ABSTRACT
The miracles attributed to a saint, no matter how far removed in time, constitute, along with the physical relics, what is “left over”, a less tangible link than bone, hair or clothes but one that nevertheless opens for the believer a conduit into a realm of the spiritual imagination where human anxiety and hope for redemption may merge with the divine promise of salvation as preached by the clergy and embodied in the physicality of church and monastic buildings. 1 Through the sanctity of their content, the manuscripts and printed books that transmit miracle stories themselves become paler relics, shadows, ever-smaller images reflected in multiple mirrors in a process of holy recursive reflexion reminiscent of that observed by the Lady of Shalott: And moving thro’ a mirror clear That hangs before her all the year Shadows of the world appear. 2
