Pilgrimage: An Image of Mediaeval Religion

by Jonathan Sumption

  Nor were these the only perils which threatened pilgrims as they stood squashed together before the shrine. There were few exits and fire precautions were non-existent. Thus, when fire broke out in the abbey of Vézelay during the vigil of the feast of St. Mary Magdalene, 1,127 pilgrims were burned to death. Pickpockets throve. In a typical day at Worcester, one pilgrim lost sixteen shillings to pickpockets, another lost forty. At Fécamp a pilgrim standing on a box to police the crowd had his pocket picked as he did so. Large crowds were not only uncomfortable and liable to be robbed, but usually unable to see or hear what was going on. During the Canterbury Jubilee of 1420, the preacher had to repeat his sermon in four different places so that every pilgrim could hear it.

  Public exhibitions of relics were rarer than vigils and, perhaps for that reason, provoked the most spectacular of all outbursts of mass piety. They generally marked moments of national or local crisis. Thus, when Philip Augustus departed on crusade in 1191, the royal abbey of St.-Denis exposed its relics on the high altar, where they were inspected by the queen mother, the archbishop of Rheims, and a cortege of dignitaries. Every serious epidemic occasioned a display of relics. When plague was decimating the population of Rouen in 1053, the body of St. Wulfran was carried to the city from Fontenelle. The head of St. Martial was publicly exhibited in 1388, the reasons given being that Christendom was divided by the papal schism, that the harvest had failed, and that Limoges had just endured a close siege. The diary of a Parisian citizen in the first half of the fifteenth century reveals that relics were brought out of the churches almost every time that reverses on the battle-fields of northern France threatened the city’s precarious food supply. In 1423, for example, the war was going badly and famine threatened. The bishop of Paris ‘had processions made for forty consecutive days, praying that God might, by His grace, bring peace to Christendom and calm the weather which had prevented the sowing of the crops for four months past.’ In the summer of 1427, when the Seine broke its banks, some five or six hundred people from the suburban villages wound processionally through the streets of the city, barefooted, singing hymns, carrying banners of the saints, and calling on God to have mercy on their vineyards. Lesser catastrophes were marked in much the same way. The monks of Durham used their relics to prevent fires in the town from spreading to the cathedral. Those of St.-Gilles hoped to restore their depleted finances by displaying their relics, and proposed to commission an unusually costly reliquary for the purpose. Their hopes were disappointed in the event but they were by no means absurd, for exhibitions of relics could be relied upon to provoke enthusiasm degenerating at times into violence. The crowd which gathered at Bury one Whitsun was so impressed by the relics of St. Edmund that it forced the preacher to show them again. The preacher took this in good part, unlike the monks of Conques who refused to display the relics of St. Foy except at fixed intervals, thus causing riots outside their church. Urban II was asked to forbid the populace to display the relics of Conques without the consent of their owners.

  In normal times, displays were rare. The head of St. Martial was displayed only once in seven years, as was the celebrated foreskin of Christ at Charroux. Other churches never displayed their relics. This surprising reticence dates from the beginning of the thirteenth century and was largely due to one of the pronouncements of the Lateran council of 1215. Faced with a number of impostors who claimed to have stolen relics while they were on public display, this council and its successors forbade the exhibition of relics except on feast-days, and then only in a reliquary. Amongst other things, this required a new kind of reliquary, like the one used at Limoges in 1388 with little doors in the side which opened to reveal the head of St. Martial. The legislation of the thirteenth century had been intended to prevent thefts, real or imagined. Its actual result was to diminish the visual element of the cult of relics, and to invite doubts as to the authenticity or even the existence of some relics. An inquiry into the affairs of the abbey of Vézelay in the 1260s concluded that its revenues had declined owing to the failure of the monks to exhibit the relics of St. Mary Magdalene, thus reinforcing ‘certain hesitations and scruples as to the authenticity of the said relics’. Arnold von Harff’s doubts about the body of St. James were confirmed when the clergy of Santiago refused to lift the lid of the sarcophagus. ‘Any one who does not believe that the body of St. James lies under that altar’, they told him, ‘will certainly go as mad as a dog.’ By this time, however, most churches had abandoned their objections to regular exhibitions of relics. In 1424 Martin V permitted churches to show their relics to the faithful whenever they wished, subject to the characteristic proviso that they were not to do it merely to satisfy the idle curiosity of pilgrims. This was followed by a succession of well-attended public exhibitions, notably in Germany. The visual element was once more respectable.

  Notes

  1 Scene outside church: see, e.g. the descriptions by Augustine, Ep. XXII. 3–6, vol. i, pp. 56–9; Enarr. in Psalmum, XXXII. 5, ed. E. Dekkers and J. Fraipont, Corpus Christianorum, xxxviii, Tournai, 1956, pp. 250–1. And by Olivier Maillard, quoted in Samouillan, pp. 282–3, 301–2. On musical beggars, Mirac. S. Eutropii, III, 25, p. 741. Merchants at churches: Mirac. S. Fidis, I. 24, p. 63. Samson, Mirac. S. Eadrnundi, II. 11, pp. 183–4. Reginald, De B. Cuthberti Virtut., XXIV, XLVIII, pp. 53–4, 98.

  Church’s attitude: Augustine, Ep. XXII. 3–6, vol. i, pp. 56–9; cf. in the eighth century, Boniface, Ep. L, pp. 84–5. Paulinus, Carmen XXVII. 552–67, pp. 286–7.

  2 Lendit fairs: Bédier, vol. iv, pp. 154–6.

  ‘Games and competitions…’: Powicke and Cheney, Councils, vol. ii, p. 353, cf. p. 174.

  Weekly vigils: Invent, et Mirac. S. Wulfranni, L, LV, pp. 65, 68. Chron. Evesham, II, p. 50.

  Sanctuaries closed at night: Mirac. S. Michaelis, pp. 875–7. Liber S. Jacobi, II. 18, pp. 282–3. Cf. on Canterbury, Benedict, Mirac. S. Thomae, I. 12, p. 42; William, Mirac. S. Thomae, V. 2, p. 373.

  ‘Let us prostrate…’: Eadmer, De Sanctorum Veneratione, I. 2, p. 190. ‘Humbly inclining…’: Chron. Evesham, II, p. 57.

  3 Noise at vigils: Miracles de Rocamadour, II. 36, pp. 245–6. Benedict, Mirac. S. Thomae, II. 1, 25, 28, 33–4, pp. 57, 77, 80, 85. Liber S. Jacobi, I. 2, 17, pp. 15–16, 19–20, 149. Mirac. S. Fidis, II, 12, pp. 120–2.

  Stewards: Reginald, De B. Cuthberti Virtut., CIV, p. 232.

  Attempted suppression: Nantes statutes (saec. xiv), cap. VIII, in MD. Thes. iv. 963. Chartres statutes of 1368, cap. XXXVII, in MD. Ampl. Coll. vii. 1361. Cf. stories of saints forbidding pilgrimages to their shrines, Coulton, vol. iii, pp. 98–9.

  Pilgrims crushed: Suger, De Consecratione S. Dionysii, II, pp. 216–17.

  4 Daniel, Pèlerinage, XCVII, p. 77 (Jerusalem). Liber S. Jacobi, I. 17, p. 158 (St.-Gilles). Duplès-Agier (ed.), Chroniques de S. Martial, p. 200.

  Rapid reconsecration permitted: Innocent IV, Reg. 1781, vol. i, p. 266 (St.-Gilles). Innocent III, Reg. X. 75, PL. ccxv. 1175 (Santiago).

  Fire at Vézelay (in 1120): Chron. S. Maxentii, RHF. xii. 407. Robert of Auxerre, Chron., MGH. SS. xxvi. 231.

  Pickpockets: Mirac. S. Wulfstanni, I. 19, II. 22, pp. 126, 179 (Worcester). Kajava (ed.), Etudes, p. 66 (Fécamp). Both saec. xiii.

  Sermon repeated: Traité sur le cinquième jubilèe de S. Thomas, III. 4–5, p. 142.

  Relics displayed in crises: Rigord, Gesta Philippi, LXXX, vol. i, pp. 113–14 (St.-Denis in 1191). Invent, et Mirac. S. Wulfranni, XXXVIII–LI, pp. 56–66 (Rouen in 1053). Mirac. S. Martialis, praefat., pp. 412–15 (Limoges in 1388). Journal d’un Bourgeois, pp. 191, 216, cf. pp. 20, 21, 22, 102, 144, 208, 372, 374, 376–8, 391–2. Reginald, De B. Cuthberti Virtut., XXXIX, pp. 82–3 (fires at Durham). Bondurand (ed.), ‘Détresse de St.-Gilles’, p. 444.

  5 Forced displays: Samson, Mirac. S. Eadmundi, II. 6, pp. 173–4. Cartulaire de Conques, no. 570, p. 399.

  Displays once in seven years: Mirac. S. Martialis, praefat., p. 412. Montsabert (ed.), Chartes de Charroux, CCXXXII, pp. 364
–7.

  Displays restricted: Cone. Lateran (1215), canon LXII, in MC. xxii. 1049. Cone. Budapest (1279), canon XXVII, in MC. xxiv. 283. Cone. Exeter (1287), canon XLVIII, in Powicke and Cheney, Councils, vol. ii, p. 1044. Cone. Bayeux (1300), canon XXXV, in MC. xxv. 67.

  New reliquaries: Mirac. S. Martialis, X, p. 419. In the late middle ages the heads of St. Peter and St. Paul were displayed in such reliquaries, Capgrave, Solace, II. 4, p. 73. Cf. relics of church of St. George in Rome, ibid. II. 9, pp. 87–8; and head of St. Thomas at Canterbury, Erasmus, Peregrinatio Religionis, col. 783.

  6 Infrequent displays raise doubts: Faillon (ed.), Monuments inédits, vol. ii, pp. 753–4 (Vézelay). Harff, Pilgerfahrt, p. 233.

  Bull of 1424 and its effects: A. L. Mayer, ‘Die heilbringende Schau in Sitte und Kult’, in Heilige Ueberlieferung (Festschrift I. Herwegen), Munster, 1938, pp. 245–9.

  CHAPTER XIII

  ROME

  When the emperor Aurelian rebuilt the walls of Rome in the year 271 he defined the outer limits of the city for sixteen centuries. The old walls, traditionally attributed to Servius Tullius, had long outlived their usefulness. From every gate of the city thin ribbons of houses, the slums of the poor and the residences of the nobility, had extended into the suburbs, defenceless against attack from outside. Now they were contained by walls eleven miles in length, which remained the principal defence of the city throughout the middle ages. Rome, like many mediaeval cities, occupied but a fraction of the space enclosed by its ancient walls. But although they no longer marked the true limits of the city, Aurelian’s walls determined its spiritual geography. Roman law forbade the burial of the dead within the city. Because they believed in the resurrection of the dead, Christians found the practice of cremation repugnant, and they buried their martyrs in deep graves along the roads which led out of the city.

  The tradition of the Roman Church held that St. Paul had been buried on the Via Ostia, and St. Peter in the pagan necropolis on the Vatican Hill, north-west of the city. In the reign of Constantine their obscure graves were covered by great basilicas. On the Vatican Hill a cruciform church arose with great speed, arranged (at the expense of all architectural convenience) on an east-west axis, such that the high altar stood directly above the remains of the apostle. It symbolized the triumph over paganism by obliterating part of the circus of Caligula, where many of the early martyrdoms had occurred. St. Paul’s was built at a more leisurely pace, and was said to have been even finer. Both of them had broad naves with double aisles on either side. Despite the continual process of repair and reconstruction, they preserved this form throughout the middle ages. At the southern extremity of the city, Constantine donated to the Church a tract of land within the walls, which had once belonged to the Laterani family and was now part of the estate of his wife. It contained a decayed palace which was now reconstructed as the papal residence, and a cavalry school which was transformed into the Lateran basilica. Such were the three great sanctuaries of mediaeval Rome.

  They were far from being the only sanctuaries. The persecutions of the third century had left Rome richer in martyrs than any other city. The Depositio Martyrum, compiled in 354, lists thirty-two martyrs whose anniversaries were remembered by the Christian community. A revised list, drawn up at the beginning of the fifth century, added some seventy more. Most of them were buried in extensive underground cemeteries outside the walls, such as the celebrated Calixtine cemetery and the cemetery ‘ad catacumbas’ on the Appian Way, which subsequently gave its name to all the others. Before the peace of the Church, the catacombs were used on the feast-days of the martyrs, when services were held by their tombs. It is unlikely that they were ever used as refuges during the persecutions, for the Roman authorities were well aware of their existence, and kept them under constant surveillance. When the emperor Valerian issued his decree against the Christians in 258, the catacombs were among the first places to be searched and pope Sixtus II, who was found worshipping in the Calixtine cemetery, was beheaded with six of his deacons. After the conversion of Constantine, the catacombs began to fall into decay. Now that Christians could worship openly, they built imposing churches within the city, where the ordinary services of the church were held. In the course of the fourth century, a number of underground galleries collapsed, thus making some parts completely inaccessible.

  Only the interest of pilgrims saved the catacombs from oblivion. Graffiti on the walls record the visits of pilgrims from Greece and north Africa, Spain and southern France. ‘Holy Souls, pray for a safe crossing for us …’, ‘grant us a safe journey over the sea.’ It became fashionable to be buried there, and Romans used to amuse themselves on holidays by groping their way along the dark passages. When St. Jerome was in Rome as a young man, he used to go with other students on Sundays to explore them.

  ‘We used to go down into the catacombs buried deep in the ground. Inside, all was silence and graves were everywhere around us. It was so dark that at times I had the impression of descending bodily into Hell…. Only the occasional faltering light broke the horrid darkness as we stumbled onward with faltering steps, immersing ourselves in the black night. I recalled the line of Virgil, which goes “Horror ubique animos, simul ipsa silentia terrent.”’

  The preservation of the catacombs was largely the work of Damasus, who ascended the papal throne in 366. Damasus was not himself a Roman, but a Spaniard who had come to Rome during the reign of his predecessor. He is famous as the founder of the papal archives, as the patron of St. Jerome, and above all as the restorer of the catacombs. The crumbling galleries were rebuilt, and new staircases installed. Fallen masonry was removed, and forgotten galleries reopened. Skylights were made in the ceilings, to reduce the oppressive darkness of which Jerome had complained. Damasus’s greatest work was to begin the long process by which the graves of the martyrs were identified and marked with inscriptions, instead of being known only from unreliable local traditions. Frescoes were restored and chapels were built where services could be held on feast days. New burials, which required extensive works and did irreparable damage, were now strongly discouraged. When Prudentius visited the catacombs a few years afterwards, he found them greatly improved since Jerome’s youth.

  ‘A sloping path led into the ground, doubling back on itself again and again, reaching deep unlit chambers. The daylight scarcely lit up the outer porch of the first chamber. As we penetrated further, the darkness intensified, but now and again it was broken by a simple ray of light from a skylight pierced in the ceiling. In the middle of the dark maze formed by poky chambers and narrow galleries, a little daylight was thus brought into the bowels of the earth. Even in the deepest chambers, it was possible to follow the strained glow of the absent sun.’

  The churches within the city had to wait three centuries before acquiring the remains of the saints to which they were dedicated. The Roman Church had originally held the graves of the dead to be inviolate. But a succession of destructive sieges, from the Gothic siege of 410 to the Lombard one of 756, forced the popes to reconsider the matter. In 537–8 many of the most important cemeteries were pillaged by the Arian Goths. In the catacombs of the two Via Salaria, where the Gothic army had been encamped, the tale of destruction was told in the inscriptions left by those who came to repair them afterwards. ‘Here the fury of the enemy violated the sanctuary of the saints.’ ‘Here the blind rage of the invader violated the church and carried off its treasure.’ Now that the liturgical cult of the saints was concentrated in the great urban basilicas, it was natural that the Romans should wish to translate their relics from the catacombs to more formal and imposing sanctuaries within the city. The martyrs Primus and Felicianus were removed from their graves on the Via Nomentana as early as the 460s, and reburied in the church of S. Stefano Rotondo. Leo II (682–3) built a new basilica in Rome and translated to it three martyrs from the catacomb on the Porto road. The process was greatly accelerated after the Lombard siege of 756, when the major cemeteries suffered appalling devas
tations. Some of the bodies, including that of St. Cecilia, were carried off to Pavia. Others were destroyed. At the accession of Paul I in 757, the catacombs had ‘fallen into ruin as a result of neglect and cupidity. The bodies had been desecrated or stolen, the surrounding area utterly desolated.’ It was Paul who began the long business of distributing the relics among the titular churches and monasteries of the city, an operation which continued until well into the ninth century.

  Such relics as remained in the catacombs were translated, stolen or simply forgotten. At least one of the deacons who had charge of them carried on a vigorous trade in the relics of the lesser-known martyrs. The powerful ecclesiastical lords of northern Europe, no longer content to have mere branded beneath their altars, attempted by fair means or foul to acquire some of the surplus relics of Rome. Some of them arrived with letters from the emperor, and were able to obtain important relics by applying political pressure to an enfeebled papacy. The export of bodies to the north had reached such alarming proportions by the middle of the ninth century that the populace, which regarded these saints as its protectors, began to object. The abbot of St. Médard of Soissons had some difficulty in escaping with the body of St. Sebastian in 826, even though the pope had been prevailed upon to part with it. Eight years later the rumour that St. Alexander was to be carried off to Friesing was enough to provoke serious riots.

  By this time scarcely any of the more significant saints were still buried in the catacombs. Only the apostles were left in their original graves. But after a particularly disastrous Arab raid in 846, Leo IV extended the walls of Rome across the Tiber to swallow up the Vatican Hill. Some thirty years later, St. Paul’s was in turn surrounded by its own walls. In the space of a century, the spiritual geography of the city had been transformed. No longer the centre of a network of cemeteries and graveyards, Rome had become a museum of relics, second only to Constantinople. After the sack of Constantinople by the fourth crusade, Rome stood unrivalled.