Pilgrimage: An Image of Mediaeval Religion

by Jonathan Sumption

  In his youth, Abbo of Fleury had heard a popular preacher in Paris promise his audience that the world would end in the year 1000. A profound fear of imminent destruction undoubtedly existed in the tenth century, but the millennium itself was an uneventful year. It required some portentous event to liberate these suppressed feelings, and this event occurred in 1009 with the total destruction of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem by caliph Hakim. The destruction, which was the result of a short-lived outburst of hysteria in an unbalanced caliph, had profound effects in the west. Suddenly it was clear that Hakim was the Antichrist of whom the Apocalypse had spoken. In parts of France the prevailing view was that Hakim’s act had been suggested to him by the Jews of Orléans, and the mob reacted by invading the ghettos and murdering or forcibly baptizing the inhabitants. In some towns, particularly in Aquitaine, they were actively encouraged by the clergy. From western France, Normandy, and Burgundy departed the first of a series of mass pilgrimages to the Holy Land. The bulk of these pilgrims were obscure, frightened men, but amongst them were several distinguished churchmen and a few lay princes to testify to the striking homogeneity of eleventh-century piety. Gauzlin, abbot of Fleury and later archbishop of Bourges, a bishop of Périgord, Raymond count of the Rouergue, and Fulk Nerra were amongst the pilgrims of that year.

  An even larger exodus followed the thousandth anniversary of the death of Christ in 1033. The year was ushered in by famine and torrential rainstorms, which lasted throughout the spring and flattened the crop in many parts of France. ‘Men thought’, wrote Radulph Glaber, ‘that the very laws of nature and the order of the seasons were reversed, that those rules which governed the world were replaced by chaos. They knew then that the end of the world had arrived.’ Glaber was born in Burgundy and lived there all his life. His work gives us an insight into the religious imagination of the eleventh century, for he shared the moods and enthusiasms of those whom he described. A superstitious and emotional man, he was several times possessed by the devil and was plainly an embarrassment to his superiors, who moved him from one monastery to another at frequent intervals. In 1033 Glaber was living at Cluny, and from behind its sheltered walls observed the growing panic of his fellow-countrymen. Beginning in Aquitaine, the terror had reached Burgundy by summer. Large assemblies of men joined in public displays of repentance and swore to keep the ‘peace of God’. ‘The entire people, great and small, willingly attended, each one ready to obey the instructions of his pastor as if he had heard a voice from the sky speaking to all men on earth.’ The wealthier pilgrims who returned from Jerusalem at that time, expressed their relief and gratitude for the survival of mankind by founding churches. ‘I Hictor’, wrote one of them, ‘mindful of the compassionate kindness of God the supreme judge, do hereby found this church on the occasion of my return from Jerusalem. For I know that the fleeting life of the world is brittle and yet harsh; I know too how great is the reward of the virtuous, and how dreadful the torments of the damned.’ Hervé, archdeacon of the church of Ste.-Croix d’Orléans had been convinced in 1033 of the approaching dissolution of the earth:

  ‘The life of the world is uncertain and fragile. No one knows when his passage on earth will end, for does not the whole world rush rapidly to its destruction? … I pondered many nights on the frailty of life and so came to live in fear of sudden death. I went to Jerusalem to atone for my sins and to beg for mercy on my knees…. Now, God having permitted me to return safely, … I have endowed this church, … not only for the remission of my own most grievous sins but for the salvation of the souls of my family; for my parents Havranus and Adela and my brother Peter, all dead, as well as for the rest of my family who are still, thank God, alive.’

  The mass pilgrimage of 1033, though probably the most dramatic, was not the last occasion on which eschatological fears were to send frightened hordes to the Holy Land. The turn of Germany came in 1064. The army of pilgrims which left Passau in that year seem to have been persuaded that the world would end when Easter Sunday fell on the 26th March, the date given in some mediaeval calendars for the original resurrection. This coincidence occurred in 1065 for the first time in seventy-three years. Again, on 15th July 1099, when the crusading army entered Jerusalem, some of them saw in their achievement the prelude to the end of the world, and the dazed remnants of the Provencal contingent waited, silent and inactive, for the descent of Christ and his saints.

  *

  Two images of God drew the attention of men to the Holy Places. The religion of the eleventh and twelfth centuries was characterized by a new devotion to the humanity of Christ, to his nativity and childhood as much as to his death and resurrection. The formal, stylized, infinitely distant, God of the Moissac tympanum gave way to the human God of Chartres cathedral, and thus to the suffering God of Cimabue and Giotto. But the same Christ who took on the weakness and vulnerability of manhood was also the terrible judge portrayed with frightening realism on the west fronts of Conques or Autun. Here indeed, carved in stone, was the rex tremenda majestatis whom the pilgrim sought to appease with his prayers. In contemporary eyes these two notions offered no contradiction: the one led on naturally to the other.

  ‘Tell me then’, wrote Peter Damian in his treatise on flagellation, ‘you who proudly mock the Passion of Christ, you who disdain to be stripped and scourged with him, you who laugh at his nakedness and sufferings and dismiss them as the triflings of pious old fools, tell me what you will do when he who hung naked on the Cross appears in glorious majesty, surrounded by angels and the incomparable splendour of all creation. What will you do when he who took on the ignominy of humanity and death, comes to judge the living and the dead?’

  Only by imitating Christ the man could one placate Christ the judge. In this way the romantic desire to relive in one’s imagination the life of Christ, was combined with a very real fear of His anger, and a firm conviction that by renouncing one’s ordinary life and following His footsteps in the Holy Land, the force of that anger could be deflected. Thus it was to a stern and vengeful God that the author of the Dies Irae addressed his impassioned plea for mercy:

  Iuste index ultionis

  Donum fac remissionis

  Ante diem rationis.

  The minority of pilgrims who lived according to the precepts of the sermon Veneranda Dies felt that they had fully earned this mercy. They had, at least temporarily, renounced the world and entered an order of the Church, an elite body whose chances of salvation were infinitely greater than those of the mass of humanity. This feeling of belonging to an initiated caste of holy men, as formal in its own way as the monastic order itself, the pilgrim expressed by wearing a distinctive ‘uniform’, and by receiving at his departure the blessing of the Church. The great monastic reformer William of Hirsau, who always had the ‘mot juste’ for everything, distinguished five orders of the Church in Germany, for each of which he had a separate spiritual message. To the order of bishops and priests, he would teach theology and ecclesiastical law; to the order of monks, humility and piety; to the order of laymen, faith and submission; to the order of virgins, chastity; and the order of pilgrims and hermits he would teach to be content with their lot ‘for their faith has made them glorious in the sight of God and the world is at their feet’.

  Notes

  1 ‘Some three years…’: Glaber, Hist., III. 4, pp. 61–2. Cf. Anselm, Hist. Dedications S. Remigii, PL. cxlii. 1417–18.

  Disruptions of barbarians: E. Mabille, Les invasions Normandes dans la Loire et les péregrinations du corps de S. Martin, Paris, 1869; also, Gasnault, pp. 55–61. On St. Cuthbert, Symeon of Durham, Hist. Dunelmensis Eccl., II. 6–III. 1, vol. i, pp. 54–80 (with many apocryphal details). On St. Evroul, Orderic, Hist. Eccl., VI. 9–10, ed. Chibnall, vol. iii, pp. 276, 282–4, 302–4. Bernard, Itin., XXIV, p. 320.

  2 Hospices decayed: Capitularia Regum Francorum, vol. ii, pp. 408, 434–5 (Irish hospices). Bullarium Casinense, const. XXX, vol. ii, Rome, 1670, p. 25.

  Route to Jerusalem: Glaber, Hist.,
IV. 6, pp. 106–7.

  Hospices in Hungary: on Melk, Orderic Vitalis, Hist. Eccl., III, ed. Chibnall, vol. ii, p. 68. Richard of St.-Vanne was entertained at the Hungarian court in 1027, see G. Morin, ‘Un théologien ignoré du xie siècle: l’évèque-martyr Gérard de Czanad’, Revue Bénédictine, xxvii (1910), pp. 518–19; as also was Lietbert of Cambrai in 1054, Vita Lietberti, XXXII, p. 703. On the royal hospice at Vashegy (Pécvarad), see A. Palla, ‘Hospital in Hungary in the Xlth century’, Atti del primo congresso Europeo di storia ospitaliera, Reggio Emilia, 1962, pp. 278–85.

  Route to Santiago: Defourneaux, pp. 67–8. Pelayo, Chron., ES. xiv. 473–4. Hist. Compostellana, I. 30, 31, III. 9, pp. 69, 71, 489; on ambassadors’ impressions, ibid., II. 50, p. 350.

  3 Gottschalk: Vazquez de Parga, et al., vol. i, p. 42 (the fundamental work). New relics: Glaber, Hist., III. 6, pp. 68–9 (Sens). Gregory VII, Reg., VIII. 8, pp. 526–7 (Salerno). Peter the Deacon, Historica Relatio, I. 1, p. 288 (Monte Cassino). Bethell, pp. 61, 65 (Reading).

  St. Leonard: Adémar de Chabannes, Chron., III. 56, p. 181. Aa. Ss. Nov., vol. iii, pp. 139, 148–9. On the saints of the route to Santiago, Guide, VIII, pp. 35–83.

  4 South-western France: on the councils of 1031, MC. xix. 502–6. Pilgrimages: Adémar, Chron., III. 40–1, 48, 65–6, 68, pp. 162–3, 171, 189–90, 192–3, 194; Vita S. Geraldi, VII–IX, XVII, Aa. Ss. OSB., vol. ix, pp. 880–2, 884–5, cf. PP. 869–71.

  5 Norman pilgrimages: Hugh of Flavigny, Chron., XIX, pp. 393–4 (Richard of St.-Vannes). William of Jumièges, Gesta Normannorum Ducum, VI. 11, pp. 111–13 (Robert). Orderic, Hist Eccl., III, ed. Chibnall, vol. ii, p. 10.

  Norman hospices in Rome: Mirac. S. Wulfranni, II. 12, Aa. Ss. March, vol. iii, p. 154.

  Rouen coins: J. Lafaurie, ‘Le trésor monétaire du Puy’, Revue Numismatique, 5e serie, xv (1952), no. 26, pp. 117–18.

  Normans impeded: Letter of John of Fécamp in PL. cxliii. 797. On Normans imprisoned at Constantinople, Adémar, Chron., III. 55, p. 178.

  Mirac. S. Fidis, III. 1, pp. 128–30 (Roger de Tosny).

  6 Mass-pilgrimage of 1024–5: Glaber, Hist., IV. 6, p. 106. Hugh of Flavigny, Chron., XVIII, p. 393.

  Aganon: GC. iv. 381–4.

  Synod of 1094: Chron. S. Benigni Divionensis, MGH. SS. v. 43 (‘ubi primo iurata via Hierosolymitana’); cf. MC. xx. 799. Pilgrims from the neighbouring provinces of Lorraine and the Rhineland included Poppo abbot of Stavelot in 990 (Everhelm, Vita Popponis, III, MGH. SS. xi. 295–6); at least one count and one bishop of Verdun (Gesta Episcoporum Virdunensium, IX–X, MGH. SS. iv. 49); Adalbert, count of Metz (Notitiae Fundationis Mon. Bosonis Villae, I, MGH. SS. xv. 977–8); from Trier went Hierocon, abbot of S. Maximin (Mabillon (SW), vol. iv, p. 291), an abbot of St. Martin in 1026 (Eberwin, Vita S. Symeonis, X, Aa. Ss. OSB., vol. viii, pp. 375–6), and an archbishop in 1025 (Gesta Treverorum, contin., III, V, PL. cliv. 1182, 1186); and Richard of St.-Vannes, whose monastery lay just outside Verdun.

  Monastic libraries: thirteenth-century catalogue of books at St. Martial in Duplès-Agier (ed.), Chroniques, pp. 326, 329, 333, 336, 343. Eighteenth-century catalogue of Moissac in Archives Communales (Moissac), JJ. 1; the Moissac MS of the Bordeaux pilgrim is now Bibl. Nat. MS. Lat. 4808.

  Western possessions of the Holy Sepulchre: many of these are listed in a confirmatory papal bull of Sept. 1128 in Cartulaire du Saint-Sepulchre, XVI, ed. E. de Rozière, Paris, 1849, pp. 18–22. Among the monastic houses which administered them in the eleventh century were S. Michel de Cuxa (Riant (2)); Moissac (Bibl. Nat. Coll. Doat, CXXVIII, fols. 91–2, 216vo–217vo, CXXIX, fols. 58vo–6o); and Conques (Cartulaire de Conques, nos. 329, 392, pp. 257, 290).

  Spanish spoil enriches Cluny: Glaber, Hist., IV. 7, pp. 109–10. On the interest of the abbots in the pilgrimage to Santiago, see Vita B. Morandi, in Bibliotheca Cluniacensis, cols. 501–3.

  7 Miracles of St. James and Cluny: the stories in Liber S. Jacobi, II. 16–18, pp. 276–83, are taken from Alexander, Dicta Anselmi, XXI–XXIII, ed. R. W. Southern and F. S. Schmitt, Memorials of St. Anselm, London, 1969, pp. 196–209, cf. pp. 31–2. Arnaldo’s letter, ed. J. Vielliard in Guide, p. 126. On the dissemination of the miracles, see Vazquez de Parga et al., vol. i, pp. 176–7; David, vol. i, pp. 30–9; J. Lafond, Les Vitraux de l’eglise de S. Ouen de Rouen, Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi, France, IV (2), Paris, 1970, p. 94.

  Mayeul’s pilgrimages: Nalgod, Vita S. Majoli, II. 18, Aa. Ss. May, vol. ii, p. 662. Syrus, Vita S. Majoli, II. 15, 17, Aa. Ss. OSB., vol. vii, pp. 797–8.

  8 Bonizo on duties of knights: De Vita Christiana, VII. 28, ed. E. Perels, Texte zur Geschichte des römisches und kanonisches rechts im Mittelalter, I, Berlin, 1930, pp. 248–9.

  Aristocratic guilt: William IX, Chanson XI, ed. A. Jeanroy, 2nd. ed., Paris, 1926, p. 28. La ‘Bible’ an seigneur de Berzé, 11. 777–87, ed. F. Lecoy, Paris, 1938, p. 49; cf. 11. 188–205, 809–22, 825–6, 843–6, pp. 30, 32–3, 50, 51. On Roger of Foix, Chartes de Cluny, no. 2991, vol. iv, pp. 189–90.

  Gerald of Aurillac: Odo, Vita S. Geraldi, I. 8–11, II. 16–17, 22, III. 3, cols. 646–50, 679–80, 682–3, 691. On the authenticity of this version, Poncelet.

  9 Annual pilgrimages: Adémar, Chron., III. 41, p. 163. Mirac. S. Mariae Magdalenae Viziliaci facta (ed. alt.), I, VI, CCH (Paris), vol. ii, pp. 292–3 (no. 2), An. Boll., xvii (1898), pp. 178–9.

  Canterbury statistics: Benedict and William, Mirac. S. Thomae, passim. Allowance is made for pilgrims mentioned in both collections. Women are classified as their husbands or fathers, children as their parents.

  10 Declining social standing of pilgrims: Vergerio, Ep. LXXXVI, p. 212. Wright (ed.), Letters, p. 85 (Bury).

  Luxurious pilgrimages: William of Jumièges, Gesta Normannorm Ducum, VI. 11, pp. 112–13. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, p. 134 (Ealdred).

  German pilgrimage of 1064: Annales Altahenses Maiores, p. 67. Marianus Scottus, Chron., MGH. SS. v. 559. Lambert of Hersfeld, Annales, pp. 93–4.

  11 Peter the Venerable on pilgrimages: Epp. LI, LXXX, CXLIV, vol. i, pp. 151–2, 216, 358–9.

  Sermon Veneranda Dies: Liber S. Jacobi, I. 17, pp. 141–76, esp. pp. 144–5, 152, 154, 156–7.

  12 Palestine hermits: Reginald, Vita S. Godrici, XV. 43, pp. 57–8. Phocas, De Locis Sanctis, XXIII, XXXI, cols. 952–3, 961. Jacques de Vitry, Hist. Hierosolymitana, LII–LHI, pp. 1074–5. Benincasa, Vita S. Rayneri, II. 22, 26, pp. 430, 431. Theobald, Vita S. Guiklmi, V. 22, Aa. Ss. Feb., vol. ii, p. 457.

  13 Berthold of Neuenburg: Annales Marbacenses, p. 75.

  Crusaders’ austerities: Jacques de Vitry, Exempla, LXXV, CXXIV, pp. 38–9, 57. Ambroise, L’Estoire de la Guerre Sainte, ed. G. Paris, Paris, 1879, col. 325.

  Pilgrims become monks: Peter the Venerable, De Mirac, I.11,18, cols. 874–5, 883.

  14 Walking: Sulpicius Severus, Dialogi, I. 21, p. 173. Honoratus, Vita S. Hilarii, III. 22, Aa. Ss. May, vol. ii, p. 31 (not historically reliable). Vita S. Ayberti, I. 5, Aa. Ss. April, vol. i, p. 674. Benedict, Mirac. S. Thomae, III. 48, IV. 94, pp. 152, 257 (Matilda of Thornbury; countess of Clare). Mirac. S. Martialis, XXXIII, p. 427 (‘totus nudus’). Vita S. Godrici, XIV. 39–40, pp. 53–5. Labande (2), pp. 104–5n13 (canon of Dol). William, Mirac. S. Thomae, VI. 18, p. 430 (John King). MS. Gloucester cathedral 1, fol. 175 (Reading pilgrim).

  15 ‘Open to him …’: Jacques de Vitry, Exempla, CXXXIII, pp. 59–60.

  Baptismal imagery: Benedict, Mirac. S. Thomae, III. 11, p. 126. Bridget, Rev., VII. 14, p. 550. Bartolus, Tractatus, XXVIII, p. 56 (Portiuncula).

  16 Mary the Egyptian: earliest version (saec. vii) in Sophronius, Vita S. Mariae Aegyptiaca, PL. lxxiii. 673–90. Other versions: Hildebert, Vita B. Mariae Aegyptiaca, PL. clxxi. 1321–40; Honorius, Speculum Ecclesiae, PL. clxxii. 906. P. Mesplé, Toulouse: Musée des Augustins. Les sculptures romanes, Inventaires des collections publiques francaises, vol. v, Paris, 1961, no. 33. Sites marked: Daniel, Pèlerinage, pp. 19, 28.

  Bathing in Jordan: Antenoris, Vita S. Silvini, I. 9, p. 30. Raymond of Aguilers, His
t. Francorum, XX, pp. 301–2 (Raymond of St. Gilles). Saga Olafs Konungshins Helga, Fornmanna Sogur, V, Copenhagen, 1830, p. 314 (Thornstein). Pèlerinage d’Euphrosine, p. 34. Theoderic, De Locis Sanctis, XXX, p. 73.

  17 Copied at Santiago: Guide, VI, p. 16.

  Jacques de Vitry on Jordan: Hist. Hierosolymitana, LIII, pp. 1075–6.

  Jordan water as relic: Philip, Descriptio (c. 1285–91), VIII, pp. 64–5.

  Faber, Evagatorium, vol. ii, pp. 36–7. Voyage de la Saincte Cyté (1480), pp. 101–2.

  Desire for death: Pèlerinage d’Euphrosine, p. 33. Eskill’s prayer quoted in Labande (3), p. 346. Caesarius, Dial. Mirac, XL 24, vol. ii, p. 291.

  Theoderic, De Locis Sanctis, IV, pp. 9–10 (Aceldama).

  18 Importance of burial-place: Paulinus, Carmina, XXXI. 605–10, pp. 328–9. E. Le Blant, Etude sur les sarcophages Chrétiens de la ville d’Aries, Paris, 1878, p. xxxvi. Suger, Vita Lodovici VI, XXXIV, p. 286. Site of last judgement: Innominatus I, Descriptio, p. 99. Theoderic, De Locis Sanctis, XXXII, p. 77. Faber, Evagatorium, vol. i, pp. 392–3.

  19 Lethbald: Glaber, Hist., IV. 6, pp. 106–7.

  Millenarianism: Otto of Friesing, De Duabus Civitatibus. Marculf, Formulae, II. 3, PL. lxxxvii. 729 (‘manifest signs…’). Adso, Libellus de Antichristo, PL. ci. 1291–8.

  20 Last day described: Benzo of Alba, Ad Heinricum IV Imperatorem, I. 14–15, V. 6, MGH. SS. xi. 605, 653; cf. Ekkehard of Aura, Hierosolymitana, XXXIV, XXXV, RHC. Occ. v. 38–9. See Erdmann.