What is a Pilgrimage?

This is a question that I have sometimes wondered about: on the surface it seems like a very simple question but truthfully it is not simple.

Pilgrimage as a word comes from the Latin word peregrinus which means ‘one who is in spiritual exile’ that is looking for a spiritual homeland (and definitions of pilgrimage are a journey to a sacred place or shrine) but since mediaeval times the pilgrimage to Santiago has been more than this – the journey to Santiago was undertaken to visit the shrine of Saint James but also for other reasons:

for the forgiveness of sins or as a penance for crimes (notably the murder of a Priest or of your Father could lead to being sent on Pilgrimage as penance)
as an escape from their life (in the mediaeval period life was very ordered and travel for the average person was not allowed but Pilgrimage was permitted)
as a job (when people wished to make a pilgrimage but could not make the time or for ill health could not make the journey then there were people who would walk for you and did this as a job)

Thus pilgrimage gains a wider definition and we must also consider that there are pilgrimages made to non religious destinations such as a pilgrimage to Graceland or to a football stadium for a fan, these too are considered to be a pilgrimage so should pilgrimage be considered to be a journey to a destination of special significance to those that undertake it (so Frodo going to Mount Doom to destroy the One Ring would not be a Pilgrimage but a journey but if Sauroman, as a devoted supporter of Sauron, were to go to Mount Doom to see where the Ring was made could be).

This idea is supported throughout history with Thomas Aquinas in the late 13^th century writing that going on a pilgrimage to show love to a Saint or to pray for healing or forgiveness was soon joined by other reasons.

So then pilgrimage is, as written by Sally Welch in ‘Making a Pilgrimage’ (Lion, 2009), ‘..a journey of purpose,’ which is what I have found among Pilgrims going to Santiago: maybe they are there as an experience of faith or to get fit, to see the country or just to walk.

What do you think? What makes a pilgrimage a pilgrimage for you?

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The Camino Primitivo

The Camino Primitivo (or the Original Way) is reportedly the very first Camino Way to Santiago in the 9 th century when most of Spain was under the control of the Moors and it runs from near the city of Ovideo in Asturias as it starts in Villavicosa (which also lies on the Camino Norte so many people follow this Way from Basque city of San Sebastian (Donosti in Basque) or in from the French border at Irun ( this route then hugs the Bay of Biscay passing through Guernica, Bilbao, Santander, Llanes before going under the Picos de Europa and then heads along the coast to Ovideo) before branching off onto the Primitivo which goes across the mountains and through the city of Lugo before joining the Frances at Melide. The route is 320km long. Image taken from https://viaalpina2013.wordpress.com/2013/04/14/camino-del-norte-camino-primitivo/

Symbols of the three main Christian Pilgrimages

The symbol of the Pilgrim to Santiago is the Scallop shell of which many can be found on the coast of Galicia and it is actually a symbol of the Pilgrimage (and has become a symbol of other Christian Pilgrimages too) partly because you could find the shell easily there and so could go back home and show it off as proof that you had done the Pilgrimage. It has also been included in carvings in some Churches.

Pilgrims' Trail to Saint Michels Mont, France

I have only walked two of the Camino routes (the Frances and Portuguese) and still want to try many of the others and yet I am also finding other Pilgrimage routes that I want to walk - I did the Pilgrims' Way in the summer which starts from Winchester which is also the starting point for the Pilgrims' Trail a 155 mile route that finishes at Mont St Michel in Normandy, France. The cult of saint Michel was popular in Britain from the 9th century and the Pilgrims walking this way were called Miquelots and many Pilgrims on their way to Santiago. The route is marked by green way markers in Hampshire taking walkers from Winchester to Bishop's Waltham to Southwick and then to Portsmouth where ferries are caught to France and Way markers become blue. Tradition says that, in 709 Saint Michael the Archangel appeared to the bishop of Avranches, Saint Aubert, and told him to build a chapel in his honour on the island. The bishop obeyed and soon sent a group of monks over...

On the Camino

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