MARSHA L. DUTTON 396 “WHAT GOD HAS CLEANSED”: SACRAMENTAL BLINDING AND NEW SIGHT IN AELRED’S A CERTAIN WONDERFUL MIRACLE 1 Marsha L. Dutton In Loving Memory of Tom Lenaghan Let us be converted to the Lord, because he frees those who are fettered and enlightens the blind. (Ps 145:7–8; Aelred, S 104.9) 2 Aelred of Rievaulx’s short narrative A Certain Wonderful Miracle tells of a young Gilbertine nun who after being raped by a lay brother continues to meet him secretly. When she becomes pregnant, he flees, and her community brutally punishes and imprisons her. 3 Late in her pregnancy, she twice dreams of being visited by the late Henry Murdac (d. 1153), the archbishop of York, who had left her at the priory of Watton as a child. In the second dream, Murdac blindfolds her with his pallium, explaining that because she is impure, she cannot Marsha L. Dutton is the Executive Editor of Cistercian Publications, and Emeritus Professor of Medieval English Literature at Ohio University (Athens). She publishes on the works of twelfth-century Cistercian authors, especially Aelred of Rievaulx and Gilbert of Hoyland. 1 This article was prompted by the paper given by Chad Turner at the 2019 Cistercian Studies Conference, “Aelred of Rievaulx on Vestments.” I want to thank him as well as David Burton; Fr. Brendan Freeman, O.C.S.O.; Fr. Lawrence Morey, O.C.S.O.; Sr. Grace Remington, O.C.S.O.; Fr. Alkuin Schachenmayr, O.Cist.; Tyler Sergent, and Tim Vivian for their assistance. I am especially grateful to Steven Schoenig, S.J., for his fascinating book on the history of the pallium and his helpful response to my questions. Translations of Aelred’s works are my own, though for convenience I cite translations in the Cistercian Fathers series (CF). Aelred’s works are cited with the roman-numbered chapter numbers from Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Mediaevalis (CCCM), with CF chapter numbers in parentheses, followed by page numbers from CCCM and CF. 2 Aelredi Rievallensis, Sermones LXXXV–CLXXXII, ed. Gaetano Raciti, CCCM 2C (Turnhout: Brepols, 2012), 99; Aelred of Rievaulx, The Liturgical Sermons: The Reading-Cluny Collection, vol. 4, trans. Daniel Griggs, CF 81 (Collegeville: Cistercian, 2021), 106. 3 “De Quodam Miraculo Mirabili,” ed. Domenico Pezzini, CCCM 3 (Turnholt: Brepols, 2017), 135–46, 253*–69* [Mira]; “A Certain Wonderful Miracle,” in Aelred of Rievaulx, Lives of the Northern Saints, trans. Jane Patricia Freeland, ed. Marsha L. Dutton, CF 71 (Kalamazoo: Cistercian, 2006), 109–22. In its single manuscript this work is twice identified as De quoddam miraculum mirabile [sic], as in the explicit, CCCM 3:146, n. 17, but the 17th-century edition uses the work’s running head as title, De Sanctimoniali de Wattun (The Nun of Watton) (Historiæ Anglicanæ Scriptores, ed. Roger Twysden and John Selden, 2 vols. [London: Cornelius Bee, 1652], X:415–22). PL 195:789–96 reprints Twysden’s text and retains that title.