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 PILGRIMAGES

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PILGRIMAGES

shrine of the Blessed Virgin, which claimed to be the most ancient in Christendom. There is a quaint story about a miracle there told by Joinvillc who made a pilgrimage to the shrine, when he accompanied St. Louis to the East (Champagnac, II, 951).

Tours, Indre-et-Loire, France, has long been cele- brated for the tomb of St. Martin, to which countless pilgrims journeyed before the Revolution (Goldie in "The Month", Nov., 1880, 331).

Trier, Rhenish Prussia, has boasted for fifteen cen- turies of the possession of the Holy Coat. This relic, brought back by St. Helena from the Holy Land, has been the centre of pilgrimage since that date. It has been several times exposed to the faithful and each time has drawn countless pilgrims to its veneration. In 1512 the custom of an exposition taking place every seven years was begun, but it has been often inter- rupted. The last occasion on which the Holy Coat was exhibited for public veneration was in 1891, when 1,900,000 of the faithful in a continual stream passed before the relic (Clarke, "A Pilgrimage to the Holy Coat of Treves", London, 1892).

Turin, Piedmont, Italy, is well known for its extraordinary relic of the Holy Winding-Sheet or Shroud. Whatever may be said against its authen- ticity, it is an astonishing relic, for the impression which it bears in negatixe of the body of Jesus Christ could with difficulty have been added by art. The face thereon impressed agrees remarkably with the traditional portraits of Christ. Naturally the exposi- tions of the sacred relic are the occasions of numerous pilgrimages (Thurston in "The Month", January, 1903, 17; February, 162).

Vallomhrosa, Tuscany, Italy, has become a place of pilgrimage, even though the abbey no longer con- tains its severe and picturesque throng of monks. Its romantic site has made it a ceaseless attraction to minds like those of Dante, Ariosto, Milton, etc.; and Benvenuto Cellini tells u^ that he too made a pilgrimage to the shrine of tlic Ble.-iscd Virgin there to thank her for the many beautiful works of art he had composed; and as he went he sang and prayed (Champagnac, II, 1033-7).

Wahingham, Norfolk, England, contained England's greatest shrine of the Blessed Virgin. The chapel dates from 1061, almost from which time onward it was the most frequented Madonna sanctuary in the island, both by foreigners and the English. Many of the English kings went to it on pilgrimage; and the destruction of it weighed most heavily of all his mis- deeds on the conscience of the dying Henry VIII. Erasmus in his " Religious Pilgrimage " (" Colloquies ", London, 1878, II, 1-37) has given a most detailed account of the shrine, though his satire on the whole devotion is exceptionally caustic. Once more, annu- ally, pilgrimages to the old chapel have been revived; and the pathetic "Lament of Walsingham" is ceasing to be true to actual facts ("The Month", Sept., 1901, 236; Bridgett, "Dowry of Mary", London, 1875, 303-9).

Westminster, London, England, contained one of the seven incorrupt bodies of saints of England (Acta SS., Aug., I, 276), i. e., that of St. Edward the Confessor, the only one which yet remains in its old shrine and is still the centre of pilgrimage. From immediately after the king's death, his tomb was carefully tended, espe- cially by the Norman kings. At the suggestion of St. Thomas Becket a magnificent new shrine was pre- pared by Henry II in 1163, and the body of the saint there translated on 13 Oct. At once pilgrims began to flock to the toml) for miracles, and to return thanks for favours, as did Richard I, after his captivity (Radulph Coggcshall, "Chron. Angl.", in R. S., ed. Stevenson, 1875, 63). So i)iii)ular was this last canonized English king, that on the rebuilding of the alilicy by Henry III St. Edward's toml) really ovi'rsli.-idowed the pri- mary dedication to St. Peter. The pilgrim's sign was

a king's head surmounting a pin. The step on which the shrine stands was deeply worn by the kneeling pilgrims, but it has been relaid so that the hollows are now on the inner edge. Once more this sanctuary, too, has become a centre of pilgrimage (Stanley, "Mem. of Westminster", London, 1869, yrassim; Wall, 223-35).

Garb. — In older ages, the pilgrim had a special garb which betokened his mission. This has been prac- tically omitted in modern times, except among the Mohammedans, with whom lAroj/i still distinguishes the Hallal and Hadj from the rest of the people. As far as one can discover, the dress of the medieval pilgrim consisted of a loose frock or long smock, over which was thrown a separate hood with a cape, much after the fashion of the Dominican and Servite habit. On his head, he wore a low-crowned, broad-brimmed hat, such as is familiar to us from the armorial bear- ings of cardinals. This was in wet and windy weather secured under his chin by two strings, but strings of such length that when not needed the hat could be thrown off and hang behind the back. Across his breast passed a belt from which was suspended his wallet, or script, to contain his relics, food, money, and what-not. In some illuminations it may be noted as somehow attached to his side (cf. blessing infra). In one hand he held a staff, composed of two sticks swathed tightly together by a withy band. Thus in the grave of Bishop Mayhew (d. 1516), which was opened a few years ago in Hereford cathedral, there was found a stock of hazel-wood between four and five feet long and about the thickness of a finger. As there were oyster shells also buried in the same grave, it seema reasonable to suppose that this stick was the bishop's pilgrim staff; but it has been suggested recently that it represents a crosier of a rough kind used for the burial of prelates (Cox and Harvej', "Church Furni- ture", London, 1907, 55). Occasionally these staves were put to uses other than those for which they were intended. Thus on St. Richard's day, 3 April, 1487, Bishop Storey of Chichester had to make stringent regulations, for there was such a throng of pilgrims to reach the tomb of the saint that the struggles for precedence led to blows and the free use of the staves on each other's heads. In one c;ise a death had re- sulted. To prevent a recurrence of this disorder, ban- ners and crosses only were to be carried (Wall, 128). Some, too, had bells in their hands or other instruments of music: "some others pilgrimes will have with them baggepipes; so that everie towne that they came through, what with the noice of their singing and with the sound of their piping and with the jangling of their Canterburie bells, and with the barking out of dogges after them, that they make more noice then if the I\ing came there away with all his clarions and many other minstrels" (Fox, "Acts", London, 1596, 493).

This distinctive pilgrim dress is described in most medieval poems and stories (cf. "Renard the Fox", London, 1886, 13, 74, etc.; "Squyr of Lowe Degree", ed. Ritson in "Metrical Romancees", London, 1802, III, 151), most minutely and, of course, indirectly, and very late by Sir Walter Raleigh: —

"Give me my scallop-shell of quiet. My staff of faith to walk upon. My scrip of joy, immortal diet.

My bottle of Salvation, My gown of glory (hope's true gage), And then I'll take mv pilgrimage." (Cf. Furnivall, "The Stacions of Rome and the Pil- grim's Sea Voyage".) In jienance lliey went alone and barefoot, ^neas Sylvius Pircoloniini tells of his walking without shoes or stockiiigs through the snow to Our Lady of Whitckirk in East Lothian, a tramp of ten miles; and he remembered the intense cold of that i)ilgrimage to his life's end (Paul, "Royal Pil- griniagrs in Scotland" in "Trans, of Scottish Eccle- siological Soc", 1905), for it brought on a severe