MargaretCoombe (Ed. & Trans.): Reginald of Durham: The Life and Miracles of Saint Godric, Hermit of Finchale. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2022; pp. 1072.

Abstract

The Life of St Godric of Finchale is not well known. A small passage of that text was included in The Portable Medieval Reader (1979), edited by James Ross and Mary McLaughlin, because it describes how this twelfth-century hermit had once made his living “by learning how to gain in small bargains and things of insignificant price,” becoming in the process a successful merchant (p. 51). He travelled not just across England, but to Scotland, Denmark, and Flanders, in pursuit of profit. Through the efforts of Margaret Coombe, we now have access to both an edition and a highly readable translation of Reginald of Durham's Life of a rather unusual twelfth-century saint. This volume of more than 1,000 pages makes clear that there is much more to St Godric than presented in that compendium for students. Reginald, a monk of Durham, became a close friend of Godric, who maintained his independence from established religious life by living as a hermit. As we learn from Reginald's account, becoming a hermit provided a way for maintaining a way of life, free of the constraints of traditional monasticism. In her introduction, Coombe avoids going into excessive detail about Godric. She focuses on putting together what we know about Reginald of Durham, who tells us that he started to write this account during Godric's lifetime but completed it in the decade or so following his death on 21 May 1170. She explains how Reginald's core narrative about Godric and the miracles worked at his tomb survives in a single manuscript from Durham, but then generated a number of subsequent summaries in the later twelfth century. Though the introduction is informative about Reginald as a writer, there is much more that could be said about both his narrative, a challenge for any translator because of the richness of its detail, and the broader phenomenon of hermits in the twelfth century. As a genre, hagiography can become a wearisome compilation of how an individual conquered temptation for the sake of imitating the life of Christ. In this case, the reader gets a sense that though Reginald was clearly familiar with the genre, he was also fascinated by the many stories Godric could tell about his past life, as well as about his charismatic reputation in an English-speaking milieu, naturally suspicious of the Anglo-Norman elite which had established itself in the region of Durham. Reginald describes where Godric lived, next to a “fish-filled river” (the Wear), overlooked “by mountain peaks and vast banks of earth,” living austerely, initially without contact with the outside world (p. 133). Over time, however, Godric became known to the local population, acquiring a reputation for truth telling, and uncovering hypocrisy within those belonging to the aristocratic or clerical establishment. Reginald befriended Godric through being one of several monks who came to say mass for the hermit. The interaction between the two men provides a key thread throughout the narrative. Godric was clearly an individual who had travelled widely during his early life. His capacity for making astute judgements about kings and bishops suggests that he had a freedom of discourse that could not be regulated within a more conventional ecclesiastical milieu. There are many themes that deserve further study within this narrative. The reports of Godric's struggle with demons invite reflection on what was seen as an ongoing daily drama of temptation and redemption. His interactions with many senior figures in the monastic community at Durham suggests a capacity to communicate at the highest level, even though his primary language was that of English (in which he composed songs, we are told). In many ways, Godric can be seen as emulating the charismatic authority of Cuthbert, much revered at Durham. With such a large volume, it is perhaps to be regretted that the General Index is not more detailed. It is left to the reader to explore what this narrative has to offer. The volume is nonetheless a pleasure to read or simply dip into. This text deserves to become studied closely by all those interested in broadening our picture of religious life in twelfth-century England beyond the world of institutional monasticism.