ABSTRACT

Three Lives of Saint Hugh of Lincoln were compiled in the early thirteenth century, following the bishop’s death in 1200: two before his canonisation in 1220 and one immediately after. Historians have identified an increased use of ‘naturalised and medicalised’ language in canonisation records from this period onwards, partly because of the growing circulation of humoral medical texts and partly as a result of increasingly rigorous canonisation procedures. This chapter explores how far Hugh’s miracles follow this pattern in their representations of madness and what role demons and the devil played in miracle records compiled with canonisation proceedings in mind. Perhaps surprisingly, we see that representations of madness were shaped as much by hagiographical patterns that had been developing throughout the twelfth century as they were by new medical and theological standards.