Additions

Death, by means of acute fevers, was claiming Gilbert, the son of William of Brun, from Caen. The boy hardly breathed and he was unable to speak. Friends had come to try to console and assuage the grief of the father, but he did not wish to find comfort. He retreated into his bedchamber, closed the door, and wept for his son, saying in his heart, “I will not watch the boy die.” Then, thinking from a sudden tumult of voices that he was without doubt dying, he flew quickly and went to meet the martyr, as much to his memory as to the cause of happiness, saying: “O blessed friend of God Thomas, without any doubt my son will not die. I will give him to you, he will be yours, I entrust him to you, I give him over to your service. Have mercy on me, glorious martyr, and if it be your will, save this boy your servant. I will lead him to your holy sepulchre: have mercy on me, most pious martyr.” Saying these words, he came to the boy and said, “Son, for the love of God and the martyr Thomas, speak to me if you are able.” And immediately, as if he were woken from sleep, he lifted up his arms and embraced his father. The one who was all but dead sat up and began to speak. That same week, he was restored entirely healthy to his father.

Roger, the young son of Savaric de Vallibus,3 See Biographical Notes, Savaric de Vallibus. an honored knight, was also being carried away by diarrhea. He had lived on water alone for twenty days. His parents made a vow for him that would shortly be paid to the martyr. I speak of marvels, but do not exceed the measure of truth. After making the vow they went to dine, and during the first course they received the first course of happiness. As they were eating, the boy, who had been left in his room hardly alive, got up, dressed himself, and came to where they were dining, with boyish levity spinning and playing with a rattle4 Benedict uses the unusual word taratantara to describe little Roger’s toy: see the entry for this word in DMLBS. in their presence. The company of guests marvelled, and the parents rejoiced to receive such a guest.

The daughter of William of Baldock had very swollen eyes for fourteen weeks. The injury of the swelling drove out the natural light of her eyes. The father washed the eyes of the infant with the martyr’s water, and though the swelling of both eyes immediately went down, sight was restored only to one of them.

A woman living in the same village was blind for eleven years. She departed and washed, and she came seeing.

A boy from the manor of the diocese of York called Kirkham was brought to us, the son of William the clerk. Witnesses were brought forth who attested that as a result of a great swelling, an eye was expelled from his head, and the pupil from the eye. The parents washed the eye with the eye-salve of Canterbury and offered a candle to the martyr to the measurements of the boy. The next day, the boy was found healed. The pupil was returned to the eye and the eye restored to its place.

The omnipotent Father, who strikes his son with the rod and saves their souls from death [Prv 23:14], who visits their iniquities with a rod and their sins with lashings, but does not scatter away his mercy from them [Ps 88:33–4], struck Hugh of Ebblingham with a sudden leprosy in the time of harvest. His entire body was deformed by large protuberances. The man thought over his sin and confessed his injustices against himself to the Lord [Ps 31:5]. Having invoked the martyr, within eight days he felt himself improved and went to Canterbury. In a vision at night, he saw the face as of one crucified. With his hand, he touched the place of leprosy, and said, “Behold, you are made whole” [Jn 5:14]. He came to us, and we saw him having no beauty or comeliness [Is 53:2]. Although in many places only the vestiges of leprosy remained, in others the bulging protuberances had not yet been put to flight. And so, he washed with the marvellous water of the martyr, who was washed in his own blood and is entirely clean. The man was not yet clean when he came to the martyr. Through him he was made clean, for we dismissed him improved, and after some months, we received him entirely cleansed. Blessed in all things is the kind providence of God, who stole away the cleansed martyr from the world, that his cleanliness might cleanse the unclean of the sordidness of the world. There were very many for whom the martyr smoothed out skin roughened by leprous protuberances, but it is not necessary for each of them to be described individually and jointly. For even a sweet song, when it is repeated frequently, sometimes produces tedium. Lest, therefore, by wearing away we grind down to tedium, let us await something new. [See Parallel Miracles no. 15 for William’s account of this miracle.]

The priest of the village was anxious for the soul of the dead man, not knowing that that soul was more anxious for its still living body. And so, the priest conducted the funeral rites for him, though they would not be the last ones, as he thought, but the first. In the morning, a young man of the same village, led by divine inspiration, came that way and heard a sound under the earth. Coming by chance across the herald of the village, he said, “The man buried yesterday is still alive.” He said, “What you say is impossible: he died instantly.” In response, the young man said, “If you doubt it, come and hear.” He agreed and put his ears upon the earth, and the hesitating doubt was removed from his heart. The rumor sounded throughout the village. The people came with spades and mattocks and other digging tools. The earth was lifted, the man disinterred. He was brought out alive and uninjured, preaching the virtues of the martyr Thomas to all. Visiting the martyr, he certified this by letters in this mode, though the fame of the event had long preceded his arrival.

“Greetings from Geoffrey, dean of Gloucester, to his venerable lord and father, prior of the Holy Trinity of Canterbury, and all the convent.

Know that the bearer of these letters, William, was buried in a certain deep pit, twenty-four feet deep, his co-workers having fled, and he was buried there for one night and up to the third hour of the next day. The funeral rites were conducted for him as if he were dead. He, however, feeling the approach of death, invoked God and prayed that he might be liberated from this great danger for the love of his most glorious martyr Thomas. Crying aloud, he made a vow that he would go to the place where saint Thomas had been killed. After he was heard by some people who were passing that place, they announced to the entire village that they had heard a human voice in the pit. The priest and more than a hundred men hastened there and drew him out. But also many other miracles are done among us every day through Thomas, the most glorious martyr of Christ, which I will relate to you when I come to you in a short time, God willing.”

So the account ended, which concurred in every respect with the testimony of the people who had been present. For he, with many others, came for a witness, to give testimony of the light [Jn 1:7]. If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater. For this is the testimony of God, which is greater, because he has testified in modern times of his martyr [1 Jn 5:9]. [See Parallel Miracles no. 16 for William’s account of this miracle.]

And so she sank under three or four times. Each time she emerged, when she had breath she called out, “St. Thomas, help me!” By some divine force, the girl’s entire body, all the way to her feet, was driven above the water, and God or the martyr, or rather both God and the martyr, placed her feet on a staff and put another staff in her shaking hands. She was standing on one staff set along the surface of the water, while she leaned on the other, which was propped against the wall of the well. She had no idea how she came to be standing on the staff nor who had put the second staff into her hands. We have established and made most certain that a young man had cleaned this same well a few days before, and he had not left a staff or stick in it, not even a twig. As the girl stood there, she heard a consoling voice often repeating itself in these comforting words: “Do not fear, daughter, you will go up safely. You will go up safely, daughter, do not fear.” She testifies that she saw the person speaking to her standing near her, dressed in the whitest linen. And so, this is what was happening in the well.

A servant of the family, who was working in a nearby field, heard the voice of the girl as she fell. He had also seen her sitting on the edge of the well and, astonished, had reproached her. He ran and woke a sleeping young man in the house, calling him by name, repeatedly telling him that Salerna had fallen in the well. But he, as though waking in a dream, both heard the voice of the one speaking to him and yet was not able to cast off sleep. For he saw before him something in the shape of a hideous man. He was very tall, had a terrible visage, held a great cudgel in his hands, and repeated again and again, “If you get up, you are a dead man. If you move, I will kill you.” At last, he was woken by the insistence of the one calling to him, and he ran with the boy to the well. He went down into it but became frightened by its depth and came out again. They both stood there distressed by the misfortune and not knowing what to do. Then one said to the other, “Be quick, get on a horse and hurry to the church, and make clear to our lady what dreadful misfortune has happened.” He got on a horse and went quickly, and, after some considerable delay, not only the lady, but also the entire parish that had, as usual, gone to church on that day, returned with him. The young man was sent down the deep pit of the well on a rope, and the girl was pulled out while he remained on the staff. She kept exclaiming and saying, “Measure me for St. Thomas, measure me for St. Thomas.” She wanted the length of her body to be measured and a candle made that she could offer to the martyr for her delivery. When she had been pulled out, she was found to be uninjured, though she was afflicted with such cold that she was near death. She kept saying, “He was with me just now in the well, but now he is gone.” “Who was with you?” they asked. And she said, “The blessed martyr Thomas dressed in white, and he said this and this to me in the well.” All who stood there blessed the martyr of the Lord, who does all as he will, in heaven, in earth, in the sea, and in all the deeps [Ps 134:6].

And indeed, the great depth of the aforementioned deep pit makes this a great miracle. I measured its depth myself, and I found that from the level of the ground to the top of the water, the distance was around fifty feet, and the water went to the depth of more than sixty feet. I set this forth among the rest of the martyr’s signs confidently, for it was certified by the testimony not only of the girl herself, but also of her parents and the faithful men of the vicinity, for these have seen the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep [Ps 106:24]. [See Parallel Miracles no. 17 for William’s account of this miracle.]

We also know of an extraordinary sign that happened in the river Tweed near the city of Roxburgh.16 This miracle is depicted in Canterbury Cathedral window sVI: see Caviness, Windows, p. 206. On no account should we be silent of what the Lord has done for the servant of Sweyn, the provost of the city: John is his name [Lk 1:63]. This man was washing or watering the horse of his lord in the aforenamed river in the evening. The horse was fearful, and, frightened by a hurdle that it happened to see before it,17 A hurdle is a light and moveable fence. In his account of this miracle, William suggests that this hurdle was a weir for catching fish. it turned aside and leapt into the depths. The horse swam to dry land, while the young man, thrown off, remained in the river. When he fell into the river, the young man cried out, “St. Thomas, just as I was truly your pilgrim and went to you, I will go to you again, by your will. Help me so that I do not die!” The horse went back and was taken in without its rider. A sorrowful story of his drowning began to circulate. When the neighbours heard these rumours, they went out immediately, and it was night [Jn 13:30]. And they passed by here and there, and behold, he was not: they sought him and his place was not found [Ps 36:35]. He had already been pulled a long way off by the waves and was being held under the hollow of a large rock on the bottom of the river. So each of them went home, none of them having hope of finding the submerged man.

When he had lain on the bottom of the river until midnight, eight men appeared to him, looking as if they were crossing the river near him. He thought that he got up and followed them, but in truth he rose to the surface of the water and followed them by swimming. At length, as he reached the bank, he seized the branch of a willow tree. As he was pulling the tree toward him, the branch broke off, a large stone from the bank tumbled down on him, and he fell into the river again. After a little while, the same men went by as if crossing next to him, and he followed them. He thought that he was walking, but he was swimming upon the water,18 Christ was famed for walking on water (see Matthew 14:22–36, Mark 6:45–56, and John 6:16–21). Benedict did not want his readers to think that he believed that the servant John of Roxburgh replicated one of Christ’s most famous miracles. until he felt himself to be in the water under a bridge. Suddenly, by the wonderful power of God, he found himself lying upon the bridge. He had no idea how he had been lifted from the water or how he had come upon the bridge, since the height of the bridge above the water was considerable, and no one could easily climb up onto the bridge from the water. He was swollen with the water he had been forced to drink, but it came out the same passage it had entered in. As he was vomiting in distress, he heard one of the aforementioned men, clothed in pontifical ornaments, say to him, ‘It was to your benefit that you brought me to mind yesterday when you fell. See, you are freed from death. Be a good man, and do good while you are able’. When he lifted his eyes in order to see who spoke with him, he vanished from his eyes. Oppressed by cold, he was not able to get up, but by creeping along on his hands and feet he was able to reach a house near the bridge. He was almost not allowed in, since the people in the house at first thought that it was the spirit of the drowned man that groaned outside the door. His chilled limbs, frozen by the water, were nurtured by the aid of a fire and brought back to strength. When he received his former vigour, he, along with his lord Sweyn, went as he had vowed to Thomas, the Lord’s anointed, and he gave thanks to him for grace. [See Parallel Miracles no. 18 for William’s account of this miracle.]