Saturday 23 May 10.30am – c.11.30am
Toll Gavel United Church, Toll Gavel, HU17 9AA
Unreserved £15

From his birth in the mid-7th century through to the destruction of his shrines in the Reformation of the 16th, St John of Beverley was widely believed to be one of the most powerful miracle-workers in England. This talk shows the breadth of his powers, from healing and protection to divine vengeance and punishment, taking in the whole spectrum of medieval society from the most illustrious of kings to the lowliest of peasants. Yet St John was not working miracles unaided. Just as importantly, the canons who managed St John’s shrines kept the saint shrouded in an atmosphere of mystery, often dimly lit in a cloud of incense and with a background of sacred song, an otherworldly scene in which heaven and earth might come together in miraculous form. Combined with St John’s effusions of dazzling divine light and holy oil, this made for a truly extraordinary sensory experience.

Dr John Jenkins is Director of the Centre for Pilgrimage Studies at the University of York, and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and the Royal Historical Society. He is the author of Medieval Pilgrimage, as well as many articles and chapters on medieval saints and their cults.

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