Gone Medieval - What is a Pilgrimage?

Episode Date: March 29, 2024

In medieval times, Britain was criss-crossed by pilgrim routes, that took in such world-famous sites as Canterbury and Lindisfarne as well as out-of-the-way locations along paths not so widely travelled. But why did people undergo pilgrimage? What were its benefits? And why did some send people in their honour?In this episode of Gone Medieval, first released in September 2021, Matt Lewis is joined by architectural historian Dr. Emma Wells as they discuss the practice that some might consider the beginning of tourism.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code MEDIEVAL - sign up here.You can take part in our listener survey here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From long-loss Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr. Eleanor Jarniger, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life, only on history hit. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries

with a brand-new release every week exploring everything from the ancient world, to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Welcome to this episode of Gone Medieval from History Hit. I'm Matt Lewis. Pilgrimage was a fixture of the medieval world. Men and women would travel sometimes over vast distances to seek the help and support of saints or to offer them their thanks. We might consider it something like a medieval tourist industry, I guess, if we're being a little bit cynical, but with the added incentive of helping to reach heaven. My guest today is Dr Emma Wells,

who is a lecturer in ecclesiastical and architectural history at the University of York and the author of Pilgrim Roots of the British Isles. Thank you very much for joining us, Emma. Thank you very much for having me. Fantastic. So I guess if we dive in, just at the very highest level, what was a pilgrimage and why would someone undertake one? Well, I suppose it's a very large question in and of itself, but the concept of pilgrimage is, you know, is thought to have acquired different meanings for different cultures, eras, society, and even faith throughout history. So it's certainly not just a Christian concept by any stretch of the imagination.

But in Christianity, Kahn and Law defined it as a mandatory journey imposed as penance, usually for wrongdoing or even a voluntary act, which involved a preliminary vow, and both had to be undertaken in an appropriate manner. So that might be carrying the pilgrim insignia of script and staff. your bag and your cane, or if you will, your walking stick. But it derives from the Latin paragonateo, which means wandering or travelling around. So they usually have specific underlying religious intentions, as we think, so journey into a holy place with a vow or an intention. But in essence, they enabled one to atone for one's sins or seek a miraculous cure or even just

extend one's experience of the world. Usually, of course, when we're think of going to enact a miraculous cure, they will be going to the bones of saints or relics of saints, so to a tomb, shrine, that would be your end point. So lots of different sort of areas of pilgrimage and different types of pilgrimage. But that's the basic concept in a nutshell. Brilliant. And are there many aspects that sit outside that kind of religious element? I'm thinking recently, I was talking to someone else about King Arthur and his remains that were found at Glastonbury, and this becomes like a big pilgrimage centre, even though Arthur is in no way a religious figure or a saint or anything like that.

Are there elements of pilgrimage that sit outside the religious? Well, I suppose yes. Of course, if we're thinking of King Arthur and Glastonbury or any sort of church or holy site, let's just call it, where one is journeying to pilgrimage on, the reason for that is usually because they want a saint or they want a notable figure. Why do they want that, well, to bring in the pilgrims?

And the reason for that is because pilgrims bring offerings, therefore they bring the money. And that's essentially how our great cathedrals were built of pilgrim offerings. So it's essentially a little bit akin to a modern-day theme park. So the better rides you have or the more relics you have, the better saints, the better notable figures, the more money that pilgrims will come and spend. So it might be a saintly figure that you are going to visit or it might be a notable figure, such as a king, such as a bishop. For example, we see at Exeter, the cult of bishops, and we see throughout the Middle Ages

that cathedrals were trying to create a saint or create a cult-like following for a certain notable figure throughout the era. But I suppose, as I've touched upon earlier, journeying in search of enlightenment or salvation or hope was a practice of virtually every culture and faith. So this isn't always a religious journey, but it could also be, so thinking of sort of secular aspects or non-religious aspects. It could be just a liminal activity, so a rite of passage or time out from everyday experience. So there are certainly lots of different aspects to this.

And even to this day, identifying space as sacred to invest and instill with sanctity is still a response to tragedy or bereavement, if we think of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, you know, when hundreds of thousands of people sort out places associated with her, or the sort of smaller wayside shrines, which marked death through accidents or violence, you know, at the side of a road or something like that. There are various concepts, but usually it's the idea of faith is behind it, whether religious or not. Yeah. And so who was a medieval pilgrim? Was this the reserve of the rich people who could afford to make these journeys?

Or was it something that would be factored into almost everybody's lives? In essence, I would say everyone's lives, really. Of course, from the primary sources, we have largely the records and education. of pilgrims who were of elite or royal status, essentially. But we do know that there are pilgrim accounts and offering accounts of just a vast number of pilgrims, which means they were essentially the general public, the laity. So it was pretty much everyone. Of course we have to remember that they didn't have paid leave days back then. So you would have to take time off work or off the harvest or whatever the occupation was.

So it wasn't something that you were doing week upon week or day in, day out, or in a month out, there were also different types of pilgrimage, depending on the person and depending on what you were going for. So it wasn't just the very lengthy, long distance, arduous journeys that we tend to think of to Canterbury or Lords or over to Rome or somewhere like that. It could be to your local church to see your local saint. And so your more everyday pilgrim, if you will, is no doubt going on a small pilgrimage to a local church. But indeed, there were also those who could pay for people to go on pilgrimages in place of themselves if they couldn't be bothered or they were too busy. I just didn't want to, I suppose. And some would even make suitable

provision in their wills or after their death. So, for example, in the 14th century, there's an account mid-14th century of a London merchant who paid about £20 for a month to go to Mark Sionai. And in fact, Henry VIII sent a load in 1535. He sent a team of officials to find out what was going it on in the monastery. So it's a kind of similar thing that we see this time and time again, that sending people out on one's behalf just happened throughout the Middle Ages. So if you could pay to have someone else go in this torturous journey, why not? Between that and things like indulgences, the medieval church was quite good at finding ways for people to part with their money instead of their time, wasn't it? Well, absolutely. We have to think this is a vast enterprise,

vast economic enterprise, the sort of birth of the cult of relics, which starts way back in the early medieval period, the sort of getting people to come to your site in order for them to spend money that was going on throughout the Middle Ages. It hit its peak in the sort of 13th to 15th century, but it'd be going on and stealing of relics, etc., in order to get the best ones for your particular church. That had been going on throughout. So extremely important economic enterprise, yeah. How many splinters of the one true cross were there dotted across Europe? I think the cross would have been as big as Britain itself if we put that as all together. Yeah. And so could we reasonably then suggest that probably the less well off were making kind of more local and geographically small pilgrimages and that going to Jerusalem and Rome and things like that was probably the reserve of those wealthy enough to afford the time off, the time to travel and everything that goes with making a journey like that in those days?

Or do we have examples of poorer people making those long journeys as well? Yeah, I mean, as I say, most of the accounts are elite. people on pilgrimage, really. I mean, we do have sort of the 14th century accounts who's sort in the middle, if you will, middling sort, as would be known. But that's simply because of what remains. But as I say, there are offering accounts, for example, Durham Cathedral that show that there were hundreds of pilgrims on, for example, on the high feast days, on the saint's days, that were coming through an offering. And therefore, we also know through sort of the architectural plan form of cathedrals and churches that this was a particular route that one would follow

and therefore those are for the masses essentially. So by all means, all social strata were entering on going on pilgrimage. But in terms of the very long distance, lengthy, torturous, arduous journeys, that yes was really the preserve of the elite or a once-in-a-lifetime jaunt for those who were of lower statuses and therefore one would be going to a local church more often really that would be your pilgrimage. It might be to the next parish. It might be to the next sea. You might be able to get time of work to do a day here and go to your next diocese, but you're largely elite or just once in a lifetime opportunity. Yeah. It's an odd situation, I guess, where it's actually the rich who are putting themselves through the arduous journeys and the potentially life-threatening

risks of making those humongous journeys because they're the only ones that can afford to rather than living in comfort in their castles. Yeah, or paying someone on your behalf to do so. That's the big cop out, I guess. So how might a person select a pilgrimage route? We've touched on this a little bit, I guess, if you're geographically and financially restricted, but was it based on local saints or a particular need that somebody had to get a cure or some help?

Would they seek out a particular saint? Or was it a desire to complete certain prestigious pilgrimages? Or was there an effort to collect a set? you know, like my Panini football stickers with a got, got, got. I think all of the above, essentially, and it would depend on the need. You know, what are you going on pilgrimage for? If you're a pregnant lady, you might go to Walsingham. If you have a broken leg and you live within the walls of York, you'd go to St. William of York,

within York, Minster. So it depends on the need. If you need the intercession of the Virgin, you might even go right across the Lords or where it might be. But I think also we know from the fact that there are so many different pilgrim badges that one would essentially collect the set and you would display them along your hat or your script, whatever. So there are certainly people who could afford to and who had the opportunity to

would go on the great big pilgrimages to Rome to the Holy Land to Canterbury here and Durham before that as St. Cathbert was extremely popular. So as I say, all of the above, but it would really depend on what you were setting out on pilgrimage for. Was it for a cure? Was it because you'd had a bad harvest? Was it because you'd broken your leg?

Was it because you couldn't have a child, you're infertile? Or was it simply because you need to atone for sins and you need to go as far as possible because it was such a bad sin? So it really depend on the intention behind that particular pilgrimage. And were the pilgrim badges? Were they just a reminder that you'd done it? Were they something you could brag about and show off that you'd done it? Or was it a little bit of taking away some of that spiritual power with you? Both, essentially. There were often sort of stalls all around within the closest of cathedrals, for example, where you could buy these as a sort of, yes, they were mementos, but also they were ex-votos, they were votive offerings.

So you could buy a badge and you could leave it at the shrine as a sort of hope that the cure or that your illness would be rid of you. So it was a sort of buying what was going to happen or your hopes of what was to come. And you would leave it on the shrine or the tomb of that particular saint. Or there are also instances of them being essentially crushed up and thrown into wells. into some pool of water, I suppose, again, in the hope that your wish would be fulfilled. And in addition, though, you would also display them, as I say, as sort of, this is where I've been, this is what I've done.

And again, in the hopes that whatever you need to be fulfilled would be. So again, it would depend on your intention. But there was always this sort of faith behind the buying of an actual pilgrim badge, really. And it was a sort of, yes, it's a been there, done that, but also the, hope of what is to come and why you've been on pilgrimage. Yeah, probably being a bit blasé, but it sounds a little bit like the medieval equivalent of the 1970s holiday photo slideshow that you bore the neighbours with, telling them all about where you've been and what you've done.

Exactly. You're keeping up with the Joneses. He might have been on, you know, X pilgrimages and you're going to show you've been to Y. So if I think there's always that, yeah, absolutely. Outdo the neighbours. Yes, exactly. And were pilgrimages usually in response to a crisis, or were they, a more routine way of keeping up the faith and hopefully avoiding crises? Did they serve both purposes? Were they more one than the other?

I would say both purposes really. I suppose it's difficult from the records to say one or the other. But for example, there are lots of images and records of ex-photo offerings, which were sort of wax miniatures of, say, an arm or a face or a leg. And you're essentially hoping that your leg will be broken. And so you'd fashion it into the image of whatever's broken or whatever needs to be cured and hang it up around the shrine that you're going to of the saint

that you want the cure to be fulfilled by. Sounds oddly close to something like voodoo, doesn't it? Little voodoo dolls. Yeah. And I mean, if you go to York Minster in the St. William window, that early 15th century window, there is an actual image of the shrine being hung up with all these little works offerings.

It looks rather sinister, but silence of the lambs, I suppose. But the point of that is to show that people were going in the hopes of this would be cured or this would change would occur. So I suppose that's following a crisis. But, you know, we know that people went on pilgrimage, for example, if there was a bad harvest or a bad harvest was coming. So I think it could be either or proving whether it was a preemptive act or not is perhaps a little bit more difficult.

I guess the problem is that the most famous ones are the ones in response to a crisis. You think of things like Henry II going to Thomas Beckett's tomb when everything is falling apart around him and, you know, all of the sources are at pains to say that exactly the same moment Henry arrives at Beckett's tomb, the King of Scots is captured and all of his problems are ended and they're very keen to make that connection. So I guess the problem is that the famous ones are in response to a crisis, whereas there must have been lots going on to, as you say, fund the building of these cathedrals and things like that. Absolutely. And of course, you know, Henry the Seconds is an extremely famous or infamous, in fact, peregrination because of, you know,

what he caused Beckett and, you know, all the flagellation that went with him. He was ceremonially beaten and all that and went barefoot. And I think there was a hundred monks who beat him as he went. And that was an extremely torturous, arduous perugination that perhaps was not quite the same as the everyday pilgrimage. So, of course, that's, you know, a much greater reaction. But of course that was in terms of a crisis. And of course, we know that, in fact, many of his circumstances, successors, you know, Edric I, the First, the Black Prince, Henry V, the 5th, Margaret of York,

Henry VIII, etc. They all went to see Beckett, for example. If he'd done X for this person, and in fact, you know, we know from the miracle windows, the miracle accounts of Beckett, that all these miracles and cures supposedly responded and acted in response after his death and then after his translation into the shrine, that why wouldn't you go to it, whether it was post-crisis or before? So, of course, As I say, we don't really know either way, but we know all these hundreds of people whose wishes were fulfilled in response. It wasn't just the great kings and nobles. And I guess an example of the preemptive version is the shrine at Walsingham that you mentioned that was often visited by particularly pregnant noble, ladies and queens and things like that would go there in the hope of a safe childbirth and everything else.

How did Walsingham become such a kind of central pilgrimage for them? Well, it became a sort of little Nazareth, if you will. It was second only to the shrine of Beckett, Canterbury, insignificance to English pilgrims, of course. But the statue of the Blessed Virgin and Child, which still sort of there, was contained within a house. And it was supposed to be a replica of the building in Nazareth, where Mary received the news of her pregnancy from the angel Gabriel.

And it was said that the angel had appeared to Richeldez or Raquelis, a noble woman in a dream. And she asked her to construct the building. And so the noble woman responded. And by the 12th century, the priest. Priory, Walsingham had grown up, and pilgrims, the majority, were unable to visit the real Nazareth in the Holy Land, particularly because of the conversion to Islam, and therefore it became England's little Nazareth instead, and therefore given the Virgin Mary's importance for fertility and for all different women's issues, if you will, that therefore women often journeyed

there, and there's a particular routes that would be followed in response, depending on your needs. And I think in an increasingly secular age today, it's often hard for us to empathise with pilgrims and to be a little bit cynical about what they were doing like I've been a couple of times. And I very nearly was just then thinking about Disneyland and Disney World and little franchises of Nazareth and things like that, but that's probably a little bit too cynical. Medieval pilgrims, they absolutely believed in the power of pilgrimage and the power of the saints, didn't they?

Absolutely. I think faith was really at the heart of all this. and faith in the power or intercessory power, not only of the saints, but also of their relics post-mortem. The human remains of the saints or holy figures is extremely important from everything from Christianity to Buddhism and even in a secular form as well. The point of going to a pilgrimage was usually to see

or journey to any sort of artefact with a great religious or significance. And the belief, I think, in the power and brusity of relics is a concept that's still familiar, as I say, to this day. We can think of artefacts possessed by modern day icons, which still inspire belief and hope. So it's sort of souvenirs, that idea of souvenirs or mementos or objects infused with the divine power. And we still have faith in sort of journeying to particular waypoints

or undertaking particular rites of passage in the same way. And it's that sort of pure belief that there will be a response in some sort, whether it's just that you will be cured of whatever is ailing you or that a miracle will occur if you journey to a specific relic. And the Latin reliquum means for relic, comes from remainder. So it's the real value of these divine articles lay in their power to sort of bridge that heaven and earth. And I think that's still the case, even with mementos, whether it's of celebrities or a loved one.

It's that bridge between the natural and sort of supernatural between man and God. And so there were different types of relics and there still are from first class to second class to third class, whether it was a part of a body or clothing or an artifact and then all the way to third class, which is anywhere a person was, at being, at laid. And I think that's still the case today. As I say, it's very much a non-religious as well as religious concept is sort of totemic objects, if you will, to capture attention or inspire faith in some sort of response. I guess there's a parallel in, I'm in danger of being a bit too flippant about it again,

but in modern celebrity culture around when a celebrity dies and all of their goods are auctioned off and there's people wanting to get their hands on the things that are most valuable, the most iconically associated with them. So you get that kind of grading of celebrity possessions in terms of the money they'll bring in. So I guess it's not that different to how saints' relics were in the medieval period. It's absolutely the same. I mean, obviously the most iconic in the Middle Ages was, the cross, and then from there it would be, you know, for example, the Chur and shroud

and those sorts of things, and then anywhere he'd been, and the same with the saints. But today, revered figures become part of the sort of celestial celebrity cult market, if you will, and everything from Jimmy Hendrix's guitars and chewing gum and lipstick of Marilyn Monroe and things like that. They still capture the same attention as a church that possessed, you know, a corpse or a finger bone or whatever it is, they're sort of still believed to be powerfully active with the power of that particular person, the manner of that particular person who possessed it. And it's still the same today. And why such object scope is such vast amounts of money.

And it was the same back then. Yeah, it must speak to something in our human nature, something on an evolutionary primitive level that we feel the need to make these connections with these objects, whether for religious reasons or not, in the medieval period, more for religious reasons, but we still feel that need to make some connection to a person that we can never connect with through the things that remain to us. I think that's right. I think it's the tangible remainder of that person,

whether it's their memory or what they did or who they were, anything. It's the only sort of bridging connection between life and death, really, that we still have. And as I say, it is a remainder. that's all that's left of them. And therefore we latch on to whatever they've. And I think also there's this idea of they touch this, they possess this. Therefore they are still, as I say, very much instilled within that object, that place or of course, their body. Yeah.

So we give objects a strange power, don't we? Indeed. Yeah, that's absolutely it. It's intercessary power. And so your book, Pilgrim Roots of the British Isles, focuses on several pilgrim routes in the British Isles that we can still walk to this very day. and I guess with the end of Catholicism in the UK, we had this severing of the relationship with saints and pilgrimages to a certain extent. But are they still used as pilgrim routes today,

or are they more like historical walks these days? Well, that was actually the sort of concept behind the book, the idea for the book. I initially did some research on St. Cuthbert, and I wanted to sort of trace how the St. Cuthbert's way, which straddles the border between England and Scotland. There were so many, for example, churches dedicated to him and so many sites dedicated to him along the modern St. Cuthbert's Way that I thought, well, how does this tie into the historical route? Was there an historical route? Where has this way derived from? And so the more I looked into it, the more I realized that that was a PhD in and of itself, but also that there really wasn't a way. How do we define a pilgrim route? And that was what really captured my attention. Well, it depends. where you're travelling from. If you're travelling from the south, you're going to have a very different route to those travelling from the north and meeting the borders or meeting Linda Spahn,

which is the end of St Cuthbert's Way, for example. And the same if you're going to Canterbury. And yes, we talk about the Pilgrim's Way, the well-known to St. Thomas Beckett's Shrine at Canterbury. But if you're coming from the north, you probably won't follow that particular route. So the more I looked into it, the more I found that actually a lot of these routes, these ways, have some historical precedent indeed in that the saint may have followed that route during his lifetime for whatever reason. For example, Cuthbert started his monastic career. Melrose ended at Lindisfarne Priory. So that's essentially the route. So that does sort of make sense. So it probably journeyed along those borders. But when I looking at others, I also found some of the sites that one visits along the way were, they didn't really have any association with the same particularly. And so like the medieval era, like you've alluded to quite a lot,

it seemed to be a tourist haven, really, and therefore the way or the roots resulted from the idea of taking in all these tourist attractions. And so they often have very little historical precedent, as I say, they have some. But now they've sort of been created. A lot of them have been created in the 90s, and even extremely recently, more and more being created. So they sort of are a tourism trap, if you will, nowadays, yes. So were most medieval pilgrimages about the destination rather than the route? So there wasn't necessarily you had to get to place A to start so that you could take a certain

route to place B. The important thing was actually to get to place B. Is that something that we've kind of imagined and imposed backwards onto it? Or were there a few cases where this was the case? Of course, there were those specific routes and you would take in specific sites that's related to that specific saint, for example. And that would be like going on a very long distance pilgrimage. You're doing it for a certain reason. But if we're thinking broadly, if we're thinking about how many people are actually journeyed these places,

and as I say, where they're journeying from, it would be very difficult to journey all the way. up the country and then try and follow a specific route if you haven't come that way or you haven't started at that, you know, one specific route. So I think that's why, yes, the end point, I mean, that is the point of pilgrimage, really is the end point. I should preface us by saying, no, not quite. Obviously, it is the journey. It is a right of passage. It is atonement for sin or remission for sin. Of course, the journey is just as part, as important as the end destination. but it is where you sort of finish that fulfills the pilgrimage, if you will. And so, for example, St. Cuthbert's way, that would be at Linden's Farm Priory, where St. Cuthbert was buried and he died in a farm.

So, yes, for Beckett, it would be Canterbury, where he died and where he was buried. So it's the same sort of thing. So, yes, I think the end point is just as important as the journey with. Yeah. And I guess we get, like I said, this severing of the relationship with the Catholic Church and the association with saints and relics and to some extent pilgrimage. Are there still pilgrimages in the British Isles today? Do people still use these pilgrimage routes as religious pilgrims?

Absolutely. Still to this day, yes. Of course, I would probably argue that the majority are going for tourism reasons or for a hike, for a walk, in order to simply walk an important route, but also a significant route in terms of historical sites that you can visit along the way. you know, we take in Britain's great landscapes as we are journeying through a lot of our routes. But I think it's also important to state that, yes, pilgrimage did have some sort of severance come the Reformation, but it did not end altogether.

So we sort of can't think of it as all the way up to, for example, the 1530s, and then it just completely stopped and started again. So the late 20th century, that wasn't the case. Of course, Henry VIII did away with pilgrimages and indulgences and relics during 1530s. his injunctions, but the concept of journeying didn't entirely lose its power, if you will, when he got rid of it. It might have been rejected by Protestants, but travel went on, and post-Reformation pilgrimage turned into, I mean, as much as it was before, but a desire to see the world, to see the marvels that the world offered, which was sometimes criticized, of course,

for the underlying devotional purposes, but we then have to think of, you know, the idea of journeying for souvenirs, journeying for travel, and then to the grand tour. And that's how pilgrimage sort of evolved into this idea of travel, the concept of travel. And in fact, even in the 17th century, we have John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, which was the idea of sort of spiritual pilgrimage that you could do it from your armchair at home, a sort of metaphorical journey that you were taking your mind. And so the decline of pilgrimage essentially helped to lead. to the emergence of tourism into this globalising phenomenon.

I think that's very important to say. But as I say, yes, there are about 100,000 people who journey to Santiago, to Comfostela most years. And, you know, they get the pilgrim passport stamped, you know, in Spain. So, of course, some of these are pilgrims, but some of them are just journeying because they want to, because they want to take in these great sites. And I guess that might have always been the case.

There might have been people who made them with less conviction than other people did because they wanted to go. Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, as much as we might say a person is journeying because, I don't know, they've hurt a leg or they have an illness or they need some sort of miracle, any sort of intervention which may occur during a journey would count. It's still a right passage.

And you might just want a nice day out. You might just want a holiday. You might just want to take that particular route. You've never been to that particular area of the country. So I think that's as much a part of it. How can we know unless someone tells us? But I mean, of course, that must have been the case for many medieval pilgrims. And I think people, as you mentioned, walking those routes today for whatever reason

because it's an historical pilgrimage route or to look at the scenery and the ancient sites that are along that, that's still reaching for a connection to the past and to a tradition. We may not have the same religious motivations behind it, but we're still trying to connect with something from the past in the same way that pilgrims were trying to connect with something. I think that concept of walking in the footsteps of pilgrims past, walking in the footsteps of historical figures, and tangibly or physically connecting with them through their remains, whether it's their body, whether it's the sites that they inhabited or where they died, I think is as much a part of historical tourism as it is why people study history in general. We're often doing it as historians, as you will probably agree, that we want to experience the past. we want to experience or understand why events occurred. And most often they would occur within four walls or within the fields of a landscape.

These were tangible physical environments. And so we want to get back to that particular event or that particular route, that particular journey. I think that's always a part of walking. And when there's a sort of ardure involved, when it's torturous, it takes you to that sort of spiritual plane and connectivity with those who walked before you and those you're trying to connect with, whether it's a saint, a holy figure or historical person. So when you were researching the book, did you come across a favourite pilgrim route, perhaps one that listeners could go and find out and travel for themselves? You can probably guess, because I do bring it up quite a lot, but it is Stanker's way.

The reason for this is the end destination, the final destination at Lindisfarna, to Holy Island, and as it is known. It is such an evocative island, and it is a coastal island. It's a tidal island, so you are cut off from the world, essentially, for certain times of the day. You do have to check the tie time, so you don't get swept away. But I think once you're on there and the tide comes around, there's a sense of connection of spirituality with the past that you just don't get anywhere else. The actual pilgrimage is 62 miles, so 100 kilometres. And again, it is a sense of. And again, it is a more of a heritage trail, let's call it. It was devised in, I believe it was about 1995, 1996, something like that. But it's where St. Cuthbert, the 7th century, you know, Bishop of

Lindisfarne, prior of Lindisfarne, he started at Melrose Abbey in Scotland and then ended up at Lindisfarne. And Lindisfarne's so important because it's where the Irish missionary of St. Aidan founded a monastery, Lindisfarne Gospon, so you can see a facsimile of those if you go. but it straddles along the English-Scottish borders. So you can imagine just how many important sites are there. And it's not just monasteries, abys, churches, it's also great castles and everything. And the most evocative landscape,

you can visit St. Cuthbert's Cave, which is where his body was hidden. When the Vikings came and raided Lindisfan, the monks essentially grabbed his coffin from the Disman Priory, where he'd been interred. and they dragged it along essentially the north of England up and down the north of England. And one of the places that they hid it

along their way was St. Cuthbert's Cave and you can actually physically go to this cave and see it and you wander up over the hills and then you can see this grand holy island from where you're standing. And I mean, anyone just wants to walk this route, I think. It's wonderful. I've never been to Linda Spahn, but you're making me want to go.

You have to go. It's on the Northumbrian coast and please do. There's nowhere like it, really. Yeah, and it sounds like that element of being a coastal island would give you a sense of the disconnection that the monks would have had there. So the isolation that served their religious purposes when the tide comes in and surrounds the island and you're literally stuck there, you and God.

I guess that would give you a sense of why it appealed so much to them. Yeah, and what's also interesting is Cuthbert himself was a hermit, and he lived on another tiny little island St. Cuthbert's Isle, as is called, just off the corner of the island as well. So that also becomes a tidal island and you can get stuck on that too, which is extremely small, but his original hermitage cell is still there. Although what's really interesting about it is Cuthbert's 7th century saint, but the ruins that are left, the fabric remaining is actually about 14th century.

So we can actually see medieval pilgrimage and medieval conservation of earth. early medieval sites for the purposes of pilgrimage. And indeed, though he died over on In a Farm, which is another tiny little island just across, you can see it from Linda Sparne. We have accounts of actually pilgrim boats being used on and off the island to get pilgrims in the medieval era there, the use of the boat, the use of ale for pilgrims. So not only can you get a sense of modern tourism, but also the fact that this has been a site of pilgrimage from at least the 14th century.

And for the same reason that we want to experience, where Cuthbert inhabited, and they saw it is so important, they conserved his original cell. Fascinating. We tend to think that kind of historical preservation is a very modern thing that, you know, the Victorians were tearing everything down

and ripping everything out and putting new. We've come along to correct all of that and preserve all of this history, but it's obviously been going on for hundreds of years before we were doing it. Absolutely. When I did research on this, I found that there and over on inner farm that it was almost like they needed to conserve the

sites where he had walked, where he had lain, where he had inhabited, because not only obviously for pilgrimage reasons, not only for pilgrimage tourism, but also because, again, they could get some sense of this intercessory power, this sanctity, because Cuthbert had inhabited that particular space or he had been interred in that particular area of the Priory, etc. is that connection once again, that tangible connection that they were constantly trying to get out, I think, throughout the Middle Ages. That's been absolutely fascinating, thank you, Emma. And I've definitely got a new destination to try and visit in Linda's Farr,

and I might see if I can make my way down Cuthbert's Way. Thank you so much, Emma, for a fascinating insight into the world of pilgrimage that was so much a part of the medieval life. There are brand new episodes of Gone Medieval every Tuesday and Friday, so please join us next time for more. from the greatest millennium in human history. Don't forget to also subscribe or follow us wherever you get your podcast from

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and we've just gone medieval with history hits.