ABSTRACT
Since many miracles are said to have been performed at Beverley through the merits of St John the confessor who lies there, I am greatly amazed that conscientious clerks have not written down either what things they have seen, or what they have heard have been seen by trustworthy people, except William, who was also called Ketell, who recorded certain miracles of the aforesaid confessor. Clearly they were very important miracles, and those that he knew quite well, although they were just a few out of a large number which were performed there. Being a wise and diligent man, he preferred to describe fewer things that are known with absolute certainty rather than to make rash assertions by telling other things without good evidence. For, after the arrival of the Normans in England, he devoted himself to record for posterity, for future generations and his successors, some miracles that were very well known by the inhabitants of that region. Unlike him and far inferior, yet imbued from boyhood in the study of both the liberal arts and divine letters, apart from those which the aforesaid William described, I have not found miracles of this saint written down anywhere, although they are countless, and I have searched everywhere. They have either been negligently passed over or, if written down, nothing is known of them. Indeed, I intend, if I can, to write down accurately those that either I know about, or saw, or which I have learned have been related with absolute certainty by trustworthy men. I am in no way attempting to recount all of them when so very many have been reported.
