Thurkill's strange journey

1206 The vision of Thurkill is one of a number of precedents to the Purgatory of The Divine Comedy by the Florentine poet, Dante (1265 - 1321).

We know from the medieval chronicle by Roger of Wendover (d. 1236), that on Friday, October 27, 1206 the English peasant Thurkill was digging ditches to drain his Essex farm (possibly at the village of Twinstead, Sudbury) when a stranger, who identified himself as St James (patron saint of pilgrims), came up to him and said he would take the labourer on a journey. Thurkill lay down, going into a coma. In his vision, Thurkill passed through a "large purgatorial fire" and was immersed in a lake "incomparably salty and cold" ...

Tagged: christianity, saint, england, mystery, medieval