PILGRIMAGES. 



739 



on pilgremage, and made to araye fair in Lir best 

 arraie, and take hir with him fro the said toune of 

 Budham to the town of Stoghton, in the said 

 sliire, and there murdered horribly his vvyff." 



These remarks, however, are chiefly true of the 

 customary and periodical pilgrimages. In those 

 which were undertaken spontaneously, from some 

 strong emotion, a severer character prevailed. Mr 

 Fosbrooke contends, that, in pilgrimages of this 

 kind, it was an essential condition, that the pil- 

 grim should walk his journey barefoot ; and 

 there are instances to the last of persons of the 

 highest rank adopting this painful mode of travelling. 

 In one of the pilgrimages of Henry VIII. to Wal- 

 singham, he is said by Spelman to have walked 

 thither barefoot from Barsham, a distance of about 

 ^hree miles; and in the same way, the beautiful 

 Henrietta Maria, queen of Charles I., was once 

 sentenced by her confessor to make a pilgrimage 

 from Somerset House to Tyburn, and there to do 

 homage to the saintship of some recently executed 

 catholics. " No longer agon then upon St James 

 his day last past," says Mr Pory, in a letter to Mr 

 Mead, dated 5th July, 1626, " those hypocritical 

 dogges made the pore queen to walke a foot, some 

 add barefoot., from her house at St James to the 

 gallows at Tyborne, therby to honor the saint of 

 the day in visiting that holy place, where so many 

 martyrs, forsooth, had shed their blod in defence 

 of the Catholique cause. Had they not also made 

 her to dabble in the durte of a foul morning from 

 Somerset House to St James, her Luciferian con- 

 fessour riding allong by her in his coach ! Yea 

 they have made her to go barefoot, to spin, to eat 

 her meat out of tryne dishes, to waite at the table 

 and serve her servants, with many other ridiculous 

 and absurd penances." 



In all pilgrimages of real devotion, the practice 

 of at least walking was common. In one of the 

 Paston Letters, written in 1471, the duke and 

 duchess of Norfolk are mentioned as making a 

 pilgrimage together in this way from Framlingham 

 to Walsingham ; and it must have been adopted 

 from necessity in the cases in which entire families 

 made pilgrimages with all the children and ser 

 vants. Some of the above instances, however, 

 may be said equally to prove the greater severity, 

 or at least decorum, which marked these religious 

 excursions in the upper ranks, and which prevailed 

 at all times, to a degree that would probably not 

 be inferred from Chaucer's picture. 



In the pilgrimages of the lower orders, however, 

 liis descriptions seem to have been fully justified. 

 A passage quoted by Mr Fosbrooke, from one of 

 the early state trials, gives us a picturesque idea 

 of the gay and social spirit in which they were 

 conducted. The dialogue occurs between a cap- 

 iious disciple of Wickliffe, in the time of Henry 

 IV., and Arundel, archbishop of Canterbury. 

 "Also, sir," he says, "I kriowe well, that when 

 diverse men and women will go after their ovvne 

 wills, and finding out a pilgrimage, they will order 

 to have with them both men and women that can 

 sing wanton songs ; and some other pilgrims will 

 have with them bag-pipers, so that every towne 

 they come through, what with the noise of their 

 singing and with the sound of their piping, and 

 with the jangling of their Canterbury bells, and 

 with the barking out of dogs after them, that they 

 make more noise than if the king came that waye, 

 with all his clarions and minstrels. And if these 

 men arid women be a month in their pilgrimage, 



many of them shall be half a year after great Jang- 

 It-rs, tale-tellers, and liars." 



To this the archbishop quaintly replies, that 

 ' Pilgrims have with them singers and also pipers, 

 that when one of them that goeth bare-foote 

 striketh his toe upon a stone, and maketh it to 

 bleed, it is well done that he or his fellow begin 

 then a song, or else take out of his bosome a bag- 

 pipe, to drive away with such mirthe the hurte of 

 his fellowe. For with such solace the travaile 

 and wearinesse of pilgrims is lightly and merrily 

 brought forthe." 



The object of a pilgrimage was sometimes of a 

 general and sometimes of a particular kind ; and 

 the ceremonial which took place on arriving at a 

 shrine differed accordingly. At Boxley and Hailes 

 the pilgrim underwent a sort of ordeal, which was 

 supposed to determine his spiritual state. At the 

 former place he lifted a small wooden image of St 

 Rumbold, which was artfully pinned to the altar 

 if his offering had been insufficient ; and at the 

 latter was shown a phial of the true blood, with 

 a blackened side, which when turned towards him 

 rendered the contents invisible. But these were 

 particular cases ; and, generally speaking, a visit to 

 a shrine included nothing more than the ordinary 

 gratification of curiosity or devotion. A tolerable 

 idea of its general nature may be gained from the 

 description given by Erasmus of his visit to Wal- 

 singham. His dialogue on this subject is perhaps 

 too fanciful in parts to be implicitly adopted; but 

 there is no reason to doubt the general correctness 

 of its details, the minuteness of which gives it an 

 additional value. 



The pilgrims who arrived at Walsingham en- 

 tered the sacred precinct by a low narrow wicket. 

 It was purposely made difficult to pass, as a pre- 

 caution against the robberies which were frequently 

 committed at the shrine. On the gate in which 

 the wicket opened was nailed a copper image of a 

 knight on horseback, whose miraculous preserva- 

 tion on the spot by the Virgin formed the subject 

 of one of the numerous legendary stories with 

 which the place abounded. To the east of the 

 gate, within, stood a small chapel, where the pil- 

 grim was allowed, for money, to kiss a gigantic 

 bone, said to have been the fingerbone of St Peter. 

 After this, he was conducted to a building, thatched 

 with reeds and straw, enclosing two wells in high 

 repute for indigestion and headache, and also for 

 the more rare virtue of ensuring to the votary, 

 within certain limits, whatever he might wish for 

 at the time of drinking their waters. The -build- 

 ing itself was said to have been transported there 

 through the air, many centuries before, in a deep 

 snow ; and, as a proof of it, the visitor was gravely 

 pointed to an old bear's skin attached to one of the 

 beams. After this, he entered the outer chapel, 

 an unfinished building at the time of Erasmus, 

 who describes the high winds from the neighbour- 

 ing sea blowing through its open doors and win- 

 dows. Within this stood the chapel of the Vir- 

 gin ; a small wooden building, with a door in its 

 opposite sides, through which the pilgrims entered 

 and retired. The celebrated image of Our Lady 

 stood within it on the right of the altar. The 

 interior was kept highly perfumed, and illuminated 

 solely by tapers, which dimly revealed the sacred 

 image, surrounded by the gold and jewels of the 

 shrine. The pilgrim knelt awhile on the steps of 

 the altar in prayer, and then deposited his offering 

 upon it, and passed on. What he gave was in 

 3 A 2 



