I’ve been working on revising and expanding my book on pilgrimage and related matters for DnD and part of that has been expanding the coverage to some other areas that are not covered, or not well covered, by other medieval sourcebooks. One area is the law. As it is meant as a resource for DMs more than being a textbook or treatise on medieval society, I’ve been trying to think about how various character classes in particular would interact with the Church, the state, and so on. How fighters and thieves would interact with the law is pretty simple, as there is plenty of actual history about violence and theft and how the legal system dealt with that.
There’s also plenty of evidence about how magic was dealt with by the courts in the Middle Ages. So there is precedent on what the authorities would do about magic-users who stood accused of using harmful magic, or even just of using magic in the early Modern period when magic was deemed to be witchcraft.
What’s less obvious is how, if at all, the courts looked on supposed miracles, and whether clerics would find themselves tangling with secular or ecclesiastical authorities.
Given the use of trial by ordeal (such as fire, water, poison, combat, and cruenation), the assumption for much of the Middle Ages was that divine intervention was entirely possible and even to be expected in lawsuits and criminal cases. A separate question would be: how were miracles and their effects dealt with legally, if at all?
One case of divine intervention or miracles interacting with the courts would be the miraculous survival of condemned criminals. There are well-known cases of people reviving after being hung in more modern times, from Anne Greene’s 1650 resuscitation to John “Babbacombe” Lee who, in 1884, had his sentence commuted after the trap door of the gallows malfunctioned repeatedly. In such cases, the sentence was often commuted, partly owing to the perceived miraculous reprieve that had been given. It seems reasonable to conclude the same would hold true in the Middle Ages, except that execution methods tended to be much more violent. Cases where a headsman failed to behead a criminal in the first blow usually just resulted in additional attempts until the deed was done. The practice of leaving hanged bodies to rot on the gallows would make the resuscitations recorded in the modern period unlikely as well. We might also recall the multiple executions of martyrs, who often survived a variety of methods before being finally executed. Granted, the martyrs were generally executed by pagan, Islamic, or heretical courts, but the assumption seems to be that God’s intervention would normally come during the trial rather than at the execution.
Another problem would likely be what to do about those raised from the dead, as the hagiographies of saints claimed to occasionally occur. This would be somewhat embarrassing after sawlscot and heriot had been paid to the decedent’s parish and lord, but in the case of nobility, inheritance would be a serious problem. The claims of folks being raised from the dead in medieval literature are generally limited to events in hagiographies, and from what I’ve seen, it is generally peasants or children, not adult nobles, who get raised, which sidesteps the problem of how succession would be handled…there is nothing to inherit.* My gut says that if a noble were to be raised from the dead, their adult heirs would probably try to remedy the situation. At the very least, they might need to be asked to consent to such a drastic measure being taken.
What about clergy raised from the dead? My hunch here is that it would go against all expectations of the Church and laity to have a member of the clergy raised from the dead. After all, they would be dragged back from heaven and denied the reward of heaven! It might even be sinful or heretical to raise the dead of those already in Heaven or Hell, as God’s judgment is being cast thwarted or suspended. Perhaps it’s ok to raise souls from Purgatory, giving them a chance to make further amends on earth. Raising the dead from Limbo would be another matter as well. The Limbo of the Patriarchs (where those in good standing with God but who died before Jesus was crucified) would presumably be beyond the time limits for spells, which generally can’t raise someone a thousand years or more dead. The Limbo of Infants, for those who died before they could be baptized but also too young to have sinned, should be fair game.
We might also take a note from The Life of Brian, where beggars cured of their blindness, leprosy, or other maladies bemoan the loss of their livelihood and could perhaps bring a suit against the miracle-worker who healed them. But most medieval miracles were requested — either by pilgrimage to a saint’s relics or from a living saint. On the other hand, in medieval Germany a doctor who saved a man’s life who was thought to be beyond hope was charged with witchcraft. Maybe a miracle worker could be accused of using magic rather than divine power.
Miracles that caused harm to others — punishments for profaning holy places or relics, or crossing a miracle-worker — might also face legal consequences, depending on the context. If the injured party is powerful, they might demand compensation in the king’s court for any harm to them or their bondsmen. Graver still, they might accuse the miracle-worker of magic or witchcraft as well.
But presumably the piety and inspiration that allows miracles to be worked would remain through any trial and the miracle-worker could get an acquittal, so long as the religious authorities are friendly. A hostile bishop might call the miracle-worker a heretic; during a time of schism or when reform movements are active, the risk is all the greater. And woe to the miracle-worker who happens to be of a different religion entirely from the authorities: a Christian in an Islamic court, or a Muslim in a Christian court would obviously have problems, but so might a Greek/Eastern Christian in a Latin/Western court, and vice versa.
It’s a little surprising that despite widespread belief in miracles in the Middle Ages, there seems to be so little record of legal cases involving supposed miracles. Or maybe it shouldn’t be. If you took an oath at an altar and nothing happened, the divine judgement was that you were telling the truth, so no miracle is required; likewise the lack of intervention at ordeals were proof of divine judgement. As it happened, divine non-intervention was an important indication of guilt.
*As an aside, I began trying to catalog the hundreds of cases of resurrections miracles recorded in the book Raised from the Dead by Fr. A.J. Herbert; since republished under the title Saints Who Raised the Dead. I was hoping he’d mention details like the supposed resurrectee’s age, occupation, or other indications of social standing, and found that by the time I gave up, most were only described as a child, or a son or daughter of indeterminate age — older people raised from the dead generally completed some task or gave a speech and passed again, so there was no useful data like a case where a duke or baron was raised and reclaimed the property passed on to his heirs.
Swords & Dorkery 