badge of the “Palmers” pilgrimage to the Holy Land. The most common of the English pilgrims' signs are those of the shrine of Thomas Becket at Canterbury, the greatest centre of pilgrimage in England.
(From Andrews’ Church Treasury)
Fig. 1.—Pilgrim’s Sign, from the cathedral at Amiens.
(From Andrews’ Church Treasury)
Fig. 2.—Pilgrim’s Sign, from Canterbury.
These take a variety sometimes simple T, sometimes a bell marked campana Thome, the Canterbury bell, most often a figure of the saint, sometimes seated, sometimes riding on a horse, and carrying his episcopal cross, and with hand uplifted in benediction (fig. 2). Sometimes the badges took the shape of small ampullae, or vases, as in the case of the badges of the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham, which were marked with a W and crown.
See W Andrews, Church Treasury (1898), article “Pilgrims’ Signs,” by Rev. G. S. Tyack; and Guide to Medieval Room, British Museum, p 69.
The English “Pilgrims’ Way.”—From Winchester, in Hampshire, to Canterbury, in Kent, runs a road or way which can still be traced, now on the present made roads, now as a lane, bridle path, or cart track, now only by a line of ancient yews, hollies or oaks which once bordered it To this old track the name of “pilgrims’ way” has been given, for along it passed the stream of pilgrims coming through Winchester from the south and west of England and from the continent of Europe by way of Southampton to Canterbury Cathedral to view the place of the martyrdom of Thomas Becket, in the north transept, to the relics in the crypt where he was first buried after his murder, in 1170, and the shrine in the Trinity Chapel which rose above his tomb after the translation of the body in 1220. There were two festix als for the pilgrimage, on the 29th of December, the day of the martyrdom, and on the 7th of July, the day of the translation The summer pilgrimage naturally became the most popular. In 1538 the shrine was destroyed and the relics of the saint scattered, but the great days of the pilgrimage had then passed Erasmus gives a vivid picture of the glories of the shrine and of all that was shown to the pilgrims on his visit with Colet to Canterbury in 1514.
The principal villages, towns and places near or through which the way passed are as follow: Winchester, Alresvord, Ropley, Alton, Farnham (here the way follows the present main road), Scale, Puttenham, by the ruined chapel of St Catherine, outside Guildford, near where the road crosses the Wey above Shalford,[1] and by the chapel of St Martha, properly of “the martyr,” now restored and used as a church, Albury, Shere, Gomshall, Dorking (near here the Mole is crossed), along the southern slope of Boxhill to Reigate, then through Gatton Park, Merstham, Otford, Wrotham, after which the Medway was crossed, Burham, past the megalithic monument Kit's Coty House, and the site of Boxley Abbey, the oldest after Waverley Abbey of Cistercian houses in England, and famous for its miraculous image of the infant saint Rumbold, and the st1ll more famous winking rood or crucifix The road passes next by Hollingbourne, Lenham and Charing. At Otford, Wrotham and Charing were manor houses or rather palaces of the archbishops of Canterbury, at Hollingbourne was a manor of the priors of Christchurch. After Hollingbourne come Westwell, Eastwell, Boughton Aluph, Godmersham, Chilham Castle, and then at Harbledown, where are the remains of the Hospice of St Nicholas, the road joins Wathng Street, by which came the main stream of pilgrims from London, the North and the Midlands.
This road, although its name of the Pilgrims' Way has for long confined it to the road by which the pilgrims came to Canterbury from Winchester, follows a far older track. Right back into British and even older times the main direction which commerce and travellers followed across southern and western England to the Straits of Dover and the Continent lay from Canterbury along the southern chalk slope of the North Downs to near Guildford, then by the Hog's Back to Farnham. At this point the oldest track went across Salisbury Plain towards Stonehenge and so on to Cornwall. From Farnham westward the only portion of this the oldest track that can now be traced is a small portion that still bears the name of the Harrow (i.e. hoary, old) road It was in early times abandoned for the road from Winchester to which the stream of travel and commerce from the Continent and the south south-west of England was diverted.
The “pilgrims’ way” has been traced fully in Mrs Ady's book The Pilgrims' Way (1893), and the older track in the fullest detail in Hilaire Belloc's The Old Road (1904).
The American “Pilgrim Fathers.”–In American history the name “Pilgrims” is applied to the earliest settlers of the colony of Plymouth, Massachusetts, and more specifically to the first company of emigrants, who sailed in the “Mayflower” in 1620 They were from the beginning Separatists from the Church of England; they had established Independent (Congregational) churches at Scrooby and Gainsborough early in the 17th century, and some of them had fled to Amsterdam in 1608 to avoid persecution, and had removed to Leiden in the following year They sailed from Delftshaven late in July 1620, from Southampton on the 5th of August, from Plymouth on the 6th of September, and late in December 162O founded the colony of Plymouth, Massachusetts. See MASSACHUSETTS; PLYMOUTH, and MAYFLOWER.
PILGRIMAGE (Fr. pèlerinage, Lat. peregrinatio), a journey undertaken, from religious motives, to some place reputed as sacred. These journeys play an important role in most pre-Christian and extra-Christian religions. in the Catholic Church their acceptance dates from the 3rd and 4th centuries.
I. The Pilgrimage in pre-Christian and non-Christian Religions. -To the Germanic religions the pilgrimage is unknown. On the other hand, it is an indigenous element, not only in the creeds of Asia, but in those of the ancient seats of civilization on the Mediterranean. The fundamental conception is always that the Deity resides–or exercises a peculiarly powerful influence–in some definite locality, and to this locality the devout repair, either in reverence of their god, or in quest of his assistance and bounty. Thus, as the cult of a particular divinity spreads farther and farther, so the circle expands from which are drawn those who visit his sanctuary.
One of the oldest homes of the pilgrimage is India There the army of devotees tends more especially to the Gangesthe hallowed river of Hindu belief On the Ganges lies Benares, the holy city of Brahminism: and to look on Benares, to visit its temples, and to be washed clean in the purifying river, is the yearning of every pious Indian. Even Buddhism—originally destitute of ceremonial—has adopted the pilgrimage; and the secondary tradition makes Buddha himself determine its goals the place where he was born, where he first preached, whe1e the highest insight dawned on him, and where he sank into Nirvana. The four ancient sacred resorts are Kapilavastu, Gaya, Benares and Kusinagara.
In Syria, the temple of Atargatis in Hierapolis was an immemorial resort of pilgrims. In Phoenicia, a similar significance was enjoyed by the shrine of Astarte, on the richly-watered source of the river Adonis, till, as late as the 4th century after Christ, it was destroyed by Constantine the Great In Egypt, the great annual and monthly festivals of the indigenous gods
- ↑ Shalford Fair, the Chapels on the two hills and the Surrey hills are probably the scene of Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, see E. Rénouard James, Notes on the Pilgrim’s Way in West Surrey (1871).
