Monday, January 10, 2022

The Miracles of Merton Priory

 There weren't any.  There were no saints attached to it.  But miraculous things did happen.  When Gilbert the founder's tomb was moved, his body was found to be intact.  The canon Guy, sent to set up communities at Taunton and Bodmin, cured the prior with prayer - and calmed storms with prayer, too.  (When he died, the cloak to wrap his body in was too small; a bigger one appeared as if by miracle.  This is really quite a weedy miracle, though.)  In Heales' transcript of the cartulary is also a story about William Giffard, Bishop of Winchester.  He was on his way to Merton in 1114, which at that point was a collection of wooden buildings, to consecrate the cemetry, when

'he met a certain boy, condemned for theft, to be deprived of his eyesight; whereupon the Bishop, with the intervention of his pastoral staff, rescued him from the imminent peril; by which deed therefore he foreshadowed that in the place which he came to consecrate many should be rescued from the darkness of vice, and be brought by the power of discipline to the light of justice.'

I rather like the scene of Giffard with his super-hero's crozier.

Giffard founded Taunton, having asked Prior Robert for a man of unbending morality whom he could have as prior there.

I also like the fact that what's left of Taunton Priory is now a cricket museum.



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