Bishop Cantilupe is Dead! Long Live St Thomas of Hereford! The Effects of St Thomas of Hereford's Miraculous Cult

Abstract

This article marks the 700th anniversary of the canonisation of St Thomas de Cantilupe, bishop of Hereford (1275‐82, canonised 1320), by providing a comprehensive overview of the extant fourteenth‐century miracle collection, Oxford, Exeter College, MS 158, with reference to a contemporary copy in Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. Cod. Lat. 4015. Taken together these two manuscripts represent the second largest collection of miracles – just over 460 – to survive for any medieval English saint, and they contain a wealth of information about life and death in late thirteenth‐ to early fourteenth‐century England, Wales and Ireland. After a short precis of Thomas's life and death, the article analyses the contents of the miracle collection. It shows the number of miracles reported annually for the life cycle of the cult, the ratio of male to female pilgrims, and the types of cures that were sought at Thomas's shrine in Hereford cathedral. In doing this, light will be shed on the miraculous cult of England's ‘second St Thomas’, placing him firmly within the pantheon of medieval English saints being celebrated in 2020.