6: The patron saint of heads lost and found
A theory for how family care didn't quite get started in the medieval era
This is the sixth part of a series. You can find part one here.
The short versions of the Dymphna story are more or less in agreement: she’s baptized, her mom dies, her dad wants to marry her, she runs away with the priest, her dad finds them, they’re both murdered.
The long versions are quite different. And quite difficult to find. I read about a story narrated by the jester, who survives her father’s rampage. I read about other versions, but actual reproductions of the texts are scarce. At this point, however, I’m tired of investigating the red herrings of weird details in different versions of the Dymphna story. I just want to know how the heck this all connects to adult foster care for people with intellectual disabilities.
Ironically, despite my theory that the French and Flemish versions of the story are about two different Cinderella saints, the story that finally offers a reasonable explanation is in a French newspaper archive. The story is printed in French, but it was supposedly told to the author by a boarder in Geel speaking in Flemish:
“Saint Dymphne? The patron saint of heads lost and found. She was an Irish princess. The king, his father was a pagan, her mother a Christian. Dymphne received baptism.
Narrow-minded and violent. The king had fits of fury which made him resemble a cave bear. But then the queen took him in her white arms and bound him with her long tresses of red hair, more fragrant than wild flowers; and the king became gentle as a lamb.
Alas! this good queen died. So the king wanted to marry his daughter who was white and red like her mother. Dymphne, terrified, went to confess to the monk Gerebernus. “Let us flee, said Gerebernus. Incest is the greatest sin.
They run to the sea and get into a boat, without oars or sails. The waves deposit the boat on the sands of the Flemish coast. Dymphne and Gerebernus cross Bruges, Ghent, Antwerp and penetrate into the forests of the Campine. Near Gheel, they built a hermitage and prepared to live in the peace of the Lord.
But the king, furious, sets out in pursuit. He goes to the seaside and asks the fishermen: Who has seen a monk and a girl with golden hair? And they all replied: O king, they took a boat, without oars or sails, and the waves carried them away. Well, said the king, arm your boats, so that I can embark, with my executioners and my soldiers.
And immediately the sea is covered with boats where we see, among the ropes, tackle and bulwarks, the iron of swords, spears, helmets and shields shining.
And the furious king shouted to the fish: Have you seen a monk and a girl with golden hair? The fish responded miraculously: They went to Flanders.
The king asked the petrels and the seagulls: Have you seen a monk and a girl with golden hair? And the birds cried: Yes, they went to Flanders.
And the king asked the same thing of the mermaids who played near the shore. And the mermaids laughed. Golden hair? They said, The one we met had a head red like the fleece of a squirrel! She went to Flanders, lord.
So the cruel king found Dymphne easily, because she had been noticed everywhere.
He had Gerebernus beheaded by his executioners and cut off his daughter's head himself.
He wanted to take the head of Dymphne to his home, in order to savor his revenge. But on the way back, he and his troop were attacked by a band of converted Saxons. These Saxons put the king to death, along with all his servants.
While pillaging the baggage of the vanquished, a Saxon found the severed head of Dymphne. He recognized her immediately, by her fiery hair. Misfortune! he cried. It is the head of Saint Dymphna, who lived in the forest of Gheel with Saint Gerebernus. What happened?
Then the Saxons went into the forest where they discovered the bodies of the martyrs...
At this moment a young man stopped us in the middle of the road.
What a liar, he cried. What lies Don't listen to him, sir. Barrabas is the biggest liar in the village. I'm talking about him telling you the story of Dymphne. But he doesn't know how to tell stories. Dymphne had her hair so long that it trailed behind her in the morning blessing. Her eyes were bluer than the sky and her mouth more innocent than a child's kiss. The fairies begged for his gaze, the deer and deer for the caress of her fingers. And the unicorn left its mysterious refuge, just to come and kneel in front of her little mirror.
Don't be surprised, Barrabas warns me. He is mad. Just a poor man. mad. Although there is some truth in his speeches.
In the forest, a chapel dedicates the place where Saint Dymphna was tortured. It is there that madmen go on pilgrimage. By chance, science found itself in agreement with superstition. It attributes a beneficial action to the forest, to the smell of the fir trees which scent the resin.”
The story appears to use elements of fairy tales to turn the images in the altarpiece in Sint-Dimpnakerk into a coherent story. The story of the robbers from Xanten attempting to steal the bodies of the two saints has now provided an explanation for why Dymphna would be able to restore the mad to sanity.
The altarpiece dates to 1515, though, and I only found this one reference to the patron saint of heads lost and found. The altarpiece, in turn, is inspired by another saint I hadn’t yet paid much attention to.
Saint Margaret: Patron saint of the Merode family
There’s no question that Dymphna became associated with treating the mad while her church was controlled by the Merode family. The Merode family don’t have Dymphna as their patron saint; Dymphna simply came under their auspices. They already had a patron saint: Saint Margaret.
The Merodes merged the stories of Dymphna and Margaret. This is how Dymphna came to be depicted standing with her foot on the neck of a dragon. We’re told the dragon is the demon that Dymphna has conquered through her chastity. Margaret just happened to have killed a dragon. Dymphna is depicted with a book, which symbolizes how Margaret was educated by her foster mother...I mean, symbolizes the triumph of logic over madness.
If Geel began taking in foster patients during the era of Merode control, it makes sense that it would have happened because of Saint Margaret. Women prayed to Saint Margaret, patron saint of childbirth, asking that their babies not be sick or deformed. Margaret was cast out by her family and raised by a nurse in the countryside. The Campine was known as an excellent region for the wealthy to send their babies for wet-nursing. A 1932 newspaper article explains that “it’s an industry. They take mad people as they take babies away. Three fools are worth a piece of land.”
Parigot hinted at this in 1852:
“The peasants of the Campine are good people..they are, moreover, well known in Belgium; it is to the wives of these heather farmers that rich people entrust the nursing of their children; they are easily recognized by their national costume, the gracefully shaped lace cap that only they know how to wear. These nurses with fresh complexions, white teeth, straight and well-proportioned bodies, nursing the children of the cities.”
Some versions of Saint Margaret’s tale are narrated by the nurse. In addition to raising her, educating her, and telling her tale, the nurse brings her food in prison and buries her body after she’s been executed. One historian likens the nurse to Mother Goose or a fairy godmother. Margaret, in turn, eagerly tends the nurses flock of sheep. “Unlike Cinderella, whose household chores are the results of her stepmother’s hatred and the distorted family situation, Margaret’s lowly occupation is precisely a consequence of a healthy, loving relationship of wise parental authority and filial submission…It is made clear that she is neither oppressed nor an idle pet, but is perfectly integrated into her foster family, sharing in their work (sheep-tending) and leisure (listening to her godmother’s tales).”
Saint Margaret even had the pilgrims Geel claims to have had. In the Old English version of the vita, Corpus Christi’s Life of Saint Margaret, perhaps dating to the 12th century, tells us: “While Malchus’s soul is brought to God because of Margaret’s prayer, the crippled, dumb, deaf, blind, or mad seek out her corpse and obtain their health there through touching her body.”
Theory one: the Merode family made up the story
The local nobility and church leadership were all classically educated and spoke Latin and French, while the locals spoke Gaulish and then Flemish. This education meant they were familiar with the stories of Greek and Roman nymphs, as well as the folklore recounted in classic literature. Nobles were often born in a different district, traveled for political and social responsibilities, and encountered people from other regions. This provided them with the opportunity to be familiar with other pilgrimage sites, their particular stories and rituals, and see just how much money they could bring. The Catholic Church moved people from various parishes, monasteries, and convents throughout their lives. Thus, both the local nobility and church leadership were in the position to – together, as this has always been a joint project – craft the story of Dymphna.
People in the Campine were going wild for Cinderella saints in the 13th century. Chapels for Dymphna, Douceline de Digne, and others popped up like mushrooms. Douceline de Digne was popular with the peasants while Dymphna was the favorite among the nobility.
The Merodes ended up with the chapel of Saint Dymphna when they took over the area. They moved it, rewrote her story with elements of their family lore, popular legends, and their patron saint – the jester, the coins to diss Oosterlo, the founding a hospital, the beheading, the dragon, the sarcophaguses. While the peasants were worshiping Saint Douceline, the Merodes merged her with Saint Dymphna.
The charade demonstrated to the peasantry that their families were tied to holiness and were rightfully standing at the top of the social hierarchy. Regardless of how convincing the peasants found the stories told by the nobility and church leadership, as peasants relying on customary tenure and leases, it was in their best interest to play along.
They worked to promote the shrine as a pilgrimage site – creating the specialization in madness and copying popular rituals from other shrines. The wealthy do all sorts of weird things when they’re bored. Remember when trophy wives were opening cupcake shops on every corner? Remember Goop’s top selling products? Remember Elon Musk?
Only most ridiculous hobbies aren’t as successful as Goop. Just as there’s no evidence that there were a significant number of pilgrims coming to Saint Dymphna’s shrine, there’s no evidence that there were a significant number of boarders living in Geel. The experience of the Merodes in Geel suggests that sometimes you build it – and popularize stories about it – and no one comes.