Benedict of Peterborough, Miracles of St Thomas Becket

Two girls, the daughters of Godbold of Boxley, were brought to that place. From their cradles, they had carried themselves about by crutches rather than their own feet. Both importuned the martyr for their health, and the older was seized by sleep.The saint visited and spoke with her in her dreams, and she was promised and granted health.

When she woke, the sinews of her knee had wonderfully straightened out and there was great rejoicing among the clerics and the people. As the bells of the church were rung as a sign, she was brought into the church. When the younger one saw this, she yielded to a flood of tears, for she was saddened by her misery to the same degree that the older sister had been made joyful by her success.

She blamed the saint because she remained lying there while her sister departed. … And when she wept with a loud cry, the pious father was moved. He visited her in her sleep on the following day and restored her health in the same manner as he had the first. With the repetition of the miracle, praise to God and joy to the people were doubled.

He was taken to the place of punishment, deprived of his eyes, and his genitals were mutilated. They tore out the entire left eye right away, but they were hardly able to extract the right eye, lacerating it and cutting it into pieces. They buried the members that had been cut off under the turf […] leaving him half dead. Not a small crowd of people had come to the spectacle, some compelled there in the name of public power, some by the tug of curiosity.

“Do not despair, but rather put your trust in God and the blessed Virgin Mary and Saint Thomas, who comes to visit you.” […] A female servant said to him, as if she were a messenger of a good omen, “Eilward, last night I saw in a dream that you would receive sight in both of your eyes.” And he said, “This may happen, when it pleases God and his blessed martyr Thomas.” When evening began to fall and the day was nearly done, the lids of his left eye became itchy. In order to scratch them, he removed the wax poultice that had been put on his empty eye sockets to draw out the corruption or to keep the eyelids closed. Opening his eyelids, by the wonderful power of God it seemed to him that the opposite wall of the house was lit up as if with the brightness of a lamp. It was in fact a red ray of the sun, which was almost at the point of setting.

He then left and took up the journey to Thomas, the author of his salvation. Wherever he went, a great multitude of the people followed him, for his fame preceded him and roused everyone to meet him. Whatever gifts were given to him, he distributed to the poor for the love of the martyr. When he had gone about four miles, he put his hand down to scratch an itch on the scrotum of his testicles, and he discovered that his members had also been restored to him.

“Let it be known to the convent of Canterbury, and all catholic people, that God has worked a marvelous and remarkable miracle in Bedford through the merits of the most holy martyr Thomas.”

Having been brought to Bedford, Eilward was held in public custody for a month. He sent for a certain venerable priest, Paganus… [who advised Eilward to] flee devoutly to the intercession of the saints, especially to the intercession of the glorious martyr Thomas…. He also gave him a scourge made of rods, saying, “Take these rods, and, with an invocation of the martyr, torment yourself five times a day before you eat anything. Do not stop bending your knee to the martyr day and night and making invocations to him, except when you are overcome by the need to sleep and have to aid nature’s deficiencies.” Having diligently advised him in this way, he left, stating that the judges had determined that no priest would be permitted to see him again. However, he often sent a man to him who would – secretly, through the window – rouse him from negligence or encourage him to even greater effort.

A young man of no less faith or merit of Longueville named Ralph, who had been struck by the contagion of leprosy, entered into an agreement with his fellow lepers of a leper hospital, having determined what he ought to give to them for his living. For with his hoarse voice, fetid breath, ulcerous limbs, and pustules rising up again and again on his swollen and sallow face, he was now not able to live with the healthy. But when the glory of miracles had spread about, he trusted in the merits of the martyr no less than he was ashamed of his own, and went to the holy church of Canterbury. He prostrated himself before the tomb of the saint, and, completely dissolved in tears, he was heard in his prayers to obligate himself to astounding vows, with astounding devotion conceived from his astounding pain.

He promised to go to Jerusalem for the love of the martyr. Of all the bread by which he was fed, he would make three alms. He would fast on Lenten fare twice in the week: namely, on Tuesday, the day the martyr was killed, and on Friday, the day Christ was crucified. Also, as a mark of his devoted servitude, he would redeem his own head from the saint by an annual offering of four pennies. He remained at Canterbury for nine days. Each day, he drank and washed with the holy water, and he left improved. But we hoped a better end would result from this good beginning, and we strongly urged him as he was going to consider returning when he was fully cleansed. He promised to do so. And it happened that as he went, he was cleansed.

Then he brought back joy concerning himself to his friends. We had dismissed him corrupted with leprosy, and in the space of a month, we welcomed back a young man of most elegant form. Therefore from Pentecost almost to Advent he stayed with us, being most whole, healthy, handsome, and without a mark. At length he left us, as if he intended to travel to Jerusalem. When he reached home, however, I do not know by what hidden judgment of God, he was seen to be leprous to such a degree, that no one ever existed more fouled by the contagion of leprosy. The reason for his deterioration He knows, who said to him whom He had cured, "Behold, now you are healed: now sin no more, lest something worse happen to you" [John 5:14].