Leigh Anne Craig
(Virginia Commonwealth University)
Paper
presented at the 60th International Congress on Medieval Studies
(Kalamazoo, 2025)
Session on
“Dream Books, Spells, Divination, Incubation, and Interpretation
—’Sandalphon, Send Me a Dream’ ”
Co-Sponsored by
Research Group on Manuscript Evidence
Societas Magica
P.-O.M.o.N.A.
Organized by
Phillip Bernhardt–House (Academic Vagabond)
Mildred Budny (Research Group on Manuscript Evidence)
Claire L. Fanger (Rice University)
2025 Congress Program
“ ‘The very same ears were thrown away’:
Demons, Diagnostics, and Dream Interpretation
in a Thirteenth-Century Miracle Story”
Abstract
Medieval Latin miracle collections frequently describe rituals of incubation carried out by lay Christians who were making an appeal for healing in the presence of saintly relics. Often, these rituals resulted in a highly formulaic dream vision of the saint, in which the saint appeared to the dreamer, promised to deliver them from illness, and
then did so, either amid the dream or just as the sufferer woke. This trope positioned the saint both within the
dream and as the dreamʼs authoritative interpreter.
This paper will examine a more ambiguous example of a saintly dream–vision, penned in 1258 in support of the cult of Thomas Hélye in Biville, Normandy. The narrative recounts the healing — at two cultic sites, of which Hélyeʼs shrine was the second — of a seminary student named Robert. A demonic assault had left Robert suffering from back pain, deafness, and a notably terrible attitude about his studies and his fellow students. Though his incubation at Hélyeʼs shrine cured the latter two conditions, the rendering of Robertʼs dream-vision was unusual. He attributed no identity to the figure who appeared to Robert, related actions in an obfuscatory passive voice, and provided no clear explanation of the relationship between Robert, his demons (if any), his vision, and his cure. This vision, then, offered not interpretive clarity, but a taste of the shfting illogic of real dreams.
Reading in light of 450 other relevant miracles, I will argue that the account of Robertʼs dream sought to ameliorate conflicts between its author’s obligation as cultic promoter, on the one hand, and as both dream and medical interpreter, on the other. Robertʼs dream reflects difficulties aroused by competition between shrines, by the social implications of the diagnoses assigned to Robert, and even by Robertʼs own testimony before “many bystanders.”
*****