promoting access to White Rose research papers Universities of Leeds, Sheffield and York http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/ This is an author produced version of a paper published in Journal of Medieval History. White Rose Research Online URL for this paper: http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/42781 Published paper West, C.M.A. (2010) Unauthorised miracles in mid-ninth-century Dijon and the Carolingian church reforms, Journal of Medieval History, 36 (4), pp. 295-311 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jmedhist.2010.09.006 White Rose Research Online
[email protected] Unauthorised miracles in mid-ninth-century Dijon and the Carolingian Church reforms Abstract In the early 840s, Archbishop Amolo of Lyons wrote to one of his suffragan bishops about extraordinary miracles reportedly taking place at Dijon in the wake of the arrival of mysterious new relics. This article examines the complex interaction of these relics with pre-existing social and political processes in the region and locally, but also explores other aspects of the text which have been less discussed, notably its manuscript transmission and the insights it offers into structures of religious organization. Finally, it argues that the way issues treated together in the letter tend to be separated or even opposed in the historiography points to the need for renewed, critically reflexive attention to the specificities of the Carolingian Church reforms. Keywords: relics; parish; Dijon; Carolingian Church Strange happenings in Dijon In the middle of the ninth century, the bones of an unknown saint, carried from Italy by travelling monks, were brought inside the church of St-Bénigne in Dijon, Burgundy.