ABSTRACT
This chapter examines one of the earliest instances in the Latin hagiography of insular saints in which saints conduct detailed interactions with merchant traders. St. Cuthbert ministers to traders sailing between eastern England, Norway, Frisia, and Flanders. The point at issue the obvious relocation from the Mediterranean to the North Sea, is that Reginald has rewritten the pilgrimage ship as a commercial vessel, giving Cuthbert a much more explicit and sharply focused ministry toward sea-going merchants in distress. The oppositional evaluation of the holy hermit and the merchant initiates a further series of related oppositions within Reginald’s miracle cluster. Cuthbert is troped as the indigenous St. Nicholas of the North Sea, ministering to English, Norwegian, and Flemish merchant traders. These oppositions accumulate to drive home the message that the holy hermit and the merchant, the anchorhold and the trading vessel, are completely antithetical.
