The Body as Practical Field for Saintly Power: Disability in Early Irish Saints' Lives

A number of early medieval Irish hagiographies demonstrate the narratological theme of the saint's intervention on bodies that demonstrate – or that are forced to endure – physical impairment. This theme of “disability” not only constitutes a distinct and discernible trope in early medieval Irish hagiography, but it also pairs narratives of miraculous healing with narratives of miraculous punishment. That is, the trope of “disability” – often represented in the Latin sources as debilitas - comprises two key activities: one, in which the saint miraculously restores impaired bodies to a pre-impairment state (salus), and two, in which the saint miraculously curses able bodies, physically impairing them. Throughout many early medieval Irish hagiographies, narratives that feature physical impairment serve to draw attention to difference: individuals who hold different views from those of the saint are cursed (with blindness, for example), while individuals who believe in the powers of the saint and who are often of a different (weaker) social status than the saint are “healed”. My presentation begins by examining the evidence for disability in Irish hagiography. After discussing the ways in which the Irish sources connect disability with gender, I will then investigate the ways in which Irish hagiography as a genre reflects the construal of disability within early medieval Irish society at large. Finally, I will note areas of similarity between the treatment of disability in Irish saints' lives and hagiographies from the Continent. I conclude that these tales of bodily disability demonstrate not only the narrative power of the saint over physical impairment, but also the extent to which early medieval hagiography represents bodies as fields for the exercise of saintly power: persons with disabilities represent a particular type of medieval body, a particular category for the public demonstration of authority.