Abstract
On June 19, 1250, Margaret’s remains were translated a second time. The canonization process preceding the translation was the result of the briefly coincident interests of Rome, Dunfermline Abbey, and the ruling dynasties of both Scotland and England. In the absence of a papal bull, however, the final outcome of the process is still contested. Otfried Krafft, in his monumental work on papal canonizations, concludes that the papacy stopped short of canonization, but opted to recognize Margaret’s veneration as a local saint by granting a remission of 40 days of enjoined penance for all who visited her shrine on her feast day.1 Roberto Paciocco reaches a similar conclusion.2 These doubtful arguments center on a lack of documentation (including, most importantly, a bull of canonization and a miracle collection), the order for a second inquest after the initial dossier was deemed insufficient, and the grant of only a minimal number of days of indulgences.
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Notes
Otfried Krafft, Papsturkunde und Heiligsprechung: Die päpstlichen Kanonisationen vom Mittelalter bis zur Reformation, Ein Handbuch (Köln, Weimar, Wien: Böhlau Verlag, 2005), 429–431.
Roberto Paciocco, Canonizzazioni e culto dei santi nella christianitas (1198–1302) (Assisi: Edizioni Porziuncola and Società internazionale de studi francescani, 2006), 295–309.
Registrum de Dunfermlyn, ed. Cosmo Innes (Edinburgh: Bannatyne Club, 1842), no. 281, 181;
Regesta pontificum romanorum inde ab a. post Christum natum MCXCVIII ad a. MCCCIV, ed. A. Potthast, 2 vols. (Berlin: Rudolf de Decker, 1874; repr. Graz: Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, 1957), no. 11753 (Ex parte karissimi). Paciocco dismisses this request as formulaic and unexceptional. Paciocco, Canonizzazioni, 300.
Krafft, Papsturkunde, 430, n. 15; David McRoberts, “Margherita, regina de Scozia,” in Biblioteca Sanctorum 8 (Rome: Istituto Giovanni XXIII nella Pontificia Università lateranense, 1966), col. 784;
Robert Folz, Les saintes reines du Moyen Âge en Occident (VIe–XIIIe siècles), Subsidia Hagiographica 76 (Bruxelles: Société des Bollandistes, 1992), 103.
André Vauchez, La sainteté en occident aux derniers siècles du moyen âge d’après les procès de canonisation et les documents hagiographiques (Rome: École Française de Rome; Paris: Diffusion de Boccard, 1981); trans. as Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages, trans. Jean Birrell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 85.
John of Fordun, Johannis de Fordun Chronica Gentis Scotorum, ed. William F. Skene (Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, 1871); John of Fordun’s Chronicle of the Scottish Nation (1872), trans. Felix J. H. Skene, ed. William F. Skene (Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, 1872), Gesta Annalia, ch. 44.
Walter Bower, Scotichronicon by Walter Bower in Latin and English, ed. D. E. R. Watt et al., 9 vols. (Aberdeen and Edinburgh: Aberdeen University Press, 1989–1998), 5.296–299. Bower is closely followed by the fifteenth-century Book of Pluscarden, composed by a monk from Dunfermline, who would have had the opportunity to view the shrine, and might have had access to oral or written accounts of the translation ceremony. Book of Pluscarden, ed. Felix J. H. Skene, 2 vols. (Edinburgh: William Paterson, 1880), 2.56–57.
See Marinell Ash, “The Church in the Reign of Alexander III,” in Scotland in the Reign of Alexander III, 1249–1286, ed. N. Reid (Edinburgh: John Donald Publishers, 1990), 31. See also an account of the translation followed by the lessons of the feast in the sixteenth-century Breviary of Aberdeen, ed. William, bishop of Aberdeen, 2 vols. (Edinburgh, 1509–1510); facsimile reprint, (London: Bannatyne Club, 1854), 2:3 (June 19).
Chronicle of Melrose, Chronica de Mailros, e codice unico in Bibliotheca Cottoniana servato, ed. Joseph Stevenson (Edinburgh: The Bannatyne Club, 1835); facsimile reprint. (Felinfach, Lampeter: Llanerch Press, 1991). DVD reproduction of the manuscript in The Chronicle of Melrose Abbey: A Stratigraphic Edition, I: Introduction and Facsimile Edition, ed. Dauvit Broun and Julian Harrison. 3 vols. Scottish History Society. Sixth Series (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2007), s.a. 1249.
Early Sources of Scottish History, A.D. 500 to 1286, ed. Alan O. Anderson, 2 vols. (Stamford: Paul Watkins, 1922; repr. 1990), 2.86, n. 1.
For a detailed diagram, see Peter A. Yeoman, “Saint Margaret’s Shrine at Dunfermline Abbey,” in Royal Dunfermline, ed. Richard Fawcett (Edinburgh: Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. 2005). 80.
Robert Bartlett, “Introduction,” in The Miracles of St Æbbe of Coldingham and St Margaret of Scotland (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2003), xlii–xliii. The “outer church” is interpreted to mean “nave” in Bower, Scotichronicon, ed. Simon Taylor, D. E. R. Watt, with Brian Scot, 5.442, n. 12
Nicholas Vincent, Holy Blood: King Henry III and the Westminster Blood Relic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 154–185;
Nikolaus Paulus, Geschichte des Ablasses im Mittelalter: Vom Ursprunge bis zur Mitte des 14. Jahrhunderts, 3 vols. (Paderborn: F. Schöningh 1922), 1.
Vincent, Holy Blood, 2, n. 3 citing Westminster Abbey Muniment, MS Domesday, fo. 386v, letters of Innocent IV 31 July 1245. See also Paul Binski, Westminster Abbey, and the Plantagenets: Kingship and the Representation of Power 1200–1400 (New Haven, CT and London: The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art by Yale University Press, 1995), 11–12.
See also Pierre Jounel, Le culte des saints dans les basiliques du Latran et du Vatican au XIIe siécle, Collection de l’École Française de Rome 26 (Rome: École Française de Rome, 1977), 12.
Vauchez, Sainthood, 268–269, and 268, n. 21. These percentages differ slightly from those arrived at by Vauchez only because Hedwig of Silesia has been included the calculation. For further discussion of the increasing feminization of sanctity in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, see: Jane Tibbetts Schulenburg, “Sexism and the Celestial Gynaecum from 500–1200,” Journal of Medieval History 4 (1978): 117–133;
Michael Goodich, “The Politics of Canonization in the Thirteenth Century: Lay and Mendicant Saints,” in Saints and Their Cults, ed. Stephen Wilson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 20–21;
Michael Goodich, Vita Perfecta: The Ideal of Sainthood in the Thirteenth Century (Stuttgart: A. Hiersemann, 1982), 173.
For Thomas of Lancaster, see Thomas Rymer, Foedera, 20 vols. (London: A. & J. Churchill, 1704–1735), 2.181; 3.38, 61. For the attempts by Richard II to have Edward II canonized, see The Diplomatic Correspondence of Richard II, ed. Edouard Perroy, Camden Society, 3rd Series, 48 (London: Royal Historical Society, 1933), 62, 210; Ralph Higden, Polychronicon, in Polychronicon Radulphi Higden monachi Cestrensis, ed. J. R. Lumby, 9 vols., Rolls Series 41 (London: Longman, 1871–1905), 9.79, 237. See also Vauchez, Sainthood, 73, 160, 166, 265.
Michael Penman, “Royal Piety in Thirteenth-century Scotland: The Religion and Religiosity of Alexander II (1214–49) and Alexander III (1249–86),” in Thirteenth Century England XII, Proceedings of the Gregynog Conference, 2007, ed. Janet Burton, Phillipp Schofield, and Björn Weiler (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2009), 18–19.
Penman, “Royal Piety in Thirteenth-century Scotland,” 13–29. For the close association between the Scottish and English courts early in the reign of Alexander III, see also D. E. R. Watt, “The Minority of Alexander III of Scotland,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Fifth Series 21 (1971): 1–23.
The causal relationship between the cults of Edward and Margaret is complicated. Rather than a direct cause and effect, the two cults should be seen as contributing to a mutually supportive climate. See Binski, Westminster Abbey, 4; D. A. Carpenter, “King Henry III and Saint Edward the Confessor: The Origins of the Cult,” English Historical Review, 122, no. 498 (September 2007): 868, 873.
See, for example, Binski, Westminster Abbey, 52–89; David A. Carpenter “King Henry III and Saint Edward the Confessor,” 865–891; the chapter “The Burial of Henry III, the Regalia and Royal Ideology,” in David A. Carpenter, The Reign of Henry III (London: Hambledon Press, 1996; repr. 2006), 427–459; David A. Carpenter, “Westminster Abbey in Politics, 1258–1269,” in Thirteenth Century England VIII: Proceedings of the Durham Conference 1999, ed. M. Preswich, R. Britnell, and R. Frame (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2001), 49–59.
Les Registres de Grégoire IX, ed. Lucien Auvray, Bibliothèque des Écoles Françaises d’Athènes et de Rome, 4 vols. (Paris: Ancienne Librarie Thorin, 1896–1907), vol. 2, no. 3330; Matthew Paris, Chronica majora, ed. Henry R. Luard, 7 vols., Rolls Series 57 (London: Longman, 1872–1884), 3.418. Carpenter, however, notes that Gregory’s action was in response to Archbishop Stephen Langton’s request, not the king’s. Carpenter, “King Henry III and Saint Edward the Confessor,” 867. The year is given as 1237 in Vincent, Holy Blood, 11.
On the birth order of Henry’s children, see Margaret Howell, “The Children of King Henry III and Eleanor of Provence,” Thirteenth Century England IV, Proceedings of the Newcastle Upon Tyne Conference, 1991, ed. P. R. Coss and S. D. Lloyd (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2005), 57–72.
Donovan Purcell, “The Priory of Horsham St. Faith,” Norfolk Archaeology 35 (1970–1973): 469–473. Binski, Westminster Abbey, 76–78.
Calendar of Writs Preserved at Yester House, ed. C. C. Harvey and J. Macleod, Scottish Record Society, (Edinburgh: J. Skinner, 1930), n. 11;
Ian Cowan and David E. Easson, Medieval Religious Houses, Scotland, 2nd ed. (London and New York: Longman Group Limited, 1976), 163, 171.
Jessica Nelson, “Scottish Queenship in the Thirteenth Century,” in Thirteenth Century England XI, Proceedings of the Gregynog Conference 2005, ed. Björn Weiler, Manet Burton, Phillipp Schofield, and Karen Stober (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2007), 67.
Archibald A. M. Duncan, Scotland: The Making of the Kingdom (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1975; repr. 2000), 278.
Vetera Monumenta Hibernorum et Scotorum Historiam Illustrantia, ed Augustin Theiner (Rome: Vatican, 1964), 48, no. 128.
See also D. E. R. Watt, Medieval Church Councils in Scotland (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000), 87–89.
Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers Relating to Great Britain and Ireland: Papal Letters, ed. W. H. Bliss et al. (London: HMSO, 1893-), 1.270.
Dyan Elliott, Spiritual Marriage: Sexual Abstinence in Medieval Wedlock (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 134–142.
For Cathars, see Malcolm Lambert, The Cathars (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998).
For the cult of the Virgin, see: Marina Warner, Alone of All Her Sex: The Myth and the Cult of the Virgin Mary (New York: Knopf, 1976);
Miri Rubin, Mother of God: A History of the Virgin Mary (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009);
Miri Rubin, Emotion and Devotion: The Meaning of Mary in Medieval Religious Cultures (Budapest and New York: CEU Press, 2009). For thirteenth-century implications, see Elliott, Spiritual Marriage, 176–183.
See Sharon Farmer, “Persuasive Voices: Clerical Images of Medieval Wives,” Speculum 76 (1986): 517–543.
For materials prepared for the canonization inquiry, including her life, and a collection of eye-witness accounts, see the compilations edited by A. Huyskens: Quellenstudien zur Geschichte der hl. Elisabeth Landgräfin von Thüringen (Marburg: N. G. Elwert, 1908); Der sogenannte Libellus de dictis quattor ancillarum s. Elisabeth confectus (München/Kempten: Kösel, 1911); and “Die Schriften über die heilige Elisabeth von Thüringen,” in Die Wundergeschichten des Caesarius von Heisterbach, ed. Alfons Hilka 3 vols. (Bonn: Hanstein, 1937), 3.329–390.
A collection of historical sources is also included in Ortrud Reber, Die Gestaltung des Kultes weiblicher Heiligen im Spätmittelalter. Die Verehrung d. Heiligen Elisabeth, Klara, Hedwig u. Birgitta (Nuremberg: Karl Pfieffer’s Verlag, 1963). Modern treatments of her life and cult include: Folz, Les saintes reines, 105–129; Krafft, Papsturkunde, 385–416;
Monika Rener, Die Vita der heiligen Elisabeth des Dietrich von Apolda (Marburg: Elwert, 1993).
Note, however, that Elizabeth of Hungary was not included in the earliest versions of the Golden Legend. André Vauchez, “Jacques de Voragine et les saints du XIIIe s. dans la Légende dorée,” in “Legenda aurea,” sept siècles de diffusion: actes du colloque international sur la Legenda aurea, texte latin et branches vernaculaires à l’Université du Québec à Montréal, 11–12 mai 1983, ed. Brenda Dunn-Lardeau (Montreal: Éditions Bellarmin, 1986), 29–30. For a recent edition of the Golden Legend, see Jacobus de Voragine, Legenda aurea, ed. Giovanni Paolo Maggioni, 2nd ed., 2 vols. (Florence: SISMEL, Galluzzo, 1998); text on CD-ROM (Florence: SISMEL, Galluzzo, 1999).
Two versions of her life, Legenda maior and Legenda minor, are edited in “S. Hedwigis, Vidua et ducissa Trebnicii in Silesia,” AASS, Oct. VIII, Dies 17. For a critical biography, see Joseph Gottschalk, St. Hedwig, Herzogin von Schlesien (Köln: Böhlau, 1964). For her life and cult, see: Folz, Les saintes reines, 129–144; Krafft, Papsturkunde, 588–624
The Letters of St Bernard, ed. Bruno Scott James and Beverly Mayne Kienzle (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1998), no. 172.
Pierre-André Sigal, L’homme et le miracle dans La France médiévale, XIe — XIIe siècle (Paris: Cerf, 1985), 134. It should be cautioned that only healing miracles were considered in this study.
See also Gábor Klaniczay, “Dream Healing and Visions in Medieval Latin Miracle Accounts,” in The “Vision Thing”. Studying Divine Intervention, ed. William A. Christian, Jr. and Gábor Klaniczay (Budapest: Collegium Budapest Workshop Series 18, 2009), 37–64.
Early Scottish Charters Prior to AD 1153, ed. Archibald D. Lawrie (Glasgow: James MacLehose and Sons, 1905), nos. 15, 19–21.
Benedicta Ward, Miracles and the Medieval Mind: Theory, Record and Event 1000–1215, revised ed. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1987), 79. Finucane notes that “about three dozen dreams and visions were recorded” out of the 222 healing miracles attributed to Saint Godric, amounting to about 16 percent. Again, perhaps the discrepancy is the result of considering specifically healing miracles.
Ronald Finucane, “The Posthumous Miracles of Godric of Finchale,” Transactions of the Architectural and Archaeological Society of Durham and Northumberland 3 (1975): 47–50.
Reginald of Durham. Libellus de Vita et Miraculis S. Godrici, Heremitae de Finchale, ed. J. Stevenson, Surtees Society 20 (London: J. B. Nichols, 1847).
Catherine Keene, “Envisioning a Saint: Visions in the Miracles of Saint Margaret of Scotland,” in Reading Memory and Identity in the Texts of Medieval European Holy Women, ed. Bradley Herzog and Margaret Cotter-Lynch, The New Middle Ages (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 57–79. I gratefully acknowledge the permission of Palgrave Macmillan to reprint portions of this article.
See Steve Boardman, John Reuben Davies, and Eila Williamson, ed., Saints’ Cults in the Celtic World (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2009). Further evidence of the regionalized interest in Margaret is indicated by what is missing. For instance, she is not mentioned in any Anglo-Norman collection of saints’ lives.
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Keene, C. (2013). A Canonized Saint. In: Saint Margaret, Queen of the Scots. The New Middle Ages. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137035646_10
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