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Pilgrimage and Cathedrals in the Later Middle Ages

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Pilgrimage and England's Cathedrals

Abstract

The period between the twelfth and early sixteenth centuries was something of a ‘golden age’ for both pilgrimage and cathedrals. The cathedral shrines of late medieval England formed one strand in a complex web of sacred sites that ramified out through Christian Europe, and beyond. The desire to go on pilgrimage might make medieval English people to venerate relics or a notable image in the next village, to the mother church of their diocese, to a national shrine like Walsingham or Canterbury, or to one of the great international pilgrimage destinations of Jerusalem or Rome, Cologne, or Santiago de Compostela. This chapter examines the place of cathedrals in the landscape of medieval English pilgrimage, and discusses the experiences of pilgrims in these great shrines.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Lubin (1990), Webb (2000, pp. 210–213).

  2. 2.

    Weaver (1905, p. 14).

  3. 3.

    Northeast (2001, no. 489).

  4. 4.

    Weaver (1903, p. 30), Webb (2000, p. 199): for the cult of Edmund Lacy, Orme (1986), Radford (1949).

  5. 5.

    For the extraordinary spread of Becket’s cult: Duggan (1982), Webster and Gelin (2016), Jenkins (2019).

  6. 6.

    Townsend (2003, pp. 428–429).

  7. 7.

    Binski (2004, pp. 84–87, 123–146) on the vigour and persistence of the cult of St Etheldreda); death and canonisation dates from Farmer (2011, pp. 217–218, 378–379, 421–422, 451).

  8. 8.

    Crook (2011, pp. 160–162), Farmer (2011, pp. 458–459).

  9. 9.

    Binski (2004, pp. 126), although it should be noted that it was Grey’s short-lived successor Sewal de Bovil (buried next to Walter) who was popularly accounted a saint in medieval York.

  10. 10.

    Shinners (1988, p. 137).

  11. 11.

    Crook (2011, p. 252), Cole (1915–1916).

  12. 12.

    Malden (1905).

  13. 13.

    Raine (1859, pp. 225–226).

  14. 14.

    Crook (2011, pp. 258–288).

  15. 15.

    Crook (2011, pp. 235–239).

  16. 16.

    Crook (2011, pp. 220–226, 230–234, 244–246, 260–262).

  17. 17.

    Crook (2011, pp. 280–281).

  18. 18.

    For a good discussion of the issues around visibility, ‘shrine vistas’ and the impact of screens and reredoses, Nilson (1998, pp. 81–91).

  19. 19.

    Draper (2003, pp. 80–81), Jenkins (2019, pp. 39–47).

  20. 20.

    Translation from the Customary of the Shrine of St Thomas of Canterbury, British Library Add MS 59616, by John Jenkins, slightly modified. I am grateful to Dr Jenkins for permission to quote from his forthcoming edition and translation.

  21. 21.

    Rites (1902, p. 94).

  22. 22.

    Thompson (1997, p. 645).

  23. 23.

    ‘In which time the feretrarian called the temporal will open the doors of the church and by three rings of the bell gives notice to the people that it is the time to assemble for the mass of St Thomas, summoning and assembling pilgrims and travellers, if there are any….’ BL Add Ms 59616, fo. 1v.

  24. 24.

    Although see Jenkins (2019, pp. 29–37) for an alternate view.

  25. 25.

    Crook (2011, pp. 218–220, 264–266).

  26. 26.

    Crook (2011, pp. 218–220).

  27. 27.

    Canterbury Cathedral Archives MA 36 fo. 4r: I am indebted to Dr John Jenkins for this reference.

  28. 28.

    Thacker (2004, p. 121).

  29. 29.

    Rites (1902, p. 30).

  30. 30.

    Rites (1902, p. 38).

  31. 31.

    Rites (1902, pp. 44–45): for the exclusion of women from Cuthbert’s shrine, but access for women to the Galilee chapel and its altars, Rites (1902, pp. 35, 42–51), Heale (2014, p. 64), Park (2014, 172).

  32. 32.

    For two lists of the relics and other treasures at St Cuthbert’s shrine in the fourteenth century, Shinners (1999, pp. 195–200).

  33. 33.

    Rites (1902, p. 5).

  34. 34.

    Nilson (1998, p. 52).

  35. 35.

    Legg and Hope (1902, pp. 80–94).

  36. 36.

    The reference to dining ‘after’ is an allusion to the fact that pilgrims were encouraged to make their visit to the shrine fasting.

  37. 37.

    Bowers (1992, pp. 63–65).

  38. 38.

    Bowers (1995, pp. 419–423).

  39. 39.

    Spencer (1968), Spencer (1990).

  40. 40.

    Duffy, (2018, p. 269).

  41. 41.

    BL MS Add 59616 fo. 4r: my thanks to Dr John Jenkins for this reference.

  42. 42.

    Townsend (2003, pp. 430–431).

  43. 43.

    James (1917); the brass plate from Glastonbury is illustrated in Webb (2000, p. 87).

  44. 44.

    Webb (2000, pp. 63–91), Oates (1958, pp. 269–77), Dickinson (1956, pp. 124–130), Robinson (1926), Traherne (1967); a critical edition of Henry Bradshaw’s Life of St Werburge is available online at http://www.medievalchester.ac.uk/texts/introbradshaw.html accessed 08.09.19; For Lydgate’s Life of St Edmund, Townsend (2003, p. 429).

  45. 45.

    The Henry VI miracle-book is printed in Grosjean (1935).

  46. 46.

    Malden (1905, pp. 56–90).

  47. 47.

    Malden (1905, pp. 57–59).

  48. 48.

    Malden (1905, pp. 59–60).

  49. 49.

    Malden (1905, p. 63).

  50. 50.

    Malden (1905, pp. 68–69).

  51. 51.

    Malden (1905, pp. 59, 77): both miracles are said to have occurred forty years earlier: despite the difference in names, it is possible that the two accounts represent muddled recollections of the same incident.

  52. 52.

    Malden (1905, p. 63).

  53. 53.

    Malden (1905, pp. 76–77).

  54. 54.

    Malden (1905, pp. 78–79).

  55. 55.

    Malden (1905, p. 67).

  56. 56.

    Malden (1905, p. 63).

  57. 57.

    Malden (1905, p. 66).

  58. 58.

    Malden (1905, pp. 71–72).

  59. 59.

    Malden (1905, pp. 80–81).

  60. 60.

    What follows is based on a transcript of Durham Dean and Chapter Muniments Misc Chart 7159* kindly supplied by Dr John Jenkins. See also Jenkins (2019, pp. 39–41).

  61. 61.

    Duffy (2018, pp. 165–186, especially 168–170), Barron and Rousseau (2004, p. 40).

  62. 62.

    I am indebted to unpublished research by my former student, Fr Nikolaos Vernezos, for these details of bequests to St Hugh’s head.

  63. 63.

    Nilson (1998, pp. 144–182, 210–242).

  64. 64.

    Canterbury figures set out in Nilson (1998, pp. 211–215).

  65. 65.

    For a discussion of the issue of locality and convenience versus distance and difficulty, Duffy (2018, pp. 205–220).

  66. 66.

    BL Add Ms 59616, fo. 7v.

  67. 67.

    Shinners (1988, pp. 134–137), Nilson (1998, p. 238, graph 9). Nilson’s discussion in (1998, pp. 156–158), based on Shinners, post-dates the Peltiers’ adoption of St William by a century! For a discussion of the origins of the cult of William of Norwich, see Duffy (2018, pp. 125–135).

  68. 68.

    Shinners (1988, pp. 139–140).

  69. 69.

    Northeast (2001, pp. 412–413).

  70. 70.

    Swanson (2007, pp. 357–358).

  71. 71.

    Swanson (2007, p. 361 (Norwich)).

  72. 72.

    Wriothesley (1875, p. 31). But the bones may simply have been reburied, as St Cuthbert’s were at Durham: Butler (1995), Rites (1902, p. 103).

  73. 73.

    On which see Marshall (2003, pp. 39–73).

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  1. Magdalene College, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    Eamon Duffy

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  1. University of York, York, UK

    Dee Dyas

  2. University of York, York, UK

    John Jenkins

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Duffy, E. (2020). Pilgrimage and Cathedrals in the Later Middle Ages. In: Dyas, D., Jenkins, J. (eds) Pilgrimage and England's Cathedrals. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48032-5_3

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