Gone Medieval - St. Thurstan: York's Rebel Archbishop

Episode Date: March 5, 2024

One of Medieval England’s most influential figures, Thurstan was the Archbishop of York from 1114 to 1140 who fought attempts by the Archbishop of Canterbury to assert his primacy over York. Eventually, Thurstan was consecrated by the Pope instead. Now English Heritage has discovered evidence in a 15th century manuscript that Thurstan was considered for centuries afterwards to be a Saint.In this episode of Gone Medieval, Dr. Eleanor Janega finds out more from Dr. Michael Carter, senior properties historian for English Heritage.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code MEDIEVAL - sign up here.You can take part in our listener survey here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From long-loss Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr. Eleanor Jarniger, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life, only on history hit. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries

with a brand-new release every week exploring everything from the ancient world, to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. We're all fairly aware of the process by which someone becomes a bishop. Someone is a really, really great priest, and their local bishops become aware of them. When a seat becomes vacant, their name is put forward and sent to Rome by the Apostolic Nuncio, which is the representative of the area to the Pope. And then the Pope agrees. We're also pretty confident about the process of the canonization of saints, well, for non-martyrs, that is.

Someone very holy dies, and their local community will ask the local bishop to open an investigation into their virtues. Their written works and acts while alive will be examined to see whether they showed the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity, and the cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance to a heroic degree. If you pass this test, you become blessed, or worthy of belief. Then you need at least two miracles which can be attributed to the blessed person. At that point, the College of Cardinals and the Congregation of the Causes of Saints will agree in conjunction with the Pope that someone is a saint. This is all true, but it's also a really modern understanding of both processes.

And in the medieval period, especially before the high Middle Ages, the process of appointing bishops and creating saints was largely a local one, and it was fought over heavily by kings and the church, local communities, and their papal overseers. And because these were processes, they didn't appear fully formed overnight. As a result, people lived, were ordained, and were beatified, while the organizations they lived under fought for control of the procedures involved. I'm Dr. Eleanor Yonaga, and today on Gone Medieval from History Hit, we're looking at the Archbishop Thurston of York, a man whose life took none of our familiar paths

to power and holiness, and whose sanctification was for centuries lost to us as a result. His life story is one of conquest, power, and how sometimes you can't please everyone, especially when everyone are some of the richest and most well-connected people in medieval Europe. With me today to explore all things Thurston is Dr. Michael Carter. Michael is the senior properties historian for English heritage, and is a historian and art historian who specializes in monasticism, especially in the late Middle Ages. His primary areas of interests are monastic art and architecture, relics in their veneration, and monastic books and libraries. And he has some incredibly exciting new research into Thurson to share with us today. Michael, first of all,

thank you so, so much for being here. This is an absolute delight for me. Oh, likewise. And real pleasure to be with you today. So we're talking to about the bishop Thurston. This isn't some kind of guy who's a household name anymore in England. So what's so special about him? Why have I dragged you here today? Oh, you've far from dragged me. It's a delight. First, it's not really a name that trips off your tongue unless you're an ecclesiastical history nerd like me. But I'd actually argue that he is one of the most important archbishops of York ever. And he's left a real lasting impact. Indeed, I would say that we still live with some of his legacy.

He helped shape the border between England and Scotland, define the status of the Archbishops of York, and as a supporter of monastic reform, the architectural and even physical landscape of large parts of northern England are to some extent down to him. You can also read in his life so many of the great themes of medieval history, first and foremost, the importance of Christian religious belief. There's a tussle between princes and prowlats about status and authority.

There's the involvement of bishops in high politics. There's patronage of the arts. And there's also, crucially, what makes a saint a saint. And so first, you know, he's the Archbishop of York, but he is Norman. Is that correct? So he's born in Normandy and then comes over with his parents after the conquest. which is rather the done thing at the time, is it not? Very much was, yeah.

He's born in a time of great religious and geopolitical change. Basically, you can see this in how his life and legacy are played out. So, yeah, you're absolutely right. He's born in about 1070 in the Besson area of Normandy. Now, that's really important to his future destiny. Well, as every school kid still knows, he's born just four years, after the Battle of Hastings in 1066, when William, Duke of Normandy, defeated Harold the last king of Anglo-Saxon-Eland, and he claims the English throne to become William the conqueror.

Now, Thurson's parents are called Ansgar, that's his dad, and Popolina, his mum, and Ansgar is a priest. Now, this is a time when it is still possible for priests to marry, though it is a practice that's been increasingly frown. upon, in large part, due to great papal reform movements, such as that's Pope Gregory the 7th, who rules between 1073 and 1085. And I'll talk a little bit more about these movements to religious reform presently. Now, Thurston would have received an education of one of the cathedral schools in Normandy probably at Cannes, and that would have been one of the best educations available at the time. Now, Ansgar crosses over from Normandy into England with his family, and he's one of many high-ranking Norman clerics who do this at this time.

And Anskar becomes a prebent, that's some senior member of the clergy, at St. Paul's Cathedral in London, and the rule of Bishop Morris, that's between 1885 and 1107. Now, Thurston and his brother follow their dad into the church. They're a clerical dynasty, and they likewise become senior men. of the clergy at St Paul's Cathedral. And they both prosper, their career clerics, and they become chaplains to King Henry I. Thurston's first mentioned in this role in 1103.

So he's a courtier as well as a cleric. We've got evidence of him witnessing royal charters. And he gets the income from various chapels and churches. So he is a rich man. But he's also a man of incredible. incredible faith. It's probably soon after his appointment as a royal chaplain, certainly before the crucial year of 1114, which we'll get to soon. We don't know quite when, but he visits the great abbey of Cluny in Burgundy, and there he makes a vow to become the Cluniac monk.

Now, the Cluniacs were reformed Benedictines, and at this time their prayers and other spiritual services were very much in demand by princes, prelates, and peasants alike. And they had a network of affiliated monasteries across Europe. And as we'll see, Thurston does indeed fulfill this promise at the end of his life. So this is a really kind of interesting place for a young man to be coming up. Because as you say, I think a lot of people don't really realize that it's possible to have a dynasty of people who are also within the church, which is kind of why the church tries to put a stop to getting married, right? Because you can establish these things. You can have a guy and a couple of his sons come along and take up really high positions in the church. Now, to be fair,

to thirst, and this really works out because he seems like a really upstanding guy, but you can have bad actors as well. And then suddenly, you know, if they're in with the king, then nobody cares. you can continue to be a sort of bad person, but within this, Thurston is playing politics. And indeed, this is part of the Norman Conquest more generally. Of course they're going to bring over big families of clerics, because they are going to want to make sure that all the positions across England are going to be full of Norman people, as opposed to English people. And it's kind of helping to establish this new culture of what's going on, which I find so, so interesting. But I also just love that he's a Clooneyac guy, because the Caluniac refus. forms in the Clooneyac Monastery, this is, you know, as important as it gets in terms of

for medieval historians. We love these guys, right, because they're the ones who copy all the books for us. They're the ones who really have this big cultural impact all across Europe. So it's so interesting. He's not just a spoiled courtier. He's not just a well politically advantaged person. He's also got a really deep wellspring of faith. And that shouldn't be surprising, but actually this period is a little bit. Sometimes you don't always have people who have the best intentions who climb the ladder, as it were. Yeah, definitely.

And there's no doubts about it. He is an incredibly successful court, Eric. But he is also incredibly devout. And this is talked about him, a life of him, a kind of idealized biography that's written of him soon after his death. And he emphasizes his incredible faith. And there are so many career. real clerics of this time for whom it is true, that you look at them and you see the external

pomp of high office, the meddling in politics, but also a deeply held faith, and that they believe that not only their salvation, but the salvation of the flock under their care depended upon their piety and the good administration of their diocese or their monastery. I mean, speaking of good administrations of dynasties, you know, if there's and then eventually becomes the Archbishop of York, and that's a hugely important position. But it's interesting, right, because we've said that he's well-connected, he's a courtier, his dad's an important person,

but this is a fairly unusual appointment. Well, there's only two archbishops in the English church. So, yeah, I mean, it's not going to get much higher, is it? So it's on the 15th of August, and, you know, I'll be a bit medieval here and give its feast day, the feast of the assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. the 15th of August, 1114, and it probably was chosen, deliberate, actually. We'll get a couple of other feast days referred to in this podcast, which have been deliberately selected for an important event to take place

because of their religious significance and how that would have been understood. So, yes, on that day that King Henry I appoints Thurston as Archbishop of York. Now, the sea had been vacant since February, the death of the previous incumbent. And it might seem a bit old to some listeners that we've got a royal appointment to Episcopal office, but that was very common at this time, even though it is becoming a matter of big dispute between some popes and some princes. Now, the appointment is done by Henry without reference to the governing chapter. That's the senior clergy of York Minster. Now, they technically have the right to elect their own archbishop.

but they don't seem to have objected, and indeed they may well have been already very familiar with Thurston and his credentials. Now, it may also seem very odd listeners when I say that Thurston isn't even a priest at this time. He is only in what are called the orders of a sub-deacon. So that's a couple of steps down from being a priest. So he can't even celebrate mass at the time of his appointment as archbishop. He's very rapidly ordained a deacon, but not priest, and he's in enthroned as Archbishop of York, but he isn't formally anointed or installed into this exalted office because of a dispute with the Archbishop of Canterbury around the issue of primacy. Now, this is all getting a little bit nerdy, I can accept, but there are basically only two

archbishops in the medieval English Church, and indeed to this day, there are only two archbishops in the Church of England. Canterbury is established. first, shortly after the arrival of St. Augustine to convert the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity 597, and York comes a century or so later. But both have what's called metropolitan authority. And because of this, the argument goes, as far as Thurston is concerned, that the Archbishop of York shouldn't be required to take an oath of obedience to the Archbishop of Canterbury and acknowledge his primacy. He's just said, you know, it's unheard of for one metropolitan to acknowledge the primacy of another. And Thurston is absolutely steadfast in his position. And because of this, he spends

most of the first seven years of his ruler's Archbishop of York abroad. And he even temporarily resigns in 1116. It's a dispute that involves trips to Rome to solicit the support of the Pope. And indeed it is finally in October 1119 that the Pope himself, the ultimate authority in the Western Catholic Church, consecrates Thurston as Archbishop at the Church Council in Reams, also given its proper French pronunciation once. Henry I is absolutely furious and he won't allow Thurston to return to England. But there seems to have been a real bond between the two men, and that's not least because Thurston is very talented. He's a great administrator and also a good diplomat. And he's also very loyal to Henry.

And he conducts negotiations off of the king's behalf with the King of France. And then again, we have to get back to the importance of faith and belief. In 1120, Thurston accompanied at Dalla of Blois, that's Henry's. sister and the mother of the future king Stephen to the nunneroo of Marseney. Again, it's a clunyp female house. It's in Eastern France, and she takes monastic vows there. And it's shortly after in early 1121 that Thurston finally returns to England. And on the 22nd of February, 1121, seven years after his first appointment, he finally enters his cathedral in York as its anointed archbishop. Now, everybody present would have understood the significance of the date he chose, the 22nd of February.

That is the Feast of the Cathedral Petra. That's the throne or chair of St. Peter. As far as Catholic Christians are concerned, he's the first pope, the ultimate authority in the church. It's from St. Peter that the authority of the Pope springs. So it's a feast day that celebrates people authority. Thurston, let's not forget, had been personally anointed as archbishop by the Pope himself. And also his cathedral at York Minister is dedicated to St. Peter. He was making a real statement.

He is saying, I am the legitimate Archbishop of York with authority that stems from the Pope alone when he entered his cathedral that day. This is just such an incredibly interesting story because it shows you the big back and forth in struggles of power, right? because you think to a certain extent Henry would be delighted when his choice of Archbishop is finally sworn in, but it's like, no, no, you shouldn't have asked the Pope. Like if I say you're the Archbishop, you're the Archbishop, and that's fine. And you shouldn't be beefing with the Archbishop of Canterbury. You know, just like, let him do what he wants. So it just shows you how there are all these interesting power plays that are happening at all

times. It's never just one thing. It's never just the king's the most important person or the Pope's the most important person. It's also about playing these relationships in smart and credible ways. And, you know, sometimes it's about asking the king's sister. It can be this form of, we often say, soft power, which is how we talk about what women do. You know, you go to your brother and say, come on, Henry, come on. He's a good guy. He's a good pious guy. You've made a great choice here. Probably flatter Henry's ego a little bit about what a brilliant choice you have made as Archbishop.

And look at this, how useful he's proved in these negotiations with France. And don't you want someone who's tenacious in pursuing his cause on your side? And also, hey, come on, Thurston's prayers are going to be very valuable for us all when we are going to make our final journey. And you know what? Being a king, you'll have done an awful lot of things which mean, well, you've run a very, very big risk of going to the wrong place. and you really, really need some prayers to help save your soul.

And of course, there are so many instances of kings making appointments and promoting someone's archipiscopal office, and then it's not turning out quite how they expected. The dignity of the church really matters to people who are holding these offices. And of course, yes, worldly status is important to them, but underpinning it is the intense religious buildings. leave and the importance of preserving the majesty and the independence of the church. And what an incredibly majestic ecclesiastical province Thurston is controlling, right?

I mean, York is absolutely enormous. It's basically from the Trent up to the Scottish borders. What can you tell us about this and how Thurston really strengthens the area? As you said, it is a huge diocese and the diocese of York is huge. and then the ecclesiastical province of York is even bigger. So as you said, its southern border is the river Trent in Nottinghamshire. And in the Middle Ages, that was very much accepted as being where Northern England started. And in the west, the boundary is the River Ribble.

That's the midway through Lancashire. So a large part of Lancashire in the Middle Ages were in the ecclesiastical province of Canterbury. And that would have included what's now with the great metropolis of Manchester, which regarded as one of the great northern cities, well, bad news for Mankunians in the Middle Ages. Manchester was technically in southern England because it's in the province of Canterbury. The northern bound is a little bit less certain. Now, the Diocese of York goes up to the boundaries of Diocese of Durham. That's the only other diocese in the northern province when first and is first appointed.

But where does the province say, well, that's a little bit more. uncertain, does it, as Thurston firmly believed, extend into Lowland, Scotland? The ancient Northumbrian kingdom had gone that far up, and, well, Thurston is very keen to assert his authority in Scotland as well. He also believes that Scottish bishops should owe him obedience. And he also asserts his primacy, I think with the consent of the first appointed bishop, over the recently established diocese on the island of man. Now, first, strengthen the administration of his diocese and province as well. He creates some new what called prebans that senior members of the clergy at York Minster and they're associated with

monastic houses as well. We'll talk about this is a big supporter of monasticism. And he also, as regards strengthening in the province, he creates two new diocese. One of them, he'd say he revised the ancient Sea of Galloway in Western Scotland. And he also established, is a bishop at Carlisle in Cumbria. Lowland, Scotland and the West, and Cumbria is an area which is being fought over between the kings of England and Scotland and their barons. We tend to think that there is a big, I guess, separation of church and state, right? That's a very modern thing to think. But really here, what we're seeing is the possibilities for the church to create structures in a royal way to say, okay, this is where we're establishing the border,

Here is how we have an interplay of power and how we think about where various dioceses are matters in these cases. But he's not just an ecclesiastical authority person. He's not just somebody who is wielding power as an archbishop or creating borders. He's also really, really into founding monasteries, right? I mean, he founds one of my personal favorite English monasteries, which is Fountains Abbey. Yeah, I'm with you there as well. God, I love it. You know, he's really into kind of creating these monastic spaces for women as well as men, which there aren't a whole lot of women religious house in England at this point in time. And so that's really, really exciting. But this is a big time of monastic reform more generally going on. And can you tell us a little bit about Thurston's role in that? Yeah, I cannot over-emphasize this enough. Thurston was a man of incredible religious faith. And in keeping with the spirit of the age,

he was a great supporter or patron of monasteries. It actually makes your head spin a bit to think about what was happening across the monastic landscape of Europe in Thurston's time. It's the age of great monastic reformers and founders, such as St. Bruno and the Carthusians, St. Norbert and the Promenstraatensians. The St. Bernard of Clairvaux,

I mean, one of the saints whose works are still raids today. there's Peter the Venerable of Clooney. The new orders such as the Augustinian cannons, the Cistercians, the Carthusians, the pre-Monstrarsensians, I just spread in across Europe, helping shape its religious and cultural landscapes. There were unprecedented opportunities because of this for men and women to answer the call of the cloister. And at this time, life as a monk or none was very much seen as being the surest roads to heaven. to escape the sinful world, secure your salvation and also perform very, very valuable spiritual services for the rest of humanity. Now Thurston's own achievements in this respect are absolutely formidable.

He personally found two religious houses. As you said, there's Fountains Abbey in what's now in North Yorkshire, which, after a shaky beginning, it's for dissident monks from St Mary's Abbey in York, who are inspired by Cistercian Reform and want to reform their own. Benedictine monastery. They're taken under Thurston's wing and he settles them on estates near his archipiscopal palace near Rippon. Fountains becomes the greatest Sustertian monastery in England. He also establishes St. Clement's, a small nunnery on the outskirts of York. Now this is the first female religious house to be established in Northern England since the time of the Viking raids and it acts as a catalyst for

further female monastic foundations across the north. And he also supports women in their religious vocations. Christina of Marciate is a confidant of his, is a great supporter of hers, and he also supports and encourages female monastic patrons as well. And Thurston also plays a key role in the foundation of numerous other monasteries. It's a very, very long list, so I'll just give you a few highlights. There's Furness Abbey in, what's now, Cumbria, there's Revo Abbey in North Yorkshire, that's the first Cistercian Monastery to be established in the north. There's also nearby Byland Abbey. And then there's Kirkham and Gisborough, they're both priories of Augustinian cannons. Now, he enriches the material culture of pre-existing monasteries such as

Hexham. He gives them holy relics and various sacred ornaments. Now, those relics and ornaments have long since disappeared, but the ruins of byland, fountains, furnace, curcum, Revo, Gisborough, well, they're arguably the finest assemblage of monastic remains anywhere in Europe, and they enlarge plot Thurston's legacy. And the way these monasteries farmed their vast estates, made the most of their mineral resources, developed towns and settlements. Well, they shape the physical landscape of the north that is still with us today. I think that this is something that it's easy for people now to misunderstand.

You know, especially within the English context because of the Reformation and the way that Henry the Haste just kind of steals all of these things. You know, we're used to thinking about monasteries as kind of atmospheric ruins and really beautiful ones that enhance the landscape. And going to Fountains Abbey is a fine day out indeed. but we're not used to understanding them as economic engines and as real anchor points for the community, which they certainly are. You know, if you've got a really well-endowed monastery, if you're Thurston and you've brought in these incredible relics, well, hey, suddenly you might have pilgrims who come through and show up to see it. You might attract investment from other wealthy and well-connected people.

You'll have a village that really serves the monastery because monks are supposed to be working while they're in there. but a lot of the time they can't do every single thing themselves. So you have peasants and townspeople that contribute to this. This is a really big deal for the development of the North more generally and turning it into somewhere that is interconnected with the rest of England. First and foremost, I think you need to look at the monasteries through the Prisma Faith, but definitely they have this wider cultural and economic impact as well. And it's interesting that you mentioned, you know, the fact that, you know, monks, yeah,

they're supposed to spend a certain amount of their time in manual labour. That gets loosely interpreted. But there is a ratio of two or perhaps three servants to every single monk. They are huge employers monasteries. People make a living out of monasteries. And it is a good living to have as well. Well, first of all, just your spiritual security as a servant. of a monastery, you have the right to be buried within a monastic cemetery. You're going to profit

from the prayers being said there for the salvation of your souls. There's also some physical security as well. You probably are not going to starve if you are a monastic servant or tenant. And there's also the protecting cloak of the church enveloping you at times of political insecurity as well. I just find the monastery is endlessly useful and interesting because Without them, we wouldn't have all the books. I mean, they come in really handy in Thurston's case, because, interestingly, for an archbishop, Thurston resigns. Yeah, absolutely.

By early 1140, he's health. He's clearly failing. Now, he's probably about 70 years old by then, and that would have been counted as a decent lifespan until well into the 20th century. It's only recently the average adult male lifespan got into the 80s. Now, it's on the 25th of January 1140 that he resigns as Archbishop of York. He is at the altar of St. Andrew in his cathedral at York, Minster, and he travels 20 or so miles south to Pontefract Priory. Now, this was a Clooneyac monastery that was well known to Thurston, that had been founded in the late 11th century,

and it was here that he finally fulfilled the vow. He had made, as a young man, to become a cluniac monk. Now, it's no coincidence that he chooses the 25th of January to do this. Now, this in the ecclesiastical calendar is the feast of the conversion of St. Paul. Thurston was making clear that he was converting from the world, even though he is a secular cleric, he's in the secular world, to the truly religious life. Now, he dies a little under two weeks later, on the 6th of February, pontifract, and he is buried in a place of honour before the high altar in the Priory's Church. The evidence soon gathers to support the case for his sainthood. It's worth emphasising that it was possible at this time to become a saint without the need for formal papal approval. You're a saint by

acclamation. You're a saint because people say you're a saint. And Thurston's many achievements, would certainly have thought to merit sanctity. A source from soon after his death records how he appears in a vision to one of the senior clergy of York Minster to say that he was now at rest amongst the Blessed. And indeed he is described as being the Blessed Firsten. Now, now if someone's a blessed, they're a kind of second tier saint,

but in the Middle Ages, to be called the Blessed, indicated you were considered a saint. Now, his incorrupt body is dug up a few years later by monks at Pontefract who have said to be uncertain where it is. They're searching for it. So this is really interesting, right, because incorrupt bodies, that is a great way to prove that someone's a saint. And as you say, you know, he's done these incredible political works. He's really well connected to a lot of people. So why is it that until basically your work?

We thought that he didn't make sainhood. Yeah, well, several of his monastic contemporaries do indeed become saints. There's William and Aelred of Rievo. There's Waldorf of Kirk and Mao. It was Robert of Newmanster, Godrick the Hermit of Finkel. There were dozens, probably hundreds of similar small monastic cults around Europe and built on the same kind of evidence as Thurston. You know, the discovery of the sweet-smelling,

incorrupt corpse. I think the monks at Pontefat would definitely venerating Thurston as the saint. Now, he would actually have been the saint that the clergy at York Minster desperately wanted for their cathedral. Unlike Canterbury, it didn't have the relics of one of its illustrious archbishop saints resting in the cathedral itself. Thurston would have ticked all the box, but he died in the wrong place as far as the canons of York. Minster were concerned. They ended up with a guy called William Fitzherbert, as their saint. He'd been treasurer of York during Thurston's time.

And he becomes William of York. He's a much less impressive figure than Thurston. But as you said, unlike these saintly monastic contemporaries or even St. William Thurston's cult, Pontifret, hasn't really been acknowledged by scholars. It was last summer I was doing some research on Cluniac Saints and Ralecks that I went to the Library of King's College, Cambridge, and looked in a 15th century missile from Pontifrat Priory. And its calendar of Saints days at the beginning has an entry for the 6th of February that reads, translated from the Latin, death of St Thurston, Archbishop of York, 1140. And my eyes almost fell out of my head. Now, it was actually noted, first of all, by my great hero, M.R. Montague Rhodes-James,

the great Cambridge medievalist best known today for his ghost stories. Indeed, monasteries and M.R. James are the reason why I became a medieval historian. It was encounters with both of them, the monastic ruins of Yorkshire, and reading James' ghost stories as a teenage boy that set me on my future career path. But no, James noted this entry in his catalogue of manuscripts from Kings, but he made nothing of it, and nor did any subsequent scholars of either Thurston or St. William of York. Now, the entry is written in red.

It shows its importance. And it's interesting that it's written in exactly the same format as the entry for the Feast of Pontifrat's other saint. He's a guy called Thomas of Lancaster. Now, he was a political saint. He was executed near the Priory in March 1322, and his tomb at Pontefract was soon set to perform miracles and became a popular pilgrim destination.

He never becomes canonized by the Pope, but despite attempts to do that, but he's a very, very popular saint in the region, indeed, also in London and other parts of England with political connections with the House of Lancaster. But it's interesting, they've recorded the feast for the two saints in similar way. And it was just great.

Scholars had speculated that Thurston deserved sanctity. But this missing piece of the jigsaw hadn't been put into place. And there it was. And I think it's unambiguous evidence that Thurston was considered by the monks at Pontifract to have been their saint. And he would have been one of numerous small monastic cults across. Europe. Indeed, that's something I'm doing research in at the moment. There are loads of these small ones dotted around. We've got several from England as well. Some Odo of Battle is a great

example. There are numerous ones from up in Yorkshire, Cistercian abbots who in the 17th century documented as being saints. And again, evidence for them tend to be dismissed. I think we can probably construct cases for their medieval cults there too. And I think that, especially at this point in the medieval period, someone's a saint because the locals say they're a saint. And that's it. There isn't this process of canonization in the same way that you don't have to have some miracles that the church has signed off on and said that there are just some miracles. If the locals say there was a miracle, this is our guy and we really like him, that's good enough. You know, and you're absolutely bang on here. Like, look, if we've got a document that says that he's a saint, that's it. That's what. takes. And I think the monks are deliberately searching for his body. Of course, they know where Thurston is buried, but they are exhumored because they want to show, hey, he's been there a couple of years now, incorrupt sweet smelling. Then it's called you elevate it. We don't know quite what form of monuments above Thurston's grave, like so many of the monasteries across England, it suffers at the disillusion

of the monasteries. Nothing remains above ground upon the prairie. We know that the east end of it is rebuilt in the 14th century to provide a more fitting setting for the shrine of St. Thomas of Lancaster. And I think that people visiting Pontefract, well, there we go. You know, there's two saints there. The monks at Pontifract are saying, and we also got this holy archbishop here, this is plausible speculation from what we know of happening at other shrines as well. Unfortunately, we don't have any record of miracles or of ablations, offerings being made to the tomb of Thurston. from other sites, we know this was happening. It's just what has been lost.

But I think we can be fairly sure if they said Thurston was sancti, then they believed he was a saint, their saint. Really what it shows us is that Thurston's really this guy who's in the middle of two medieval worlds, right? This is the high medieval period where what Europe is going to be is coming into focus and what the church is going to be is coming into focus, right? So here we have the son of a married priest. He's part of a clerical dynasty.

These things that we really associate with the earlier medieval period and, you know, when things are a little bit more murky. And he becomes a saint in the earlier medieval way, which is local veneration and just a bunch of guys saying, no, this is our guy. This is our saint. But he is a big monastic reformer. He is someone who is really impacting cultural life in England. and he's shaping the actual borders of England and bringing the England that we would come to understand into being. He's a Norman in England, making this big cultural impact.

And I find that just so fascinating. He's just this one person who's straddling these two times in eras. Obviously, there's no clean break. There's no one place when suddenly all this kicks in. But he is this person who rolls all of these things into one. Yeah, absolutely. He's a man who's born on the cusp of change. As you said, he's the son of a married priest, member of a clerical dynasty. The actual fact, if he had been born slightly later,

he would probably never have been allowed to proceed to priestly orders. St. Aelred of Revo, he is the son of a married priest in Hexon, and he cannot follow his father into holy orders that way. He has to become a monk to fulfill his vocation. That's very much to the benefit of the Cistercians and Rivo Abbe, I must say. And, you know, Ayl Red is one of my great heroes. The other thing with Thurston, he's appointed by a king, but he turns to the Pope to affirm his authority. He's a diplomat and an administrator as being a great ecclesiastical lord. And those great monasteries of Northern England, Bilean, Furness, Kirkham, Revo.

Well, that's why I spend so much of my time researching and videos. visit in on behalf of English heritage, they're tangible witness to his importance. As a great prowler, he was a patron of monastic reform and he really did, I think, harbor a genuine vocation which he was able to fulfill at the end of his life. And as far as the medieval mind would have been concerned, he had all the essential qualifications for sainthood. And I do indeed think that like the monks at Pontchiprat Priory, it's legitimate for us to refer to him as St. Thurston. So what do you want our listeners to kind of really remember this guy for? There's two sides to his coin. There is the worldly plural. There is the great administrator.

There's the servant of a king. But there is a man of enormous faith for whom his own salvation and the salvation of his flock really, really matter. And that encapsulates the middle ages for me. I just absolutely love this guy. I think that it's so fascinating to show this interconnected medieval world and this medieval world that is constantly redefining itself and rethinking what it means to be holy, what it means to be politically connected, and what it means to be English as well. And what an incredible character. And I don't like to fall into the trap of saying, oh, here's a great man who's done great things. But what we can certainly say is this is a man of his time, right? Absolutely, yeah. And I think he was the saint that the cannons and the clergy of Yorkman's

that would desperately have liked for their own. Well, you know, we can do it for him now. I'm so glad that we know now that St. Thurston was indeed a saint. And Michael, thank you so much for making this great discovery and making time to talk to us about it today. It's been an absolute delight. The Middle Ages, the monasteries, and the Church of Northern England has been a passion of mine since I was a little boy growing up in working class West Leeds and it stirred my imagination and it's touched my soul and it's just a delight to be able to share my passionate interest with people today. Thank you very much. Thanks for listening and thank you to Michael for joining me. This has been Gone Medieval from History Hit and if you liked what you've heard, don't forget to rate,

review, follow the podcast and tell your friends about it. If you fancy suggesting an episode, you can reach us at Gone Medieval at HistoryHit.com. Otherwise, my co-host Matt Lewis will be back on Friday, and I'll be back as always next Tuesday. Until next time.