Lucas, the garrulous bishop of Tuy, included the thaumaturgy of Saint Dominic of Silos as one of the glories of Spain in his mid-thirteenth-century account of the Peninsula's history. This study examines the rise to prominence of one of the most important of saints' cults in Medieval Spain and its development throughout the Middle Ages. It interrogates neglected texts such as the late eleventh-century Vita Dominici Exiliensis and the late thirteenth-century Miráculos romançados (as well as artistic representations and works written outside Silos), and places the more widely known Vida de Santo Domingo by Gonzalo de Berceo (‡c. 1260) in a new light by firmly fixing its presentation of the saint within the development of the cult. Dominic's veneration became centred upon his role in freeing captives, and a study of this phenomenon provides a focus on the frontier and its settlers through their devotion to the saint, as well as illuminating their view of their Muslim adversaries.
This is not the only centre of interest in the book, and a variety of approaches are employed to draw as round a picture as possible of the functioning of this saint's cult, from analysis of the manuscript traditions of the various works discussed to a consideration of the anthropology of Silos as a pilgrimage centre. All quotations are given in both Latin or Romance with an English translation.
This book, originally published in paperback in 2002§ under the ISBN 978-1-902653-91-4, was made Open Access in 2025 as part of the MHRA Revivals programme.
The Vita Dominici Exiliensis, as is normal for hagiographies, evolved over a period of time through a process of addition, reorganization and recension to end as an impressively long document that extends over four hundred pages in its modern edition.
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2. Dominico Abbas: Dominic in Hagiography and History Anthony Lappin doi:10.59860/td.c4884c5
Our focus in this chapter will be on the individual whose sanctity the Vita was written to celebrate. Given that the Vita was composed close in time to the saint's own life, and was written for an audience who knew the man personally, it is highly likely that the figure of the saint presented in Book I is close to the historical individual as he was experienced by those closest to him. There is, furthermore, a psychological coherence to the saint as presented by Grimaldus that allows us to grasp, albeit fleetingly, a sense of the man himself.
The process by which the veneration of Dominic was fixed in rituals or preserved in images and texts is a complex one. In this chapter we shall consider first the role which was initially taken on by the monks in Dominic's cult and then pass on to the laity's frequentation of the shrine, enquiring into the types of illnesses presented for cure and how supplicants sought healing. The cult expanded through the rituals which evolved around the shrine itself, through the increasing geographic and social diversity of its devotees, through the expansion of the saint's power beyond the immediate confines of the shrine and through an increase in the varied species of miracle that took place there.
Whilst Grimaldus was struggling with his syntax and his brethren's barrage of criticism, his servant Galindus had a series of visions, the eventual purpose of which was to encourage the failing author in his task. It is only through this story that we can attribute authorship of Book I of the Vita Dominici to Grimaldus. He did not retell the tale, since it directly concerned him. Monastic decorum would have demanded that the vision was recounted only when Grimaldus had safely reached his heavenly reward, not before. And so it was included in the Vita Dominici long after he had abandoned his quill and had given over the task of recounting the saint's posthumous miracles to other hands.
Whilst Fortunius's church and cloister were being solemnly consecrated in the presence of the papal legate, a hubbub in the lower part of the church among the gathered laity caused a pause in the proceedings as heavy iron chains clanked as they were raised up and placed on Dominic's altar. Servandus had arrived, dusty and bedraggled, bringing with him his chains and his story of how Dominic had rescued him from captivity in Muslim Medinaceli, some two hundred kilometres away. No more propitious a time could have been chosen for his arrival, nor could more illustrious ecclesiastical personages have been found to witness it in the whole of the Iberian peninsula. Servandus's arrival transformed the cult of Dominic.
Grimaldus provides no description of Dominic's appearance in the Vita while he was alive. The hagiographer's concern was the interior substance, not the external accidents. However, over the thirty or forty years during which the shrine functioned after Dominic's death, visionaries contributed to an evolving image of the saint. Their descriptions, becoming by and large more detailed over time, provide a form of narrative development within the seemingly discrete accounts of individual cures. By analysing the details of the visions in their chronological development, we may establish how far the elements of an earlier vision or cure could effect subsequent visions and the depiction of Dominic therein.
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Appendix: Intronizatur hodie Dominicus: The Office of Saint Dominic Anthony Lappin doi:10.59860/td.c8c7cfc
The office for the feast of Saint Dominic shows a great interest in the biographical details of the saint, choosing to emphasise his early years above his abbacy. Nineteen antiphons or reponses deal with his time before he reached Silos; only four detail his deeds as abbot. The miracles that are mentioned are those which best express the healing function of the shrine, and one cure from blindness and another from muteness complete the picture.
La Vida de Santo Domingo, composed by the Riojan secular cleric, Gonzalo de Berceo (c.1195-c.1260) can be seen as an attempt to transform the figure of the saint and his cult whilst maintaining certain recognizable features. If examined with care, the poem can indicate the manner in which the cult had altered over the century in which no written record survives. The text also presents the reader with an example of how the recitation of a saint's life might have pastoral implications.
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8. Santo Domingo que saco los captivos: The Dominic of the Miráculos Romançados Anthony Lappin doi:10.59860/td.c269c40
The key witness to the cult of Dominic is provided by the Miráculos romançados, a shrine-book offering a roughly chronological record of the miracles attested at the saint's tomb. The collection itself is not a literary work in the same way that both the Vita Dominici Exiliensis and the Vida de Santo Domingo might be said to be. Yet, in its own way, the Miráculos romançados are as striking and important a collection as the equally unwieldy Cantigas de Santa Maria assembled under Alfonso X. The vast majority of narrations concern escapes, either from the Moors (sixty-six in total) or from Christian ministers of justice (five). There are, moreover, three cures, two miracles connected specifically to the tomb-cult, and one miracle which illustrated the saint's protection of the monastery's flocks.
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9. E dexó aquí sus fierros: The Recording of the Miracles Anthony Lappin doi:10.59860/td.c379087
The form of the Miráculos romançados, its extent and its wealth of detail, is determined by the reforms of Innocent III as expressed in the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, which prescribed the keeping of a conscientious and well-researched record of miracles at shrines. The purpose was to provide the details that would allow papal investigators, at least in theory and often in practice, to interview witnesses and so gauge the veracity of both individual accounts and the collection as a whole.
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10. De Sancto Dominico de Silis: The Cult of Dominic outside Silos Anthony Lappin doi:10.59860/td.c4884c4
Our attention now turns to the literary and artistic relics of Dominic's cult which were not produced at Silos and which, in at least one case, could be inimical to the monastery's best interests. We will consider the abbreviationes, two short lives of Dominic written during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. No longer the sole focus of a single work, Dominic would rub shoulders with other Spanish and foreign saints in compilations structured according to the liturgical year and designed to be read by the pious or the curious.
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