{"id":2229,"date":"2026-10-07T16:49:01","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T15:49:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/categunn.com\/?p=2229"},"modified":"2026-10-07T16:49:01","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T15:49:01","slug":"pilgrimage-a-journey-through-time-and-place","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/categunn.com\/?p=2229","title":{"rendered":"Pilgrimage: A Journey through Time and Place"},"content":{"rendered":"

A pilgrim walks into a church, carrying a bag on her back, with a walking stick in her hand; she approaches a shrine and lights a candles. She spends a few moments in prayer, maybe counting her beads. What is she doing? Why? What is the meaning, the significance of her actions?<\/p>\n

What do we mean by pilgrimage? Is it the walking or the destination? In what way is a pilgrimage different from going on a long walk or cycle ride? What features would you expect to find in something called a pilgrimage? Can you have a secular pilgrimage?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Introduction<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Sarah Mulalley, did something extraordinary during Lent: she went on a pilgrimage to Canterbury Cathedral, starting out from St Paul\u2019s, London. She deliberately evoked the pilgrims of the past who went to pray at the shrine of St Thomas, pilgrims such as those evoked by Geoffrey Chaucer in the Prologue to his famous Canterbury Tales, which opens:<\/p>\n

Whan thatAprill with his shoures soote<\/p>\n

The droghte of March hath perced to the roote \u2026<\/p>\n

Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages, \u2026<\/p>\n

And specially from every shires ende<\/p>\n

Of Engelond to Caunterbury they wende,<\/p>\n

The hooly blisful martir for to seke,<\/p>\n

That hem hath holpen what they they were seeke.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Chaucer gives a definition of Pilgrimage as it was understood towards the end of the Middle Ages: the pilgrims travel (by foot or horse) to Canterbury to ask for help at the shrine of the \u2018holy, blissful martyr\u2019 or to give thanks for the help he has already rendered them. The martyr they are seeking is, of course, Thomas Becket, who was murdered in the cathedral in 1170, more than two hundred years before Chaucer\u2019s\u00a0 <\/span>pilgrims set out. Becket was credited with miracles straight after his death; while his body lay bleeding on the floor, weeping people crowded round and tore pieces of their clothing to dip in his blood. The monks collected the blood and brains that were spilt when the top of Becket\u2019s head was sliced off.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Chaucer is not a romantic about pilgrimage, or any other aspect of religion: he knew that some of the relics that were sold were \u2018pigges bones\u2019 (the Pardoner) and the only religious figure he doesn\u2019t mock is the Parson \u2014 he was poor but \u2018rich of holy thought and work\u2019, Mark will be pleased to know. Nevertheless this motley crew are all taking time to make the long journey to Canterbury in hope of something, and Chaucer doesn\u2019t mock the aim of pilgrimage, even if they never actually reach their destination. On the way, they tell stories that serve rather like the self-examination modern-day pilgrims, such as those in the tv series, might do: exploring their motives, their sins maybe, and learning something about themselves, even if that is not always intentional.<\/p>\n

So what was extraordinary about Sarah Mullally\u2019s pilgrimage? She set out nearly five hundred years after the Reformation, when saints\u2019 shrines were torn down, painted images defaced and statues burnt. People were no longer allowed to light votive candles. St Thomas\u2019 shrine in Canterbury had come in for particular venom and ire: Thomas Becket had stood up to the king, Henry II, in a struggle between church and state. Now, Henry VIII was trying to assert his dominance over the church and Thomas\u2019 name was scratched out of prayer books, the gold and jewels of his shrine disappeared into the coffers of the king and, no doubt, those who were dismantling it. Going on pilgrimage was condemned as popish, and yet now pilgrimage is acceptable, even for an archbishop.<\/p>\n

What do we mean by pilgrimage?<\/p>\n

We may now turn to the NHS rather than the relics of a saint for healing, but most of us would agree that going on pilgrimage would be good for us. Even if we don\u2019t fancy the walk ourselves, we may have watched the tv programme Pilgrimage, or visited a cathedral or church special to us to pray.<\/p>\n

Dee Dyas, who has written extensively on pilgrimage, medieval and modern, suggests simply that a pilgrimage is \u2018a special journey to a special place with a special meaning\u2019. The BBC makers of the tv series Pilgrimage suggest that that \u2018special\u2019 journey has a spiritual dimension; on the website they describe the series:<\/p>\n

Celebrities take a journey of a lifetime. They all have different faiths and beliefs \u2014 will stepping in ancient footsteps on a spiritual journey broaden minds?<\/p>\n

The idea of place is clearly important, but what is it about the places to which people go on pilgrimage? Does anything unite them? What common features do they have?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Shinto shrine at Kamakura<\/em>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The practice of pilgrimage occurs all over the world: when we were in Japan a few years ago, we were taken to Kamakura by my friend Naoe. There is an important Shinto shrine there, which people visit for, it seems, cultural reasons rather than for spiritual benefit. A visit to the shrine wearing traditional Japanese costume is used to mark significant milestones in a child\u2019s life. There are also Buddhist temples in Kamakura (the place itself is obviously considered holy) but it is forbidden to take photographs in the Buddhist monastery: that is a place for quiet contemplation not tourism.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There is an assumption that pilgrimage is about travelling to a particular place, that the place itself is significant. A recent book by Kathryn Hurlock about pilgrimage is titled Holy Places<\/i>. Reading it, I was struck by how important politically and, often, economically, the places she discusses are or were. For example, she starts with an ancient Chinese pilgrimage site,\u00a0 <\/span>Mount Tai (Tai Shan) [p. 10] which may date back to Neolithic times as a place of worship; the first recorded imperial pilgrimage was by the first self-declared emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang, over two hundred years before the time of Christ. His pilgrimage to the mountain was a matter of display, of asserting himself as the emperor and the same rituals were carried out by successive emperors on pilgrimages up the sacred mountain. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I know next to nothing about the hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca which all Muslims are required to take once in their lives, but no doubt the site of Mecca in Saudi Arabia has a profound effect on the kingdom and its legitimacy, as well as the branch of Islam that is practised in Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n

Jerusalem<\/strong><\/p>\n

Clearly, one supreme example of the political forces that swirl around a centre of pilgrimage is Jerusalem, an important site of pilgrimage for the three Abrahamic religions. We think of Jerusalem as a place of Christian pilgrimage, and maybe some of you have been fortunate to visit and walk in the steps of Jesus. Especially significant for Christians is the Via Dolorosa, the walk Jesus took, carrying his cross, on the way to his execution.\u00a0 <\/span>To walk in his steps must feel like the very essence of pilgrimage.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Margery Kempe, from King\u2019s Lynn in Norfolk, visited Jerusalem in the early fifteenth century. In her account of her pilgrimage, she refers to herself in the third person as a\u00a0 <\/span>\u2018creature\u2019; her response to following the Via Dolorosa was extreme:<\/p>\n

Then the friars lifted up a cross and led the pilgrims about from one place to another where our Lord had suffered his pains and his passions \u2026 And the aforesaid creature wept and sobbed so plenteously as though she had seen our Lord with her bodily eye suffering his Passion at that time. \u2026 And when they came up onto the Mount of Calvary, she fell down so that she might not stand or kneel but wallowed and twisted with her body, spreading her arms abroad, and cried with a loud voice as though her heart should have burst asunder, for in the city of her soul she saw verily and freshly how our Lord was crucified. [Book of MK pp.. 162-3]<\/p>\n

Yet we cannot deny the political dimension of Christian pilgrimage to Jerusalem. For Jews, the Temple in Jerusalem was always the focal point of the public performance of religion. King Herod, who rebuilt the temple, was a Jewish king and by the middle of the first century CE\/AD, vast numbers of pilgrims were travelling to Jerusalem. But this situation did not last: the Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE and this initiated the diaspora. When Jews returned to Jerusalem as pilgrims it was to mourn their lost homeland. Since Jerusalem was conquered by Muslims in the seventh century, the fortunes of\u00a0 <\/span>Christian pilgrims have waxed and waned. The crusades, the violent bloodiness of which cause many Christians now to shudder (while others use the language of crusade to justify pursuing their own ends with violence), were originally thought of in terms of pilgrimage, but pilgrimage with a military dimension, using the image of a soldier of Christ literally instead of metaphorically (St Paul Ephesians 6:10-18).<\/p>\n

Something similar in the way of thinking occurred during the First World War, when [according (again) to Hurlock] \u2018Lloyd George told his assembled generals that he wanted to give the British people a Christmas present \u2014 Jerusalem\u2019 (p. 80). Edmund Allenby, dispatched to take the city, (after weeks of bloody conflict) entered the city through the Jaffa Gate on 11 December 1917 dressed as a pilgrim.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I hope to return at the end to Jerusalem, and what it means as a spiritual destination.<\/p>\n

Places of Pilgrimage<\/strong><\/p>\n

But I really want to focus on Pilgrimage in Britain, and apart from brief excursions to Cuthbert\u2019s birth place over the border in Scotland and, of course, the island of Iona of the coast of Scotland, most of the places and pilgrimages I will be discussing are in England, and places it wouldn\u2019t be difficult for any of you to journey to. Whether the journey needs to be difficult for it to count as a pilgrimage is something for you to decide for yourselves! And all the places I will mention have their roots as pilgrimage destinations in the Middle Ages.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u00a0Shrine of St Alban\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

It was important for the pilgrims that they were physically close to the body of the saint. There was a belief that the saint\u2019s body retained the miracle-working power of the saint him (or her) self: there are stories of saints deciding for themselves where their body should lie. After Edmund, the ninth-century Christian king of East Anglia, was killed by pagan Danish invaders,\u00a0 <\/span>stories soon arose about the nature of his death and he was hailed as a martyr.\u00a0 <\/span>A church was constructed for St Edmund\u2019s body at Beodricksworth, now known as Bury St Edmunds but the body later had to be moved to London for safety (Edmund himself having warned of danger). In 1013 there was a campaign to return it to Suffolk, but the Bishop of London wanted to keep it in his city. Having claimed he was going to return Edmund to his home, he planned to move it to St Paul\u2019s. Edmund had different ideas, and the coffin could not be moved until Ailwin, who had been the guardian of the shrine in Suffolk, prayed that Edmund would not forsake his people. They could then lift the coffin and start a procession northwards, resting in the ancient wooden church at Greensted (itself a place worthy of pilgrimage), then on through Chelmsford, Braintree and Clare to St Edmund\u2019s Bury, where Edmund remained, attracted many pilgrims and great wealth for the abbey until the dissolution of monasteries. Bury is now a stop on the Pilgrim Way from London to Walsingham.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The shrine of St Edmund was magnificent and covered with gold and jewels. If you want an idea of what a medieval shrine looked like, the shrine of St Albans has been restored in the cathedral that bears his name. We can\u2019t be sure that the bones buried in the shrine of the great Norman cathedral were those of the Roman Alban. As often in the case of a medieval saint, a miracle is involved. When Bede wrote his history of the English people in 731, he knew of the martyred saint, and later in the\u00a0 <\/span>eighth century, Offa, King of Mercia, set out to find his remains. After prayer, he was \u2018guided to the site by a beam of light shining down from heaven onto the burial place\u2019. Remains, assumed to be those of Alban, were found and a new church was built to house his shrine. The alcoves allowed people to spend time praying as close as they could be to the saint\u2019s body. Today, people still come to pray at the rails around the shrine and midday Eucharist is celebrated there. Before you are too dismissive of the idea of this urge for physical proximity, when surely the saint has been raised to heaven, remember how many people now find comfort in talking at the grave of loved ones who have died, how important it is that graves are well-tended and respected.<\/p>\n

There is something about physical place that is important in pilgrimage, being in the presence of the final resting place of a saint maybe, but also being in a place that is deemed holy. People like to talk about \u2018thin places\u2019, where the veil between earth and heaven is thin.<\/p>\n

Iona<\/strong><\/p>\n

One of the most popular sites of modern pilgrimage is the island of Iona, off the west coast of Scotland. It was the place where Columba founded a monastery and is credited with establishing Christianity in Scotland. It has been suggested that Columba, a member of one of Ireland\u2019s royal families, was banished from Ireland for his role in a dispute, or at least that it would be expedient for him to leave. Columba\u2019s hagiographer (the author of his life as a saint) claims, however, that his \u2018motivation was religious\u2019 [Holy Places, p. 146].<\/p>\n

Columba was originally buried on the island, but his body was later moved and there is no shrine to pray at. Rather, people travel to Iona for the place itself and its inherent spiritual qualities. The island has a sacred history and is thought of as the \u2018soul of Scotland\u2019 [Hurlock Holy Places<\/i>, p. 145]. And yet since the seventh century it has been compared to Jerusalem: the path up from the shore to St Cuthbert\u2019s shrine was known as \u2018the Street of the Dead and was laid out to echo the pilgrimage route to Christ\u2019s tomb in Jerusalem along the the Via Dolorosa\u2019; one legend \u2018foretold that Christ himself would appear on the island on the Day of Judgement\u2019 [Holy Places, p. 147].<\/p>\n

Iona is a small island that requires at least two ferries to arrive at, so there is always an effort to make to visit it; it is beautiful, surrounded by clear waters. When Columba arrived it was probably uninhabited: the perfect place for him to establish a new Christian community and live out his vocation. The unspoilt, remote beauty of the place and the centuries of prayer and devotion, as well as the present community established there, combine to make this an appealing destination for those seeing refuge from the modern world, sanctuary and community.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Are these visitors seeking a retreat also pilgrims? There is a pilgrimage walk round the island which Hurlock describes as mixing \u2018a good walk with spiritual refreshment\u2019 [p. 156]: which sounds like a good description of a pilgrimage. But what about people who are there as \u2018permanent pilgrims\u2019, as Columba himself was? Columba thought of himself as \u2018a pilgrim for Christ\u2019 [Hurlock, p. 146, ref. Adomnan\u2019s Life of Columba], when he left his home in Ireland, intending never to return to his home in Ireland but to find a home where he could live an ascetic monastic life.<\/p>\n

What does being a \u2018pilgrim for Christ\u2019 mean? To understand that I want to turn to another Irish pilgrim: Fursey.<\/p>\n

Fursey: A different idea about pilgrimage<\/strong><\/p>\n

Fursey was born in Ireland at the end of the sixth century. He founded a monastery in County Galway; his preaching attracted many followers and it was probably partly to escape his own popularity that he travelled to England. It is strange, maybe, that one of the earliest of the Irish saints who came to Britain to re-establish Christianity should now be so forgotten. \u2018England\u2019 at the time was not a country but a patchwork of smaller kingdoms which were often at war as pagan and Christian kings fought. East Anglia, under King Sigebert was, by the 630s when Fursey arrived, Christian. He gave land at Burgh castle near Great Yarmouth (Cnobheresburg as it was then called), to Fursey, where he established a monastery. It was a remote place and far from the Suffolk heartland of the kingdom [Michelle P. Brown, The Life of St Fursey<\/i>, p. 11]\u2014 but \u2018pleasantly situated in some woods close to the sea within the area of fortification that the English call \u2026 \u2018Cnobhere\u2019s Town\u2019 [Bede]; these fortifications were the remains of the Roman fort, so Fursey\u2019s church was probably similar to that of Bradwell on the Essex coast, established by Cedd later in the seventh century on the site of the Roman fort of Othona. There are now pilgrimages to Bradwell \u2014 you may have gone there yourself.<\/p>\n

Fursey found success as a religious leader, but this was at the cost of his spiritual journey and he left England for the continent, hoping to continue towards Rome. Fursey saw his time in East Anglia and, later in Gaul, as a peregrinatio<\/i>, which Michelle Brown in her work on Fursey translates as \u2018exile for Christ\u2019. The Latin peregrinatio <\/i>is clearly the source of the English peregrination<\/i>, suggesting wandering. Fursey was a peregrinus<\/i>, a Latin word for a foreigner, someone who is wandering in a land foreign to them, a stranger. It is the source of the words pilgrim <\/i>and pilgrimage<\/i>. The peregrine falcon, that bird of high places and fast flight, shares the same etymology.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Fursey never reached Rome; Brown suggests<\/p>\n

For Fursey it was perhaps better to travel hopefully than to arrive, and the failure to attain the appointed earthly goal did not subtract from the journey towards the heavenly or spiritual home. [p. 21]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The idea of the whole of life as a pilgrimage and an exile has its roots in the expulsion from the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve found themselves cast out, without a home. It is found in a number of books of the New Testament, including the first epistle of Peter, where Peter addresses his Christian readers as \u2018strangers and exiles\u2019. This emphasis on the journeying and the focus on a spiritual destination, that is also a home, is an important one. The idea that Fursey was a permanent traveller, a wanderer, a stranger in a strange land recalls these verses from Chapter 11 of Paul\u2019s Epistle to the Hebrews, where Paul is writing about faith:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

8 By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. 9By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. 10 For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Later in his letter, Paul declares that the Old Testament believers of whom he was writing \u2018died in faith and \u2026 were strangers and pilgrims on the earth\u2019 and of those early Christians to whom he was writing, \u2018here we\u00a0 <\/span>have no continuing city, but we seek one to come\u2019 [Heb. 11: 13 & 13:14]. This idea of the faithful as strangers on the earth was an important one in early Christians when the words \u2018stranger\u2019 and\u00a0 <\/span>\u2018foreigner\u2019 are used as \u2018a proud self-description for Christians\u2019 in the second-century Acts of Thomas <\/i>and the fourth-century Syrian writer who claimed, \u2018We should be aliens from this world, just as Christ did not belong to this world\u2019 [MacCulloch, Silence, <\/i>p. 72]. Certainly even today Christian values are not those of this world, many Christians reject the aims and objectives of the modern, commercial world and seek instead values elsewhere. <\/i>Looking forward to, ever travelling towards a \u2018city with foundations whose architect and builder is God\u2019 as St Paul wrote is an idea I hope to circle round to, the final destination maybe of this pilgrimage of the mind.<\/p>\n

Walsingham <\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

While we are in Norfolk, I want us to travel to Walsingham. Here we have a very definite \"\"<\/a>place, a small, remote village with a shrine in north Norfolk, but we don\u2019t have a saint. Nevertheless Walsingham was the destination of a pilgrimage that was one of the most popular English destinations in the Middle Ages, and thousands of pilgrims are travelling there again, since the recreation of the shrine. It has been suggested that\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Part of the allure of Walsingham was its geographical position. It was both domestic and so not requiring dangerous and expensive foreign travel, and yet it was relatively remote. [English Imagination, p. 23]<\/p>\n

The shrines at Canterbury and what is now Bury St Edmunds confirm the idea that pilgrims wanted to be bodily close to the body of a saint, or part of their body, believing that their sacred power was still present in their bodily remains.<\/p>\n

But Walsingham is not associated with any saint nor has it ever housed any relics. So what were people coming to this small village at the very north of Norfolk for, and what are they still coming for, in their thousands? Walsingham was known as \u2018England\u2019s Nazareth\u2019 at a time when it was difficult and dangerous to travel to the Holy Land (as it is again now). The story that you will be told if you visit the present shrine is that, in 1061, the Lady of the Manor, Richeldis de Faverches, was visited by the Virgin Mary who showed her the house in Nazareth where the angel had announced to her that she was to bear the Christ child. Richeldis was instructed to build a replica of the house, which her workmen did, following her directions. She wasn\u2019t sure exactly where it should be built but overnight it was moved to a slightly different site \u2014 and reconstructed \u2018better than any craftsman of the period could build\u2019 and close to a spring which was found to have healing powers. Archaeological evidence shows that a small wooden building did exist and was burnt down at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries. A stone chapel was built around it to protect it, but the fact that the wooden structure was retained suggests it was this building itself that was venerated.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

However, you may be wondering why the lady to whom the vision was granted had a Norman name before the Conquest of 1066, and what evidence there is for the very precise date of 1061. The only evidence occurs in the Pynson Ballad which appears in an early printed text dated to 1496 and preserved in the Pepys Library of Magdalene College, Cambridge. That\u2019s four hundred years after the supposed events, although there may have been an earlier version of the ballad. The earliest contemporary documentary evidence comes in the middle of the twelfth century when Geoffrey de Faverches, before going on Crusade, makes a charter granting the Chapel which his mother had founded in Walsingham to his chaplain Edwyn. Geoffrey\u2019s mother who had founded the chapel was Richeldis, and the chapel she had founded must have been the shrine. So unless there was a miracle of longevity I think we can assume that the shrine was established in the middle of the twelfth century.<\/p>\n

Edwyn the chaplain was responsible for bringing the Augustinian canons to Walsingham where they founded the Priory now known as the Abbey. The original shrine was in the grounds of this Priory, close to the wells there. As the guide to the Abbey states:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite being at least partly romance, the Pynson Ballad does describe vividly the intensity of devotion towards the chapel and shrine, with its statue of Our Lady, relic of her milk, and healing waters. [Abbey guide]<\/p>\n

And this, I think, is the point. The statue of Our Lady became the focal point of devotions, while the wells were believed to have miraculous healing powers. The statue was destroyed \u2014 or maybe hidden somewhere \u2014 at the Reformation and a replica was made, following the design on the Walsingham priory seal. While another well was discovered when the replica Holy House was built in 1931. Today<\/p>\n

Pilgrims receive holy water in a service called Sprinkling. The priest offers a sip to drink, marks the sign of the cross on the pilgrim\u2019s forehead and pours it into their hands. [Tour of Shrine]<\/p>\n

Even during the Middle Ages, there was opposition to the pilgrimage to Walsingham. Lollards called it \u2018Falsingham\u2019 and the statue there the \u2018wych of Walsingham\u2019. And there was undoubtedly some fakery \u2014 a phial of the Virgin\u2019s breast milk? Yet people venerated her statue, and believed in the healing power of the water of the holy well \u2014 as they still do.<\/p>\n

People flocked to this remote spot and continue to do so, believing that it is a holy place. And that\u2019s the point: it is the belief in its holiness that makes it holy. People travel to Walsingham to find peace, blessing, something other than the trivia of daily life. I know two people who have visited the shrine at Walsingham for the first time recently: one found it \u2018creepy\u2019 while the other, worried about a friend, found it spiritually meaningful. The candles and statues, images and incense which some may find oppressive or just trivial, are nevertheless an honest and genuine expression of what we cannot fully articulate: the search for something spiritual, numinous, transcendent. And in the beautiful, peaceful gardens, or the incense-heavy quiet of the shrine, with candle light flickering, that something inexpressible can be found.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Walsingham was a substitute for the \u2018real place\u2019 in the Holy Land, but Jerusalem itself was considered a substitute, a fore-taste, of the heavenly Jerusalem: the final destination, \u2018the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God\u2019 I mentioned earlier. Is this city also our true home if we are stangers in a strange land?<\/p>\n

Pilgrimage as coming home?<\/p>\n

But first I want to consider another idea.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
St Cuthbert’s island off Holy Island<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

St Cuthbert\u2019s way\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

The latest BBC tv series \u2018Pilgrimage\u2019 ended in Durham, at the shrine of St Cuthbert, but \u2018St Cuthbert\u2019s Way\u2019 does not end in Durham. It is a long-distance trail created, according to the Official Guide, thirty years ago as a \u2018cross-Border walking route linking places associated with the life of St Cuthbert amd thus celebrating in a novel and very interesting manner the life of the seventh-century saint\u2019. It starts in Melrose, where Cuthbert entered the religious life at the ancient abbey there, and ends at Lindisfarne, Holy Island, where he was buried after he died on the smaller island of Inner Farne. The Way also passes places associated with Cuthbert\u2019s after- life. When Lindisfarne was raided by Vikings, the monks at the abbey took all that was precious to them \u2014 including the body of Cuthbert \u2014 on their own long pilgrimage to find a permanent, safe home for the saint\u2019s body. They are supposed to have spent time sheltering at a cave, almost within sight of Lindisfarne which is on Cuthbert\u2019s Way. After centuries of travel the body was taken to Durham, and again we find miraculous intervention as the saint dictated where he should finally rest.<\/p>\n

St Edmund\u2019s way<\/b><\/p>\n

Closer to home, St Edmund\u2019s Way links places associated with Edmund\u2019s life, though much of what we know of that is speculation and conjecture. I\u2019ve already mentioned the perceived power of his body after his death; now a few details of his life, though little is known for sure. He was born about 841 in what is now Surrey but became the heir to Athelstan, king of East Anglia. Edmund was about fifteen when he was crowned, it is believed at Bures, at the site of St Stephen\u2019s chapel. The place of his coronation was described in the twelfth century as \u2018Barum \u2026 an ancient royal hill, the known bound between East Essex and Suffolk, and situate on the Stour, a river most rapid in Summer and Winter\u2019 [Cult of St E, p. 7]. Bures is one of the places associated with Edmund that St Edmund\u2019s Way passes through. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Edmund, King and Martyr<\/p>\n

It also passes through Bury St Edmunds, named after the man revered as both king and martyr. Edmund became king at a time of Danish raids. The raids were vicious, causing widespread destruction throughout East Anglia and reducing the King\u2019s army. Eventually, Edmund was captured and offered the chance to reign in subordination to the Danes.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Martyrdom of King Edmund in St Edmundsbury Cathedral<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Edmund refused: he would not witness the pagan Danes slaughter his people or renounce his Christian faith, saying he would not bow to the Danish leader Inguar unless Inguar first bowed to Christ [Cult, p. 9]. The king was then tied to a tree and Inguar\u2019s men used him as target practice with either arrows or javelins. They deliberately didn\u2019t kill him but when he continued to call on the name of Christ was decapitated. His head was kicked away so it could not be buried with his body, but (miraculously!) the head called out and was found in the undergrowth guarded by a wolf. When the head was placed in the coffin with the body it was reunited so the mark of decapitation was but a thin red line. Obviously, much of this is legend rather than historical fact, but Jo Matten has written on the cult of St Edmund:<\/p>\n

What is of importance is the way in which the King met and accepted his death; for this is surely what gives figures like Edmund their after-life, in those last moments it seems that an extraordinary power is given to them that carries over beyond their death. [Cult, p. 9]<\/p>\n

And this is why Bury St Edmunds, where his body was buried and a great abbey built, became such an important pilgrimage destination in the Middle Ages. St Edmund\u2019s Way doesn\u2019t end there, though, but continues past West Stow, the recreated Anglo-Saxon village, which gives an idea of how Edmund lived, and on through the King\u2019s Forest (part of Thetford Forest) to Thetford\u2019s ruined priory. It passes some lovely churches and goes through beautiful scenery \u2014 whether it is a pleasant long-distance walk or a pilgrimage is surely up to the walker.<\/p>\n

Between the salt and the ash<\/b><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Durham Cathedral<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Returning to the north-east: the poet Jake Morris-Campbell has written a book, Between the Salt and the Ash<\/i>,\u00a0 <\/span>about walking from Lindisfarne to Durham, consciously following in the steps of Cuthbert\u2019s body as it was carried by monks from Lindisfarne after the raid on the holy island by Vikings, but he also carried the miner\u2019s lamp that had belonged to his great-grandfather \u2014 a kind of relic? He considered his walk a pilgrimage, writing that the journey would be \u2018traditionally\u00a0 <\/span>pilgrim-focused in that I will be trying to figure out some things about myself\u2019 [Salt and Ash p. 34]. Which makes one wonder whether a pilgrimage is all about oneself; a reviewer in the Church Times of the recent BBC Pilgrimage series remarked that he struggled a bit \u2018with the idea that a pilgrimage seems mostly to be understood as a \u201cme\u201d project, an undertaking of self-improvement\u2019 [Manfredi in CT].\u00a0 <\/span>But Morris-Campbell continues \u2018I want to usher my ego to the sidelines, for the real star of this show is the place itself\u00a0 <\/span>\u2026 and the people who inhabit it\u2019 [34]. He wants to understand his home, its community and history, the culture and society of mining towns and villages that have had their heart ripped out by the closure of the collieries and yet retains its special character. And how this connects with the much older, Christian history of the area. How does this fit with the idea of the pilgrim as a stranger and an exile? Maybe it\u2019s just another side to the same quest: where is home? Can it be found in place? In community? In family?<\/p>\n

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The Church of the Holy Cross, Bilbrook<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

When celebrities are invited to explore their family history in Who do you think you are?<\/i> they often visit the home they were brought up in, or where their forebears came from. Is that a kind of pilgrimage? Have you ever revisited your childhood home, or where your parents or grandparents came from? A few years ago I visited the church I was baptised in; it felt like a pilgrimage and, although we had moved from the area before I was two years old, it seemed strangely familar, a kind of home-coming. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Conclusion: The Pilgrimage of Life<\/strong><\/p>\n

Maybe life as a pilgrimage isn\u2019t a metaphor; maybe the real pilgrimage is the course of our lives. Where is our destination? A home we only half remember but long for?<\/p>\n

Many people in the Middle Ages were undoubtedly gullible and superstitious. They did not understand what we know to be natural phenomena. Jonathan Sumption, in his book on Pilgrimage<\/i>, writes, as he tries to explain the attraction of pilgrimage for people centuries ago:<\/p>\n

Thunder storms brought panic to whole communities and drove them to take refuge round the altars of the saints. A flash of lightning created havoc in a small village, \u2018the people all fearing that the punishment of God was about the\u00a0 <\/span>descend on them wherever they might try to escape.\u2019 Terrible cries were heard during an eclipse of the moon. Since all such phenomena sprang not from natureal causes but from the direct action of God, it followed that the will of God could be discerned in them if only men knew how. [Pilgrimage, p. 14]\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Our view of the natural world, and of God, differs widely now. There were criticisms of pilgrimage from the very early centuries when Christians started travelling to the tombs of saints to venerate them. There was much fakery, venality, opportunity for abuse, thievery and criminal behaviour (though some were sent on pilgrimages \u2014 a form of exile \u2014 as punishment both by the church and the civil courts). If God is everywhere, then no one place is any more holy than another. The fourteenth century writer Walter Hilton wrote in Scale of Perfection: \u2018There is no need to run to Rome or Jerusalem to look for [Jesus] there, but turn your thought into your own soul where he is hidden\u2019 [I.49, quoted D.D.].<\/p>\n

And yet \u2026 and yet \u2026 taking time out from the every day routine to make the journey can make the journey special, significant. Prayer sanctifies the place.\u00a0 <\/span>If you feel at times like a stranger in the material world, at odds with the emphasis on success, measured in financial terms, in power and influence, the things of this world, then maybe you are a pilgrim travelling to that city with foundations built by God, that permanent home. This brings me back, at last, to Jerusalem, the Holy City. Dee Dyas has written:<\/p>\n

Medieval texts show Jerusalem functioning not as a single place but as a series of images, each of which explores a different strand of theological understanding and devotional practice. It is, by turns, an earthly city made holy by God, the heavenly city described in the Book of Revelation, the cloister, and an inner place within the soul where God may be encountered. [Medieval Patterns of Pilgrimage]<\/p>\n

It is easy to criticise the medieval practice of pilgrimage, but it, importantly, acknowledges the searching, questing restlessness of the human spirit. Last Sunday\u2019s Collect also recognises this:<\/p>\n

Almighty God, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you: Pour your love into our hearts and draw us to yourself, and so bring us at last to your heavenly city where we shall see you face to face.<\/p>\n

\u2018Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you \u2026 bring us at last to your heavenly city where we shall see you face to face.\u2019<\/b><\/p>\n

Whatever we think the heavenly city may represent, whatever we mean by \u2018God\u2019, or whatever God means to us, may I suggest, in a somewhat circular definition, that \u2018God\u2019 is that which we are seeking, searching for. Maybe we are all looking for a home: we search for that at shrines, and in our family history, through physical challenges and through engagement with fellow travellers. We want to belong somewhere. But the journey we walk is also an inner journey; as Jake Morris-Campbell pondered when he had completed his walk from Lindisfarne to Durham:<\/p>\n

In committing to a meandering track through a fabled Northumbria, I gained greater clarity on my inner life and what had\u00a0 <\/span>been motivating me \u2014 as well as what had been missing. \u2026 Pilgrimage wisdom dictates that the most challenging aspect of the journey is reacclimatising to normality, heeding the spiritual lessons learned and assimilating them into life going forward. [Between the Salt and the Ash, p. 272]<\/p>\n

That final \u2018going forward\u2019 is, of course, unnecessary\u00a0 <\/span>\u2014 there is no way we can go through life but forwards. The question is, if life is a pilgrimage, what is it we are travelling towards?<\/p>\n

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Lindisfarne Priory
[J Townsend]<\/figcaption><\/figure>Reading List<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dee Dyas, \u2018All roads lead to revival\u2019, Church Times<\/i>, 24 July 2026<\/p>\n

Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales<\/i> in The Riverside Chaucer<\/i> (OUP)<\/p>\n

John Guy, Becket<\/i> (Penguin, 2013)<\/p>\n

Kathryn Hurlock, Holy Places<\/i> (Profile Books, 2025)<\/p>\n

The Book of Margery Kempe<\/i>, ed. Barry Windeatt (Longman, 2000)<\/p>\n

Jonathan Sumption, Pilgrimage<\/i> (Faber & Faber, 1975)<\/p>\n

J. M. Matten, The Cult of St Edmund<\/i><\/i><\/p>\n

Michael Clasby, St Alban and his Shrine <\/i>(The Fraternity of the Friends of St Albans Abbey, 2019)<\/p>\n

Michelle P. Brown, The Life of St Fursey: What we Know; Why it Matters<\/i> (Fursey Pilgrims, 2001)<\/p>\n

Diarmaid MacCulloch, Silence: A Christian History<\/i> (Penguin, 2014)<\/p>\n

Scilla Landale, \u2018A Pilgrim\u2019s Progress to Walsingham\u2019 in Walsingham: Pilgrimage and History<\/i> (Walsingham: R.C. National Shrine, 1999)\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Elizabeth Meath Baker, Walsingham Abbey: Grounds & Shirehall Museum<\/i> \u2026 (Heritage House Group, Wymondham)<\/p>\n

A Tour of the Shrine<\/i> (The Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham)<\/p>\n

Gary Waller, Walsingham and the English Imagination<\/i> (Ashgate, 2011)<\/p>\n

Roger Smith & Ron Shaw, St Cuthbert\u2019s Way: Official Guide<\/i> (1997, updated 2026)<\/p>\n

J. M. Matten, The Cult of St. Edmund<\/i> (rep. 1996 is ass. with St Edmundsbury Borough Council Museums)<\/p>\n

Jake Morris-Campbell, Between the salt and the ash <\/i>(Manchester University Press, 2025)<\/p>\n

Jonathan Sumption, Pilgrimage: An Image of Mediaeval Religion<\/i> ((Faber & Faber, 1975)<\/p>\n

Dee Dyas, \u2018Medieval Patterns of Pilgrimage \u2014 A Mirror for Today?\u2019 (published in Explorations in a Theology of Pilgrimage<\/i>, Ashgate 2004)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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