Pilgrimage: An Image of Mediaeval Religion

by Jonathan Sumption

  Statutes of 1229 and 1255: Newett, pp. 25–6.

  Contracts: Neefs, pp. 322–3 (Jan Aerts). Hans Rot, Pilgerreisen, pp. 382–5 (1440). Wey, Itineraries, pp. 4, 90.

  20 Disputes and reorganization after 1440: Newett, pp. 101–2, 56–7, 65–72, 74–5, 101. Claes van Dusen appears to have been Contarini’s agent in the Netherlands, see his Beschrijvinge, in Conrady (ed.), Rheinische Pilgerschriften, p. 193.

  21 Turks damage Rhodes: Wey, Itineraries, p. 78.

  Disturbances in 1480: Voyage de la Saincte Cyté, pp. iv–viii, 42–3.

  Contarini’s troubles in 1479–80: Ibid., pp. 24, 99–101.

  Decline of Venetian package-tour: Newett, pp. 107–8, 283. Affagart, Relation, pp. 20–1.

  22 Habits of the Basques: Guide, VII, pp. 26–30; cf. the author’s views on the Gascons, pp. 18–20. The fifteen words given in the Guide are the oldest monument of the Basque language. By contrast with the author of the Guide, the highly educated, and usually aristocratic, pilgrims of the ‘dark ages’ had often transmitted cultural influences, see, e.g. W. Levison, England and the continent in the eighth century, Oxford, 1946, pp. 36–44, 52–3, 134, 170–2.

  23 Contempt for Greeks: Innominatus V, III, p. 259 (‘cunning men’). Fulcher of Chartres, Hist. Hierosolymitana, II. 38, ed. H. Hagenmeyer, Heidelberg, 1913, p. 521 (‘that great oppressor’). Jacques de Vitry, Hist. Hierosolymitana, LXXIV–LXXX, pp. 1089–95.

  Language difficulties: Vita Lietberti, XXXI, pp. 702–3. Jacques de Vitry, op. cit., LVI, p. 1077 (Germans in Jerusalem). Riant (ed.), ‘Passage à Venise’, p. 240.

  24 Bertrandon: Voyage d’Outremer, pp. 59, 63–4.

  Interpreters: Frescobaldi, Viaggio, pp. 65–6. Gucci, Viaggio, pp. 150–1. Phrase-books: Bischoff, pp. 217–19, a fine essay.

  25 Alphabets: Mandeville’s Travels, vol. ii, pp. 288, 308–9, 314–15, 412–13 (Paris text). J. Schiltberger, Bondage and Travels, tr. J. B. Telfer, Hakluyt Soc, O. S., vol. lviii, London, 1879, pp. 102–3. Harff, Pilgerfahrt, pp. 64–5, 75–6, 112–14, 130–1, 139, 152, 187–9, 201–2, 209–10, 212–14, 227, 240–1.

  26 ‘Now let me tell you…’: Sigoli, Viaggio, p. 163.

  Raucous bands: Canterbury Tales, ll. 565–6, 764, 773–4, pp. 17, 23. Examination of William Thorpe, pp. 140–1.

  Expedition of Richard of St.-Vanne: Hugh of Flavigny, Chron., XIX, pp. 393–4. Adémar, Chron., III. 65, pp. 189–90. Eberwin, Vita S. Symeonis, X, Aa. Ss. OSB., vol. viii, pp. 375–6.

  27 Expedition of Robert of Normandy: Wace, Roman de Ron, Lib. III, ll. 2927–36, 2959–64, vol. i, pp. 270, 271. On the authority of Wace, see C. H. Haskins, Norman Institutions, Harvard, 1918, pp. 268–72.

  7,000 followers of Gunther of Bamberg: Sigebert of Gembloux gives this figure, the lowest contemporary estimate, Chron., MGH. SS. vi. 361.

  Treacherous companions: Mirac. S. Eutropii, IV. 29–30, pp. 742–3 (blind man); cf. Mirac. S. Walbergis, II. 9–12, Aa. Ss. Feb., vol. iii, pp. 531–2 (saec. ix). Liber S. Jacobi, I. 2, 17, pp. 32, 164. Beaumanoir, Coutumes, vol. ii, pp. 490–1.

  Margery Kempe: Book of Margery Kempe, I. 27–30, II. 4, pp. 63–75, 233–4.

  28 Right to hospitality: Capitularia Regum Francorum, vol. i, p. 32. DDC., vol. vi, col. 1314. Guide, XI, pp. 122–4.

  Hospitality in early Church: Gorce, pp. 137–89.

  Monastic obligations: Regula S. Benedicti, LIII, ed. R. Hanslik, CSEL. lxxv, Vienna, 1960, pp. 123–6. Capitularia Regum Francorum, vol. i, p. 347.

  Famous monasteries: Chron. Evesham, III, pp. 91–2. Caesarius, Dial. Mirac, IV. 71, vol. i, pp. 238–9 (Maria Laach).

  St.-Gall guest-hall: Vita S. Otmari, II–III, MGH. SS. ii, 42–3.

  Irish hospices: Gougaud, pp. 166–74.

  29 ‘Columns built by God’: Guide, IV, p. 10.

  Charlemagne’s hospice in Jerusalem: Bernard, Itin., X, p. 314.

  Hospital of St. John: on its origins, J. Riley-Smith, The knights of St. John in Jerusalem and Cyprus, c. 1050–1310, London, 1967, pp. 34–7. Described in c. 1165 by John of Wurzburg, Descriptio, XV, pp. 158–9. On its history as a Moslem hospice, Vincent and Abel (2), vol. II, pp. 648, 692. Christians admitted: Ludolph of Suchem, Itin., XXXVIII, pp. 81–2 (c. 1340).

  30 St. Bernard hospice: Donnet, pp. 109–10, 119–20.

  Hospices on roads to Santiago: Vazquez de Parga et al., vol. ii, passim. ‘Not only to catholics’: ibid., vol. iii, pp. 111–12. On military orders, ibid., vol. i, pp. 307–8.

  Confraternity of S. Spirito: Bull. Dipl., vol. iii, p. 191.

  Rivalry: Chartes de Cluny, 4326, vol. v, p. 680 (Villafranca). Vazquez de Parga et al., vol. i, p. 495 (Oboña).

  Aubrac: DHGE., vol. v, cols. 256–8. Statutes quoted in Rupin, p. 225n.

  31 Outdoor relief: Guide, X, pp. 120–2 (St.-Léonard). Denifle, vol. i, pp. 179–80 (St.-Jean d’Angély). Also at Canterbury, see William, Mirac. S. Thomae, III, 54, p. 308.

  Food: Roman de Rénart, br. IX, 11. 9092–3, ed. M. Roques, vol. iii, Paris, 1955, p. 109. Vazquez de Parga et al., vol. iii, pp. 70–1.

  32 Bedding: Purchas his Pilgrimes, VIII. 5, vol. vii, Glasgow, 1905, p. 529 (‘bedding ther is…’). On bequests, Vazquez de Parga et al., vol. i, pp. 324–5.

  Fleas: La Manière de langage, III, XIII, ed. P. Meyer, Revue Critique d’ Histoire et de Littérature (1870), pp. 388–9, 403.

  ‘Taverns for the rich’: Denis Possot quoted in Oursel, p. 56.

  Beds shared: for Rome in 1350, see Buccio di Ranallo, Cron. Aquilana, p. 194. On England, Deschamps quoted in Jusserand, p. 61.

  Flemish draper: Le Saige, Voyage, pp. 9–10.

  33 Canvassing for customers: Liber S. Jacobi, I. 17, pp. 146, 160, 162. Hotel regulations of Toulouse in R. Limousin-Lamothe (ed.), La Commune de Toulouse et les sources de son histoire, Toulouse, 1932, p. 358.

  Claim to chattels: Liber S. Jacobi, II. 6, pp. 268–9. See Vazquez de Parga et al., vol. i, p. 274.

  Innkeepers denounced: Liber S. Jacobi, I. 17, pp. 160–71.

  Price of inns: Jusserand, pp. 61–2.

  34 Hire of horses: see regulations for hackney men in P. Q. Karkeek, ‘Chaucer’s Schipman and his barge The Maudelayne’, Chaucer Society Essays, ser. II, no. 19, London, 1884, pp. 499–500.

  Prices in Rome: see lists given for 1350 by Matteo Villani, Istorie, I. 56, col. 57; and Buccio di Ranallo, Cron. Aquilana, p. 192.

  Cost of Jerusalem pilgrimage: Affagart, Relation, pp. 22, 24–6. Brasca, Viaggio, p. 128. Gucci, Viaggio, pp. 149–56. Brygg, Itin. Thomae de Swynburne, pp. 387–8. Cf. accounts of Claude de Mirabel in 1452, in Saint-Génois, pp. 35–6.

  35 Half fares to poor: Suriano, Trattato, I. 9, p. 16. Brasca, Viaggio, p. 129. Money carried by pilgrims: Musset, pp. 149–50. Frescobaldi, Viaggio, p. 38.

  Girl stranded at Tyre: Caesarius, Dial. Mirac, I. 40, vol. i, pp. 47–8.

  Gerald’s troubles: see his De Jure et Statu Menevensis Eccl., IV, V, vol. iii, pp. 240–1, 289–90.

  36 Hoteliers as bankers: P. Wolff, ‘Notes sur les hôtelleries Toulousaines au moyen age’, BHP. (1960), pp. 202–3.

  Milanese bills of exchange: Annali della fabrica del duomo di Milano, vol. i, Milan, 1877, pp. 35–6. Rates of exchange: Matteo Villani, Istorie, I, 56, col. 57 (Rome in 1350).

  Possot, Voyage, p. 87. Wey, Itineraries, pp. 1–3, 6.

  Sale of land: Guibert, Gesta Dei per Francos, II. 6, pp. 140–1. Cartulaire de Conques, no. 514, p. 368.

  Loans from monasteries: Bibl. Carpentras, MS. 1823, fols. 55–6 (Guy of Limoges). Cartulaire d’Auch, Cart. Noir, CXIII, pp. 128–32.

  Other lenders: on Thibault de Marly’s loan, Arch. Nat. K. 25, no. 5/13. Catalogue analytique des diplomes, chartes, et actes rélatifs a l’histoire de Touraine, ed. E. Mabille, Soc. Archéologique de Touraine, xiv, Tours, 1863, no. 1187, pp. 192–3 (Josbert de Précigny). Joinville, Hist. de S. Louis, XXV. 112, p. 64.

  37 Expenses paid by patron: Bernard, Ep. CCCIC, col. 612. Roman de Rou, I. ll. 3047–9, ed. H. Andresen, vol. i, Heilbronn, 1877, P. 149
(Richard of St.-Vanne). Arnold, Chron., I. 1, pp. 11, 12 (Henry the Lion).

  Feudal aid for pilgrimage: Bertrand d’Argentré, Consuetudines antiquissimi ducatus Britanniae, LXXXVII. 3, Paris, 1608, cols. 381–2. Customs of Vendôme as confirmed in 1185, Cartulaire de la Trinité de Vendôme, no. 578, vol. ii, pp. 445–6. On protests, Cone. II Chalons, canon XIV, in MC. xiv. 96; Honorius Augustodunensis, Elucidarium, II. 23, PL. clxxii. 1152.

  38 Alms: on exemption of pilgrims from begging laws, see Inventaire des chartes et documents de la ville d’Ypres, ed. I. L. A. Diegerick, vol. vii, Bruges, 1868, pp. 157–8. J. Toulmin Smith, English Gilds, London, 1870, p. 180. Faber, Evagatorium, vol. i, p. 28. On municipal charity to pilgrims, Archives de Bruges, vol. v, p. 491 and n. On begging from other pilgrims, Liber S. Jacobi, I. 17, pp. 156–7; Egbert, Vita S. Heimeradi, I. 6, Aa. Ss. June, vol. v, p. 388; Odo, Vita S. Geraldi, II. 17, col. 680.

  Professional beggars: Liber S. Jacobi, I. 17, p. 165.

  Working one’s way: Vita S. Sigiranni, VIII–X, pp. 386–7. Vita B. Egidii, V, ed. R. B. Brooke, Scripta Leonis, Rufini, et Angeli, Oxford, 1970, p. 324; cf. BBB. vol. i, p. 105. Faber, Evagatorium, vol. i, pp. 28, 63–4.

  39 Commerce: MGH. Epp. iv. 144–6 (Charlemagne). Forbidden to penitential pilgrims: Alfonso IX, Siete Partidas, I. xxiv. 2, vol. i (1), fol. 151vo; Van den Bussche (ed.), ‘Rocamadour’, p. 47. Request of Philip the Fair in Baluze (ed.), Vitae Paparum, vol. iii, p. 146. Hodoeporicon S. Willibaldi, VIII, XXVIII, pp. 252, 271. Reginald, Vita S. Godrici, V. 17, p. 31.

  Traders ‘never sleep’: Faber, Evagatorium, vol. ii, pp. 92–3.

  40 Eberhard of Wurtemburg: Ibid., vol. i, pp. 26–7.

  CHAPTER XII

  THE SANCTUARY

  The pilgrim was greeted at his destination by a scene of raucous tumult. On the feast day of the patron saint a noisy crowd gathered in front of the church. Pilgrims mingled with jugglers and conjurers, souvenir sellers and pickpockets. Hawkers shouted their wares and rickety food stalls were surrounded by mobs of hungry travellers. Pilgrims hobbling on crutches or carried on stretchers tried to force their way through the crush at the steps of the church. Cries of panic were drowned by bursts of hysterical laughter from nearby taverns, while beggars played on horns, zithers, and tambourines. The noise and vulgarity which accompanied a major pilgrimage changed little from the fourth century, when Augustine of Hippo spoke of ‘licentious revels’, to the fifteenth, when the French preacher Olivier Maillard demanded an end to these sinful carnivals.

  The practice of holding fairs outside churches on the feast days of the saints was too deeply engrained to be eradicated by a handful of moral reformers. Any annual gathering of large crowds was certain to attract merchants and itinerant salesmen. Many of them were selling guide-books, lead badges, or candles. In the eleventh century one merchant expected to make his fortune by selling wax for ex-voto offerings outside the abbey of Conques, and many of those who bought official monopolies of the sale of candles or badges did make fortunes. Every kind of wares was sold outside church doors. Deorman, a rich London merchant of the late twelfth century, used to bring his entire stock of silks and spices to Bury on the feast of St. Edmund. Some visitors came solely on account of the fair, like the servant-boy mentioned by Reginald of Durham, who attended the celebrations of St. Cuthbert’s day in order to find a good price for his horn. Others had both purposes in mind, and thus, remarks Reginald, they were able to atone for a day of usurious commerce simply by crossing to the other side of the cathedral square. The fairs, and their attendant jollifications, were viewed by the clergy with mixed feelings. Augustine had uncompromisingly condemned them, but his contemporary and friend, Paulinus of Nola, permitted them with reluctance on the ground that misguided piety was better than no piety at all. On the whole it was the latter view which prevailed. Indeed the fairs were often held with the permission of the clergy on land belonging to the church. The monks of St.-Denis drew considerable revenues from the Lendit fairs, which were timed to coincide with displays of the abbey’s relics. So long as this remained a typical arrangement there was little point in the constant complaints of ecclesiastical synods against the pollution of churchyards on feast-days by ‘games and competitions, rowdy singing, loose women, and lewd songs’.

  The inside of the church was almost as noisy as the outside. Here the scenes of mass enthusiasm were reserved for the vigils of the saints, when pilgrims passed the entire night in the nave or by the shrine. The sick were carried in on litters or stretchers, and it was during vigils that most miraculous cures occurred. Vigils were always held on the eve of the saint’s feast-day, but in some churches they occurred more often. At the shrine of St. Wulfran in the Norman abbey of Fontenelle, there seems to have been a vigil every Saturday night. Evesham too had vigils on Saturdays ‘and scarcely a Saturday passed when some unfortunate was not freed from the bonds of sickness.’ Except on official ‘vigil-days’, no one was permitted to watch by the shrine at night. At Mont-St.-Michel not even the night watchman was allowed into the basilica before the morning bell had rung, and at Santiago the doors were locked at sunset. When Pontius de St.-Gilles and his companions arrived in Santiago at night, only a miracle enabled them to enter the cathedral.

  The atmosphere which enveloped the shrine of a saint was at its most intense during the vigil of his feast-day. ‘Let us prostrate our bodies before their relics,’ urged the Canterbury monk Eadmer; ‘let us bend our knees to the ground and throw ourselves before them in supplication. What saint in God’s court could fail to be moved by such devotion?’ At the end of the eleventh century a rich man whose son lay dying came to light a candle at the altar of St. Egwin at Evesham.

  ‘Humbly inclining his head to the ground, he made his offering, adored his God, and prayed with great intensity to St. Edwin for his son’s recovery. With tears in his eyes he passed the whole day and the following night in vigil and prayer. Candle in hand, he knelt on the ground, beating his breast until morning came. Then he returned to see his son.’

  At Rocamadour the sound of lamentations drowned the words of the Mass. At Canterbury, tears of sorrow and moans of gratitude mingled with the howls and the shrieks of the sick and the newly healed. Crowds pushed forward to investigate as each new miracle was announced, and the clergy had to force their way through to examine the patient for themselves. At the back of the church the less devout pilgrims gathered in their national groups trying to sleep in spite of the noise and the close heat from thousands of candles. Some of them had brought bottles of wine with them, and as they became more inebriated they began to shout abuse at each other or broke into community singing. At Santiago on the eve of St. James’s day ‘all sorts of noises and languages can be heard together, discordant shouts, barbarous singing in German, English, Greek, and every other language under the sun.’ The ‘worldly songs’ which so infuriated the clergy of Santiago were a familiar sound wherever pilgrims gathered in large numbers. At Conques the litany was drowned by ‘rustic sing-songs’, and a special chapter was summoned at the end of the tenth century to consider this ‘absurd and detestable practice’. It concluded, very typically, that pilgrims should be allowed to express their devotion in the only way known to them, even though this might strike cultivated persons as ‘inappropriate and rude’. Some sanctuaries, like Durham cathedral, employed muscular stewards to keep order. Others, especially towards the end of the middle ages, tried to suppress vigils altogether, or else strove manfully to impose some order on them. But the attempt was a failure, and disorderly vigils remained an inseparable part of the cult of the saints.

  At dawn on the feast-day itself, the congregation was turned out of the church, and the pilgrims returned to their lodgings. Auxiliaries cleaned up the mess and prepared for the services of the day. At these services the crowds were larger still, for the pilgrims of the night before were joined by most of the local inhabitants. The simplest techniques of crowd control seem to have been beyond the clergy of the sanctuaries, and accidents were
frequent. This was the reason given by abbot Suger for rebuilding the abbey church of St.-Denis in the 1130s.

  ‘As the numbers of the faithful increased’, Suger wrote, ‘the crowds at St.-Denis grew larger and larger until the old church began to burst at the seams. On feast-days it was always full to overflowing, and the mass of struggling pilgrims spilt out of every door. Not only were some pilgrims unable to get in, but many of those who were already inside were forced out by those in front of them. As they fought their way towards the holy relics to kiss and worship them, they were so densely packed that none of them could so much as stir a foot. A man could only stand like a marble statue, paralysed, and free only to cry out aloud. Meanwhile the women in the crowd, were in such intolerable pain, crushed between strong men as if in a wine-press, that death seemed to dance before their eyes. The blood was drained from their faces and they screamed as if they were in the throes of childbirth. Some of them were trodden underfoot and had to be lifted above the heads of the crowd by kindly men, and passed to the back of the church and thence to the fresh air. In the cloister outside, wounded pilgrims lay gasping their last breath. As for the monks who were in charge of the reliquaries, they were often obliged to escape with the relics through the windows. When first, as a schoolboy, I heard of these things from my monastic teachers, I was saddened and conceived an earnest desire to improve matters.’

  It was the same in Jerusalem, where hundreds fainted in the airless crush outside the basilica of the Holy Sepulchre on Easter Friday. The author of the Liber Sancti Jacobi was present one day at St.-Gilles when the crush developed into a riot between French and Gascon pilgrims resulting in at least one death. There were eighteen deaths when the head of St. Martial was displayed in the presence of the Black Prince in 1364. Such incidents were so common that the clergy of St.-Gilles and Santiago received special permission to reconsecrate their church immediately with holy water, instead of following the usual elaborate ceremony.