pilgrimage
in Christianity, journey to a saint"s shrine or other sacred place, undertaken for a variety of motives: to gain supernatural help; as an act of thanksgiving or penance; for the sake of devotion. Records indicate that pilgrimages were made to Jerusalem as early as the 2nd century; and excavations in the 1940s at St. Peter"s Basilica in Rome unearthed a 2nd-century memorial to the Apostle with numerous scratched inions of the 2nd and 3rd centuries, evidencing acts of piety. The Roman liturgical calendar of the year AD 354 lists 29 local sanctuaries of the saints at which the faithful gathered annually. The travel memoir of Etheria (c. AD 400), a Spanish nun, testified to a system of guides and lodgings for those visiting the Palestinian holy sites. In Britain, Bede, the Venerable (died 735), a church historian, catalogued visits to graves of several saints from the 5th to the 8th century.
The medieval pilgrim began his journey with a blessing by a priest. His garb was recognizable, and on his return trip he would wear on his hat the badge of the shrine visited. Along the way he would find hospices set up specifically for pilgrims. The chief attractions for pilgrims in medieval times were the Holy Land, Santiago de Compostela in Spain, and Rome; but there were hundreds of pilgrim resorts of more local reputation, including the tombs of St. Francis (died 1226) in Assisi, Italy; of St. Martin (died 397) in Tours, Fr.; of St. Boniface (died 754) in Fulda, Ger.; of Thomas Becket (died 1170) at Canterbury, Eng.; and of St. Patrick at Downpatrick, Ire.
Not all churchmen approved entirely of pilgrimages. Some warned against excesses and questioned the value of the practice, while others questioned the authenticity of some of the relics.
Though many medieval centres still attract Roman Catholic pilgrims, the more recent shrines of St. Francis Xavier (died 1552) in Goa, India; of the Shroud of Turin (1578) at Turin, Italy; of St. Anne de Beaupré (1658) in Canada; of St. Jean-Baptiste-Marie Vianney (died 1859) at Ars and of St. Thérèse de Lisieux (died 1897) at Lisieux, both in France; and the Marian centres of Our Lady of Guadalupe (1531) in Mexico, of La Salette (1846) and Lourdes (1858) in France, and of F?tima (1917) in Portugal have grown
steadily in importance
