ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at madness as a divinely-inflicted punishment for sin and transgression. It focuses on two collections of the miracles of Saint Edmund the Martyr, compiled in Bury at the turn of the eleventh century. In the first miracle collection (c.1070s–90s), written by a Bury monk, the saint was shown to protect the interests of the religious community at Bury by dispensing madness as a punishment and a deterrent. In the second collection (c.1100), compiled at the instigation of the bishop of Norwich, miraculous punishments reflected episcopal interests and were representative of a shift in attitudes towards divine retribution. Rather than marking out doomed souls, divinely-inflicted madness could protect souls from further suffering after death. The traditional narrative of madness as a divinely-inflicted punishment was thus adapted by each hagiographer to serve the immediate needs of his present.
