![]() Indeed, some of Chaucer’s contemporaries saw the practice as rather disreputable: “Pilgrims were seen as just going on holiday and having fun and women were coming back pregnant,” said Dr Turner. ![]() ![]() In The Canterbury Tales, pilgrimage is depicted as carnival-like, with people from a wide range of backgrounds socialising, joking, eating, telling stories and, often as not, getting drunk together. And cathedrals did (and still do) promote them in much the same ways as modern tourist boards advertise sandy beaches. As pilgrim sites became popular, a whole host of infrastructure would grow around them – from inns to souvenir shops to guides. In many ways, pilgrimage is the predecessor of modern tourism if feudal serfs wanted to go out and see the world, visiting a holy place was one of the few reasons they’d be allowed to travel, explained Professor Ian Reader, a religious studies scholar at the University of Manchester. Dr Marion Turner, a scholar at Oxford University who studies Geoffrey Chaucer, points out that “it was a time away from ordinary society, and allowed for a time of play.” But even in the past, the sightseeing was as important as the spirituality. We might today think of pilgrimage as a specifically religious form of travel. Following paths on this ridge would have made sense the boggy land below would have been much tougher to cover on foot or horseback. From there, you soon reach the North Downs, a ridge of chalk hills that stretch as far as Canterbury. From Southampton, Winchester is the closest big cathedral town. Visiting Thomas Becket’s shrine was very popular in medieval Europe, and for travellers arriving from France, the port city of Southampton would have been a logical place to land. That said, the route I took from Winchester isn’t entirely arbitrary. King Henry VIII banned pilgrimages in 1538, so modern routes are based on clues in place names and what would seem to be the logical route – we don’t know exactly which paths pilgrims would have taken in the past. “The majority of the UK’s pilgrim routes are modern constructs,” said Dr Emma Wells, a historian who has written a book on all of Britain’s major pilgrimages. A tiny country between England and Scotland.The Camino de Santiago's ancient secret.Not long after, admirers began visiting Canterbury to see his shrine. In a fit of anger, King Henry is supposed to have cried “who shall rid me of this troublesome priest?” and four of his knights took this as an order – stabbing Becket to death in the cathedral.īecket became a martyr and was soon made a saint. But Becket decided his loyalties lay with his faith rather than the king and became a thorn in Henry’s side. Becket had been King Henry II’s chancellor, and Henry installed him as archbishop with the hope of making the church more pliant. People started walking to Canterbury around 1172 to visit a shrine to Saint Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who was murdered there two years earlier. This second route is best known for its association with Geoffrey Chaucer’s 1400 novel The Canterbury Tales. The Pilgrims Way is Britain’s best-known pilgrimage and there are two generally agreed routes you can take – either the longer way starting at Winchester Cathedral, or the shorter route from Southwark in London. What is it about this form of travel that attracts so many? Nevertheless, the general trend upwards is striking. The Covid-19 outbreak has, of course, seriously curtailed pilgrimages in 2020 and perhaps beyond (Saudi Arabia restricted Hajj numbers to around 1,000 this year, down from some 2.5 million in previous years). Meanwhile the Hindu Kumbh Mela in northern India is described as the world’s largest human gathering, attracting some 220 million pilgrims over 50 days in 2019. Millions of Muslims go on Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia that is one of the five pillars of Islam and something all Muslims who are physically and financially able are required to do (the upward trend in numbers can also be seen there). Other lesser-known walking pilgrimages like the Via Francigena from Canterbury to Rome are attracting more visitors, while Japan’s Buddhist Shikoku pilgrimage has also seen similar growth. In 1972, just 67 pilgrims were recorded as completing the walk. Take Europe’s best-known pilgrimage, the route to Spain’s Santiago de Compostela.
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