Introductions and updated translations by Josh Parks
About the Text
Note bene: The stories translated here concern themes of sin, death, and punishment, in particular hanging.
Drawn from the miracle collection compiled by Cistercian monk Caesarius of Heisterbach (c. 1180-1240), the stories below, presented as a dialogue between a novice and an experienced monk, illustrate some of the dangers pilgrims faced on the Camino de Santiago.
The first story points to the role of moral uprightness, common sense, and civil authorities in resisting those dangers. After a thief infiltrates a group of pilgrims and claims that one of their horses is his, a local judge devises a way to test his story. When the thief can’t remember which horse supposedly belongs to him, the group laughs at him and the judge sentences him to death. Notably, this is not technically a miracle story: the thief is defeated by his own ineptitude, not by the supernatural intervention of St. James. And yet the narrator frames it as an instance of God’s protection, and even emphasizes to the novice that sin’s punishment—such as the accuser’s death by hanging—always ultimately comes from God.
In the second story, unlike in the one above, the earthly justice system fails and St. James must miraculously intervene to save his pilgrims’ lives. After a pilgrim is falsely accused and convicted of theft, he is sentenced to death. But his son insists on taking his punishment and is hanged in his place. After sorrowfully completing his pilgrimage, the father returns and finds his son alive and well thanks to St. James’s intervention. This miracle then spurs more devotion, and the father and son return to Compostela out of gratitude. This story’s conclusion also offers a glimpse at how miracle stories spread: After being brought back by pilgrims to their hometowns, stories could travel through networks of monks and clergy.
Translation: Dialogue on Miracles 6.25
Of the false pilgrim who was hanged by the just judgment of God, after blaming his crime of theft on a true pilgrim.
Not long ago, a group of pilgrims was traveling from Germany to the dwelling of St. James. One night, a false brother joined them. After they left the guest house in the morning, he followed them out to the city gate. He seized one of them by the hand, crying out that this one had stolen his horse. A judge ordered them to return to the guest house. All the pilgrims testified that the one whom the hostile man had attacked was a sincere and good man. The judge, acting wisely, ordered that, without the thief1 present, the horses have their saddles and bridles taken off and be led into the stable. When this was done, he said to the thief, “Go in and lead your horse out.” He entered and led a horse outside, but it was not the one that he had said had been stolen at the gate, because at the time he had not looked at it closely enough. Then they all laughed at him, even the one whose horse had been brought out, and when they explained what happened to the judge, the deceitful man was hanged on a gallows. See now how God protects those who walk in innocence and punishes the evil of connivers?
Novice: I remember you said earlier that sin’s punishment is from God.
Monk: The prophet Amos is our witness that every punishment is from God, saying, “Shall there be evil in a city, which the Lord has not done?” (Amos 3:6). Or as the Lord says through Isaiah, “I am the Lord, I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create evil” (Isaiah 45:6-7). “Evil” here means punishment and tribulation, which seem evil to their sufferers, though they are good in themselves as creations of God. Now I will give you an example of how sin’s punishment is from God.
Translation: Dialogue on Miracles 8.58
Of the man who was saved from hanging by St. James.
A certain citizen of Utrecht set out with his son to the dwelling of St. James. It happened—if I remember correctly—that in a certain place their host lost something, and he grew suspicious and accused the man of theft in front of the city’s judge. The man denied it and said, “God knows and St. James witnesses that I’ve never been a thief, nor a friend of a thief.” The judge did not believe his words, but condemned the innocent man to death by hanging. When the son saw that his father was condemned, and that the testimony of his brothers [i.e., fellow pilgrims] was doing him no good, he wept and cried and said to the judge, “I ask you, lord, that for the sake of God and St. James you would hang me and let my father go. For I know that he is innocent.” The judge, moved at last by the son’s tears and insistence, absolved his father and hanged him instead. His father went on with his companions in deep sadness. When they arrived at the dwelling of St. James, he prayed to him for his son’s soul. Later, when they returned to the place of the hanging, he said to his brothers, “Look, brothers: it’s my son. I beg you to stop for a minute while I take him down and bury him.” When the son heard his father’s voice, he replied, “Welcome, father, for I am still alive!” When he’d been taken down and asked about the cause of this miracle, he said, “St. James the Apostle has sustained me in his arms from the moment I was hanged on the gallows until now. I didn’t get hungry, I didn’t thirst, I felt no pain—nothing has been better for me in all the days of my life.” Immediately they both rushed to the Apostle, the son to perform his vow, the father to give thanks, and then they returned safely to Utrecht. This miracle was well-known and famous in that city, just as our fellow monk Wilhelm, who was the canon there, has told us.
Novice: What you’re saying is amazing!
Monk: I will report another miracle of St. Thomas the Apostle, which I think is even better.
Notes
1 “Thief” (Latin: fur) here and below refers to the man who has accused another of theft, not the one who’s been accused. Scott and Bland translate this as “accuser” to avoid this confusion, but this obscures a nuance in the text: the narrator knows who the true “thief” is before any of the characters do.
References
Translations are based on the edition by Joseph Strange: Caesarii Heisterbacensis monachi Ordinis Cisterciensis Dialogus miraculorum. 2 vols. Cologne, 1851. Available online via Archive.org: Volume 1, Volume 2.
An English translation of the full text has been completed by Henry von Essen Scott and C.C. Swinton Bland: Dialogue on Miracles by Caesarius of Heisterbach. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1929. Available online via Archive.org: Volume 1, Volume 2.