PILGRIMAGES
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PILGRIMAGES
attack of gout (Boulting, ".Eneas Sylvius", London,
1908. (50).
Pilgrim Signs. — A last part of the pilgrim's attire must be mentioned, the famous pilgrim signs. These were badges sewn on to the hat or hung round the neck or pinned on the clothes of the pilgrim. "A belle and a bagge
He bar by his syde
And hundred ampulles;
On his hat seten
Signes of SjTiay,
And Shelles of Galice,
And many a eonche
On his cloke.
And keys of Rome,
And the Vernycle bi-fore
For men sholde knowe
And se bi hise signes
Whom he sought hiwide"
Peter and Paul or the keys or the vemicle (this last
also might mean Genoa where there was a rival shrine
of St. Veronica's veil); to St. James of Compostella
the scallop or oyster shell; to Canterburj-, a bell or
the head of the saint on a brooch or a leaden ampulla
filled with water from a well near the tomb tinctured
with an infinitesimal dropof the martjT's blood ("Mat.
for Hist, of Thomas Beckett", 1878 in R. S., II, 269;
III, 1.52, 187); to Walsingham, the virgin and child;
to Amiens, the head of St. John the Baptist, etc.
Then there was the horn of St. Hubert, the comb of
St. Blaise, the axe of St. Olave, and so on. And when
the tomb was reached, votive offerings were left of
jewels, models of limbs that had been miraculously
cured, spears, broken fetters, etc. (Rock, "Church of
our Fathers", London, 1852, III, 463).
Effects. — Among the countless effects which pil- grimages produced the following may be set down: —
Tou-Hf:. — Matthew Paris notes ("Chron. major."
(.Piers Plowman, ed. Wright, London, 1856, I, 109).
There are several moulds extant in which these signs
were cast (cf. British Museum; Musee de Lyon;
Musee de Cluny, Paris; etc.), and not a few signs
themselves have been picked up, especially in the beds
of rivers, e\idently dropped by the pilgrims from the
ferry-boats. These signs protected the pilgrims from
assault and enabled them to pass through even hostile
ranks ("Paston Letters", I, 8.5; Forgeais, "Coll. de
plombs histories", Paris, 1863, 52-80; "Archa;ol.
Jour.", VII, 400; XIII, 105), but as the citation from
Piers Plo«-man shows, they were also to show "whom
he sought hadde". Of course the cross betokened the
crusader (though one could also take the cross against
the Moors of Spain, Simeon of Durham, "Hist, de
gestis regum Angliae", ed. Twj-sden, London, 1652, I,
249), and the colour of it the nation to which he be-
longed, the English white, the French red, the Flemish
green (Matthew Paris, "Chron. majora", ed. Luard,
London, 1874, II, 330, an. 1199, in R. S.); the pilgrim
to Jerusalem had two crossed leaves of palm (hence
the name "palmer"); to St. Catherine's tomb on
Mount Sinai, the wheel; to Rome, the heads of Sts.
XII.— 7 '.
in R. S., I, 3, an. 1067) that in England (and the same
thing really applies all over Europe) there was hardly
a town where there did not lie the bodies of martjTs,
confessors, and holy wgins, and though no doubt in
very many cases it was the importance of the towns
that made them the chosen resting-places of the
saint's relics, in quite as many others the importance
of the saint drew so many religious pilgrims to it that
the town sprang up into real significance. So it has
been noted that Canterbury, at least, outshone Win-
chester, and since the Reformation has once more
dwindled into insignificance. Bury Saint Edmunds,
St. .\lbans, Walsingham, Compostella, Lourdes, La
Salette have arisen, or grown, or decayed, accordingly
as the popularity among pilgrims began, advanced,
declined.
Roads were certainly made in many cases by the pilgrims. They wore out a path from the sea-coast to Canterburj' and joined ^\'alsingham to the great centres of English life and drove tracks and paths across the S\Tian sands to the Holy City. And men and women for their soul's sake made benefactions so as to level down and up, and to straighten out the
