Nearly every Cathedral and Monastery, too, had its famous saint, to whose shrine the people restored. There were St. Cuthbert at Durham, St. William at York, St. Hugh at Lincoln, St. Edward Confessor at Westminster, and St. Edmund at Bury, and many others.
There were also famous Roods (figures of our Lord on the Cross), statues of the Virgin, and Holy Wells; and a place of great attraction was Glastonbury, to which many travelled to see the famous Holy Thorn, said to have been planted by St. Joseph of Arimathæa.
Members of all classes of society undertook these pilgrimages. Rich people with no occupation could afford the leisure and cost of these journeys, and the poor, who gave up their regular work and made the pilgrimage, could count on board and lodging at the numerous hospitals, monasteries, at the parish priest’s rectory, and in every gentleman’s hall.
The poor pilgrim repaid his hosts by entertaining them with the news of the lands through which he had passed, and by amusing the household after supper with marvellous saintly legends and travellers’ tales.
He raised funds, too, on his return journey by retailing holy trifles and curiosities, which were sold wholesale at the shrines frequented by pilgrims, and sometimes he would make a bolder flight by carrying some fragment of a relic, a joint of a bone, or a couple of the hairs of a saint, and he received payment from people for bringing to their doors some of the advantages of the holy shrines which he had visited. This, however, was an abuse, and was visited by heavy penalties by the Church.
The main purpose of these pilgrimages was, of course, to gain direct spiritual advantage, but some were expiatory and penitential; others were made out of gratitude for special mercies, recovering from illnesses, &c.
It is said that in the 8th century, some English merchants carried on a kind of smuggling trade in foreign countries. They put on the pilgrim’s garb, and carried their goods in bales, which they said contained provisions for their journey, and were exempt from paying any duty.
The preparation of the pilgrim in the Middle Ages was a solemn matter. Before he started on his journey, he went to Church, and, after Confession, his scrip and staff were blessed and handed to him, and his habit (if he were going to Jerusalem), was blessed also. He then took the Holy Sacrament, and it is surmised that a certificate of his having been blessed as a pilgrim was then handed to him.
After that, he was conducted out of the parish, to commence his journey, by the priest, with the Cross and Holy Water borne in procession.
A certain costume was worn, spoken of as “pilgrim’s weeds,” consisting of a robe, hat, staff, and scrip.