Page:Archaeologia volume 38 part 1.djvu/150

 130 Notes on a Collection of Pilgrims' Signs. reviving spring, lengthening days, and sunny weather inspired yearnings which could not be suppressed, and sent forth bands of pilgrims to the great centres of religious attraction. The union of the sacred and secular elements, the visit to the scene of some great martyrdom, or the spot where was preserved some won- der-working relic, the pleasure of the journey, and the agreeable company brought together on these occasions, were sufficient causes to render the pilgrimages univer- sally popular. To it we are indebted for the inimitable Canterbury Tales, which shew us how widely the love of these religious excursions was spread among all classes. We find associated not only the Franklin, the Sompnour, the Miller, the Eeeve, and the "Wife of Bath, but also the Gentle Knight, the Prioress, the Clerk of Oxen- ford, and the good Parson. Arrived at Canterbury, and having obtained their lodgings, often a matter of difficulty, the pilgrims proceeded to the Cathedral, visited the various sacred spots, and paid their devotions at each of them. The Supplement to the Canterbury Tales, a work little later, though perhaps not written by Chaucer himself, says of the pilgrims : Then, as maucre and custom is, signes there they bought, For men of centre should know whomc they had sought ; Eche man set his silver in such thing as they liked, And in the mecn while the miller had y-piked His bosom ful of signes of Canterbury brochis. Afterwards, They set their sigiiys upon their hedes, and some uppon their capp, And sith to the dynerward they gan for to stapp. That such was the usual practice also in much earlier times, we learn from a passage in Giraldus Cambrensis, where he tells us of his calling with his friends, on his return from Canterbury, at the Bishop of Winchester's Palace in South- wark : " Episcopus autem videns ipsum intrantem cujus notitiam satis habuerat et socios suos cum siijnaculis B. Thomas a collo suspensis," &c. Seeing him and his companions with signs of St. Thomas hanging from their necks, ho remarked that he perceived they had just come from Canterbury. So also in "The Vision of Piers Ploughman," a pilgrim is introduced, on whose cloak were signs of Sinai in proof that he had visited that locality : A bolle and a bagge He bar by his syde,