PILGRIMAGES
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PILGRIMAGES
begun in their defence, pilgrims are everywhere
granted free access in times alilie of peace and war.
By the "Consuetudines" of tlie canons of Hereford
cathedral we see that legislation was found to be
necessary. No canon was to make more than one
pilgrimage beyond the seas in his own lifetime. But
each year three weeks were allowed to enable any that
would to visit shrines within the kingdom. To go
abroad to the tomb of St. Denis, seven weeks of ab-
sence was considered legal, eight weeks to the body of
St. Edmund at Pontigny, sixteen weeks to Rome, or to
St. James at Compostella, and a year to Jerusalem
(Archffiol., XXXI, 2.51-2 notes).
Again in another way pilgrimages were being re- garded as part of normal life. In the registers of the Inquisition at Carcassonne (Waterton, "Pietas Mari- ana Britanniea", 112) we find the four following places noted as being the centres of the greater pilgrimages to be imposed as penances for the graver crimes, the tomb of the Apostles at Rome, the shrine of St. James at Compostella, St. Thomas's body at Canterbury, and the relics of the Three Kings at Cologne. Natu- rally with all this there was a great deal of corruption. Even from the ear- liest times the Fa- thers perceived how liable such devotion.s were to degenerate into an abuse. St. John Chrysostom, so ardent in his praise of pilgrimages, found it necessary to ex- plain that there was "need for none to cross the seas or fare upon a long journey ; let each of us at home invoke God earnest- ly and He will hear ourprayer" (Ad pop. Antioch. hom. iii, 2, 49, in P. G., XLIX; cf. hom. iv, 6, 68). St. Gregory Nazian- zen is even stronger in his condemnation. He has a short letter in which he speaks of those who regard it as an essential part of piety to visit Jerusalem and see the traces of the Passion of Christ. This, he says, the Master has never com- manded, though the custom is not therefore without merit. But still he knows that in many cases the jour- ney has proved a scandal and caused serious harm. He witnesses, therefore, both to the custom and the abuse, evidently thinking that the latter outweighed the former (Ep. ii, 1009, in P. G., XLVI). So again St. Jerome writes to Paulinus (Ep. Ixviii in P. L., XXII) to explain, in an echo of Cicero's phrase, that it is not the fact of living in Jerusalem, but of living there well, that is worthy of praise (579) ; he instances countless saints who never set foot in t he Holy Land ; and dares not tie down to one small portion of the Earth Him whom Heaven itself is unable to contain. He ends with a sentence that is by now famous, "et de Hierusolymis et de Britannia a'qualiter patet aula ccelestis" (581).
Another well-quoted passage comes from a letter of St. Augustine in which he expounds in happy para- dox that not by journeying but by loving we draw nigh unto God. To Him who is everywhere present and everywhere entire we approach not by our feet but by our hearts (Ep. civ, 672, in P. L.," XXXII). For certainly pilgrimages were not always undertaken for the best of motives. Glaber (ed. Prou, Paris, 1886, 107) thinks it necessary to note of Lethbald that he was far from being one of those who were led to Jeru- salem simply from vanity, that they might have won-
derful stories to tell, when they came back. Thus, as
the centuries pass, we find human nature the same in
its complexity of motives. Its noblest actions are
found to be often caused by petty spites or vanity or
overvaulting ambition; and even when begun in good
faith as a source of devotion, the practices of piety at
times are degraded into causes of vice. So the author
of the "Imitation of Christ " raises his voice against
overmuch pilgrimage-making: "Who wander much
are but little hallowed." Note too the words of the
fifteenth-century English Dominican, John Bromyard
("Summa Prsedicantium", Tit. Feria n. 6, fol. 191,
Lyons, 1522): — "There are some who keep their pil-
grimages and festivals not for God but for the devil.
They who sin more freely when away from home or
who go on pilgrimage to succeed in inordinate and
foolish love — those who spend their time on the road
in evil and uncharitable conversation may indeed say
peregrinamur a Domino — they make their pilgrimage
away from God and to the devil."
But the most splenetic scorn is to be found in the pages of that master of satire, Erasmus. His "Reli- gious Pilgrimage" ("Colloquies" ed. Johnson, Lon- don, 1878, II, 1-37) is a terrible indict- ment of the abuses of his day. Exag- gerated no doubt in its expressions, yet revealing a sufficient modicum of real evil, it is a graphic picture from the hand of an intelligent observer. There is evident sign that pilgrimages were losing in popu- larity, not merely because the charity of many was growing cold, but because of the excessive credu- lity of the guardians of the shrines, their overwrought insist- ence on the necessity of pilgrimage-making, and the fact that many who journeyed from shrine to shrine neglected their do- mestic duties. These three evils are quaintly ex- pressed in the above mentioned dialogue, with a liberty of speech that makes one astonished at Rome's toleration in the sixteenth century. \\'ith all these abuses Erasmus saw how the spoiler would have ready to hand excvises for suppressing the whole system and plundering tlie nio.st attractive treasures. The wealth might well be jjut, he suggested, to other uses; but the idea of a pilgrimage contained in it nothing op- posed to the enlightened opinions of this prophet of "sweet reasonableness". "If any .shall do it of their own free choice from a great afTection to piety, I think they deserve to be left to their own freedom" (op. cit., 35). This was evidently the opinion also of Henry VIII, for, though in the Injunctions of 1536 and 1538 pilgrimages were to be discouraged, yet both in the bishop's book (The Institution of the Christian Man, 1537) and the king's book (The Necessary Doc- trine and Erudition of the Christian Man, 1543), it is laid down that the abuse and not the custom is repre- hensible. What they really attack is the fashion of "putting differences between image and image, trust- ing more in one than in another" (cf. Gairdner, "LoUardy and the Reformation", II, London, 1908, IV, ii, 330, etc.). All this shows how alive Christen- dom has been to evils which Reformers are forever denouncing as inseparable from Catholicism. It ad- mits the danger but does not allow it to prejudice the good use ("Diayloge of Syr Thomas More", London,
