Pilgrimage: An Image of Mediaeval Religion

by Jonathan Sumption

  Dreams: William, Mirac. S. Thomae, III. 5, V. 8, pp. 262–4, 381.

  Benedict, Mirac. S. Thomae, I. 13, pp. 44–5. Rackham, p. 85.

  7 ‘One night as he lay …’: Orderic, Hist. Eccl., III, ed. Chibnall, vol. ii, pp. 42–4.

  ‘Luxuria’ in sculpture: Mâle, pp. 373–6. G. Zarnecki, Gislebertus, Sculptor of Autun, N.Y., 1961, pp. 64–5 and pi. iv.

  8 ‘The cause that oghte …’: Canterbury Tales, p. 575. ‘Conversion’ by preachers: Jacques de Vitry, Exempla, CXCIX, p. 83. Etienne de Bourbon, Anecdotes, I. 21, p. 29 (Bologna student); cf. Owst, p. 413 and n3. Caesarius, Dial. Mirac, I. 6, 16, 18, 21, 25, 29–30, 5, vol. i, pp. 12–15, 22–3, 25, 28, 30–1, 35, 11.

  Augustine’s ‘conversion’: P. Brown, Augustine of Hippo, London, 1967, pp. 106–7.

  ‘Conversion’ in hagiography: Bede, Hist. Eccl., IV. 5, p. 350; Du Cange, vol. ii, p. 547. See, in general, D. Baker, ‘Vir Dei: secular sanctity in the early tenth century’, in Cuming and Baker, pp. 40–1.

  Majority damned: Bernard, Sermo in Vigilia Nativitatis Domini, III. 3, PL. clxxxiii. 96. Berthold, Predigten, XXIV, vol. i, p. 382. Herolt, quoted in Coulton, vol. i, p. 447. See references in A. Michel, ‘Elus (Nombre des),’ DTC., iv. 2364–6.

  9 Priest’s vision: Orderic, Hist. Eccl., VIII. 17, ed. Chibnall, vol. iv, pp. 236–50.

  How far this view accepted: Coulton, vol. i, p. 71 (prior of Holy Trinity). Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum Morale, Douai, 1624, col. 840. Berthold, Predigten, XXIV, vol. i, p. 386. C. Douais (ed.), Documents pour servir a l’histoire de l’inquisition dans le Languedoc, vol. ii, Paris, 1900, p. 100. Book of Margery Kempe, I. 59, pp. 144–6.

  10 Descriptions of Hell: Owst, pp. 522, 524 (sermons). Bede, Hist. Eccl., V. 12, pp. 490–4. Felix, Life of St. Guthlac, ed. B. Colgrave, Cambridge, 1956, p. 105. Guibert, De Vita Sua, I. 18, p. 70. Caesarius, Dial. Mirac. I. 34, vol. i, pp. 39–43 (Landgrave Ludwig). Visio Monachi de Eynsham.

  11 Salvation a miracle: Berthold, Predigten, XXIV, vol. i, p. 382. Theofrid of Epternach, Flores Epitaphiorum Sanctorum, I. 3, col. 384.

  CHAPTER II

  THE CULT OF RELICS

  The cult of the saints was the counterpoint of the fear of evil. Just as men tended to associate evil with objects familiar to them, so they attempted to give a human quality to the forces of good. This habit of mind was already common in the west at the beginning of the fifth century, when the Frankish collector Victricius of Rouen portrayed the saints as an army of auxiliaries in the cosmic battle against evil: ‘see, a great host of saints comes to us…. Victory is certain when we fight along side such allies with Christ for our general.’

  The veneration of the relics of the saints is attested by unimpeachable evidence as early as the second century, and it is probably even older than that. In a letter written in about A.D. 156 to the church of Philomelium, the Christians of Smyrna described the martyrdom of bishop Polycarp, who had been burned to death shortly before. From this it appears that the Christians ‘took up his bones which are more valuable than refined gold and laid them in a suitable place where, the Lord willing, … we may gather together in gladness and celebrate the anniversary of his martyrdom.’ During the most violent of all the persecutions, that of Diocletian (303-11), relics of the martyrs were eagerly collected by their followers. After the death of St. Vincent the onlookers dipped their clothes in his blood, and when seven brothers were martyred at Samosata in 308, a number of noble ladies bribed the guards to let them wash the bodies with sponges and collect drops of the blood.

  The cult of relics was criticized from its inception by purists who regarded it as pagan. Amongst the earliest critics was the Gallic priest Vigilantius whose opinions are known to us from the denunciations hurled at him by St. Jerome. Vigilantius condemned the veneration of all inanimate objects such as the bodies of the saints, and especially the bodies of St. Peter and St. Paul in Rome. In reply, Jerome stated the classic Christian justification of such cults, that the relics were not worshipped in themselves, but were an aid to the veneration of martyrs of undoubted holiness whose lives were a model to later generations.

  ‘We do not worship their relics any more than we do the sun or the moon, the angels, archangels, or seraphims. We honour them in honour of He whose faith they witnessed. We honour the Master by means of the servants.’

  Ideas not unlike those of Vigilantius were advanced in the fifth century by the Pelagian heretics and by a number of individuals of varying orthodoxy. Many of the greatest thinkers of the patristic period concerned themselves with elaborating the theoretical basis of the cult of relics. In the first place, they argued, relics were the earthly reminders of holy men, who deserved at least as much respect as the inhabitants of the later Roman Empire commonly accorded to their own ancestors. Moreover they were, in the words of St. Augustine, ‘temples of the faith’ whom Christians should venerate in order to ‘associate themselves with the merits of the martyrs that they may secure their intercession by prayer’. In Augustine’s view the cult of the martyrs was no different from the cult of holy men still alive – both were a proper model for other Christians. Following Augustine, a later writer asserted that ‘we revere the relics of the martyrs with the same respect as we accord to holy men now living; but perhaps we honour them more because we can be confident of their efficacy, for they have already fought the battle and won it.’

  Popular piety went far beyond this modest account of the cult of relics, and certain theologians, particularly in the east, were inclined to accord intrinsic powers to the relics of the saints. Cyprian of Carthage defended the veneration of relics in themselves and even of objects touched by the martyrs. The chains they wore, for example, should be honoured for they have honoured the feet of the martyrs and led them to a glorious death. St. Cyril of Jerusalem also went further than Augustine in allowing the bodies of the saints some intrinsic power to work miracles. Even though the soul had left the body, the body was still venerable ‘on account of the virtuous soul that once inhabited it. For it is well known that such external objects as handkerchiefs and aprons have cured the sick after touching the martyr’s body; how much more then will the body itself heal them.’

  The early Church then, produced a weak and a strong defence of the cult of relics, and elements of both appear in every major apologist of the middle ages. In the middle of the thirteenth century, Thomas Aquinas summarized all the various opinions canvassed in his own day and concluded that relics should be venerated for three reasons. First, they are the physical reminders of the saints and ‘he who loves some one reveres the things that they leave behind them.’ By means of their relics we retain a personal friendship with the saints. Secondly, adds the doctor angelicus, bodily relics enjoy a certain intrinsic merit, not as mere objects but on account of their connections with the soul of the saint. The Holy Spirit worked mainly through their souls (which are in Heaven), but also through their bodies, which may be venerated on earth. Thus these bodies are sanctified by God – a fact which distinguishes them from the holy images venerated in the Greek Church. Thirdly, by working miracles at their tombs God has plainly demonstrated that He wishes them to be venerated. ‘We ought therefore to hold them in the deepest possible veneration as limbs of God, as children and friends of God, and as intercessors on our behalf.’

  The Objects of Veneration

  Most of the relics venerated by the early Christians were not bodily relics but simple mementoes, objects that had been in contact with the saint or his shrine. Pilgrims brought pieces of cloth or paper to the shrine, which they retained as private relics of the saint. Cyril of Jerusalem had remarked that handkerchiefs and aprons worked miracles after touching the bodies of the martyrs. The shrouds of popes were customarily divided amongst the people of Rome, until the practice was abolished by Gregory I. In the eyes of ordinary men these brandea, as they were called, enjoyed as much esteem as the body itself and occasionally even more. Indeed, a remarkable account of the tomb of St. Peter by Gregory of Tours
suggests that quite literal notions prevailed as to the manner in which such brandea became impregnated with holiness.

  ‘He who wishes to pray before the tomb’, writes Gregory, ‘opens the barrier that surrounds it and puts his head through a small opening in the shrine. There he prays for all his needs and, so long as his requests are just, his prayers will be granted. Should he wish to bring back a relic from the tomb, he carefully weighs a piece of cloth which he then hangs inside the tomb. Then he prays ardently and, if his faith is sufficient, the cloth, once removed from the tomb, will be found to be so full of divine grace that it will be much heavier than before. Thus will he know that his prayers have been granted.’

  It is difficult to imagine that these recommendations were ever put to any practical test, but they tell us much about the frame of mind of an intelligent man who could accept such stories without question.

  Pieces of tombs, oil from the lamps that burned before them, dust from the ground around them, found their way into the most distinguished relic collections of the west. While on a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Julian of Brioude, Gregory of Tours broke off a piece of the tomb and placed it in the basilica at Tours, where it shortly worked miracles. Dust from tombs, particularly from the Holy Sepulchre, was venerated from the earliest times. A funerary table of the fourth century, now in the Louvre, bears an inscription which declares that it once contained ‘dust from the land of our redemption’, and Augustine observes that miracles were commonly worked by such dust. Worshippers at the tomb of St. Theodore ‘believed that merely to touch the body was a blessing of indescribable holiness, and if anyone can carry off any of the dust that has settled on the martyr’s tomb he counts himself fortunate indeed.’ Relics of this sort were often enclosed in little reliquaries that hung from a chain around the owner’s neck. Gregory the Great, for example, used to wear a small crucifix containing filings from the chains of St. Peter and the gridiron of St. Lawrence. St. Jerome compared such charms to the phylacteries carried in their robes by the scribes and pharisees, and the practice attracted disapproval in certain quarters throughout the succeeding centuries. The acts of the council of Braca in 675 reveal that the Spanish bishops of that period were in the habit of wearing the relics of their churches around their necks, which the council characterized as a ‘detestable presumption’. Similar observations were made six centuries later by Thomas Aquinas, but the practice showed no signs of abating. St. Hugh of Lincoln, an insatiable collector, carried about with him ‘innumerable relics of saints of both sexes’ in a small silver casket which he later presented to the Grande Chartreuse; a tooth of St. Benedict, presented to him by the monks of Fleury, was set into his ring.

  Although brandea could not compete with the bodily relics of the saints which increasingly became available after the seventh century, their popularity never altogether waned and the practice of collecting them survived into relatively modern times. An acquaintance of Guibert of Nogent, who accidentally swallowed a toad, was saved from death by the application of dust from the tomb of St. Marcel. Similar miracles are attributed to many other saints. Rocks from the seashore at Mont-St.-Michel were collected by pilgrims in the eleventh century and even used to consecrate churches. As late as the fifteenth century the Dominican Felix Faber took with him to the Holy Land a bag of jewels belonging to friends who had asked him to press them against any relics which he might inspect en route. His well-travelled contemporary, Joos van Ghistele, brought various gems which had been in contact with the relics of the Magi at Cologne in the belief that, should he discover the land of the legendary Prester John, they would make an acceptable gift to that potentate.

  Most of the saints whose relics were venerated in the fourth century were martyrs of the last and most terrible of the persecutions. But a succession of spectacular discoveries (or ‘inventions’) at the end of the fourth century and the beginning of the fifth dramatically increased the number of distinguished relics available. The floodgates were opened by the discovery of two quite unknown saints called Gervaise and Proteus in the basilica of Milan by St. Ambrose in 386. As he was dedicating the basilica in the presence of a large crowd, Ambrose dug in the ground beneath him and uncovered two unidentified bodies which were spontaneously gathered up by the crowd and venerated as the relics of saints and martyrs. The timing of this event was particularly opportune, for the Arian empress Justina was even then attempting to expel Ambrose from his bishopric. We cannot rule out the possibility that the invention was elaborately contrived for immediate political ends. There can, however, be no doubt of the enormous impact which the discovery made on contemporaries. St. Augustine, who was in Milan at the time, constantly refers to it, and the cult of the two saints enjoyed immediate popularity throughout the Christian world. The result seems to have been to make Christians more credulous in accepting the fabrications of visionaries or charlatans. Two unknown saints, Vitalis and Agricola, were unearthed in rather similar circumstances in Florence in 390. In the same year two monks claimed to have found the head of John the Baptist in the ruins of Herod’s palace in Jerusalem. Even more celebrated than the invention of St. Gervaise and St. Proteus, was the discovery of the body of St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr, in 415. A certain Lucian, priest of Caphar-gamala in Palestine, experienced a revelation in which Gamaliel, the enlightened pharisee mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles, informed him that he had translated Stephen’s body to Caphargamala. The relics were immediately located and portions of them distributed to churches in north Africa and the eastern Mediterranean. Some of them remained at Caphargamala, while the bulk of them were translated to Jerusalem. But fragments found their way to Uzalis, Calama, Minorca and Ancona amongst other places. St. Augustine acquired some for his church at Hippo, which became the object of an important north African pilgrimage.

  The common feature of most of these discoveries was that they were alleged to have been inspired by visions or dreams. The belief in dreams as a revelation of the supernatural world is one of the commonest features of primitive religions. St. Augustine, for example, had no doubt that God spoke to men in visions, and his critical powers appear to have been suspended whenever other men’s dreams were reported to him. Throughout the middle ages, dreams were cited to authenticate more or less bogus relics. Thus, for example, Moses’ rod, whose discovery at Sens created a sensation at the beginning of the eleventh century. When the Provencal hermit Peter Bartholomew discovered the Holy Lance at Antioch during the first crusade his story was doubted by Adhémar, bishop of Le Puy, but it was enthusiastically accepted by the rank and file of the army. In some hagiographical works it is even suggested that it was sinful to ignore instructions conveyed in dreams, and indeed in the fourteenth century, Jean de Meung found that an exaggerated respect for them was almost universal amongst his contemporaries.

  In doubting the authenticity of the Holy Lance of Antioch, Adhémar was probably fairly typical of educated churchmen of his day. He may perhaps have remembered another Holy Lance at Constantinople whose claims were rather more ancient. The absence of rational criteria for assessing the authenticity of relics bred a dangerous anarchy in which several churches might lay claim to the same relic, each discovered by revelation and each equally believed. Thus at least two heads of John the Baptist were venerated in the fifth century, and in the eleventh century they were both to be found in Constantinople, while a third head had made its appearance at St.-Jean d’Angely in central France. For such reasons the Church endeavoured at an early stage to stem the tide of dreams and visions. A north African council as early as 401 had occasion to denounce ‘inane revelations which men suppose themselves to have received in their sleep’. Even Augustine, usually credulous in such matters, advised caution. Although the multiplicity of relics does not seem to have disturbed the populace, intelligent churchmen were aware that it discredited the cult of certain saints. For as Guibert of Nogent pointed out:

  ‘Some say they have such and such a relic and others loudly assert that
they have it. The citizens of Constantinople claim the head of John the Baptist while the monks of St.-Jean d’Angely confidently believe that they have it. Now what could be more absurd than to suppose that this great saint had two heads. Let us therefore take this matter seriously and admit that one of them is wrong.’

  It was Guibert’s opinion that all doubts about the authenticity of relics were due to the partition and translation of bodies. ‘All the evils of contention over relics would be avoided if we permitted the saints to enjoy the repose of a proper and immutable burial place.’ In fact, the early Church had originally refused to countenance either the partition or the translation of bodies. The burial of the dead was governed by strict rules of Roman municipal law. In the Theodosian code, it was absolutely forbidden to disturb the dead even if it was only by moving the coffin a few feet. But at the time the code was published these precepts had already been abandoned, notably by the emperors themselves. The co-emperor Gallus translated the relics of St. Babylas to a disreputable suburb of Antioch shortly after 351, while the reign of Constantius (351–61) saw a series of spectacular translations to the great church of the Apostles in Constantinople. Magnificent displays signalled the arrival in the city of St. Phocas, St. Paul the confessor, John the Baptist, the prophet Samuel and a host of minor martyrs. Thus it was that the capital of the Byzantine empire, which had begun its life with no relics at all, possessed by the end of the fifth century the world’s finest collection. These developments attracted unfavourable comment in the west where the dead remained inviolable until the seventh century. The popes repeatedly refused to allow the emperors to translate relics from Rome to Constantinople. A request for the bodies of St. Peter, St. Paul and St. Lawrence, was rejected by pope Hormisdas in 519 on the ground that Roman custom would not allow it. Gregory the Great refused a request for the head of St. Lawrence in 594, pointing out that ‘it was not the custom in Rome to permit any one so much as to touch the relics of the saints’; those who had recently opened the tomb of St. Lawrence by mistake had all died within ten days.