As if on soft wax. The reception of the Apparitio in Monte Gargano in pre-Conquest England

Abstract

Contrary to the received notion that the diffusion of St Michael’s legend and cult in pre-Conquest England is a comparatively late phenomenon, this paper will argue that the Apparitio in Monte Gargano (BHL 5948-9) must have crossed the Channel already in the 8^th century, as it was demonstrably drawn on in an anonymous Anglo-Latin epyllion, the Miracula Nyniae Episcopi (MNE). Dated to the 780s and associated with the ‘York school’ of Anglo-Latin poetry, the MNE recount the life and miracles of St Nynia, a tenuous figure traditionally identified with a British bishop and founder of Whithorn. In particular, one of the miracles performed by St Nynia demonstrably adapts and conflates two iconic events of the Apparitio, namely the episode of the straying bull and the Archangel’s leaving his footprints impressed in the marble of the sanctuary.