Maud de St Hilaire, wife of Roger de Clare Earl of Hertford
Colin Bevan
[Robertson. Materials for the history of Thomas Becket, 7 vols, Rolls Series, London 1875-85, II p255-7; in Latin.]
A second miracle performed on James de Clare, son of Roger Earl of Hertford and Matilda of St Hilary.
Some weeks after his recovery, namely in the middle of the following Lent, James was seized by another sickness and breathed his last. His mother had set out to church to attend divine service; members of the household had remained at home. There was no one found to announce the the death of the boy to the mother, lest he should be said to have been the cause of the calamity. At length a little boy, the brother of the dead infant, ran to the church (it is known for a fact that no boy keeps a secret) and exclaimed over and over again to his mother, "Madam, my brother is dead. Madam, my brother is dead."
At once she turned pale and jumped up, and throwing off her cloak ran back to the house. She found the infant taken out of the chamber into the large outer hall, with his mouth open, but inwardly without breath, the tongue and lips retracted, the eyes sunk and with only the white of the eye to be seen, cold and stiff, and so to speak briefly, well and truly dead.
She seized him in her arms and said "St. Thomas, restore my son to me. When he had a hernia previously you restored him to health. Now he is dead restore him to life, holy martyr.' Moreover she ran and took the relics of the saint which she had brought from Canterbury out of a chest. She put the blood of the saint on the mouth of the dead infant and thrust a piece of the cloth into his throat, continuously crying and saying "Holy martyr, Thomas, give me back my son. He will be brought to your tomb if he revives. I will visit you on bare feet. Hear me" But all the knights who stood by, and also the countess of warwick and the rest of the women, told her to be quiet. Yet she knelt with bare knees again and again on the ground, and cried much more, "Holy martyr, have mercy on me"
Then her chaplain Lambert, a respected man of good age, spoke: "How are you behaving, my lady? You are acting foolishly. You are being stupid. What you are doing and saying smacks of madness. Surely the Creator should be allowed to do what he wishes with his creature. Stop! Put down the infant, and let him be treated as dead. It is the height of stupidity for you to strive for what is impossible to obtain" Everyone spoke similarly. However, she said, "I will certainly not stop, nor will I put down the infant, for I trust that he will be given back to me. Martyr, glorious martyr, most pious , beloved martyr, have mercy on me; give me back my son'
After she had cried in this way for about two hours, the martyr had mercy and restored her infant to life. First there was a sign of red on his face, and after a while he cried and opened his eyes.
They blessed the Lord who gives death and life, and goes down to the depths and back. There was great joy in the house, and rejoicing replaced the extremes of grief: "for they obtained joy and gladness; sadness and groans fled away'. The countess, mother of the restored boy, took on unaccustomed toil, and setting out to Canterbury on bare feet with the boy performed her promised pilgrimage. There followed the countess of Warwick and many other women, and also the chaplain called Lambert, and many knights who all testified that they had seen the boy both truly dead and truly restored to life.
Cheers
Rosie
John Steele Gordon
> As this list seems very quiet at the moment, I thought I would inject some human interest from the following. A few of us will have this lady as an ancestor.
>
> [Robertson. Materials for the history of Thomas Becket, 7 vols, Rolls Series, London 1875-85, II p255-7; in Latin.]
> A second miracle performed on James de Clare, son of Roger Earl of Hertford and Matilda of St Hilary.
> Some weeks after his recovery, namely in the middle of the following Lent, James was seized by another sickness and breathed his last. His mother had set out to church to attend divine service; members of the household had remained at home. There was no one found to announce the the death of the boy to the mother, lest he should be said to have been the cause of the calamity. At length a little boy, the brother of the dead infant, ran to the church (it is known for a fact that no boy keeps a secret) and exclaimed over and over again to his mother, "Madam, my brother is dead. Madam, my brother is dead."
[snip]
A latter-day miracle (or horror story--take your choice):
According to Helen Ridgely's Historic Graves of Maryland and the
District of Columbia (1908), in the early 18th century, the wife of the
Reverend Daniel Maynadier of Talbot County, Maryland, died and was
quickly buried. But because she was buried with a valuable ring on her
finger, a grave robber that night unearthed her and attempted to removed
the ring. Unable to do so, he attempted to chop off her finger and
obtain the ring that way. But when he hacked at her finger, the corpse
began to groan and stir. Not surprisingly, the thief ran off into the
night. Meanwhile Mrs. Maynadier staggered out of her grave and made her
way to her front door. When she knocked on it, her bereaved husband
opened it and found his late wife, dirty and bloody, standing before
him. Nursed back to health, she lived for several more years.
The Rev. and Mrs. Daniel Maynadier are my 7th great grandparents,
although I merely report this story, and do not vouch for it. I
certainly hope it's true.
It might be noted that Edgar Allen Poe, who lived in Maryland for part
of his life and is buried in Baltimore, wrote several stories revolving
around "premature burial," a popular obsession of the 1840's (coffin
makers offered devices for signaling that a mistake had been made). One
wonders if he heard this old Maryland story and turned it to account.
JSG
--
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~jsggenealogy/Jsgordon
malinda jones
IIRC correctly , there was a thread about the fact that grave sites were re-cycled every 100 years or so....coffins as well. They found that a good many of the coffins had scratch marks on the inside from fingernails clawing to get out. Comatose conditions were obviously not understood .
malinda jones
Suzanne Doig
wrote:
>IIRC correctly , there was a thread about the fact that grave sites were re-cycled every 100 years or so....coffins as well. They found that a good many of the coffins had scratch marks on the inside from fingernails clawing to get out. Comatose conditions were obviously not understood .
You had better chances in some cultures than others. I was reading
some early Maori history the other day (Maori are the indigenous
people of New Zealand). When Maori died, they were hung high in a tree
for about a year, until the body was pretty much decomposed, then the
bones would be gathered, cleaned, and put in special chests in sacred
burial places where they could not be desecrated.
The elderly chief Tumoanakotore went into a coma, and to all intents
and purposes appeared dead. He was laid out in the meeting place and
grieved over, then taken into the forest to be placed high in a tree.
The tree party placed him and began to leave, when they heard a voice
roaring, 'Oi! Get me down! I'm not dead!' They were terrified in case
it was a ghost but went back and rescued him from the tree.
His next grandson was baptised with the name Tumoanakotore-i-
whakairioratia, which means 'Tumoanakotore who was hung up alive'
(Tuwhakairiora or Tu for short), onomastics being a big thing for
Maori. Tuwhakairiora grew up to be one of the great chiefs and most
prominent ancestors of the Ngati Porou tribe.
Suzanne
rta...@my-deja.com
[snip]
Yes, I've read that it was not uncommon to bury people with a bell
attached to a string in case they'd not really died, hence the
expression, "Saved by the bell."
:-) Roger
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