In the Church of Cuna in Monteroni d'Arbia, named for Saints Giacomo and Cristoforo, there’s a fresco of Saint James, beneath which two predellas tell the miracle of the hanged man, remembered in the second of the five books of Compostela, which form the Codex Calixtinus, titled De miraculis sancti Iacobi.

The story is that around the year 1000, a father, mother and son left Germany on a pilgrimage to Santiago di Compostela. They slept in an inn and the innkeeper’s daughter tried to seduce the son, who turned her down. Irked, the young woman hid a silver cup in the son’s bag and the next morning she called on the guards to intervene. On finding the hidden cup, they sentenced the young man to death and they hanged him immediately. The father and mother continued their journey to Compostela and 36 days later they returned to bury their son, who was miraculously still alive. He told them that Saint James had held his feet so that the rope wouldn’t tighten around his neck. The parents went straight to the judge to tell him about the miracle and to ask for their son to be removed from the gallows, but the magistrate, who was eating a dinner of roast chicken and hen, replied, saying that they were lying before adding, “Your son is as alive as these roasted birds!” The chicken and hen suddenly flew off, leaving their feathers on the tray.

Source: Augusto Codogno su ilcittadinoonline.it