St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, by whom it was studded with precious stones and deposited in the principal church of that city. It was carried away by the Huns, by whom it was burnt, after they had extracted the valuable jewels it contained. Fragments, purporting to have been cut from it, were, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, to be found in almost every church in Europe, and would, if collected together in one place, have been almost sufficient to have built a cathedral. Happy was the sinner who could get a sight of one of them; happier he who possessed one! To obtain them the greatest dangers were cheerfully braved. They were thought to preserve from all evils and to cure the most inveterate diseases. Annual pilgrimages were made to the shrines that contained them and considerable revenues collected from the devotees.

"Next in renown were those precious relics, the tears of the Saviour. By whom and in what manner they were preserved, the pilgrim did not enquire. Their genuineness was vouched by the Christians of the Holy Land, and that was sufficient. Tears of the Virgin Mary, and tears of St. Peter, were also to be had, carefully enclosed in little caskets, which the pious might wear in their bosoms. After the tears, the next most precious relics were drops of the blood of Jesus and the martyrs, and the milk of the Virgin Mary. Hair and toe-nails were also in great repute, and were sold at extravagant prices. Thousands of pilgrims annually visited Palestine in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, to purchase pretended relics for the home market. The majority of them had no other means of subsistence than the profits thus obtained. Many a nail, cut from the filthy foot of some unscrupulous ecclesiastic, was sold at a diamond's price, within six months after its severance from its parent toe, upon the supposition that it had once belonged to a saint or an apostle. Peter's toes were uncommonly prolific, for there were nails enough in Europe, at the time of the Council of Clermont, to have filled a sack, all of which were devoutly believed to have grown on the sacred feet of that great apostle. Some of them are still shown in the cathedral of Aix-la-Chapelle. The pious come from a distance of a hundred German miles to feast their eyes upon them."[28]

While some of these relics enumerated by Mackay seem to be such apparent frauds that none could credit them, they were surpassed in audacity by one offered for sale at a monastery in Jerusalem. Here was presented to the prospective buyers one of the fingers of the Holy Ghost.[29]

In addition to the popular relics already noted, an extensive and lucrative trade was carried on in iron filings from the chains with which, it was claimed, Peter and Paul were bound. These filings were deemed by Pope Gregory I as efficacious in healing as were the bones of saints or martyrs.[30]



As an example of healing at shrines in early days, I will reproduce Bede's description of a cure effected at the tomb of St. Cuthbert in 698. "There was in that same monastery a brother whose name was Bethwegan, who had for a considerable time waited upon the guests of the house, and is still living, having the testimony of all the brothers and strangers resorting thither, of being a man of much piety and religion, and serving the office put upon him only for the sake of the heavenly reward. This man, having on a certain day washed the mantels or garments which he used in the hospital, in the sea, was returning home, when on a sudden about halfway, he was seized with a sudden distemper in his body, insomuch that he fell down, and having lain some time, he could scarcely rise again. When at last he got up, he felt one-half of his body from the head to the foot, struck with palsy, and with much difficulty he got home with the help of a staff. The distemper increased by degrees, and as night approached became still worse, so that when day returned, he could not rise or walk alone. In this weak condition, a good thought came into his mind, which was to go to church, the best way he could, to the tomb of the reverend Father Cuthbert, and there on his knees, to beg of the Divine Goodness either to be delivered from that disease, if it were for his good, or if the Divine Providence had ordained him longer to lie under the same for his punishment, that he might bear the pain with patience and a composed mind. He did accordingly, and supporting his weak limbs with a staff, entered the church, and prostrating himself before the body of the man of God, he with pious earnestness, prayed, that through his intercession, our Lord might be propitious to him. In the midst of his prayers he fell as it were, into a stupor, and as he was afterwards wont to relate, felt a large and broad hand touch his head where the pain lay, and by that touch all the part of his body which had been affected with the distemper, was delivered from the weakness, and restored to health down to his feet. He then awoke, and rose up in perfect health, and returning thanks to God for his recovery, told the brothers what had happened to him; and to the joy of them all, returned the more zealously, as if chastened by his affliction, to the service which he was wont before so carefully to perform. The very garments which had been on Cuthbert's body, dedicated to God, either while living, or after he was dead, were not exempt from the virtue of performing cures, as may be seen in the book of his life and miracles, by such as shall read it."[31] It should be noticed that in this account God alone seemed to have been the healer.

Nearly every country had its long list of saints, each with his special power over some organ or disease. This saintly power, however, was not applied directly, but through their relics or through shrines consecrated to them. Melton, in his Astrologaster, says: "The saints of the Romanists have usurped the place of the zodiacal constellations in their governance of the parts of man's body, and that 'for every limbe they have a saint.' Thus St. Otilia keepes the head instead of Aries; St. Blasius is appointed to governe the necke instead of Taurus; St. Lawrence keepes the backe and shoulders instead of Gemini, Cancer, and Leo; St. Erasmus rules the belly with the entrayles, in the place of Libra and Scorpius; in the stead of Sagittarius, Capricornus, Aquarius, and Pisces, the holy church of Rome hath elected St. Burgarde, St. Rochus, St. Quirinus, St. John, and many others, which governe the thighes, feet, shinnes, and knees."

But the influence of the saints is distributed more minutely, as e. g., "Right Hand: the top joint of the thumb is dedicated to God, the second joint to the Virgin; the top joint of the fore-finger to St. Barnabas, the second joint to St. John, and the third to St. Paul; the top joint of the second finger to Simon Cleophas, the second joint to Tathideo, the third to Joseph; the top joint of the third finger to Zaccheus, the second to Stephen, the third to the evangelist Luke; the top joint of the little finger to Leatus, the second to Mark, the third to Nicodemus." Thus the body was cared for.

Pettigrew makes the following enumeration which shows the division of labor among the saints in the Middle Ages. In this, not the different portions of the body but the various diseases and infirmities are distributed.

"The following list, though doubtless very imperfect, will yet serve to show how general was the appropriation of particular diseases to the Roman Catholic saints:

St. Agatha, against sore breasts. St. Agnan and St. Tignan, against scald head. St. Anthony, against inflammations. St. Apollonia, against toothache. St. Avertin, against lunacy. St. Benedict, against the stone, and also for poisons. St. Blaise, against the quinsey, bones sticking in the throat, etc. St. Christopher and St. Mark, against sudden death. St. Clara, against sore eyes. St. Erasmus, against the colic. St. Eutrope, against dropsy. St. Genow and St. Maur, against the gout. St. Germanus, against diseases of children. St. Giles and St. Hyacinth, against sterility. St. Herbert, against hydrophobia. St. Job and St. Fiage, against syphilis. St. John, against epilepsy and poison. St. Lawrence, against diseases of the back and shoulders. St. Liberius, against the stone and fistula. St. Maine, against the scab. St. Margaret and St. Edine, against danger in parturition. St. Martin, against the itch. St. Marus, against palsy and convulsions. St. Otilia and St. Juliana, against sore eyes and the headache. St. Pernel, against the ague. St. Petronilla, St. Apollonia, and St. Lucy, against the toothache. ——, and St. Genevieve, against fevers. St. Phaire, against hemorrhoids. St. Quintan, against coughs. St. Rochus, and St. Sebastian, against the plague. St. Romanus, against demoniacal possession. St. Ruffin, against madness. St. Sigismund, against fevers and agues. St. Valentine, against epilepsy. St. Venise, against chlorosis. St. Vitus, against madness and poisons. St. Wallia and St. Wallery, against the stone. St. Wolfgang, against lameness."[32]

Wax from the tapers illuminating the altar which enclosed St. Gall's mortal remains was an instantaneous cure for toothache, diseased eyes, and total deafness; a vase used by the martyred Willabrod for bathing thrice a year, still holding its partially solidified water by divine invocation after her death, had great remedial energy in diverse ailments; the water in which the ring of St. Remigius was immersed cured certain obstinate fevers; and the wine in which the bones of the saints were washed restored imbeciles to instant health. In the thirteenth century, hairs of saints, especially of St. Boniface, were used as a purge, and a single hair from the beard of St. Vincent, placed about the neck of an idiot, restored normal mental operations. With the water in which St. Sulpicius washed her hands aggravated infirmities were instantly cured; and in the twelfth century, an invalid being advised in a dream to drink the water in which St. Bernard washed his hands, the Abbot of Clairvaux went to him, gave him the wash water, and healed an incurable disease. Flowers reposing on the tomb of a saint, when steeped in water, were supposed to be especially efficacious in various diseases, and those blooming in aromatic beauty at the tomb of St. Bernard instantly cured grievous sicknesses.[33] The belt of St. Guthlac, and the belt of St. Thomas of Lancaster, were sovereign remedies for the headache, whilst the penknife and boots of Archbishop Becket, and a piece of his shirt, were found most admirably to aid parturition. Fragments of the veil of the saintess Coleta, and the use of her well-worn cloak, immediately cured a terrible luxation, and a cataleptic patient was restored to sanity by drinking from her cup.

To show how thoroughly the idea of the efficacy of these relics must have been indued in the thought of the times, White quotes the following: "Two lazy beggars, one blind, the other lame, try to avoid the relics of St. Martin, borne about in procession, so that they may not be healed and lose their claim to alms. The blind man takes the lame man on his shoulders to guide him, but they are caught in the crowd and healed against their will." He also says: "Even as late as 1784 we find certain authorities in Bavaria ordering that anyone bitten by a mad dog shall at once put up prayers at the shrine of St. Hubert, and not waste his time in any attempts at medical or surgical cure."[34]

In addition to what Dr. White says here about the treatment for threatened hydrophobia in the eighteenth century, we find a curious mixture of science and superstition in the nineteenth century in connection with the same trouble. Early in this century physicians discovered that the most effectual remedy against the bite of a rabid animal was the cauterization of the wound with a red-hot iron. In Tuscany, however, the iron which they heated was one of the nails of the true cross, and in the French provinces it was the key of St. Hubert. This, though, was only to be used in the hands of those who could trace their genealogy to this noble saint. At the abbey of St. Hubert, in the diocese of Liege, the intercession of the saint still continued to be sufficient to effect a cure, provided it was seconded by some religious ceremonies, and a diet which would reassure the patient.

After the discovery of the "true cross," portions of this relic were much used for aid in any emergency. In addition to sanitary and healing powers, fragments suspended to a tree manifested the proper location of sacred edifices. St. Magnus, who seems to have carried pieces around with him, completely vanquished demons who frequented a locality selected for a chapel. Eyesight was restored to a humble merchant seeking the blood-stained marks upon the chapel of this same St. Magnus. The blind man was feeling his uncertain way to the place, where these discolorations reappeared more distinctly after each washing with heavy layers of lime.

St. Louis, almost in the agonies of earthly dissolution, with rigid body, rigorous limbs, and fluctuating spirit, was brought to full health by the application to his moribund body of a piece of the true cross, about the year 1244; and later in the century miracles took place at his tomb. M. Littre, in his Fragment de Medecine Retrospective, describes seven miracles which occurred at his tomb, some of which cures, however, were very gradual. We are also told that when a humble hunchback bowed the knee in adoration at the tomb of St. Andreas, his irresistible faith instantly released him from his unnatural rotundity. In 1243 a Ferrara writer was at Padua, and while attending vespers at the tomb where the sainted body of the Minorite Anthony reposed, he affirms that he saw a person who had been mute from his birth recover his voice and speak audibly.

Saintly remedies were used to cure hemorrhages, readjust luxations, unite fractures, remove calculi, moderate the agonizing pangs of parturition, restore vision to the blind, and hearing to the deaf—in fact, in an endeavor to perform cures which modern medicine and surgery are counting among their greatest and most recent triumphs. Some things even more strange were attempted: paradoxical as it may seem, they were used to cover up crime. Fort tells us that among nuns and consecrated women in convents, some erring sisters applied the preventive talismanic influence of a sacred shirt or girdle to suppress the manifestation of conventual irregularities of a sexual character. Animals as well as human beings were treated for sickness, and relics were used to free captive birds and animals. At a banquet, a costly urn was shattered by ecclesiastics, and through the power of Odilo it was restored to its original integrity. At the tombs of both St. Severin and St. Gall, when the light had been quenched, miraculous fire burst forth to renew the splendor.[35]

The allotment of certain diseases to certain saints did not end with the Middle Ages. I have in my hand a little manual entitled: De l'Invocation miraculeuse des Saints dans les maladies et les besoins particuliers, par Mme. la Baronne d'Avout, published in 1884. An invocation is given for every day in the year to some particular saint, who is thought to be especially efficacious in the cure of some specific disease. I shall quote but one for illustration.

"30 MAI S. HUBERT DE BRETIGNY Pres Noyons (Oise). Honore au diocese de Beauvais.

"L'illustre saint Hubert, apotre des Ardennes, fut son protecteur et lui donna son nom. Il lui obtint les plus heureuses dispositions pour la vertu. Lui aussi herita du pouvoir de guerir de la rage.

"Les habitants de Noyon et des environs n'ont pas cesse de recourir a son intercession. Les personnes qui touchent ses reliques ou portent sur elles son nom beni esperent echapper pendant leur vie aux atteintes des demons, de la rage et du tonnerre.

"A Aire, diocese de Frejus, on invoque aussi sainte Quitere contre la rage.

INVOCATION

"Dieu tout-puissant, qui avez forme le coeur de vos saints avec une admirable bonte, afin qu'ils deviennent pour nous une source de bienfaits et de consolation; assistez-nous dans le pressant besoin ou nous nous trouvons et sauvez-nous de la mort, par les prieres at les merites de saint Hubert de Bretigny, afin que nous puissions vous louer et vous benir. Par N.-S. J.-C. Ainsi soit-il.

"Saint Hubert, qui preservez de la morsure des betes enragees, ou qui guerissez leur morsures mortelles, priez pour tous les affliges qui vous invoquent."

While there was probably some advance when the saints of the church took the place of the zodiacal constellations in the government of the human body, the church prevented the development along scientific lines, although there were many ramifications of saintly influence. Not the least among these was the healing efficacy of holy wells, pools, and streams, which had been empowered in some way by the saints. In some cases the bones of holy men have been buried in different parts of the continent, and after a certain lapse of time, water was said to have oozed from them, which soon formed a spring and cured all the diseases of the faithful.

Perhaps the cure of leprous Naaman by bathing in the Jordan, and the restoration of the sight of the blind man by washing in the Pool of Siloam may have served as examples which the credulous were only too ready to follow. We must also note, however, as a reason for their use, that in classical times the greater number of thermal waters, more frequently used then than in the present day, remained consecrated to the gods, to Apollo, to AEsculapius, and, above all, to Hercules, who was named Iatricos, or the able physician. At any rate, many wells and fountains were dedicated to different saints, and various rites were performed there at Easter and other particular days, where offerings were also made to the saints.

In Ireland, many such sacred places have been visited by the sick for centuries, and England and Scotland have them also. Not only in the British Isles, but in all parts of Europe they were much frequented in the Middle Ages, and they are not without their visitors to-day. As late as 1805 the eminent Roman Catholic prelate, Dr. John Milner, gave a detailed account of a miraculous cure performed at a sacred well in Flintshire. Gregory of Tours was one of the first to notice the healing power of springs in connection with the saints. He asserted that the diseases of the sick and infirm were banished upon the contact of a few drops of water drawn from a spring dug by St. Martin's own hands.

From Fosbrooke's British Monachism we learn that "on a spot called Nell's Point, is a fine well, to which great numbers of women resort on Holy Thursday, and, having washed their eyes in the spring, they drop a pin into it. Once a year, at St. Mardrin's well, also, lame persons went on Corpus Christi evening, to lay some small offering on the altar, there to lie on the ground all night, drink of the water there, and on the next morning to take a good draught more of it, and carry away some of the water each in a bottle at their departure. At Muswell Hill was formerly a chapel, called our Lady of Muswell, from a well there, near which was her image; this well was continually resorted to by way of pilgrimage. At Walsingham, a fine green road was made for the pilgrims, and there was a holy well and cross adjacent, at which pilgrims used to kneel while drinking the water. It is remarkable that the Anglo-Saxon laws had proscribed this as idolatrous. Such springs were consecrated upon the discovery of cures effected by them. In fact," Fosbrooke adds, "these consecrated wells merely imply a knowledge of the properties of mineral waters, but, through ignorance, a religious appropriation of their properties was made to supernatural causes."

"Holywell, in the county of Flint," we are informed by Salverte, "derives its name from the Holy Well of St. Winifred, over which a chapel was erected by the Stanley family, in the reign of Henry VII. The well was formerly in high repute as a medicinal spring. Pennant says that, in his time, Lancashire pilgrims were to be seen in deep devotion, standing in the waters up to the chin for hours, sending up prayers, and making a prescribed number of turnings; and this excess of piety was carried so far, as in several instances to cost the devotees their lives."[36]

Pennant also tells us of a small spring outside the bathing well at Whiteford, which was once famed for the cure of weak eyes. The patient made an offering of a crooked pin, and at the same time repeated some words. The well still remains, but the efficacy of its waters is lost. In recounting his tour of Wales, the same author describes the church of St. Tecla, virgin and martyr, at Llandegla. He says: "About two hundred yards from the church, in a Quillet called Gwern Degla, rises a small spring. The water is under the tutelage of the Saint, and to this day held to be extremely beneficial in the falling sickness. The patient washes his limbs in the well; makes an offering into it of four-pence; walks round it three times; and thrice repeats the Lord's Prayer. These ceremonies are never begun till after sun-set, in order to inspire the votaries with greater awe. If the afflicted be of the male sex, like Socrates, he makes an offering of a cock to his AEsculapius, or rather to Tecla Hygeia; if of the fair sex, a hen. The fowl is carried in a basket, first round the well; after that into the church-yard; when the same orisons and the same circum-ambulations are performed round the church. The votary then enters the church; gets under the communion table; lies down with the Bible under his or her head; is covered with the carpet or cloth, and rests there till break of day; departing after offering sixpence, and leaving the fowl in the church. If the bird dies, the cure is supposed to have been effected, and the disease transferred to the devoted victim."[37]

"At Withersden," says Hasted, "is a well, which was once famous, being called St. Eustache's well, taking its name from Eustachius, Abbot of Flai, who is mentioned by Matt. Paris, An. 1200, to have been a man of learning and sanctity, and to have come and preached at Wye, and to have blessed a fountain there, so that afterwards its waters were endowed by such miraculous power, that by it all diseases were cured."[38] Unfortunately, wells do not always benefit the bathers. Lilly[39] relates that in 1635 Sir George Peckham died in St. Winifred's Well, "having continued so long mumbling his pater nosters and Sancta Winifreda ora pro me, that the cold struck into his body, and after his coming forth of that well he never spoke more."

The people of the Highlands of Scotland regarded fountains with particular veneration. According to the Statistical Account of Scotland, the minister of Kirkmichael, Banffshire, said: "The sick who resort to them for health, address their vows to the presiding powers, and offer presents to conciliate their favor. These presents generally consist of a small piece of money, or a few fragrant flowers. The same reverence in ancient times seems to have been entertained by every people in Europe." Near Kirkmichael there was a fountain dedicated to St. Michael, and once celebrated for its cures. "Many a patient have its waters restored to health, and many more have attested the efficacy of their virtues. But, as the presiding power is sometimes capricious, and apt to desert his charge, it now lies neglected, choked with weeds, unhonored and unfrequented."[40]

The most noted well in Perthshire is in Trinity Gask. Again from the Statistical Account we quote: "Superstition, aided by the interested artifices of Popish Priests, raised, in times of ignorance and bigotry, this well to no small degree of celebrity. It was affirmed that every person who was baptized with the water of this well would never be seized with the plague. The extraordinary virtue of Trinity Gask well has perished with the downfall of superstition."[41]

Pinkerton, in speaking of the river Fillan in Scotland, says: "In this river is a pool consecrated by the ancient superstition of the inhabitants of this country. The pool is formed by the eddying of the stream round a rock. Its waves were many years since consecrated by Fillan, one of the saints who converted the ancient inhabitants of Caledonia from paganism to the belief of Christianity. It has ever since been distinguished by his name, and esteemed of sovereign virtue in curing madness. About two hundred persons afflicted in this way are annually brought to try the benefits of its salutary influence. These patients are conducted by their friends, who first perform the ceremony of passing with them thrice through a neighbouring cairn: on this cairn they then deposit a simple offering of clothes, or perhaps a small bunch of heath. More precious offerings used once to be brought. The patient is then thrice immerged in the sacred pool. After the immersion, he is bound hand and foot, and left for the night in a chapel which stands near. If the maniac is found loose in the morning, good hopes are conceived of his full recovery. If he is still bound, his cure remains doubtful. It sometimes happens that death relieves him, during his confinement, from the troubles of life."

Mrs. Macaulay,[42] speaking of a consecrated well in St. Kilda, called Tobirnimbuadh, or the spring of diverse virtues, says that "near the fountain stood an altar, on which the distressed votaries laid down their oblations. Before they could touch sacred water with any prospect of success, it was their constant practice to address the genius of the place with supplication and prayer. No one approached him with empty hands.... Shells and pebbles, rags of linen or stuffs worn out, pins, needles, or rusty nails were generally all the tribute that was paid."

Collinson[43] mentions a well in the parish Wembton, called St. John's Well, to which in 1464 "an immense concourse of people resorted: and ... many who had for years labored under various bodily diseases, and had found no benefit from physick and physicians, were, by the use of these waters (after paying their due offerings), restored to their primitive health."

Brome, in his Travels, 1700, observes: "In Lothien, two miles from Edinburg southward, is a spring called St. Katherine's Well, flowing continually with a kind of black fatness, or oil, above the water, proceeding (as it is thought) from the parret coal, which is frequent in these parts; 'tis of a marvellous nature, for as the coal, whereof it proceeds, is very apt quickly to kindle into a flame, so is the oil of a sudden operation to heal all scabs and tumors that trouble the outward skin, and the head and hands are speedily healed by virtue of this oil, which retains a very sweet smell; and at Aberdeen is another well very efficacious to dissolve the stone, to expel sand from the reins and bladder, being good for the collick and drunk in July and August, not inferiour, they report, to the Spaw in Germany."[44]

Grose tells us of a well dedicated to St. Oswald, between the towns of Alton and Newton. The neighbors have the opinion that a sick person's shirt thrown into the well will prognosticate the outcome of the disease; if it floats the sick one will recover, if it sinks he will die. To reward the saint for the information, they tear a rag off the shirt and hang it on the briers near by; "where," says the writer, "I have seen such numbers as might have made a fayre rheme in a paper-myll." Similar practices are related by other authors. Ireland formerly had a sanctified well in nearly every parish. They were marked by rude crosses and surrounded by fragments of cloth left as memorials. St. Ronague's Well, near Cork, was very popular at one time. Near Carrick-on-Suir is the holy well of Tubber Quan, the waters of which are reputed to have performed many miraculous cures. The well was dedicated to two patron saints, St. Quan and St. Brogawn. These saints are supposed to exert a special influence the last three Sundays in June. "It is firmly believed," says Brand, "that at this period the two saints appear in the well in the shape of two small fishes, of the trout kind; and if they do not so appear, that no cure will take place. The penitents attending on these occasions ascend the hill barefoot, kneel by the stream and repeat a number of paters and aves, then enter it, go through the stream three times, at a slow pace, reciting their prayers. They then go on the gravel walk, and traverse it round three times on their bare knees, often till the blood starts in the operation, repeat their prayers, then traverse three times round a tree on their bare knees, but upon the grass. Having performed these exercises they cut off locks of their hair and tie them on the branches of the tree as specifics against headache."

After being three times admonished in a dream, a man washed in St. Madern's Well in Cornwall and was miraculously cured, so say Bishop Hall and Father Francis. Ranulf Higden, in his Polychronicon, relates the wonderful cures performed at the holy well at Basingwerk. The red streaks in the stones surrounding it were symbols of the blood of St. Wenefride, martyred by Carodoc.

The Scotch considered certain wells to have healing properties in the month of May. In the Sessions Records (June 12, 1628) it is reported that a number of persons were brought before the Kirk Sessions of Falkirk, accused of going to Christ's Well on the Sundays of May to seek their health, and the whole being found guilty were sentenced to repent "in linens" three several sabbaths. "In 1657 a number of persons were publicly rebuked for visiting the well at Airth. The custom was to leave a piece of money and a napkin at the well, from which they took a can of water, and were not to speak a word either in going or returning, nor on any account to spill a drop of the water. Notwithstanding these proceedings, many are known to have lately travelled many miles into the Highlands, there to obtain water for the cure of their sick cattle."[45]

To-day, probably the most efficacious waters are to be found at the sacred fountain at La Salette and at the holy spring at Lourdes.

We have another specific form of healing which should be noticed. It was especially common in Eastern churches, and was found to some extent in the West. I refer to Incubation, or "Temple-sleep." This practice came down through early civilizations and was an adopted practice among Christians. The patient went to some church well known for its cures, which was provided with mattresses or low couches, and attended by priests and assistants. Devotions being finished he lay down to sleep. Sometimes he slept immediately, at other times sleep must be wooed by fast and vigil. At any rate, during the sleep he dreamed that the saint touched him, or prescribed some remedy, and in the first case he awoke cured, and in the second the prescribed medicine brought about the relief.

Sophronius, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, wrote about 640 as follows: "Cyrus appeared to the sick man in the form of a monk, not in a dream, as he appears to many; but in a waking vision, just as he was and is represented. He told the patient to rise and to plunge into the warm water. Zosimos said it was impossible for him to move, but when the order was repeated, he slid like a snake into the bath. When he got into the water, he saw the saint at his side, but when he came out, the vision had vanished." Beside the cure of this paralytic at the church of Cyrus and John, he mentions the cure of many other diseases by this method of incubation. Among them are dumbness, blindness, barrenness, possession, scrofula, dyspepsia, a broken leg, deformities of limbs, lameness, gout, diseases of the eyes, cataract, ulcer, and dropsy.

Among the churches of Greece and southern Italy incubation is still common. The climate may have some effect in limiting the area of this practice. Miss M. Hamilton furnishes us with some modern examples. In speaking of a new picture of St. George in the church at Arachova, she says: "It is a votive offering of a Russian, who came a paralytic to Arachova in July, 1905. He spent several weeks praying and sleeping in the church, and departed completely cured. The festival of St. George is held on April 23rd. They have three days of dancing and feasting, and at night all suppliants bring their rugs and sleep round the shrines in the church. Every year many of the sick are found to be cured when morning comes."

The Church of the Evangelestria, our Lady of the Annunciation, is visited by about forty-five thousand pilgrims every year. It is situated at Tenos, and Miss Hamilton tells us what she saw during her visit there in 1906:

"On the morning before Annunciation Day this year, the pilgrims could be seen making their way to the church. Among them were cripples, armless, and legless, half-rolling up the street; blind people groping their way along; men and women with deformities of every kind; one or two showing the pallor of death on their faces were being carried up on litters. These evidently were coming to Tenos as a last resource, when doctors were of no avail. Other pilgrims were ascending after their own fashion, according to vows they had made. One woman toiled laboriously along on her knees, kissing the stones of the way, and clasping a silver Madonna and Child. Last year her daughter had been seized with epilepsy, and she vowed to carry in this way this offering to the Madonna of Tenos if she would cure her daughter. The girl recovered and the other now with thankful heart was fulfilling her part of the bargain.

"The eve of Annunciation Day is the time when the Panagia is believed to descend among the sick and work miraculous cures among them. Then all the patients are gathered together in the crypt or in the upper church. The Chapel of the Well is the popular place for incubation. There is more chance for miraculous cure there than in the church. The little crypt can accommodate only a comparatively small number, but they are packed together as tightly as possible. From the entrance up to the altar, they lie in two lines of three or four deep, with a passage down the middle large enough for only one person. Down the narrow way two streams of people press the whole evening. They worship at the shrines along the wall, purchase holy earth from the spot where the picture was discovered, drink at the sacred well, and are blessed by the priest at the altar. The cripples and the sick desiring healing have been engaged all day in such acts of worship; they have received bread and water from the priests in the upper church, paid homage to the all-powerful picture, offered their candles to the Madonna, and all the time sought to endue themselves with her presence. Now at night, still fixing their thoughts upon her, and permeated by this spirit of worship, they settle down to sleep in order that she may appear to them in a dream.

"Disappointment, of course, awaits the vast majority, but on the evening of the vigil all are filled with hope. They know the precedents of former years, how such things have happened to some unfortunate people among the pilgrims every year. Usually eight or nine miracles take place, and lists of them are published for distribution....

"The church records contain accounts of the miracles which now amount to many hundreds. They are practically all of the type I have described—cure during a vision while incubation was being practised. For example, the case of a man from Moldavia is on record. He had become paralyzed during a night-watch, and the doctor could effect no relief. He was taken to the Chapel of the Well, and when asleep he thought he heard a voice telling him to arise. He awoke, thought it was a dream, and fell asleep again. A second time he heard a voice, and saw a white-robed woman of great beauty entering the church. In his fear he rose and walked about. His recovery was so complete that he could walk in the procession round the town the following day."[46]

The medicinal power imputed to the sainted relics and shrines would naturally be considered very valuable. So it proved. Wealth flowed to a conventual treasury or a cathedral chapter where were deposited fragments of the martyred dead endowed with miraculous puissance. When the Frankish forces sacked Constantinople at the beginning of the thirteenth century, the principal object of their ferocious cruelties and vigilant searches was the acquisition of precious relics. Concerning these relics Fort gives the following account:

"These relics, captured in Constantinople, were divided by the troops under Marquis de Montfort, with the same justice as prevailed in the division of other booty. In this way the Venetians were enabled to enrich their metropolis with a piece of the sainted cross, an arm of St. George, part of the head of St. John the Baptist, the entire skeleton of St. Luke, that of the prophet St. Simeon, and a small bottle of Jesus Christ's blood. The Greek capital from the remotest times appears to have monopolized this traffic in sacred wares, claiming to possess a fragment of the stone on which Jacob slept, and the staff transformed into a serpent by Moses.

"Here also were guarded the Holy Virgin's vestments, her spindle, drops of her milk, the cradle in which the Saviour had lain, a tooth from his adolescent jaw, a hair of his beard, a particle of the bread used in the Last Supper, and a portion of the royal purple worn by him before Pilate. Naturally clerical adventurers among the occidental Crusaders, pending the sacking of the Byzantine city, sought out most zealously these valuable remnants of pristine glory, and in obtaining them were by no means scrupulous with menaces and violence. When scattered through Western Europe, in the monasteries and other religious places, their curative properties increased the pilgrimages thither of the sick and diseased."[47]

He further gives us more in detail[48] an idea of the continual accumulation of riches which were derived from the exposure of these relics to the sick and infirm and the consequent growth in wealth of the monasteries and cathedrals. The monastic system was probably most responsible for the change from the simple adoration of the early Christians to the use of relics as a miraculous means of healing. Those which were transported with elaborate ceremonies, enclosed in a magnificent stone sarcophagus, and covered by an edifice of imposing proportions were almost sure to bring to their custodians great wealth. It is said that when the body of St. Sebastian, which was legitimately obtained from Rome, together with the purloined remains of St. Gregory, reached the cloister of Soissons, so great was the crowd of invalids who were cured, and so generous were they in their donations, that the monks actually counted eighty measures of money and one hundred pounds in coin. The great value of such objects may be calculated when it is remembered that in the year 1056 securities amounting to ten thousand solidi were pledged for the production of the relics of St. Just and St. Pastor, consequent upon the legal decision of ownership between Berenger, a French ruler, and a Narbonnese archbishop. The Reichberg annals provide a further example. They state that the emperor demanded certain hostages, or the holy arm of St. George, as a suitable guarantee for the institution of a public mart in Germany.

Venetian merchants were among the first to realize the commercial value of relics, and enjoyed a lucrative traffic in this holy merchandise. It was not until the eleventh century, however, that the government of Venice founded public marts or fairs for the commercial exchange of saintly relics, although Rome and Pavia had long conducted such enterprises. These fairs were placed under the tutelary protection of some patron saint, the Venetians, of course, thus honoring St. Mark. They were not always particular how these relics were procured, for it is stated that when negotiations for the exchange of a well-preserved body of St. Tairise proved unsuccessful, because the Greek monks who possessed it refused absolutely to sell or barter, these enterprising traders quietly stole the desired skeleton.

Relics provided a suitable method of acquiring ecclesiastical fortunes for denuded cloisters or impoverished nunneries; and if the old relics lost their power it was not difficult to procure episcopal assurance of the miraculous powers of new ones. For the procuring of special funds the venerated objects were taken from place to place, under priestly surveillance, presented to the sick and infirm with assurance of relief, and with the demand for large sums of money.

We can easily understand, then, why such donations were regarded as most precious presents, and chronicled in the conventual records as events of high importance. As early as the ninth century, documentary evidence of authenticity frequently accompanied a gift of relics, and furnished legal proof of ownership.

The gift of St. Peter's knife to a German monastery by a benevolent abbot was deemed a most illustrious act. About the same time a noble pilgrim succeeded, after great importunity and a lavish outlay of money, in obtaining trifling particles of the relics of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, which he enclosed in a priceless box and donated to the monastery of St. Gall. This gift was considered the greatest event of the year, but when it is considered that this and similar presents insure in the community, where they are deposited uninterrupted peace, unstinted plenty, absence of catastrophies, and the cure of diseases, their value is explained.

The commercial aspect of ecclesiastical cures, however, was discovered by other than priestly or monkish eyes, and different forms began to be presented. Of these White says: "Very important among these was the Agnus Dei, or piece of wax from the Paschal candles, stamped with the figure of a lamb and consecrated by the Pope. In 1471 Pope Paul II expatiated to the Church on the efficacy of this fetich in preserving men from fire, shipwreck, tempest, lightning, and hail, as well as in assisting women in childbirth; and he reserved to himself and his successors the manufacture of it. Even as late as 1517 Pope Leo X issued, for a consideration, tickets bearing a cross and the following inscription: 'This cross measured forty times makes the height of Christ in his humanity. He who kisses it is preserved for seven days from falling-sickness, apoplexy, and sudden death.'"[49]

The enormous revenues procured through the means of relics, and the lack of certain means of identifying them, would naturally encourage the imposition of fraud. The crime would not appear so great after one experience, for the perpetrators could readily see that it really made no difference so far as efficacy in the cure of diseases was concerned, whether or not the relics were genuine. The history of some of the relics unfortunately proves them not to be relics at all, or at least not to be the relics which the faithful supposed them to be. Notice a few instances. In a magnificent shrine in the cathedral at Cologne are the skulls of the three kings, or wise men from the East, who brought gifts to the infant Lord. They have rested here since the twelfth century and have been the source of enormous wealth and power to the cathedral chapter. Not to be outdone by the cathedral, for the church of St. Gereon a cemetery has been depopulated, and the bones thus procured have been placed upon the walls and are known as the relics of St. Gereon and his Theband band of martyrs! Further competition arose in the neighboring church of St. Ursula. Another cemetery was despoiled and the bones covering the interior of the walls are known as the relics of St. Ursula and her eleven thousand virgin martyrs. Anatomists now declare that many of the bones are those of men, but this made no more difference in their healing efficacy in the Middle Ages than the fact that the relics of St. Rosalia at Palermo, famed for their healing power, have lately been declared by Professor Buckland, the eminent osteologist, to be the bones of a goat.

Two different investigations have been conducted by the French courts concerning the fountain of La Salette, and in both cases the miracles which make the shrine famous were pronounced to be fraudulent. The recent restoration of the cathedral at Trondhjem has revealed a tube in the walls, not unlike the apparatus discovered in the Temple of Isis at Pompeii; the healing power of this sacred spring was augmented by angelic voices which issued from the supposedly solid walls.[50]

While the golden age of the therapeutic use of relics was from the sixth to the sixteenth centuries, modern times, with its physicians, hospitals, and drugs, has not been deprived of this method of cure. Mackay, writing in the latter half of the past century, touches this subject.

At Port Royal, in Paris, is kept with great care a thorn, which the priests of that seminary assert to be one of the identical thorns that bound the holy head of the Son of God. How it came there, and by whom it was preserved, has never been explained. This is the famous thorn which the long dissensions of the Jansenists and the Molenists have made celebrated, and which worked the miraculous cure upon Mademoiselle Perier, an account of which is so interesting that I give it. The cure occurred on March 14, 1646.

"A young pensioner in the monastery, by name Margaret Perier, who for three years and a half had suffered from a lachrymal fistula, came up in her turn to kiss it; and the nun, her mistress, more horrified than ever at the swelling and deformity of her eye, had a sudden impulse to touch the sore with the relic, believing that God was sufficiently able and willing to heal her. She thought no more of the matter, but the little girl having retired to her room, perceived a quarter of an hour after that her disease was cured; and when she told her companions, it was indeed found that nothing more was to be seen of it. There was no more tumor; and her eye, which the swelling (continuous for three years) had weakened and caused to water, had become as dry, as healthy, as lively as the other. The spring of the filthy matter, which every quarter of an hour ran down from nose, eye, and mouth, and at the very moment before the miracle had fallen upon her cheek (as she declared in her deposition), was found to be quite dried up; the bone, which had been rotted and putrified, was restored to its former condition; all the stench, proceeding from it, which had been so insupportable that by order of the physicians and surgeons she was separated from her companions, was changed into a breath as sweet as an infant's; and she recovered at the same moment her sense of smell....

"Mons. Felix, Chief Surgeon to the King, who had seen her during the month of April, was curious enough to return on the 8th of August, and having found the cure as thorough and marvellous as it had seemed to him at the time, declared under his hand that 'he was obliged to confess that God alone had the power to produce an effect so sudden and extraordinary.'"[51]

Mackay gives the following account of the distribution of relics about the middle of the nineteenth century: "Europe still swarms with these religious relics. There is hardly a Roman Catholic Church in Spain, Portugal, France, or Belgium, without one or more of them. Even the poorly endowed churches of the villages boast the possession of miraculous thighbones of the innumerable saints of the Romish calendar. Aix-la-Chapelle is proud of the veritable chasse, or thighbone of Charlemagne, which cures lameness. Halle has a thighbone of the Virgin Mary; Spain has seven or eight, all said to be undoubted relics. Brussels at one time preserved, and perhaps does now, the teeth of St. Gudule. The faithful who suffered from the toothache, had only to pray, look at them, and be cured."[52]

The miracles performed at the tomb of the Deacon Paris in the cemetery of St. Medard are of comparatively recent occurrence, and well attested. For example, we have the case of "la demoiselle Coirin," which, to say the least, is out of the ordinary. "In 1716," says Dearmer, "this lady, then aged thirty-one, fell from her horse; paralysis and an ulcer followed; by 1719 the ulcer was in a horrible condition; in 1720 her mother refused an operation preferring to let her die in peace. In 1731—after fifteen years of an open breast—she asked a woman to say a novena at the tomb of Francois de Paris, to touch the tomb with her shift, and to bring back some earth. This was done on August 10th; on the 11th she put on the shift and at once felt improved; on the 12th she touched the wound with the earth and it at once began to heal. By the end of August the skin was completely healed up, and on September 24th she went out of doors."[53]

Among the most noted relics at the present time are the Holy Coat of Treves,[54] the Winding-sheet of Christ at Besancon, and the Santa Scala at Rome. The last are said to be the steps which Jesus ascended and descended when he was brought before Pontius Pilate, and are held in great veneration. It is sacrilegious to walk upon them; the knees of the faithful alone must touch them, and that only after they have reverently kissed them. Cures are still performed by all these relics.

The two shrines at present best known and which have proved most efficacious are those of Lourdes in France[55] and St. Anne de Beaupre in the province of Quebec. Lourdes owes its reputed healing power to a belief in a vision of the Virgin received there during the last century. Over 300,000 persons visit there every year, and no small proportion of them return with health restored as a reward for their faith. At Lourdes and many other shrines bathing forms a part of the ceremony, and on account of the unsanitary conditions in the former place, there is some danger that the French Government will cause its abandonment. Charcot, who established the Salpetriere hospital where hypnotism was so successfully used, sent fifty or sixty patients to Lourdes every year. He was firmly convinced of the healing power of faith. One commendable feature of the management at Lourdes is the opportunity given for investigation; in fact, this is courted. Most of the sick bring medical details of their diseases; an examining committee of medical men examine them after they arrive there and after the cure. About two hundred and fifty doctors visit there every year, and the widest opportunity is given to them for examination of the cases, regardless of their nationality or religious belief or scepticism. This attitude might well be assumed by these in control of other shrines or of healing cults.

In America thousands flock to the shrine of St. Anne de Beaupre annually. Here are to be found bones, supposed to be the wrist bones of the holy mother of the Virgin, and many sufferers are able to testify to their value in the healing of various diseases.

On all parts of the Continent there are shrines of more or less renown as healing centres. In Normandy the springs of Fecamp or Grand-Andely are much frequented; in Austria, at Mariazell, Styria, the church is visited by two hundred thousand pilgrims a year, and has been a centre of healing since 1157; in Italy, the church of S. Maria dell' Arco, near Naples, has been a local Lourdes for four hundred years, and here, as at Amalfi, Palermo, and other places, the ancient practice of incubation is still prevalent. The adherents of the Eastern Church also have their shrines, and among the visitors to the shrines of Greece, many pilgrims are rewarded for their faith by being healed.

It is curious to remark the avidity manifested in all ages, and in all countries, to obtain possession of some relic of any person who had been much spoken of, if for nothing more than for his crimes.[56] Snuff-boxes made from Shakespeare's mulberry-tree, twigs from Napoleon's willow, or bullets from the field of Waterloo have all been much sought after. Souvenirs of everything and anything are still much in demand. It is within the last decade that a foreign war-ship anchored in New York harbor, and after the officers courteously opened the ship for the inspection of visitors they found that even their silver toilet articles and plate had been carried away by the relic maniacs. A United States admiral, rather more facetiously than patriotically, remarked that "the American people of to-day would steal anything but a cellarful of water." I suppose the remark, so far as it applies to the relic-crazed crowd, would be as applicable to any other people of any other time.

We have a right to ask, in closing this chapter, how it was possible for men to believe in the power of relics to cure diseases. The practice seems to have developed from the reasoning that the saints who helped men while in the imperfections of the flesh, could be of even more benefit when they were with God in the perfections of the spiritual life. St. Augustine (426), for example, speaks of comparing the wonders performed by pagan "deities with our dead men," and that the miracles wrought by idols "are in no way comparable to the wonders wrought by our martyrs." Some might agree with this, and yet find no warrant for using relics. There was, however, the remembrance of the dead man who was restored to life by contact with the bones of Elisha, and of the handkerchiefs and aprons which touched Paul's body and were thereby filled with healing efficacy. Even to-day we do not fail to recognize the value of the association of places and objects, and one finds it difficult to enter Westminster Abbey, for instance, without feeling a thrill on account of the sacred clay reposing there. When we remember the beginning of the use of relics in the catacombs we can better understand the development of the practice.

[21] G. F. Fort, History of Medical Economy During the Middle Ages, p. 201.

[22] Ibid., pp. 142 and 156.

[23] G. P. Fisher, History of the Christian Church, p. 117.

[24] W. E. H. Lecky, History of European Morals, I, pp. 378 f.

[25] Ibid., I, p. 379.

[26] P. Dearmer, Body and Soul, pp. 268 f.

[27] J. Moses, Pathological Aspects of Religions, p. 133.

[28] C. Mackay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions, II, pp. 303 f.

[29] J. W. Draper, History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science, p. 270.

[30] J. Moses, Pathological Aspects of Religions, pp. 132 f.

[31] Bede, Ecclesiastical History, ed. J. A. Giles, bk. IV, chap. XXXI.

[32] T. J. Pettigrew, Superstitions Connected with the History and Practice of Medicine and Surgery, pp. 55-57.

[33] G. F. Fort, History of Medical Economy During the Middle Ages, pp. 224 f., 273-277, 457.

[34] A. D. White, History of the Warfare of Science with Theology, II, pp. 40 f.

[35] G. F. Fort, History of Medical Economy During the Middle Ages, p. 273.

[36] E. Salverte, The Philosophy of Magic (trans. Thompson), II, p. 93.

[37] Tour of Wales, I, p. 405.

[38] Hasted, Kent, III, p. 176.

[39] History of His Life and Times, p. 32.

[40] Statistical Account of Scotland, VII, p. 213, and XII, p. 464.

[41] Ibid., XVIII, p. 487.

[42] C. S. Macaulay, History of St. Kilda, p. 95.

[43] Somersetshire, III, p. 104.

[44] I am much indebted to J. Brand, Popular Antiquities, pp. 1-17, for some of the quotations used in the discussion of this subject.

[45] Superstitions Connected with ... Medicine and Surgery, pp. 57-61.

[46] I am indebted to P. Dearmer, Body and Soul, pp. 278-281, 314-318, for the material on incubation. For fuller study, see L. Deubner, De Incubatione, and M. Hamilton, Incubation.

[47] G. F. Fort, History of Medical Economy During the Middle Ages, p. 227.

[48] Ibid., pp. 210-214, 226 f., 278.

[49] A. D. White, History of the Warfare of Science with Theology, II, p. 30.

[50] Ibid., II, pp. 21, 29, 43.

[51] P. Dearmer, Body and Soul, pp. 374 f.

[52] C. Mackay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions, II, p. 304.

[53] P. Dearmer, Body and Soul, pp. 105 f.

[54] R. F. Clarke, The Holy Coat of Treves.

[55] A. T. Myers and F. W. H. Myers, "Mind Cure, Faith Cure, and the Miracles at Lourdes," Proceedings Society Psychical Research, IX, pp. 160-409; E. Berdoe, "A Medical View of the Miracles at Lourdes," Nineteenth Century, October, 1895; J. B. Estrade, Les apparitions de Lourdes, Souvenirs intimes d'un temoin; H. Bernheim, Suggestive Therapeutics, pp. 200-202; A. Imbert-Gourbyzee, La Stigmatisation, l'extase divine, et les miracles de Lourdes, II, chaps. XXI and XXVII; E. Zola, Lourdes.

[56] C. Mackay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions, II, p. 306.



CHAPTER V

HEALERS

"This is an art Which doth mend nature—but The art itself is nature."—Winter's Tale.

"Some are molested by Phantasie; so some, again, by Fancy alone and a good conceit, are as easily recovered.... All the world knows there is no virtue in charms, &c., but a strong conceit and opinion alone, as Pomponatius holds, which forceth a motion of the humours, spirits, and blood, which takes away the cause of the malady from the parts affected. The like we may say of the magical effects, superstitious cures, and such as are done by montebanks and wizards. As by wicked incredulity many are hurt (so saith Wierus), we find, in our experience, by the same means, many are relieved."

In discussing the subject of healers one must keep in mind the fact that the healers of the first millennium of our era were almost wholly exorcists, on account of the prevailing theory, and even after that time exorcism, on the one hand, and the faith in relics and shrines on the other, formed the principal means of cure. It is therefore difficult to differentiate the other healers from the exorcists, and to decide whether certain cures were performed by healers or by relics.

Another difficulty confronts us. Many authentic cures have probably been wrought by saints, but unfortunately most of those performed by them have little contemporary evidence to support them, but rest on the very shaky testimony of tradition. White,[57] in a keen analysis, shows how the legends of miraculous cures have grown around great benefactors of humanity, taking Francis Xavier as a pertinent example.

We must also remember, however, that what are called miracles formed part of the evidence which led to the canonization of a saint, and a large number of healing miracles was usually included in the list. The procedure of the court connected with the canonization was conducted with the greatest rigor. Sitting as examiners were learned and upright men from all nations, and the witness must be irreproachable as far as character was concerned. The two witnesses required for each miracle must testify concerning the nature of the disease and the cure, and sign the deposition after it had been read to them. Following that, the examiners sifted the evidence in a hypercritical way and emphasized the weak places. Benedict XIV justly said: "The degree of proof required is the same as that required for a criminal case, since the cause of religion and piety is that of the commonweal." Some consideration must be thus given to this testimony, but the value of it depends on the number of years elapsing after the cures were performed and the direct connection of the witnesses with the cure in question.

The craving for the miraculous in bodily cures prejudiced many historians, especially when the desire to emphasize the importance of the church was uppermost in the minds of the writers. We can consider, though, the material at hand, always recognizing that marvellous cures can be performed when the authority of the physician has all the weight of an infallible church behind it and the patient is credulous. We must notice in this connection that the healers up to the time of the magnetizers depended on religious ceremonies for their efficiency, with the exception of those who endorsed and propagated "sympathetic cures."

As we well know, the first healing among Christians was done by Jesus himself and the apostles; after this for two centuries the exorcists performed most of the cures. We have accounts of one non-Christian healer whose cures have probably been handed down to us on account of his exalted position. Tacitus and Suetonius describe how Vespasian (9-79) healed in at least two cases. The first was a blind man well known in Alexandria. In the second case the historians disagree; one says it was a leg and the other a hand which was diseased and cured. According to the story, the god Serapis revealed to the patients that they would be cured by the emperor. Tacitus says that Vespasian did not believe in his own power and it was only after much persuasion that he was induced to try the experiment.[58]

The Christians, however, were not to be outdone as healers. Irenaeus (130-202) gives a long list of infirmities which were cured by the representatives of the church, and in writing, about the year 180, draws a comparison between them and the heretics. "For they [the heretics] can neither confer sight on the blind nor hearing on the deaf, nor chase away all sorts of demons (except those which are sent into others by themselves—if they can ever do as much as this): nor can they cure the weak, or the lame, or the paralytic; or those who are distressed in any other part of the body, as has often been done in regard to bodily infirmity. Nor can they furnish effective remedies for those external accidents which may occur. And so far are they from being able to raise the dead, as the Lord raised them (and the Apostles did by means of prayer, as has been frequently done in the brotherhood on account of some necessity—the entire church in that particular locality entreating with much fasting and prayer, the spirit of the dead man has returned, and he has been bestowed in answer to the prayers of the saints—) that they do not even believe that this could possibly be done." He further says: "Others again heal the sick by laying their hands upon them, and they are made whole. Yea, moreover, as I have said, the dead even have been raised up, and remained among us for many years."

The great Origen (185-254), writing when he would be certain to have his words most severely criticised, says, after referring to the miracles of the apostles: "And there are still preserved among Christians traces of that Holy Spirit which appeared in the form of a dove. They expel evil spirits, and perform many cures, and foresee certain events, according to the will of the Logos." In another of his works we find the following: "For they [the Jews] have no longer prophets or miracles, traces of which to a considerable extent are still found among Christians, and some of them more remarkable than ever have existed among the Jews; and these we ourselves have witnessed."

As has already been seen, different methods were used by various healers, and we must not omit a brief account of healing by unction. The very definite instructions laid down in the Epistle of James were evidently strictly carried out in the early church, but the first definite mention of anointing after that made by Mark and James is found in the writings of Tertullian (160-220). He speaks of the pagan emperor Severus being graciously mindful of Christians: "For he sought out the Christian Proculus, surnamed Torpacion, the steward of Euhodias, and in gratitude for his having once cured him by anointing, he kept him in his palace till the day of his death."[59]

If the Christians anointed pagans it is legitimate to suppose that they also anointed fellow-Christians, and that if this was performed without special mention about the end of the second century, it must have been common from the time of James to that period. It is probable that during the first seven centuries of our era the practice of praying with the sick and anointing them with oil never ceased. There may be some objection to our considering the subject of anointing with oil as purely mental healing, but according to the instructions given for its use there was scarcely enough oil employed to be of benefit otherwise, and especially as food. Mental healing, then, is the rationale of the cures.

Puller[60] gives us three of the earliest incidents of healing by unction, the original accounts all being written by contemporaries and friends. Some time between the years 335 and 355, St. Parthenius, Bishop of Lampsacus, anointed a man who was described as "altogether withered." The account says: "Then getting up, he gently and gradually softened the man's body with the holy oil, and straightway made him to rise up healed." Refinus, a well-known writer and an eye-witness to this healing, tells of St. Macarius of Alexandria and four monks restoring, about the year 375, "a man, withered in all his limbs and especially in his feet." He says: "But when he had been anointed all over by them with oil in the Name of the Lord, immediately the soles of his feet were strengthened. And when they said to him, 'In the name of Jesus Christ ... arise, and stand on thy feet, and return to thy house,' immediately arising and leaping, he blessed God." Some years later, Palladius, the friend of St. Chrysostom, writes of another of St. Macarius's cures which he witnessed: "But at the time that we were there, there was brought to him from Thessalonica a noble and wealthy virgin, who during many years had been suffering from paralysis. And when she had been presented to him, and had been thrown down before the cell of the blessed man, he, being moved with compassion for her, with his own hands anointed her during twenty days with holy oil, pouring out prayers for her to the Lord, and so sent her back cured to her own city."

The Sacramentary of Serapion, Bishop of Thmuis, Egypt, written about 350, provides for the consecration of bread and water, as well as oil, for healing; and in a prayer concerning oil and water there contained, the following words are used: "Grant healing power upon these creatures, that every fever and every demon and every sickness may depart through the drinking and the anointing, and that the partaking of these creatures may be a healing medicine and a medicine of complete soundness in the Name of the Only begotten, Jesus Christ," etc. The Apostolic Constitutions of about 375 contain a prayer of consecration used over oil and water brought by members of the congregation, as follows: "Do thou now sanctify this water and this oil, through Christ, in the name of him that offered or of her that offered, and give to these things a power of producing health and of driving away diseases, of putting to flight demons, of dispersing every snare through Christ our Hope," etc.

About 390, St. Jerome wrote a life of St. Hilarion (291-371) in which the latter is thus set forth as a healer: "But lo! that parched and sandy district, after the rain had fallen, unexpectedly produced such vast numbers of serpents and poisonous animals that many, who were bitten, would have died at once if they had not run to Hilarion. He therefore blessed some oil, with which all the husbandmen and shepherds touched their wounds and found an infallible cure."

Oil was not always employed for anointing, but might be drunk by the sick, and this use of it was made in healing a girl, by St. Martin of Tours, about 395. St. Germain, Bishop of Auxerre (418-448), when the physicians were powerless during a plague, blessed some oil and anointed the swollen jaws of those who were sick, whereupon they recovered; and St. Genevieve of Paris, who died about 502, used to heal the sick with oil.

In Bede's biography of St. Cuthbert we find an instance of this saint healing a girl about the year 687. A young woman was troubled for a whole year with an intolerable pain in her head and side which the physicians were unable to relieve. Cuthbert "in pity anointed the wretched woman with oil. From that time she began to get better, and was well in a few days."

At the beginning of the eighth century the anointing of the sick began to decline, largely on account of the changed attitude of the church. At this time this ceremony began to be used for spiritual ills rather than for bodily diseases. Before long, anointing was monopolized by the church for spiritual advantage, and is still so used by the Roman Catholic Church in the ceremony of Extreme Unction.

In returning to the more direct methods of healing, we find that St. Gregory of Nazianzus (329-390) confirmed the reports of the marvellous cures wrought by the martyrs, Cosmo and Damian, who were beheaded in 303. During the life of Gregory of Tours (538-594), the healing efficacy of the saints' relics was rivalled by the miraculous aid rendered to the sick by St. Julian. The solitude of the holy anchorite was interrupted by the persistent and despairing clamor of the sick to whom he gave health. The great Turonese pontiff also tells us that one day Aredius, traversing Paris, found Chilperic prostrate with a grievous fever. The royal sufferer sought the saint's prayers as an irresistible curative.

The daughter of a Teutonic nobleman was brought to St. Gall (556-640) seriously ill with an incurable disorder, presenting the livid appearance of an animated cadaver. The saint approached the unconscious invalid as she reclined on her mother's knee, and assuming the bended attitude of invocation by her side, made a fervent prayer and evoked the demon producing the sickness to instantly depart. The effort was all that was desired. Shortly after this, about the year 648, St. Vardrille, the founder of Fontanelle, exercised his remedial potency in healing the palsied arm of a forester whose indiscreet zeal had induced him to transfix the sainted abbot with a lance.

We have rather a strange case from the beginning of the seventh century, where the moral and mental element seems to have been strong. Abbe Eustasius returning from Rome, whither a mission of Clothair II had called him, was urgently summoned by the sorrowful parent of a Burgundian maiden, in the last agonies of a frightful malady, to appear and cure the moribund daughter. On answering the call he found that the child had in her youth been consecrated by the vows of chastity, and on account of this shrunk from a marriage sanctioned by her parents. Eustasius reproached the father for his efforts to violate the solemn obligations of the virgin, and upon obtaining a formal renunciation of further attempts to coerce her into matrimony, the saint, by personal intercession, obtained a complete cure.

It was found that certain remedies in the hands of certain saints were efficacious, but they did not have the same power if administered by others. For instance, Franciscus de Paula succored an anchylosed joint by the energetic surgery of three dried figs which he gave the suffering patient to eat. Similarly, a maiden grieving under a cancerous disease which surgical skill had frankly admitted was incurable, was restored to robust vigor by the administering of some mild herbs. This savored rather too much of medicine, and other holy healers used more orthodox means. Hugo the Holy abstracted a serpent from the infirm body of a woman by the use of holy water, and Coleta, the saintess, awakened from the dreamless slumber of death more than one hundred slain infants by the efficacy of a cross.

Even such a serious disorder as leprosy was said to have been healed by saintly care. St. Martin, who gave special attention to sufferers with this disease, cured a leper by kissing him, we are told. Toward the middle of the sixth century, St. Radegonde displayed her faith by first washing the repulsive sores and afterward applying her pure lips to them. On one occasion an insolent leper asserted that unless his putrefying limbs were kissed by this candidate for canonical honors he could not be cured.[61]

Bede (673-735), the great English historian, in his careful way tells us of cures performed by St. John of Beverly during the first part of the eighth century. According to this record, St. John cured a dumb youth, who had never spoken a word, by the sign of the cross on his tongue, and he afterward had "ready utterance." He used holy water on a woman so that, like Peter's wife's mother, she arose and ministered to them, healed a friend who was injured by being thrown from a horse, cured a nun of a grievous complaint, and restored a servant, an account of which I shall give in Bede's words:

"The bishop went in and saw him in a dying condition, and the coffin by his side, whilst all present were in tears. He said a prayer, blessed him, and on going out, as is the usual expression of comforters, said, 'May you soon recover.' Afterwards when they were sitting at table, the lad sent to his lord, to desire he would let him have a cup of wine, because he was thirsty. The earl, rejoicing that he could drink, sent him a cup of wine, blessed by the bishop; which, as soon as he had drunk, he immediately got up, and shaking off his late infirmity, dressed himself, and going in to the bishop, saluted him and the other guests, saying, 'He would also eat and be merry with them.' They ordered him to sit down with them at the entertainment, rejoicing at his recovery. He sat down, ate and drank merrily, and behaved himself like the rest of the company; and living many years after, continued in the same state of health."[62]

Skipping a few centuries, we find that Bernard of Clairvaux (1091-1153), the most prominent figure of the twelfth century, performed an abundance of cures, as his biographers testify. "The cures were so many that the witnesses themselves were unable to detail them all. At Doningen, near Rheinfeld, where the first Sunday of Advent was spent, Bernard cured, in one day, nine blind persons, ten who were deaf or dumb, and eighteen lame or paralytic. On the following Wednesday, at Schaffhausen, the number of miracles increased."[63] Concerning these cures Morison says: "Thirty-six miraculous cures in one day would seem to have been the largest stretch of supernatural power which Bernard permitted to himself. The halt, the blind, the deaf, and the dumb were brought from all parts to be touched by Bernard. The patient was presented to him, whereupon he made the sign of the cross over the part affected, and the cure was perfect."[64]

The following case in which details are more fully given is of much interest: "At Toulouse, in the church of St. Saturninus, in which we were lodged, was a certain regular canon, named John. John had kept his bed for seven months, and was so reduced that his death was expected daily. His legs were so shrunken that they were scarcely larger than a child's arms. He was quite unable to rise to satisfy the wants of nature. At last his brother canons refused to tolerate his presence any longer among them, and thrust him out into the neighbouring village. When the poor creature heard of Bernard's proximity, he implored to be taken to him. Six men, therefore, carrying him as he lay in bed, brought him into a room close to that in which he was lodged. The abbot heard him confess his sins, and listened to his entreaties to be restored to health. Bernard mentally prayed to God: 'Behold, O Lord, they seek for a sign, and our words avail nothing, unless they be confirmed with signs following.' He then blessed him and left the chamber, and so did we all. In that very hour the sick man arose from his couch, and running after Bernard, kissed his feet with a devotion which cannot be imagined by any one who did not see it. One of the canons, meeting him, nearly fainted with fright, thinking he saw his ghost."

St. Francis of Assisi (1182-1226), the great founder of the Franciscan Order, was not less famed for his miracles of healing than for his Christ-like life and his stigmata. Among those cured were epileptics, paralytics, and the blind. A typical case of cure by this humble saint is given to show his method and its results: "Once when Francis the Saint of God was making a long circuit through various regions to preach the gospel of God's kingdom he came to a city called Toscanella. Here ... he was entertained by a knight of that same city whose only son was a cripple and weak in all his body. Though the child was of tender years he had passed the age of weaning; but he still remained in a cradle. The boy's father, seeing the man of God to be endued with such holiness, humbly fell at his feet and besought him to heal his son. Francis, deeming himself to be unprofitable and unworthy of such power and grace, for a long time refused to do it. At last, conquered by the urgency of the knight's entreaties, after offering up prayer, he laid his hand on the boy, blessed him, and lifted him up. And in the sight of all, the boy straightway arose whole in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and began to walk hither and thither about the house."[65]

St. Thomas of Hereford (1222-1282) was the last Englishman to be officially canonized. The extant documents of his canonization record no less than four hundred and twenty-nine miracles alleged to have been performed by him. The following case of resurrection from the dead occurred, however, twenty-one years after his death. I quote the account in full:

"On the 6th of September, 1303, Roger, aged two years and three months, the son of Gervase, one of the warders of Conway Castle, managed to crawl out of bed in the night and tumble off a bridge, a distance of twenty-eight feet; he was not discovered till the next morning, when his mother found him half naked and quite dead upon a hard stone at the bottom of the ditch, where there was no water or earth, but simply the rock, which had been quarried to build the castle. Simon Waterford, the vicar, who had christened the child, John de Bois, John Guffe, all sworn witnesses, took their oaths on the Gospel that they saw and handled the child dead. The King's Crowners (Stephen Ganny and William Nottingham) were presently called and went down into the moat. They found the child's body cold and stiff, and white with hoar-frost, stark dead, indeed. While the Crowners, as their office requires, began to write what they had seen, one John Syward, a near neighbour, came down and gently handled the child's body all over, and finding it as dead as ever any, made the sign of the cross upon its forehead, and earnestly prayed after this manner: 'Blessed St. Thomas Cantelope, you by whom God has wrought innumerable miracles, show mercy unto this little infant, and obtain he may return to life again. If this grace be granted he shall visit your holy sepulchre and render humble thanks to God and you for the favor.' No sooner had Syward spoken these words, than the child began to move his head and right arm a little, and forthwith life and vigor came back again into every part of his body. The Crowners, and many others who were standing by, saw the miracle, and in that very place, with great admiration, returned humble thanks to God and St. Thomas for what they had seen. The mother, now overjoyed, took the child in her arms, and went that day to hear mass in a church not far off, where, upon her knees, she recognized with a grateful heart that she owed the life of her infant to God and St. Thomas. Her devotion ended, she returned home, and the child, feeling no pain at all, walked as he was wont to do up and down the house, though a little scar still continued in one cheek, which after a few days, quite vanished away."[66]