Mad Matilda: A Real Miracle Of Saint Thomas

I have decided this week to take a small diversion away from my own fictional writing, and instead relate one of the ‘real’ miracles of Saint Thomas Becket. Stories of miraculous cures and healing show how important the cult of relics and saints were to the medieval laity. In this context it is not unsurprising that a group of pilgrims, made up of people from all walks of life, might make the journey to Canterbury.

     The following story (translated by Dr Gerald Colson) was recorded in the twelfth century by Benedict of Peterborough, a monk of Canterbury. It is also depicted in the stained glass of the Trinity Chapel (my own photo). The windows acted as a visual guide to pilgrims who were waiting to get close to the shrine. It told them how to act when they got there and what might have been expected of them in return. The windows were also a way of publicising (in a time before mass media) the effectiveness and popularity of Saint Thomas.

“We saw a little woman, by the name of Matilda, who was brought from Cologne; she was possessed of a devil and we shrank back in horror at her madness within our midst. She had torn into threads her linen smock, the only garment with which she had covered her body and she struck out violently at anyone who wanted to bring her forward. She would even have strangled a young boy, who ran up to her, had he not been quickly snatched out of her way by those standing near her.
     Bound hand and foot, she raved for some four or five hours before the tomb of the Martyr until he offered her healing. The evil spirit was indeed driven out of her but it left behind foul traces. Gradually Matilda regained her normal self and the next day she had completely recovered.

     Her speech was scarcely intelligible to us but she said that she had seen in dreams the Martyr, clothed in pontifical vestments, with a streak of blood across his face, such as we have described in the account of his passion. He asked her about the cause of her illness and she informed him that her suffering was in both her body and her mind. Then the blessed Martyr had promised her healing on condition that she went on pilgrimage, either to Rome, the land of the Apostles, or to the church of Saint James at Compostella; on these terms she would receive absolution.

     When we asked her how she came to be insane, she said that her brother had killed a young man, who loved her dearly, and that in a fit of madness she had struck with her fist her baby son, who had been baptised the previous day, and removed him from this world.

     So it was that the woman left the tomb of the Martyr, healed and joyful, concerned now about nothing but gaining forgiveness for her crime.”