Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages: Third EditionCutts, Edward Lewes
History
Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages: Third Edition
Cutts, Edward Lewes
Civilization, Medieval; Middle Ages -- Social life and customs
In a subsequent chapter, on the Merchants of the Middle Ages, will be
found some illustrations of mediæval shipping, which also illustrate the
present subject. One is a representation of Sir John Mandeville and his
companions in mantle, hat, and staff, just landed at a foreign town on
their pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Another represents Richard Beauchamp,
Earl of Warwick, in mantle, hat, and staff, embarking in his own ship on
his departure for a similar pilgrimage. Another illustration in the
subsequent chapter on Secular Clergy represents Earl Richard at Rome,
being presented to the Pope.
But those who could not spare time or money to go to Jerusalem, or Rome,
or Compostella, could spare both for a shorter expedition; and pilgrimages
to English shrines appear to have been very common. By far the most
popular of our English pilgrimages was to the shrine of St.
Thomas-à-Becket, at Canterbury, and it was popular not only in England,
but all over Europe. The one which stood next in popular estimation, was
the pilgrimage to Our Lady of Walsingham. But nearly every cathedral and
great monastery, and many a parish church besides, had its famous saint to
whom the people resorted. There was St. Cuthbert at Durham, and St.
William at York, and little St. William at Norwich, and St. Hugh at
Lincoln, and St. Edward Confessor at Westminster, and St. Erkenwald in the
cathedral of London, and St. Wulstan at Worcester, and St. Swithin at
Winchester, and St. Edmund at Bury, and SS. Etheldreda and Withburga at
Ely, and many more, whose remains were esteemed holy relics, and whose
shrines were frequented by the devout. Some came to pray at the tomb for
the intercession of the saint in their behalf; or to seek the cure of
disease by the touch of the relic; or to offer up thanks for deliverance
believed to have been vouchsafed in time of peril through the saint's
prayers; or to obtain the number of days' pardon--_i.e._ of remission of
their time in purgatory--offered by Papal bulls to those who should pray
at the tomb. Then there were famous roods, the Rood of Chester and of
Bromholme; and statues of the Virgin, as Our Lady of Wilsden, and of
Boxley, and of this, that, and the other place. There were scores of holy
wells besides, under saintly invocations, of which St. Winifred's well
with her chapel over it still remains an excellent example.[179] Some of
these were springs of medicinal water, and were doubtless of some efficacy
in the cures for which they were noted; in others a saint had baptized his
converts; others had simply afforded water to a saint in his neighbouring
cell.[180]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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