In those holy journeys, as in Chaucer’s book, all ranks of society were mingled together. The majority of these pilgrims were sincere and in good faith; they had made a vow and came to fulfil it. With such dispositions, the knight who found a pilgrim like himself upon the road would not be inclined to keep haughtily aloof; besides, if the distances were great between class and class at this period, familiarity was still greater. The distance has indeed diminished at the present day, and familiarity also, as though in compensation. The noble felt himself sufficiently raised above the common people not to be afraid of using a kind of jovial intimacy with them on occasion; at the present time, when superiority of rank is of less importance, many are more attentive and take care not to overstep a limit which is not now so patent as before.
Arrived at the end of the journey, all prayed; prayed with fervour in the humblest posture. The soul was filled with religious emotion when from the end of the majestic alley formed by the great pillars of the church, through the coloured twilight of the nave, the heart divined, rather than the eye saw, the mysterious object of veneration for which such a distance had been traversed at the cost of such fatigue. Though the practical man galloping up to bargain with the saint for the favour of God, though the emissary sent to make offering in the name of his master might keep a dry and clear eye, tears {358} coursed down the cheeks of the poor and simple in heart; he tasted fully of the pious emotion he had come to seek, the peace of heaven descended into his bosom, and he went away consoled.
Such was the happy lot of humble devout souls. Pilgrims, however, were undoubtedly a very mixed race; no reader of Chaucer needs to be reminded that the talk on the way was not limited to edifying subjects, and that pilgrims themselves, even allowing the greater number to have been sincere, were not all of them vessels of election. Some went like gypsies to a fair and tried to gather money by begging; some went for the pleasures of the journey and the merriments of the road; so that reformers and satirists, paying more attention to the abuse than to the less visible good that came along with it, began to raise a cry which grew louder and louder until, at the time of the Reformation, it was something like a storm. Whom did Langland see on Palmers’ way, near Walsingham? Those same false hermits we have already met by the highroads and at the corner of bridges, and in what objectionable company!
Wyclif denounced pilgrimages most persistently, so much so that, when later some of his followers had to renounce their heresies, belief in the usefulness and sanctity of pilgrimages was one of the articles they had to subscribe. Thus, in his vow of abjuration, the Lollard William Dynet of Nottingham, on December 1, 1395, swears in these words: “Fro this day forthwarde I shall worshipe ymages, with praying and offering unto hem, in the {359} worschepe of the seintes that they be made after; and also I shal nevermore despyse pylgremage.”502
But other Lollards refused to recant. Questioned by Archbishop Arundel the irreconcilable enemy of his sect, William Thorpe confesses in 1407 having preached against that passion “to seek and visit the bones or images . . . of this saint and of that,” so uncontrollable that, “ofttimes divers men and women of these runners thus madly hither and thither into pilgrimage, borrow hereto other men’s goods (yea, and sometimes they steal men’s goods hereto), and they pay them never again.”503
For “divers men and women” those journeys being chiefly pleasure trips, nothing, Thorpe continues, is forgotten that may make them more pleasurable, “and finding out one pilgrimage, they will ordain beforehand to have with them both men and women that can well sing wanton songs; and some other pilgrims will have with them bagpipes: so that every town 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, they make more noise than if the king came there away, with all his clarions and many other minstrels.”
Chaucer’s pilgrims had not, perhaps, quite so magnificent a record, and when they crossed Dartford or Rochester did not outnoise the king himself; they had, in any case, no women singers; but their miller was provided with a sonorous bagpipe:
Their monk’s bridle was heard jingling “as loude as {360} dooth the chapel-belle”; they talked boisterously, wrangled, and made merry,
and dogs, of course, did not remain “doumb” for them any more than for the king.
One more objection of Thorpe’s to those journeys was that, “if these men and women be a month out in their pilgrimage, many of them shall be, a half-year after, great janglers, tale-tellers, and liars.” Chaucer’s pilgrims were certainly, in their way, and no one nowadays objects, great “tale-tellers.”
Archbishop Arundel, who seems at times to be the one interrogated (but we must not forget that we have only Thorpe’s version, unrevised by the other party), makes a more picturesque than telling answer: “Lewd losell! thou seest not far enough in this matter! for thou considerest not the great travail of pilgrims. . . . I say to thee that it is right well done, that pilgrims have with them both singers and also pipers: that when one of them that goeth barefoot striketh his toe upon a stone, and hurteth him sore and maketh him to bleed, it is well done that he or his fellow begin then a song or else take out of his bosom a bagpipe to drive away with such mirth the hurt of his fellow.”
Lay writers of a reforming mind objected to pilgrimages, not so much on account of the worship of images, but because they thought these travels an encouragement to laziness and idle living. We know the opinion of Langland. The same views are expressed by an author of a quite different turn of mind, the one who wrote the “Roman de Renart,” and who has a special chapter to inform us “of the pilgrimage of Reynard and how he went to Rome.” Reynard cannot but consider that he has greatly {361} and many a time sinned, and feeling some anxiety about his misdeeds, goes to a hermit and confesses himself. Such are the faults he has to declare that the holy man does not dare absolve him, but advises him to go to Rome and ask the absolution of the Pope. Reynard accordingly “takes his scrip and burdon [that is, his wallet and staff, as did all pilgrims], and begins to move on, and takes his way; he looks quite like a pilgrim, his scrip fits his neck beautifully.” But travelling alone is not pleasant; he meets Belin the Sheep, and persuades him to come with him, and a little farther “Bernart the arch-priest,” a donkey, who was eating thistles in a ditch; he also secures this new companion.
As night is coming, the three, finding themselves near the house of Primaut the Wolf, enter without ceremony and make themselves at home, while the owner of the place is away. They find there “salted meat, cheese, and eggs . . . and good ale. Belin drinks so much that he loses his head, and then begins to sing, and the arch-priest to organ-bray, and Master Reynard sings in falsetto.” But their merriment is soon at an end. The alarm has been given; Ysengrin, Hersent, and a number of other wolves, relations, friends, compeers of Primaut, who all of them owe grudges to Reynard, come round and besiege the pilgrims. They escape with great difficulty. Ill-pleased with these grievous adventures, they agree not to go to Rome at all, and Reynard, to whom, rather against likelihood, the author here lends his own thoughts, winds up the enterprise with a speech: “ ‘My lords,’ says he, ‘by my head, this wandering is loathsome and tiring. There is in the world many a good man that has never been to Rome; such an one has come back from the Seven Saints who is worse than he ever was. I mean to take my way home, and I shall live by my labour and seek honest earnings; I shall be charitable to poor people.’ Then they cried, ‘Be it so, {362} be it so,’ and they betook themselves homewards,” converts to better lives, for a time.504
The same mode of reasoning was used later on, at the time of the Renaissance, by no less a man than Erasmus, who has described in his most satirical vein the vanities of pilgrims and pilgrimages. He supposes a meeting of two friends, Menedemus and Ogygyus, the latter just back from Compostela, and, what is more interesting for us, from Walsingham, “the most holy name in all England. . . . The towne is almost susteynyd by the resort of pylgrymes.” The faithful believer Ogygyus goes on describing the wonders of the place, the gold and silver and precious stones offered to the miraculous statue of our Lady, the marvels worked at the holy wells, the miracle of the knight towards whom the portal of the church stretched out, the beautiful relics, and especially the crystal phial containing the Virgin’s milk. “Whan ye sexten sawe us, he dyd runne to the aultre, and put apon hym his surplese and his stole about his nekke, knelyd downe relygyously and worshipyd it, and streghtforthe dyd offre the mylke to us to kysse.” The same ceremony with surplice and kneeling, though it has disappeared at Walsingham with the phial itself, may still be seen elsewhere any day, in Milan, for example, at the tomb of San Carlo Borromeo.
Ogygyus and his friends make their offerings, not without remarking that some unscrupulous visitors, by a clever trick, pick money out of the plate instead of leaving in it any of their own: a trick which, as we have seen, was used by Panurge on a certain day when he was somewhat “escorné et taciturne” for lack of pence.
Erasmus ends his dialogue in the same strain as the author of “Reynard”: {363}
“I have enough to do,” says sceptical Menedemus, “with my statyons of Rome.
“Ogygyus. Of Rome, that dyd never see Rome?
“Menedemus. I wyll tell you, thus I go my statyons at home. I go in to the parler, and I se unto the chast lyvynge of my doughters; agayne frome thense I go in to my shope, I beholde what my servauntes, bothe men and women, be doynge. From thense into the kytchyn, lokynge abowt, if ther nede any of my cownsell; frome thense hyther and thyther, observynge howe my chylderne be occupyed, what my wyffe dothe, beynge carefull that every thynge be in ordre: these be statyons of Rome.
“Ogygyus. But these thynges saynt James wold dow for yow.
“Menedemus. That I shuld se unto these thynges holy Scripture commaundethe; that I shuld commyt the charge to sayntes I dyd rede yt never commaunded.”505
Thus far Menedemus, whose task in life seems to have consisted in seeing to it that others fulfilled theirs. The friend of Erasmus, Sir Thomas More, took the opposite view, and wrote a dialogue in defence of images, relics, and pilgrimages, but in vain.506 The time of the Reformation had come; doubt was becoming general, and from peasant to baron all the people assimilated arguments like those of Latimer:
“What thinke ye of these images that are had more then their felowes in reputation? that are gone unto with such labour and werines of the body, frequented {364} with such our cost, sought out and visited with such confidence? what say ye by these images, that are so famous, so noble, so noted, beying of them so many and so divers in England. Do you thinke that this preferryng of picture to picture, image to image, is the right use, and not rather the abuse of images?”507
These times were yet to be. In the Middle Ages pilgrims came to offer their prayers, and also money, each one according to his means. When the king, in his perpetual goings and comings, turned aside to visit a revered shrine, he usually gave seven shillings, as shown by the ordinances of Edward II for his household.508
Before going away the pilgrims, who had admired, besides the shrine and its jewels, the stained glass of the church, the monumental curiosities of the place and sometimes its fortifications,509 bought, just as now, medals or signs as remembrances of their journey.510 The author of the supplement to the “Canterbury Tales” at the beginning of the fifteenth century, shows the pilgrims purchasing in the town various sorts of sygnys or brochis, so {365} that people who saw them might know where they had been:
They were of lead or pewter, and perforated to be more easily sewn on the breast or cap, like those sold at the present day at St. Anne d’Auray in Brittany, but larger. At Canterbury they represented St. Thomas, or were in the shape of an ampulla or tiny flask, containing water from the miraculous well; at St. James’s they represented shells; at Amiens the head of St. John the Baptist: “Ecce signum faciei beati Johannis Baptiste”; at Rome the holy sudary, called the vernicle;512 at Rocamadour the Holy Virgin.513 The right of selling these signs was a source of profit, and it sometimes belonged exclusively to a convent or to a private family. At Rocamadour this {366} right had been conceded in return, it seems, for military services, to the De Valon family, lords of Thegra.514 They and the Bishop of Tulle appointed a deputy to superintend the sale, and the product was divided by halves between them and the bishop. Such were the benefits derived from these sales that clandestine manufactories of pewter medals were established by the inhabitants, who sold numbers of them, to the great detriment of the authorized shop and in defiance of ever-recurring prohibitions. Once, however, in 1425, free sale was allowed to all the people of the place; the country had been reduced to such poverty that the bishop renounced his privilege for two years, out of charity and for the benefit of his flock.
Pilgrims when going home were careful to wear prominently sewn on their garments these testimonials of their holy travels. In the above-quoted dialogue of Erasmus, the sceptical Menedemus wonders at the appearance of his friend: “I pray you, what araye is this that you be in; me thynke that you be clothyd with cockle schelles, and be laden on every side with bruches of lead and tynne. And you be pretely garnyshed with wrethes of strawe, and your arme is full of snakes eggs,” thus uncivilly designating the beads of his chaplet. The French king Louis XI, of grim memory, was never without some such pewter medals and brooches, and wore them on his hat. “And truly,” writes his contemporary, Claude de Seyssel, “his devotion seemed more superstitious than religious. For to whatever image or church of God and the saints or of Our Lady that he heard the people were devoted, or where miracles were worked, he went there to make offerings, or sent a man there expressly. He had, besides, his hat quite full of images, mostly of lead or pewter, which he kissed on all occasions when any good or bad news arrived, or that his fancy prompted him; casting himself upon his knees so {367} suddenly at times, in whatever place he might be, that he seemed more like one wounded in his understanding than a rational man.”515
Professional pilgrims outshone in this respect all the others. For, beside the occasional pilgrim who came to make an offering to such or such a shrine in accomplishment of a vow and afterwards returned to take up again the course of his ordinary life, there was the pilgrim by calling or by penance (for such a life-long penance was sometimes inflicted), whose whole existence was spent travelling from one sanctuary to another, always on the road, and always begging. With the professional pardoner, the professional palmer, back from many countries, adorned with many tokens, the witness of many wonders, the hero of many adventures, was the most curious type of the religious wayfaring race, with hardly any equivalent in our days. Like the pardoner and the friar, the palmer could not but have a great experience of men and things; he had seen much, and he invented more. He too had to edify the multitude to whom he held out his hand for alms, and the fine stories, in which he rarely missed giving himself a part to play, were his livelihood; failing this, his daily bread failed too. By dint of repeating his tales, he came to almost believing them, then quite; and his voice henceforth took that accent of certitude which alone begets conviction in audiences. Besides, he came from so far that he might indeed have seen marvels; around us, of course, life flows on without prodigies, almost without events in its flat monotony; but it is common knowledge that in distant parts things are quite different. And the best proof is that none of those who have undertaken the journey comes back disappointed, quite the contrary; the {368} pleasure of believing them is moreover innocent enough, why should we deprive ourselves of an enjoyment exhilarating for the mind and good for the soul?
Clever people, poets, men of the world, deprived themselves of this pleasure, and made up for the loss by laughing at pilgrims and story-telling travellers. So did Chaucer, as we have already seen, who held up to ridicule in his “House of Fame,” shipmen and pilgrims, with their bags “brimful of lies.” To the same effect but in graver mood, Langland wrote in his “Visions”:
The crowd felt otherwise; they listened, laughed perhaps sometimes, but more often recollected themselves and remained attentive. The pilgrim was so interesting! he was a play in himself, a living story, he had on his feet the dust of Rome and of Jerusalem, and brought news of the “worshippers” of Mahomet. He was a picture too, with his bag hung at his side, not for lies, but for provisions, and his staff, at the top of which was a knob and sometimes a piece of metal with an appropriate motto like the device on a bronze ring found at Hitchin, a cross with these words, “Hæc in tute dirigat iter” (“May this safely guide thee on thy way”).517 The staff had at the other end an iron point, like an alpenstock of the {369} present day; as may be seen in numerous drawings in mediæval manuscripts.
The whole race of wanderers was, however, as we know, looked at askance by the king’s officers; these goings and comings disquieted the sheriff. We have already met labourers who, weary of their lord, left him under pretext of distant pilgrimages, and laid down without scruple the pilgrim’s staff at the door of a new master who would pay them better. False pilgrims were not less numerous than false pardoners and false hermits; they were condemned to repose, under pain of imprisonment, by the same statutes as the beggars and wandering workmen. Henceforward, orders Richard II in 1388, they too must have permits with a special seal affixed by certain worthy men.518 Those without a permit should be forthwith arrested, unless infirm and incapable of work, for their good faith is then evident, and it is not for the love of vagabondage that they painfully go and visit “optimum ægrorum medicum,” Saint Thomas. Even greater severity was shown when it was a matter of {370} crossing the sea; would-be pilgrims must be furnished with regular passports; and the law applied to “all manner of people, as well clerks as other,” under pain of confiscation of all their goods. The exceptions made by the king show besides that it is wanderers of doubtful status and motives whom he has in view, for there are dispensations for the “lords and other great persons of the realm,” for the “true and notable merchants,” and lastly, for the “king’s soldiers.”519
This passport or “licence,” this “special leave of the king,” could only be available at certain ports, namely, London, Sandwich, Dover, Southampton, Plymouth, Dartmouth, Bristol, Yarmouth, Boston, Kingston-upon-Hull, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and the ports of the coast facing Ireland. Heavy penalties were laid on all port wardens, inspectors, ship captains, etc., who were neglectful, or so bold as to show favour to roamers. In the year 1389, the king restrained pilgrims from embarking anywhere else than at Dover or Plymouth. To put to sea elsewhere, an “especial licence from the king himself” was necessary.520 A number of such licences, as will be seen further, are still in existence.