University puts trigger warning on medieval text over ‘graphic miracles’

Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy University chiefs are giving history students a “trigger” warning over what they say is graphic content in a medieval Christian text that’s part of their course. One woman reportedly had a foot “incapable of acting like a foot” with her toes and heel reversed, but was cured after visiting Reading Abbey and “coughing up a great deal of blood”. The warning note also advises that the 1970 translation of the mediaeval text into modern English, by Professor Brian Kemp, contains language “that is now considered offensive” in relation to “mental and physical health”. “Also, Kemp wrote the article in 1970 and some of the language he uses, in reference to mental and physical health, is now outdated.” For at least five years, UK universities have been increasingly introducing “trigger warnings” to give students notice of any potentially “upsetting” material in lectures, echoing a trend in US colleges to try to protect young people’s mental health.