ABSTRACT
Historians have argued that hagiographical representations of illness changed over the course of the twelfth century in line with developments in the field of medicine, most notably the circulation in England of hitherto-unknown medical and scientific treatises. This chapter explores the influence of new medical ideas and how far they sharpened the terminological distinctions between the conditions recorded in Thomas Becket’s miracle collections (compiled by two Canterbury monks in the 1170s). Madness was shown to be distinct, as a condition of the mind, from other conditions, like epilepsy, that had similar behavioural symptoms but affected the brain or limbs. Furthermore, despite the use of sophisticated medical terminology in Becket’s miracle collections, the continued presence of demons is indicative of an enduring connection between demonic possession and madness, though language associated with possession may have been used figuratively rather than to indicate the literal presence of a demon.
