Trigger warning for miracles of healing hand
University history students alerted to ‘graphic’ stories of cures attributed to saint’s preserved relic
‘Young people are invited to feel like patients rather than students’
ACCOUNTS of religious miracles might not be expected to be upsetting to a reader, but they have become the latest subject of trigger warnings as academics warn students of the “graphic” content in religious stories.
A medieval chronicle of divine healings known as The Miracles of the Hand of St James is taught as part of a history module at Manchester Metropolitan University, where staff have flagged concerns with the content. Professors have issued a trigger warning for the 800-year-old religious text, cautioning students that miracles can be “graphic”.
The miracles in the record are accredited to the preserved hand of St James which drew pilgrims to Reading Abbey, and the chronicle, likely written by a local monk, describes ailments afflicting the medieval population, and how these were cured.
Students are told: “Warning. Some of the Miracles can be pretty graphic and may be off-putting to some.”
The note addresses students taking the “pilgrimages and shrines in medieval Europe” module at Manchester Metropolitan, taught by the department of History, Politics and Philosophy.
The tales include an account of a woman “swollen with dropsy” who becomes well again after praying at St James’ shrine at Reading until the “pit of her stomach burst forth” and the “floodgates of her bowels were opened”.
The chronicle of 28 numbered miracles adds that another woman had a foot “incapable of acting like a foot” with toes and heel reversed, yet after visiting Reading Abbey and “coughing up a great deal of blood” she was cured.
Other entries in the medieval log of miracles describe fevers, “withered” limbs, sudden blindness, vomiting poison, demonic encounters, and the Count of Boulougne being fatally shot.
One account mentions a mother losing her child during a difficult birth, which the Manchester Metropolitan warning notes “in particular might be upsetting to some people”.
The content note also advises that the 1970 translation of the medieval text by Prof Brian Kemp contains language “that is now considered offensive” in relation to “mental and physical health”.
The note is one of a raft of warnings issued across departments at Manchester Metropolitan. Academics have raised concerns about the automatic use of these warnings within university education.
Prof Frank Furedi, a sociologist at the University of Kent, said: “Young people are invited to feel like patients rather than students.
“People are now issuing this warning automatically, but they fundamentally change the perception of reading and learning.”
The supposed hand of St James the Apostle was brought to England by Queen Matilda and gifted in 1133 to Reading Abbey, where its healing qualities were attested to by monks.
It would have been profitable for the abbey community to encourage pilgrims to visit the saint’s shrine.
Manchester Metropolitan has been contacted for comment.