10 

 EIGHTH WINTER MEETING.— MARCH 8th, 1904. 



"CANTERBURY PILGRIM SIGNS."— Bt F. BENNETT GOLDNEY, Esg. 



Mr. S. Harvey, F.I.C., F.C.S., presided over a 

 very larf^e tfatheriog of members of this Society, 

 at the Keterence Library ot the Bnaney Institute, 

 on Tuesday evpuing-, March 8, when an exceedingly 

 interestint^ and instructive lecture was delivered 

 by Mr. F. Bennett GoldDey, F.S. A. Amonj^st those 

 present we noticed : — Mr=. and Miss Sworn, Miss 

 Kuhlmann. tiie Misses Cvle, Rev. Father Power, 

 Bev. Dr. Greaves, Messrs. J. S. Joliason, H. Marsh, 

 F. C. SdcII.VV. Surry, C. Buckinj^ham, A. Lander, J. 

 McClemens, G. F. Andrews, J. Plant, etc. 



The Chaii man introducingtde lecturer remarked 

 that of course Mr. Bennett-Goldney needed no 

 introduction on liis pait, being so well known to 

 the citizens generally. He wa?, he said, pleased 

 to see Mr. Goldney rec^ivered trom his recent 

 somewhat severe indisposition. 



Mr. Bennett-Goldney, having expressed his 

 regifct that unavoidable circumstances had twice 

 compelled postponement of the lecture, and his 

 appreciation of the kindness of the Kev. A. J. 

 Galpin (who t lok his place a month agoj and of 

 Mr. Lander, proceeded to say : 



When jou a^ked me last winter toUctureto 

 you aeain this year upon " Canterbury Pilgrims 

 and Pilgrims' Signs," [ accepted your iavitntion, 

 rashly perhaps, Vmt certainly with goudwill. It 

 was not till afterwards that I realized bow diffi- 

 cult it wou'd be to give any general account of 

 either pilgrims or signs, unless I tried also to 

 convey some idea not only of the times when these 

 pilgrimages were undertaken, if not of the great 

 saint whose martyrdum was so soon to raise 

 Canterbury, as the City of his shrine, to that 

 great position among i^uropean hallows which 

 sbe Continue 1 to hold for upwards of four 

 centuries. You will admit that my subject is a 

 big one, my difficulties did not appear less when 

 I remembered how often the same ground has 

 been covered by far abler men than I. If I 

 venture to traverse a part of it once ayaia it is 

 becausb I am convinced that the story ot St. 

 Thoojas of Canterbury has an abiding interest 

 for Canterbury pi-ople. In the England of 

 medi.'Bval day?, the palmer, as he was very 

 peneraliy called from the palm bianch which the 

 pilgrim t; the Holy Laud biought home with 

 him, preserved usually in a metal case of the 

 same form and often repeated in small as a 

 brooch or badge in evidence (>f his travels, was 

 probably, with his gown, his staff and wallet, his 

 " scrip " or small bag for victuals, and his 

 pilgrim's bott'e for drink, one of the most 

 familiar fiyun-s to be met upon our highways 

 and byways, many of which latt to-day have s-till 

 no other name than the Pilgrims' Way. It was 

 but natural perhaps in the late Middle Ages, 

 when the purely religious incentives of the 

 earliest pilgrims began to wax a little the worse 

 for wear, that pilgrimages should yraduallj 

 develop into what nut infrequently were 

 mere pleasure parties with a little religious 

 sentiment thrown in. Such a party was that 



which the master hand of Chaucer has drawn for 

 us in his prologue to the '■ Canterbuiy Tales." 

 Still, although the prevailing motive with the 

 majority of pilgrims many have been at least as 

 much secular as religious, it was at least sti.l be 

 powerful t-nough to induce everybody, who v/as 

 anybody, king or pubjuct, rich or poor, to make at 

 least one pilgrimage to fOine favoured shrine dur- 

 ing his or her lifetime. Our words " to roam," "to 

 saunter," and " to canter," all date back to 

 pilgrim days. The roamer was he who had been 

 on a pilgi image tj Rome, the saunterer was he 

 who had been to the *' S inte Terre," the Holy 

 Land, the caater was the easy gallop to slow time 

 of those who could affi^rd to tiavel on horseback 

 to the shrine of St. Thomas at Canterbury, In 

 like manner, tne name of the ordinary Paris 

 four-wheeler fiacre is derieed f . oin the St. Fiacre 

 to who^e shrine Parisians of old used to drive be- 

 yond Ihe nails in conveyances of the period. 

 Among the most famous '■ hallows " thus visited 

 was that of St. James of Compostelia at Santiago 

 in Gallicia. Jt wasthe Jerusalem of the Spaniards 

 who had been forbidden by the P<.>pe to join the 

 Crurades to the Holy Land while they Ftiil allowed 

 the infidel Moors to occupy a pait of their country. 

 The sign brought away by pilgrims from the 

 shrine ot the fisherman soldier saint wa= a scallop 

 shell, which afterw^^rds became a general emblem 

 of all pilgrirafjges. In additirm to imitation shells of 

 metal, real shells were also fa-hiouable at Cum- 

 postella, they were usually put up inside little 

 openuork cases of lead cf the same shape, to pre- 

 serve them. In our colle^-tion here to-night we 

 have a gotid specimen of one of these dtcorated 

 with ttKnr de lys ornament. Theie is also a leaden 

 ampulla in the form of a scallop shell, but this 

 probably belongs to Cantei bury, ar d once 

 contained the holy Canterbury water. Another 

 sign from Compostelia was an equestrian 

 image of the Pant as military la'ron of Spain. 

 It was extremely popular, and was regarded as a 

 sure f-pecific agaiust rtbbeis as well as ague. It 

 is still worn by soldiers and travellers in the 

 Peninsula, though its propexties are not always 

 so effitacious in these days of railways as could be 

 wished. In the East, th*' shrine^ of St. Andrew at 

 Cnnstantiuople and ot St. Katherine on Slount 

 Sinai, weie more particularly popular on account 

 of the healing virtues ot the sacred oils for which 

 both were equally renowned. In Italy, Home, the 

 sacred seal" of the Apostolic See, was naturally the 

 most frequented of all hallows. Here, preserved 

 in the Church of Sta Croce was some of the sacred 

 blood of Christ Himself, whde His portrait, 

 miraculously dtlineated on the handbeichief of 

 Saint Veionic;i, was an object of hardly less 

 veneration at the Vatican Church of St. Peter, 

 which contained also the shrine of St. Peter and 

 St. Paul. The more ordinary tokens of a "Reamer'* 

 wert. the emblems of the two Apostles, the sword 

 for St. Paul, and for St. Peter the keys of heaven. 

 Bari on the Adriatic was another Javourite retort 



