We're all fairly aware of the process by which someone becomes a bishop.

Someone is a really, really great priest and their local bishops become aware of them.

When a seat becomes vacant, their name is put forward and sent to Rome by the Apostolic Nuncio,

which is the representative of the area to the Pope.

And then the Pope agrees. We're also pretty confident about the process of the canonization of Saints, well for non-martres that is. Someone very wholly dies and their local community will ask the local

Bishop to open an investigation into their virtues. Their written works in

Akswall alive will be examined to see whether they showed the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity,

and the cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance to a heroic degree.

If you pass this test you become blessed or worthy of belief.

Then you need at least two miracles which can be attributed to the blessed person.

At that point the College of Cardinals and the Congregation of the

causes of Saints will agree in conjunction with the Pope that someone is a saint.

This is all true, but it's also a really modern understanding of both processes.

And in the medieval period, especially before the high Middle Ages,

the process of appointing bishops and creating saints was largely a local one and it was fought over heavily by kings in the church local communities and their papal overseers

And because these were processes they didn't appear fully formed overnight.

As a result, people lived, were ordained, and were beatified, while the organizations they lived under fought for control of the procedures involved.

I'm Dr. Eleanor Yannaga, and today on Gone Medieval from History hit, we're looking at the Archbishop

Thurston of York, a man whose life took none of our familiar paths to power and holiness,

and whose sanctification was for centuries lost to us as a result.

His life story is one of conquest, power, and how sometimes you can't please everyone, especially

when everyone are some of the richest and most well-connected people in medieval Europe.

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