Kulturgeschichte der Kreuzzüge, pp. 106 sqq, Rohricht, Deutsche
Pilgerreisen, p. 42).
Great as was the number of pilgrims oversea, it was yet far exceeded by that of the visitants to the “threshold of the apostles,” i.e. Rome. As was the case with Jerusalem, guide-books to the city of the apostles were now composed. The oldest is the Notitia ecclesiarum urbis Romae, which was probably compiled under Honorius I. (625–638). The monograph De Ions s. martyrum is of somewhat later date. Both are to be found in De Rossi, Roma sotterranea, i. 138 sqq). The Itinerarium einsidlense (ed. G. Hänel, Archiv. f. Philologie, v. 119) belongs to the second half of the 8th century. Its composer would seem to have been a disciple of Walalifrid; for his interests are not confined to the churches, their reliquaries, and the ecclesiastical ceremonial of saint-days, but he takes a pleasure in transcribing ancient inscriptions. William of Malmesbury. again, when relating the crusade of Count Robert of Normandy (1096), transfers into his Gesta regum anglorum (iv. § 351) an old description of Rome, originally intended for the use of pilgrims This may have dated from the 7th century.
The pilgrimages to Rome received their greatest impetus through the inauguration of the so-called Year of Jubilee (q.v). On the 22nd of February 1300 the bull of Boniface VIII., Antiquorum habet fidem, promised plenary indulgence to every Roman who should visit the churches of the apostles Peter and Paul on thirty days during the year, and to every foreigner who should perform the same act on fifteen days. At the close of the Jubilee this dispensation was extended to all who had expired on the way to Rome. This placed the pilgrimage to Rome on a level with the crusades—the only mode of obtaining a plenary indulgence. The success of the papal bull was indescribable. It is computed that, in the Year of Jubilee, on an average, 200,000 strangers were present in the city during the day. The greatest number of the pilgrims came from southern France, England sending comparatively few on that occasion (see Gregorovius, Gesch. d Stadt Rom. v. 546 sqq.). The Jubilee dispensation according to the edict of Boniface VIII. was to be repeated each century, but this period was greatly abridged by succeeding popes (see Jubilee, Year of), so that in the years 1350 1390 1423, 1450, 1475, 1500, the troops of pilgrims again came streaming into Rome to obtain the cherished dispensation.
Of the other pilgrim-resorts, we shall only emphasize the most important. Priority of mention is due to St James of Compostella (Santiago, in the Spanish province of Galicia). Here the attraction for the pilgrim was the supposed possession of the bod) of James the son of Zebedee. The apostle was executed (A.D. 44) by conwmand of Herod Agrippa (Acts xii. 1); and at the beginning of the medieval period it was believed that his corpse 11 as laid in Palestine(Vehant. F01tzm.carm. v. 144, viii. 3). The first connexion of the apostle with Spain is to be traced in the Poema de aris b. Mar. et xii. apost. dedic., which is ascribed to Aldhelm (d 709) and contains a story of his preaching in that country T he earliest account of the transference of his relics to the Peninsula is found in Notker Balbulus (d. 912, Martyrol. in Jut xxv.). But in Spain belief in this cherished possession was universal, and, step by step, the theory won credence throughout the West. In 1059, Archbishop Wido of Milan journeyed to St James (Damiani, Acta mediol. p. 98); and a little later we hear of bands of pilgrims from Germany and France. In England, indeed, the shrine of St James of Compostella became practically the most favoured devotional resort; and in the 12th century its visitation had attained such popularity that a pilgrimage thither was ranked on a level with one to Rome or Jerusalem (Honor August. Spec. eccl. p. 828). In Paris, after 1419 there existed a special hospice for the “fraternity of St James,” in which from 60 to 80 pilgrims were received each day, fed and presented with a quarter of a denarius (Dulaure, Hist. de Paris (1842), i. 531). Even in the period of the Reformation the “Song of St James” was sung in Germany (Wackernagel, Kirchenlied, ii. No. 1246); and in 1478 pilgrimages to that shrine were placed by Sixtus IV. on official equality with those to Rome and Jerusalem (Extrav. comm. c. 5, De poenit. v. 9).
In France St Martin remained the chief goal of the pilgrim; while Notre Dame de Sous-Terre in Chartres (with a portrait of the “black Virgin”), Le Puy-en-Velay (dep. Haute Loire), and others, also enjoyed considerable celebrity. In England pilgrimages were made to the tomb of the murdered archbishop, Thomas Becket, in Canterbury Cathedral. The setting of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales gives a vivid idea of the motley company of pilgrims; but it seems probable that Germany also sent a contingent (Gervas. Cantuar. chr. ann. 1184; Ralph de Diceto, Ymag. hist. ann. 1184). In addition, Walsingham, Peterborough, St Davids, Holywell, and St Andrews in Scotland were much frequented. In lower Germany, Cologne and Aix-la-Chapelle, in Switzerland Einsiedeln, were the principal resorts.
In Italy the church of the Archangel on Mt Gargano was one of the most ancient centres of the pilgrimage, being visited even by the monk Bernard (vide supra). Later the Portiuncula church at Assisi displaced all other religious resorts, with the exception of Rome, but in the 15th century it was overshadowed in turn by the “Holy House” at Loretto on the Adriatic. According to an extravagant legend, the house of Joseph and Mary in Nazareth was transported by angels, on the night of the 9th–10th of May 1291 to Dalmatia, then brought to the Italian coast opposite (Dec. 10, 1294), till, on the 7th of September 1295 it found rest on its present site. The pilgrimage thither must have attained great importance as early as the 15th century; for the popes of the Renaissance found themselves constrained to erect an imposing pilgrim church above the “Holy House.”
The significance of the pilgrimage for the religious life of later medieval ism cannot be adequately estimated. The possession of an extraordinary relic, a bloody Host, or the like, was everywhere considered a sufficient claim for the privileges of indulgences; and wherever this privilege existed, there the pilgrims were gathered together. All these pilgrimages, great and small, were approved and encouraged by the Church. And yet, during the whole of the middle ages, the voice of suspicion in their regard was never entirely stilled. Earnest men could not disguise from themselves the moral dangers almost inevitably consequent upon them, they recognized, moreover, that many pilgrims were actuated by extremely dubious motives, and they distrusted the exaggerated value set on outward works. The Roman papacy had no more zealous adherent than Boniface; yet he absolutely rejected the idea that Englishwomen should make the journey to Rome, and would willingly have seen the princes and bishops veto these pilgrimages altogether (Ep. 78). The theologians who surrounded Charlemagne held similar views. When the abbess Ethelburga of Fladbury (Worcestershire) found her projected pilgrimage impracticable, Alcuin wrote to her, saying that it was no great loss, and that God had better designs for her: “Expend the sum thou hast gathered for the journey on the support of the poor; and if thou givest as thou canst, thou shalt reap as thou wilt” (Ep. 300). Bishop Theodulf of Orleans (d. 821) made an energetic protest against the delusion that to go to Rome availed more than to live an upright life (Carm. 67). To the same effect, the synod of Chalon-sur-Saone (813) re probated the superstition which was wedded to the pilgrimage (c. 13); and it would be easy to collect similar judgments, delivered in every centre of medievalism. But, fundamentally, pilgrimages in themselves were rejected by a mere handful: the protest was not against the thing, but against its excrescences. Thus Fridank, for instance, in spite of his emphatic declaration that most pilgrims returned worse than they went, himself participated in the crusade of Frederick II.
V. The Modern Pilgrimage.—The Reformation eradicated the belief in the religious value of visits to a particular locality. It is only pious memory that draws the Protestant to the sites consecrated by ecclesiastical history. On the other hand, while in the Eastern Church things have undergone little change,—the pilgrims, in addition to the Holy Land, visiting Mt Athos and Kiev—the developments in the Roman Church show important divergences. The Year of Jubilee, in 1525, was unprecedented in its scant attendance, but the jubilees of 1575 and 1600 again saw great armies of pilgrims marching to Rome.
