Pilgrimage: An Image of Mediaeval Religion

by Jonathan Sumption

  Noblemen

  The Roman Jubilee of 1450 was remarkable not only for the numbers who attended but for their high social standing. They included the archbishop of Mainz with a suite of 140 knights, as well as the duke of Austria, the margravine of Baden, and the landgrave of Hesse. John, duke of Cleves, was seen passing on foot from church to church. Jacques de Lalaing led a large party of Burgundian noblemen to Rome, celebrating his departure from Châlons with a ‘joyeux et plaisant banquet’. The same phenomenon was observed in 1475, when the Mantuan ambassador informed his master of the arrival of thousands of courtiers from every western kingdom, come to atone for their notoriously scandalous lives. Two periods stand out as being pre-eminently those of the noble pilgrim. The first came to an end at the close of the twelfth century, when the established shrines of Europe began to lose their hold on educated minds. Apathy and war combined to destroy shrines like Vézelay and St.-Gilles, while others, like Canterbury and Conques, were abandoned by their more distinguished clientèle. The great spiritual revival which marked the hundred and fifty years before the Reformation brought new life to a few of these ancient sanctuaries and threw up a large number of obscure new pilgrimages. The greater shrines, like Le Puy, became fashionable resorts; otherwise the intensely fashion-conscious wife satirized in the Quinze Joies de Mariage would never have wanted to go there. At Le Puy then, and at other major sanctuaries, the nobility were once more to be found in large numbers. Although the cult of the Virgin was primarily a popular one, the kings of England were assiduous pilgrims at Walsingham, just as those of Aragon and Castile were at Montserrat. Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy, visited Notre-Dame de Boulogne on at least a dozen occasions. Louis XI of France, who was well-known for his intense, rather simple-minded piety, made pilgrimages to Mont-St.-Michel, Notre-Dame de Cléry, Puy Notre-Dame in Anjou, and Le Puy, amongst other sanctuaries. He was constantly attributing to the intervention of the Virgin his salvation from every kind of mishap, and at his death in 1483 he was buried beside the shrine of Notre-Dame de Cléry, to whom he had so often attributed his victories in battle.

  The motives of noble pilgrims of the fifteenth century were less straightforward than those of the twelfth. Worldly motives were certainly prominent and some pilgrimages were accomplished with a degree of ostentation which would have surprised churchmen of an earlier age. Nevertheless, they paid lip-service to traditional ideals, and often more than lip-service. Nompar de Caumont, who departed for the Holy Land in 1418 with several servants and equerries, shared the obsession of his more spiritual contemporaries with death and remission. ‘Know then that death has no mercy on kings, princes, or lords, but takes them all with equal abandon’, he wrote, in a passage that might have been a commentary on the danses macabres that now decorated the walls of so many churches and cemeteries; ‘every man must know that the world is but a temporary habitation, and that death, harsh and unpitying, is imminent.’ Some noble pilgrims cast off their status and travelled without attendants or fine clothes. Hence the curious complaint of the Venetian senate in 1437 that noblemen were bringing the pilgrim fleets into disrepute by travelling dressed as commoners and complaining when they were treated as such. ‘Everyone knows’, they declared, ‘about the abominable way in which princes, counts, and foreign noblemen travel to the Holy Sepulchre disguised as common pilgrims.’ There may have been more in this ‘abominable’ practice than Christian humility. When Gréffin Affagart advised his readers to dress as poor hermits on their travels, he added that this would save them from being preyed upon by shipowners, robbers, pirates, and Turks. Indeed, the stately fashion in which most noble pilgrims travelled is often revealed to history by their complaints that they had been robbed of their treasures. Earl Rivers, brother-in-law of Edward IV, complained to the pope in 1475 that he had been ambushed outside Bracciano on his way to attend the Roman Jubilee, and robbed of a large quantity of precious gems, gold trinkets, silver goblets, cash, ‘and other things of very great value’.

  The Venetian republic occasionally arranged luxurious passages to the Holy Land, either in return for money or else, as in the case of the earl of Derby in 1392, in return for ‘the favours which might be granted to Venetian merchants trading or resident in England’. The earl’s accounts of the expenses of his voyage include the hire of a warehouse in Venice to store supplies. His agents, accompanied by interpreters, visited fairs in nearby towns, and bought several whole oxen, 2,250 eggs, 2,000 dates, 1,000 pounds of almonds, several dozen butts of sweet wine, and large quantities of mattress stuffing, live hens, water, cheese, oil, fish, vegetables and spices. The total sum thus expended was 2,379 ducats, or nearly forty times the all-inclusive fare usually demanded by shipowners. In addition, the earl and his company enjoyed the bounty of the Serenissima, which instructed its agents not to disclose the cost to the earl himself, but to hint at it delicately in the presence of the English ambassador. The earl’s needs were not untypical. Indeed they were modest by comparison with those of some aristocratic pilgrims. The ship which carried Pietro Casola to the Holy Land in 1494 was joined at Corfù by a nephew of Ferdinand of Aragon, a young clergyman destined for a rich benefice who was going, by way of preparation, to take the Franciscan habit on Mount Sion. His baggage, which included several horses and falcons, was carried in a separate cargo boat sailing alongside the ship.

  In the last years of the fifteenth century German and Italian princes were renowned for the unmatched ostentation which surrounded their pilgrimages. Ernest, duke of Saxony, arrived in Rome in 1480 to fulfil a vow of pilgrimage with a suite of two hundred mounted retainers dressed in black livery, their horses in jewelled halters. The papal camera recorded the expenditure of a hundred gold florins on entertaining him. Otto, duke of Brunswick, was accompanied to Rome in 1489 by physicians, apothecaries, courtiers, and twenty-seven personal servants. Perhaps such splendid expeditions should not be regarded as pilgrimages at all, though those who participated in them vigorously asserted that they were. Ernest of Saxony’s pilgrimage may have been prompted by the desire to extend his political influence in Germany by securing the election of his relatives to important bishoprics, an object in which he succeeded handsomely. But no such considerations will explain the magnificent progress of Niccolo d’Este to the Holy Land in 1413. Apart from an official historiographer, his suite included several dozen orderlies, four chamberlains, a chef, a sub-chef, a tailor, a barber, a page, a chaplain, and two trumpeters.

  The interest of the nobility in the Holy Land was in a large measure due to the practice of dubbing knights in the Holy Sepulchre. This was a survival of the ideology of the crusades after the shattering disaster which had overcome the last crusading expedition at Nicopolis in 1396. The dubbings were originally conducted under the auspices of the Order of St. John of the Hospital, which now had its headquarters at Rhodes. Nompar de Caumont stopped at Rhodes on his way to the Holy Land and persuaded a Navarrese knight of the order to accompany him to Jerusalem, and to dub him a knight of St. John in the Holy Sepulchre itself. This is the first trace of a practice which was to enjoy a considerable popularity in the fifteenth century. By 1480, newly dubbed knights are found calling at Rhodes on their way back from the Holy Land, enrolling their names in a book kept by the king of Cyprus, and receiving a certificate in return. It was only by degrees that the practice of dubbing knights in the Holy Sepulchre acquired a status quite independent of the Order of St. John. Thus dubbings were not only performed by Hospitallers. Niccolo d’Este knighted several of his courtiers on his expensive expedition of 1413. Guillaume de Chalons was knighted by one of his companions in 1451. Alternatively, the senior pilgrim present might be asked to perform the ceremony. The reason for its popularity lies in the prevailing view that the institution of knighthood had been devalued in an age when Louis XI, for example, could permit rich bourgeois to buy knighthoods, and indeed compel them to do so. Some hint of this was given by Guillaume de Chalons when he remarked to his companion that he was proposing to b
e knighted in the Holy Sepulchre because he ‘did not wish to be a cardboard knight, but a true knight’. Much the same sentiments were expressed by the father of George van Ehingen, who sent him to the Holy Land because it was ‘not his wish that I should pass my time in unwarlike idleness at some princely court … or else in taverns’. Indeed, as Felix Faber remarked in his lengthy panegyric of the ‘order of the Holy Sepulchre’, it was the only order of knighthood universally recognized in an age when bogus orders sprang up in every province. But it seems that the order was already passing the way of its predecessors, for Faber hints that ‘nowadays base-born men are occasionally admitted,’

  Notes

  1 ‘Some light-minded…’: Jacques de Vitry, Hist. Hierosolymitana, LXXXII, p. 1097.

  Itineraries: bibliography in Rohricht (1), supplemented, for the years after 1290, by Atiya, pp. 490–509. Quotations are from John of Wurzburg, Descriptio, praefat., pp. 109–10; Theoderic of Wurzburg, De Locis Sanctis, praefat., pp. 1–2.

  2 Jacques de Vitry: See list of MSS in Rohricht (1), pp. 48–50. He was used, e.g., by Burchardt of Mt. Sion, Descriptio, VI, pp. 45–6.

  Mandeville: on editions and MSS, Rohricht (1), pp. 79–85. Valuable introductions to the editions by M. C. Seymour, Oxford, 1967, and G. F. Warner, Roxburghe Club, London, 1889. On his sources, see A. Bovenschen, ‘Untersuchungen über Johann von Mandeville und die Quelle seiner Reiserbeschreibung’, Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für Erd kunde zu Berlin, xxiii (1888), pt. iv, pp. 177–306.

  Capgrave’s models: Solace, p. 1.

  Interest in Faber’s account: Evagatorium, vol. iii, p. 467.

  3 ‘Little Mandevilles’: Examination of William Thorpe, p. 141. Canterbury Tales, ll. 48–9, 463–8, pp. 2, 14.

  Official arrangements for tourists: Heyd (consulates). Vincke (2), p. 263 (safe conduct of 1387: ‘et ut patriae mores videant’). Rymer, Foedera, vol. xi, p. 686 (treaty of 1471).

  Tourism criticized: Fasciculi Zizaniorum, ed. W. W. Shirley, RS., London, 1858, p. 270 (Wyclif). Affagart, Rélation, pp. 22–3. Brasca, Viaggio, p. 128.

  Graffiti: Faber, Evagatorium, vol. i, p. 213, vol. ii, pp. 94–6. On Lannoy’s graffiti, Van de Walle, pp. 123–5.

  Souvenirs: Quinze Joies, VIII, pp. 69–70. Nompar de Caumont, Voyaige, pp. 136–9.

  4 Postcards: Vergerio, Ep. LXXXVI, p. 216 (Rome). Faber, Evagatorium, vol. i, p. 329 (Breidenbach); there is a fine copy of the 1486 edition in the Bodleian Library, Oxford (Douce 223), with good early colouring; cf. Davies, where all the drawings are reproduced.

  Faber’s books: Ibid., vol. i, pp. 62, 327–8.

  Route-books: On Anglo-Saxon one of eleventh century, F. Liebermann, Die Heiligen Englands, Hannover, 1889, pp. 9–19. Also, Adam of Bremen, Gesta Pontificum Hammaburgensium, V. 1, ed. B. Schmeidler, MGH. Rer. Germ., Leipzig, 1926, pp. 228–9; Annales Stadenses, MGH. SS. xvi. 340–4; Pèlerinages por aler en Iherusalem, A route to Rome is given by Matthew Paris, accompanied in some MSS by a map, see Brit. Mus. MS. Royal 14 C. vii, fols. 2–5, reproduced in E–F. Jomard, Les Monuments de la Géographie, Paris, 1862, plates 39–41.

  Indulgence-books: Pélerinages et Pardouns d’Acre. On Roman indulgence-books, Hulbert.

  Anonymous ‘descriptions’: Röhricht (1), pp. 28–9, 33, 35, 39–42, 45, 55, 665. John of Wurzburg, e.g., used Innominatus VI, see his Descriptio, III, pp. 117–19, and compare Innominatus VI, pp. 433–15. Local guides: at Jerusalem, see Abel; Daniel, Pèlerinage, I, p. 5; John of Wurzburg, op. cit., VI, pp. 132–4. In Venice: Newett, pp. 40–1. On disbelief of guides’ stories, Faber, Evagatorium, vol. i, pp. 330–7; Harff, Pilgerfahrt, pp. 16–17, 30.

  5 Female pilgrims criticized: Boniface, Ep. XLVIII, p. 169. Quinze joies, VIII, pp. 69–70. Berthold, Predigten, XXVIII, vol. i, pp. 458–60; Giordano da Rivalto, Prediche recitate in Firenze dal MCCCIII al MCCCVI vol. i, Florence, 1831, pp. 252–3; cf. Owst, pp. 388–9.

  Women at Bury: Wright (ed.), Letters, p. 85.

  Women in monastic sanctuaries: Burton, Chron. Mon. Melsa, vol. iii, pp. 35–6. Mirac. S. Benedicti, I. 28, pp. 64–5. On Durham, Symeon, Hist. Dunelmensis Eccl., III. 11, vol. i, p. 95; Reginald, De B. Cuthberti Virtut., LXXIV, pp. 141–4. Cf. Loomis, p. 97.

  6 Pregnant woman crushed: Mirac. S. Martialis, XXXIX, p. 429.

  Women in Rome: on their devoutness, Itin. cuiusdam Anglici, III, pp. 440–1. Excluded from sanctuaries, see Capgrave, Solace, II. 4, 5, pp. 71, 77; Harff, Pilgerfahrt, pp. 16, 23; Wey, Itineraries, p. 143. Muffels, Beschreibung, p. 24; Tafur, Andancas, pp. 29–30.

  Nobles at 1450 Jubilee: Pastor, vol. ii, pp. 91–3. Chastellain, Le livre des faits de Jacques de Lalaing, LXV–LXVI, in Oeuvres, ed. Kervyn de Lettenhove, vol. viii, Bruxelles, 1866, pp. 245–7.

  And in 1475: Pastor, vol. iv, pp. 280–2.

  7 Royal pilgrimages to Virgin: Dickinson, pp. 33–45 (Walsingham). Carreras y Candi, pp. 341–56 (Montserrat). On Boulogne, Benoit.

  Louis XI: See A. Gandilhon, ‘Contribution à l’histoire de la vie privée de Louis XI’, Mémoires de la Soc. Historique, Littéraire, et Scientifique du Cher, xx (1905), pp. 356, 362–3. P. Champion, Louis XI, vol. ii, Paris, 1927, pp. 204, 209–12.

  Traditional ideals: Nompar de Caumont, Voyaige, pp. 18, 20.

  Noble pilgrims disguised: Newett, pp. 65–6 (Venetian complaint). Affagart, Rélation, p. 4.

  8 Earl Rivers robbed: CPR. Letters, vol. xiii, pp. 221–2.

  Henry of Derby: Riant (ed.), ‘Passage à Venise’, pp. 238–40.

  Toulmin Smith (ed.), Accounts, pp. 204–24.

  Ferdinand of Aragon’s nephew: Casola, Pilgrimage, p. 188.

  Ernest of Saxony: Jacopo Gherardi da Volterra, Diario Romano, ed. E. Carusi, RISS (2), xxiii (3), pp. 13–14. On his motives, see R. Koetzchke and H. Kretzschmar, Sachsiche Geschichte, vol. i, Dresden, 1935, p. 164. Otto of Brunswick: see names of his attendants enrolled in Liber Confraternitatis de Anima, p. 39.

  9 Niccolo d’Este: Luchino del Campo, Viaggio di Niccolo da Este, p. 105. Dubbing of knights of St. John: Nompar de Caumont, Voyaige, pp. 45, 49–51. On enrolment on return, Faber, Evagatorium, vol. i, p. 42; see certificate granted to Peter Rindfleisch of Breslau in 1496, in his Wallfahrt, pp. 317–18.

  Dubbing by non-hospitallers: Luchino, Viaggio di Niccolo da Este, p. 125.

  Guillaume de Châlons: E. Clerc, Essai sur l’histoire de la Franche Comté vol. ii, Besancon, 1846, pp. 490–3. Georg von Ehingen: see his Reisen, p. 11.

  Faber’s panegyric: Evagatorium, vol. ii, pp. 2–13.

  CHAPTER XV

  THE LATER MIDDLE AGES 2

  ‘Base-born Men’

  The Climate of Opinion

  The mobs who converged on Limoges in 1388 to witness the display of St. Martial’s relics were not alone in regarding the papal schism as God’s punishment on human wickedness. Contemporary opinion, reflected in the impassioned protests of St. Catherine of Siena, saw in it the culmination of an era of appalling spiritual decay. Some reaction to the sterility of the fourteenth century was perhaps to be expected in the fifteenth, and the flagellant processions of 1399 were early symptoms of it. In the same year St. Vincent Ferrer left Avignon to begin a preaching-tour of southern France, the first of a spectacular series of nomadic missions conducted by the two mendicant orders. What Vincent Ferrer did for France, Manfred of Vercelli and Bernardino of Siena did for Italy, their pupils for Germany and Spain. The immediate effects were certainly impressive. In Rome, which, more than any other city, had felt the impact of the schism, the arrival of Bernardino in June 1424 was marked by a great bonfire of playing-cards, lottery tickets, musical instruments, wigs, ‘and such-like effeminate vanities’. In March 1411 the magistrates of Orihuela in Murcia reported to the bishop the moral transformation of their town:

  ‘All those who are heard blaspheming are visited with swift punishment. The gambling hall has been closed down. Conspiracies and secret societies have been abandoned, and diviners and sorcerers have gone out of business. We have never seen so many people going to confessi
on, and churches which used to be too large are now too small. The citizens, overcome by a common feeling of goodwill and a strong love of God, have forgiven each other their trespasses.’

  No generation should be judged by its moments of enthusiasm, the contemporaries of St. Bernardino least of all. Christianity remained in their eyes a ritual framework of life, rather than a body of coherent beliefs and commanding ideals. Like the great merchant of Prato, Francesco Datini, they recited prayers at fixed hours, uttered pious formulae when they were appropriate, gave alms when it was expected of them, and marked the passing stages of their lives by receiving the sacraments of the Church. But the overpowering conventionality of religious life was punctuated by brief outbursts of hysteria which, although by no means new, were highly characteristic of the century which preceded the Reformation. Even the sober Datini, who spoke of the Roman Jubilee only as a source of profit, joined the flagellant processions of 1399. It was typical both of the man and his age that he should have given as his reason the fact that ‘all men, or at least the greater number of Christians, were moved to go on pilgrimage in that year.’

  By halting, irresolute steps, Christendom entered upon a period of spiritual revival. The revival accentuated some of the traditional characteristics of lay piety, and created new ones of its own. The literal, pictorial interpretation of dogma is taken to new extremes; this is above all others the century of religious drama and eucharistic miracles. The strong desire of laymen to feel that they were part of an ‘order’ charged with special spiritual functions, finds expression in their enthusiasm for confraternities, lay brotherhoods whose activities ranged from running hospitals to flagellation. The confraternities are also the symptom of something new: the special importance attached to the performance of spiritual exercises en masse. The public procession is the typical spiritual observance of the late middle ages. Flagellant processions first appear in Perugia in 1260 and their most hysterical pitch is reached in the towns of northern Italy and the Low Countries at the end of the fourteenth century. Mass-pilgrimages are made to hitherto obscure shrines. The religion of the laity was above all a religion of external observances, marked by a strong element of ritual. Men joined confraternities because in doing so they automatically acquired a measure of merit which brought them closer to salvation; their own, personal spiritual needs had very little to do with it. It was an attitude which bred extreme conformity and a somewhat unhealthy view that the clothes make the man. Wearing a pilgrim’s badge or the emblem of a confraternity became pious works in themselves. Hence the curious remark of Christine de Pisan that priests could not possibly be possessed by devils because they knew the formulae which chased them away. An earlier age would have felt that possession by devils had more to do with the spiritual condition of the victim.