II.2. The relics of St Dominic and St Peter of Verona in Hungary
II.2.2 The analysis of the miracles The miracles from Somlyó The miracles from Somlyó
The miracles from Somlyó collected to the appeal for miracles in 1255 constitute the oldest list of miracles in Hungary since they were registered even earlier than the miracles of Margaret of
255 Antoine Dondaine, ―Les editions du ‗Vitas Sanctorum‘ de Rodéric de Cerrato‖, in: Sapientiae procerum amore.
Mélanges médievistes offerts à Dom Jean-Pierre Müller à l’occasion de son 70ième anniversaire, ed. Theodor Wolfram Köhler (Studia Anselmiana 63) (Rome: 1974), 225-250. Its vita of St. Dominic was published in the 3rd
―edition‖ kept today in the Archive of the Cathedral of Seville,written in 1272 in Caleruega. Interestingly, Rodrigo also reported a Corpus Christi story that happened in the priory of Similu that had been omitted by Constantine.
Thus, as Tugwell points out, even though it was not sure that it was Rodrigo himself who had access to these miracles at the general chapter of 1246, there was someone else who made a copy of this list of miracles before it was taken by the then minister general John of Wildeshausen. Possibly, the list was handed down by Humbert of Romans in the chapter of Paris in 1256 (who was already master general at that time) to Gerardus de Fracheto. See Tugwell, ed., Miracula sancti Dominici, 30.
256 Györkös, ―The Saint and his Finger,‖551.
257 Bernardi Guidonis Scripta de sancto Dominico, ed. Tugwell, #99-#107 at 287-291.
258 The two miracles from the second wave from Hungary based on Calo are edited in Tugwell, Miracula sancti Dominici, 283-284
259 Tugwell, ed., Miracula sancti Dominici, 140.
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Hungary in her canonization process first between 1272 and 1275 and then in 1276.260 These miracles are exceptional testimonies in the sense that they were not collected in order to prove Dominic‘s sanctity but to strengthen and spread his cult further throughout Europe. These miracles are rich sources of mid-thirteenth-century devotional life in Hungary; a period which is scarcely documented. The accounts in this list shed some light on the friars‘ role on the promotion of the founding father of the Order of Preachers as well as on the laity‘s devotion to a saint who was not a local but an international saint. Moreover, they also provide valuable information on the pilgrimage practices of a local shrine as well as on the use of relics in that period.261 I am going to treat here not only the list provided by Constantine including also a twenty-first miracle from Somlyó reported by Roderigo da Cerrato, but also two additional miracles from the same place that occurred sometime earlier than 1315 and were included first in the Berengarian miracle collection.
As it has been already mentioned, master general John of Wildeshausen in 1245 requested to send the collection of miracles performed through the intercession of St. Dominic from all the provinces of the Order of Preachers, for the subsequent general chapter. As a result of his call miracle accounts arrived from different provinces, like Rome, Sicily, Lombardy and Hungary, probably from the Dominican priory of Somlyó, since in several accounts Similu (or some variants of the name) where the relics of Dominic are kept is mentioned and all the place names where the beneficiaries came from were not far from there. The southern region of the realm, where Somlyó was located, was attractive for the Dominicans to carry out their missionary works.
Today twenty miracles are known from this ―first wave‖; the original list on the basis of which Constantine and a little later in the 1260s Rodrigo da Cerrato worked is not known. The
260 On her canonization process and on that of Elizabeth of Hungary, which served as a role model for the subsequent canonization investigation in many respects, see footnote 5.
261 For the examination of a similar case of the local cult of St Dominic in Rouen (Normandy, France) between 1261-1270, see Catherine Vincent, ―Le pèlerinage de saint Dominique au convent des frères prêcheurs de Rouen (XIIIe siècle): enjeux et aléas d‘un sanctuaire urbain,‖ in Expériences religieuses et chemins de perfectione dans l’Occident médiéval. Études offertes à André Vauchez par ses élèves, ed. Dominique Rigaux, Daniel Russo and Catherine Vincent (Paris: AIBL, 2012), 151-172. On the the miracles attributed to the intercession of St Dominic in Rouen, see Mathilde Cordonnier, ―L‘Église, les fidèles et la mort, à travers des miracles de saint Dominique
(Rouen, 1261-1270)‖, Tabularia ’Études’ 8 (2008): 45-57
(http://www.unicaen.fr/mrsh/craham/revue/tabularia/print.php?dossier=dossier7&file=04cordonnier.xml accessed: 07.06.2016)
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Dominican friars in the province of Hungary, or more precisely, from Krassó county (south eastern Hungary) where Somlyó was located were eager to fulfil the request of the master general. It is possible that John of Wildeshausen had an important role in getting this collection to the next general chapter.262 The list was then handed to Constantine in 1246 and was incorporated in his work placing them before the canonization miracles. The miracles are reported in the usual hierarchical manner: the six raisings from the dead are followed by thirteen healing miracles and the list ends with a miracle not of healing but devotional character.
The miracles of the ―second wave‖ reported by Nicolaus de Castro Ferreo to Berengar of Landorra during the general chapter of 1315 provide detailed accounts on two resurrections attributed to the intercession of a finger relic of St. Dominic. The earlier list of miracles sent to the general chapter of 1246, despite being basically similar to those collected for canonization processes, they were far less official than those. In all likelihood, it was the friars of the convent of Somlyó who recorded these accounts. It is also possible that some of the miracles were recorded in the parishes and then they were sent to the friars, maybe also with the transmission of the diocese. The second set of only two miracles was reported orally by the Hungarian ex-prior of the convent of Somlyó to the master general, so they were registered in Bologna probably by a friar present at the general chapter.
Constantine, in his legend on St. Dominic, after narrating the miracles that took place at the tomb of the saint, turns to the discussion of those that occurred in different places: ―we have learnt that in Hungary wonderful [miracles] mostly resurrections from the dead took place by a piece of a relic of his holy body that had been taken there, giving rise to devotion among people.‖263 That Constantine started with the miracles from Hungary although he had at his disposal other ones from the different Dominican provinces is not unrelated to the fact that for Dominic the Hungarian Province of the order was of utmost importance.264 Also another miracle begins with a reference to the spread of the fame of his virtues over the living and the
262 See the Excursus at II.2.3
263 Constantine of Orvieto, Legenda Sancti Dominici, #71, p. 338: ―que in Ungaria facta cognovimus, stupenda prorsus maxime circa mortuos suscitatos parte quadam reliquiarum sacrosancti corporis ipsius illuc delata, devotionem in populo provocante.‖
264 Cf. Dietrich of Apolda, Libellus de vita et obitu et miraculis S. Dominici in AASS 35, 612: ―Multis namque in diversis, sed in iis praecipue, quae infidelibus adjacent, regionibus, miraculis gloriosius coruscavit. Unde in regno Ungariae, cui Cumanorum gentilis populus conterminus est, cujus fidem et salutem beatus Confessor summe desideraverat, stupenda et innumera mirabilia per eius merita contigerunt.‖
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dead in the whole country.265 The very first account narrates how a couple went with their little son to visit in Somlyó Dominic‘s relics kept at the house of the friars.266 It is noteworthy that the miracle account begins with a story in which the original motivation of the couple‘s visit of the relics is devotional, and only later, when their little baby dies there, do they ask for the intercession of the saint to resurrect the child.
Apart from individual visits to the Dominican convent, there existed organized forms as well.
Parishes were important meeting places between the clergy and laity as well as among the inhabitants of the parish, who may decide to go together to the friars, just as in the case of man called Gennus from the village of Pinnar.267 Such devout groups could include the parish priests as well, as in the case of an unnamed man, who, hearing that the priest and the parishioners were about to visit the relics but the former did not permit him to join since he was weak and at the point of dying, miraculously gained back his strength and the following day he was able to go there and received perfect health.268 It is worth underscoring that this story contradicts to the frequently cited opposition between the parish priests and the friars, since the pilgrimage to the relics of Dominic preserved in the house of the friars is led by the priest himself. The local devotion to Dominic is also attested by the last miracle reported by Constantine, the only one which is not a healing but a devotional miracle, narrates how a pious elderly woman from the village of Pinnar wanted to have a votive mass celebrated in honour of St. Dominic.269
The other reason why people visited the relics was that it was known that God gave Dominic power to raise people from the dead or to cure the ill.270 His fame spread also through word of mouth: on one occasion when a non-believer father lost his son, he was consoled by the man with whom he spent the night at the body of the boy,
265 Constantine of Orvieto, Legenda Sancti Dominici, #76, p. 340: ―Crebrescente per totam Ungariam virtutum fama, quas per merita beati Dominici super vivos et mortuos manus domini frequentabat [...].‖
266Constantine of Orvieto, Legenda Sancti Dominici, #72, p. 338.
267 Constantine of Orvieto, Legenda Sancti Dominici, #77, p. 341: ―Honestus quidam vir, Gentus nomine, de villa Pinnar, que est sub castro Crassu, cum suis parochianis ad fratres venit [...].‖ Pinár is a village in Krassó county, under the castle of Krassó, see Györffy, Az Árpád-kori Magyarország történeti földrajza, vol. 3, 492.
268 Constantine of Orvieto, Legenda Sancti Dominici, #78, p. 342.
269 Constantine of Orvieto, Legenda Sancti Dominici, #91, p. 347.
270 Constantine of Orvieto, Legenda Sancti Dominici, #77, p. 341: ―[...] quod Deus beato Dominico super mortuos suscitandos tantam gratiam contulisset [...].‖
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―Believe, St. Dominic has great merits with God, and God‘s power truly works miracles through him, as it is said, but you should invoke him [i.e. Dominic] as well with all your heart. Perhaps he, who resurrected many dead for his merits, will resurrect also your son.‖271
Those who were seeking for cure, and were able to, visited the convent of Somlyó on foot (#78,
#80, #81, #82, #85, #86, #89); but there was a woman from Orod272 whose back was so curved for long time that she was taken to the relics on a cart.273
There are only three accounts that speak about the vows made by the suppliants.274 It is unknown whether there were really no vows made or it was irrelevant for the person who registered it.275It is worth relating the one about the resurrection of a young servant (mancipium, famulus) who drowned in the River Cris.276 Seeing his body taken out from the water, his domina became so greatly saddened that she invoked St. Dominic for his resurrection, promising that she would personally go barefoot and visit his relics at Somlyó and if the life of the servant is given back then she would set him free.277
As it has been mentioned already, the narrative structure of the accounts is similar to those of the miracle testimonies of the canonization processes. Their sequence is usually the same (the name of the person who invoked the intercession of the saint, the place where the suppliant came from, the name of the dead or ill person, age, social status, problem/illness, invocation of
271 Constantine of Orvieto, Legenda Sancti Dominici, #76, p. 341: ―Crede, beatum Dominicum magni esse meriti apud Deum, virtutemque Dei in veritate operari per eum miracula, que feruntur, necnon et ipsum invoca toto corde.
Forsitan qui plerosque mortuos suis meritis suscitavit, tuum etiam filium suscitabit.‖
272 Orodinum (Arad, Romania) is a town in Arad county; see Györffy, Az Árpád-kori Magyarország történeti földrajza, vol. 1, 171. It might be Kóród (Coroi, Romania) but thsis option is quite unlikely since the distance between the two is more than 220 kms.
273 Constantine of Orvieto, Legenda Sancti Dominici, #79, p. 342: ―Quedam mulier de villa Corodiensi ab antiquo tempore dorsum habens monstruose contractum [...] ad reliquias beati Dominici super currum posita ducebatur.‖
274 Constantine of Orvieto, Legenda Sancti Dominici, #73, p. 339; #74, p. 339-340; #90, p.346.
275 Cf. Leigh Ann Craig, Wandering Women and Holy Matrons: Women as Pilgrims in the Later Middle Ages (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 109-111.
276 Probably the River Keveres near the village of Keresszeg, in Krassó county; see Györffy, Az Árpád-kori Magyarország történeti földrajza, vol. 3, 486. Constantine of Orvieto, Legenda Sancti Dominici, #73, p. 339: ―At prefata domina super subtracti famuli nece tam miserabili condolens, pro resuscitatione eius beatum Dominicum invocavit, promittens se et ad sua reliquias in Similu visitandas personaliter nudis pedibus accessuram et resuscitatum manicipium libertati daturam.‖
277 This type of vow was called ―conditional‖ by Pierre André Sigal in the examination of eleventh- and twelfth century miracles collection, in his L’homme et le miracle dans la France médiévale (XIe –XIIe)(Paris: Cerf, 1985), 82: ―Un certain nombre de vœux ont un caractère nettement conditionnel: l‘objet promis sera donné ou l‘action promise sera accomplie si le saint effectua ce qu‘on lui a demandé.‖
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the saint, vow, healing, making the miracle public) but in some cases they may vary or add or omit certain details. The overwhelming majority of the miracles was performed to men (six raisings from the dead, ten healings out of the altogether twenty reported by Constantine). The length of the accounts is rather varied, ranging from colourful and lengthy narratives to as short ones as one sentence.
Although the social status of the suppliants or the dead are generally not reported, there is information that among the beneficiaries one finds noble men (#72 vir quidam nobilis; #73 filius viri nobilis), a young servant of the wife of a count Miche, called Iustine (#73 iuvenis quidam, domine Iustine, Miche comitis uxoris, mancipium), a son of a courtly count (# 82 filius cuiusdam comitis curialis), a cleric (#85 clericus) and a table-servant of the provost of Oradea (#90 Orodiensis prepositi dapifer). Their age is given only approximately (iuvenis, adolescentis, puer, senex, matrona, etc.). Only in two miracles is the date of the healing mentioned: when the blind Paulus from the village of Urecha278 and a paralytic woman called Loseva were healed through the intercession of St. Dominic on the feast of the martyrs Abdon and Sennen.279
Unlike in hagiographical narratives, where hagiographers try to underline the greatness of the miracle, the symptoms of the illnesses are not described in a detailed manner in these accounts.
Characteristically, with one exception (#90),280 the suppliants invoke Dominic, not God. The most moving account is that of the father whose son died during the visit to Dominic‘s relics: he went to the altar dedicated to him and started to implore him, crying: ―St. Dominic, I came to you joyfully, and return sadly. I came with my son, I go back deprived of him. Give back, I beg, my son to me, give back the joy of my heart to me.‖281 The strong emotional tone of the prayer cannot be overlooked here. The reason for the frequent omissions of the suppliants‘ turning to
278 Constantine of Orvieto, Legenda Sancti Dominici, #87, p. 346. Villa Vrecha was identified as Oreha, a village northwest from the town Palánk (today Banatska Palanka, Serbia); see Györffy, Az Árpád-kori Magyarország történeti földrajza, vol. 3, 491.
279 In the Dominican liturgy the feast of the two early Christian martyrs was celebrated on 30th July with three lessons, see Bonniwell, A History of the Dominican Liturgy 1215-1945, 106.
280Constantine of Orvieto, Legenda Sancti Dominici, #90, p. 346: ―[...] voto simul et voce quo poterat Deo se et beato Dominico commendabat.‖
281 Constantine of Orvieto, Legenda Sancti Dominici, #72, pp. 338-339: ―Quem pater merens ad ecclesiam deferens et coram altari beati Dominici collocans, voce flebili lamentari cepit et dicere: ‗Beate Dominice, letus veni ad te, en tristis redeo. Cum filio veni, en orbatus recedo. Redde mihi, queso, filium meum, redde mihi letitiam cordis mei.‖
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God but invoking only Dominic is that the primary goal of these miracle stories was underscoring the saint‘s importance as intercessor for the further diffusion of his cult in miracles clearly performed by the Lord.
The accounts do not say what kind of relic was kept at the convent of Somlyó and it is also unknown when the friars obtained it. Its exact location in the church is not known either.
Usually the relics were kept on the main altar. Although it is known from two accounts that there was an altar dedicated to St. Dominic at Somlyó, there is no direct reference that the relics were preserved here.282 Nevertheless, the fact that the desperate father takes the dead body of his son to the church and places it in front of the altar of St. Dominic, may well be an explicit hint to that. This miracle is quite close to an archaic type of miracle, the incubatio during which the individual seeking healing spend a night (or more) at the tomb of the saint.283 Incubation miracles go back to the healing practices of Asclepius and other deities and the practice was adapted also to Christian cults of saints.284 This archaic kind of healing miracles were quite frequent in late Antiquity but became rare by the later Middle Ages. There are some hints in the accounts that the physical contact with the relics was necessary for the healing: on four occasions one reads that the health was regained after the suppliant had touched the saintly relics or the reliquary (reliquiae sacrosantae, reliquiarium in #82; #83; #85; #86; #89). An elderly deaf priest who visited the relics of Dominic with the neighbours was not only touching the relics repeatedly but he even kissed them in order to gain his hearing back.285 The
282 As Prudlo has noted in relation to the promotion of the cult of Peter of Verona, the friars knew that the wide distribution of the saint‘s relics would broaden his influence. In order to be able to control the access to the relics, they distributed Peter‘s relics all over Europe, but only in Dominican priories. In Prudlo‘s opinion the assumption that the many altar dedicated to Peter throughout the continent contained his relics, too, since this would explain why approaching his later had the same effect as contact with the tomb or relics themsleves; see Prudlo, The Martyred Inquisitor, 158-159.
283 Sigal, L’homme et le miracle, 134-146; Hyppolite Delehaye, ―Les recueils antiques des miracles des saints‖
Analecta Bollandiana 43 (1925): 8-85; 305-325.
284 On the miracles of St. Elizabeth and Margaret of Hungary that represent the incubation type, see Gábor Klaniczay, on ―Speaking about Miracles: Oral Testimony and Written Record in Medieval Canonization Trials,‖ in The Development of Literate Mentalities in East Central Europe, ed. Anna Adamska and Marco Mostert (Turnhout: Brepols, 2004), 365-396, on 389-392; ibid. ―Dreams and Visions in Medieval Miracle Accounts‖ in Ildikó Csepregi and Charles Burnett, Ritual Healing. Magic, Ritual and Medical Therapy from Antiquity until the Early Modern Period (Florence: SISMEL-Edizione del Galluzzo, 2012), 147-170.
285 Constantine of Orvieto, Legenda Sancti Dominici, #85, p. 345: ―[...] ad reliquias beati Dominici visitandas accessit, quas cum osculatus esset et ab eisdem iterum iterumque tactus [...].‖
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osculatory practice described here was a quite intimate mode of veneration and often associated with women.286
The two miracle accounts reported by Nicolaus de Castro Ferreo in 1315 in Bologna to Berengar of Landorra (#13-14 in the Berengarian miracle collection) make clear that the relic at the Dominican convent of Somlyó was the finger of St. Dominic.287 It is worth quoting the beginning of the miracle here:
Nicholas of Castro Ferreo from the Hungarian Province, the diffinitor at the general chapter in Bologna celebrated in the year of 1315 at the time when Berengar was the master of the order narrated that while he himself was the prior at Sumlu, at the place where the finger of St. Dominic is [kept], some provost from Alba Regalis called Stephen one evening, after suffering strong torments, finally died in pain. While the funeral was prepared and [the body] was about to be taken to the burial, some bystander said: ―If the finger of St. Dominic was brought here, I hope that because of his [i.e. Dominic‘s] merits, the Lord would give his life back. Then they sent immediately the request for the above said grace [i.e. the finger relic] to the aforementioned prior. But the friars have already retired. After that the prior had been moved by compassion since the dead person was of special love towards the order and he [i.e. the prior] had confidence in the piety of Dominic, the convent of the friars had been from convened and with a solemn procession and with great lights they brought the finger of the saint father Dominic there where the dead person was lying.288
After praying to the saint, the prior washed the finger in the water that was in the chalice and opening the mouth of the dead, he poured the lotion to it in the name of Christ and St. Dominic.
The provost, spitting out an enormous kidney stone, received perfect health. The second miracle
286 On osculatory veneration, see Sigal, L’homme et le miracle, 148; Scott B. Montgomery, ―Mittite capud meum ...
ad matrem meum ut osculateur eum: The Form and the Meaning of the Reliquiary Bust of St Just‖, Gesta XXXVI/1 (1997), 48-64, esp. 51; On the touching or kissing the relics, see Nicole Herrmann-Mascard, Les reliques des saints. Formation coutumière d’un droit (Paris: Klincksieck, 1975), 203-205, 208, 213-214.
287 Tugwell, ed., Miracula sancti Dominici, #13, p. 121-122; #14, p.122-123: ―[...] se prius uelle personaliter ire in Sumlu ad digitum beati Domini et aquam lotionis eius deferre.‖ Not only Dominic‘s but Peter of Verona‘s fingers were the popular pieces for distribution; see Prudlo, The Martyred Inquisitor, 159, note 103.
288 Tugwell, ed., Miracula sancti Dominici, 121-122: ―Narrauit frater Nicholas de Castro Ferreo de prouincia Ungarie, diffinitor capituli generalis apud Bononiam celebrati anno domini mocccoxvo tempore Berengarii magistri ordinis, quod dum ipse frater Nicholas esset prior in Sumlu, in loco ubi est digitus beati Dominici, quidam prepositus de Alba Regali Stephanus nomine die quadam uespertina hora uehementi dolore uexatus tandem in doloribus expirauit. Dum autem funeralia pararentur et sequenti die esset sepulture tradendus, quidam de astantibus dixit, Si portaretur huc digitus beati Dominici, spero quod per ipsius merita dominus ei uitam donaret. Tunc miserunt ad priorem prefatum predictam gratiam instantibus precibus postulantes. Fratres autem iam intrauerant ad quietem. Prior igitur compassione motus, nam ille defunctus specialis ordinis amator fuerat, et de beati Dominici pietate confisus, conuocato conuentu fratrum cum processione sollempni et luminaribus magnis in calice digitum beati patris Dominici illuc detulit, ubi iacebat defunctus.‖
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