Pilgrim

Pilgrim (Ital. pellegrino, Lat. peregrinus, 'a visitor of foreign lands'). A pilgrim is one who visits, with religious intent, some place reputed to possess especial holiness. The early Christians, like the Jews and the pagan Gentiles, regarded certain places with special religious interest; above all, the Holy Land, and particularly the scenes of the Passion of our Lord at Jerusalem. St Jerome refers the practice of visiting Jerusalem to the discovery of the Holy Cross by St Helena. He himself was a zealous pilgrim; and throughout the 4th, 5th, and 6th centuries pilgrims habitually undertook the long and perilous journey to the Holy Land from almost every part of the West. Other sacred places, too, were held to be fit objects of the same visits of religious veneration. The tombs of the apostles Peter and Paul, and of the martyrs in the catacombs at Rome, are so described by St Jerome. St Basil speaks in the same terms of the tomb of the Forty Martyrs; and the historian Theodoret tells of not only visiting such sanctuaries, but of hanging up therein, as offerings, gold and silver ornaments, and even models of hands, feet, eyes, &c., in commemoration of the cures of diseases supernaturally obtained as the fruit of these pious visits. The Pilgrimage, however, prominently so called, was that of the Holy Land; and, even after Jerusalem had been occupied by the Saracens, the liberty of pilgrimage, on payment of a tax, was formally secured by treaty; and it was from the necessity of protecting pilgrims from outrage that the well-known Military Orders had their origin. The Crusades may be regarded as a pilgrimage on a great scale; the direct object being to secure for the Latin Christians immunity of pilgrimage. On the other hand, the final abandonment of the Crusades led to a great extension of what may be called domestic pilgrimage, and drew into religious notice and veneration many shrines in Europe, which, after the lapse of time, became celebrated places of pious resort. The chief places of pilgrimage in the West were, in Italy—Rome, Loreto (q.v.), Assisi; in Spain—Compostella, Guadalupe, Montserrat; in France—Fourvières at Lyons (q.v.), St Denis; in Germany—Maria Zell, Cologne, Trèves; in Switzerland—Einsiedeln; in England—Walsingham, Canterbury, and many others of minor note; in Scotland, Whithorn, Whitekirk (near North Berwick), Loreto (near Musselburgh), Scone, Dundee, Paisley, and Melrose; in Ireland, Lough Derg (q.v.), and many places connected with the life or death of the early Irish saints. The pilgrim commonly bound himself only by a temporary vow (differing in this from the palmer), which terminated with the actual visit to the place of pilgrimage, or at least with the return home, and by which he was bound for the time to chastity and to certain other ascetic observances. The costume consisted of a black or gray gabardine, girt with a cincture, from which a shell and scrip were suspended, a broad hat, ornamented with scallop-shells, and a long staff. Many abuses arose out of these pilgrimages, the popular notions regarding which may be gathered—although, probably, with a dash of caricature—from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, and from Erasmus' account of the pilgrimage to Walsingham (Peregrinatio religionis ergo). Pilgrimages have gone much into disuse in France since the Revolution. In late years, however, pilgrims have resorted in large numbers, not only to the ancient sanctuaries of Fourvières, Puy, &c., but also to La Salette, Paray-le-Monial, and since 1858 to Lourdes. There were special pilgrimages by English Catholics to Pontigny (1874), Holy Island (1887), and Iona (1888). Knock (q.v.) has become since 1880 a resort of Irish Catholics. Positivists also visit the places connected with the lives of selected great men. Benares is one of the great places of pilgrimage for Hindus; and the Hajj to Mecca is the goal of every true Moslem's ambition. See Jusserand's English Wayfaring Life in the Middle Ages (Eng. trans. 1888).