Pilgrim, Religious. See Pilgrimages.
Pilgrim, a German prelate of mediaeval times, flour- ished from 970 to 991. He was first engaged in mission- ary work among the Hungarians. He held different ecclesiastical positions, and at last was made bishop of Passau. In 974 he drew up for pope Benedict VI a re- markable report concerning the spread of Christianity in Hungary, but the paper was somewhat exagger- ated, and probably prepared by Pilgrim to further some particular interest of his own. The truth is that, like his predecessors, he was striving to assert his indepen- dence of the archbishopric of Salzburg; and he defended the dignity and rights of that ancient metropolis, the long since dilapidated city of Lorch (Laureacum), whose diocese stretched onward to Pannonia. "And so we ma}' suppose," says Neander, " that in his efforts to convince the pope (from whom, in fact, he obtained the fulfilment of his wishes) how necessary the restoration of this me- tropolis was to Pannonia and to its subordinate bishop- rics, he allowed himself to be betrayed into a somewhat exaggerated representation of this new sphere of labor in Hungary." See Neander, History of the Christian Church, iii, 331 sq. ; Kurtz, Lehrbuch <l. Kin (7th ed.) i, 294 ; Theolog. Univ.-Lex. s. v. (13. P.)
Pilgrim, Joiiann Ulrich, an engraver on wood, and the supposed inventor of engraving in chiaro-oscuro. Little is known of him or of his works, except a few prints, which are marked with two pilgrims' staves crossed between the initials Jo. Y. Among the ten prints mentioned by Bartsch are these: Christ on the Cross, with the Magdalen kneeling at its foot, and the Virgin and St. John standing one on either side ; The Virgin, seated in a garden, with the Infant on her knee ; The Virgin, half-length, with the Infant in her arms; St. Jerome in the Desert, with a book in one hand and a stone in the other ; and St. Sebastian, tied to a tree. See Spooner, Biog. Hist, of the Fine Arts, ii, 696.
Pilgrimage of Grace, The. In the time of Hen- ry VIII, it is said that by the dissolution of the lesser monasteries about ten thousand persons became (rather from choice than necessity, for they had the option of
being transferred to the larger houses) applicants for public bounty. These persons, traversing the kingdom, by the detail of their sufferings created extensive dis- satisfaction, and popular feeling was with them. Many of the people also sympathized with the inmates of nunneries, some of whom they were taught to regard as ladies of gentle lives and kind deeds, whose monastic charities were necessarily suspended when their com- munities were dispersed. An attempt was made to sup- press the growing disturbance by restoring thirty of the less disorderly of the suppressed houses. But the storm broke out first in Lincolnshire, and subsequently in Yorkshire, where forty thousand men marched with crucifixes and banners before them, calling their expe- dition the Pilgrimage of Grace, and avowing their ob- ject to be the removal of low-born counsellors (Crom- well, the chancellor, was the son of a blacksmith at. Putney), the suppression of heresy, and the restitution of the Church. These rebel forces, however, melted away without any action; and their leader Aske, upon a repetition of the outbreak, was beheaded for treason. Many of the abbots and friars were supposed to be im- plicated in the pilgrimage — Farrar, Eccles. Diet. s. v.
Pilgrimages are exercises of religious discipline, which consist in journeying to some place of reputed sanctity, frequently in discharge of a vow.
Christian Pilgrimages. — The idea of any peculiar sa- credness being attached to special localities under the Christian dispensation was very strikingly rebuked by Christ in his conversation with the woman of Samaria, as recorded in John iv; and nowhere is the principle on this subject more plainly laid down than in the Lord's statement on that occasion: "The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth : for the Father seek- eth such to worship him." In proportion, however, as Christianity receded from the apostolic age, it gradu- ally lost sight of the simplicity and spirituality which marked its primitive character, and availed itself of carnal expedients for the purpose of elevating the im- agination and kindling the devotion of its votaries. Hence, in the 4th century, many, encouraged by the example of the emperor Constantine, whose supersti- tious tendencies were strong, resorted to the scenes of the Saviour's life and ministry for the nourishing and invigoration of their religious feelings and desires. Helena, the mother of Constantine, set the first exam- ple of a pilgrimage to Palestine, which was soon exten- sively imitated; partly, as in the case of Constantine, with a desire to be baptized in the Jordan, but still more from a veneration for the spots which were asso- ciated with the events of the history of Christ and his apostles. Thus a superstitious attachment to the Holy Land increased so extensively that some of the most eminent teachers of the Church, as Jerome and Gregory of Nyssa, openly disapproved these pilgrimages. The most frequent resort of pilgrims was Jerusalem, but to this were afterwards added Rome, Tours, and Compos- tella. As to the last-named place, we find that in the year 1428, under the reign of Henry VI, abundance of licenses were granted by the crown of England to cap- tains of English ships for carrying numbers of devout persons to the shrine of St. James ; provided, however, that those pilgrims should first make oath not to take anything prejudicial to England, nor to reveal any of its secrets, nor to carry out with them any more gold or silver than would be sufficient for their reasonable ex- penses. In that year 926 persons went from England on the said pilgrimage. In our own times the greatest numbers have resorted to Loretto (q. v.), in order to visit the chamber of the Blessed Virgin, in which she was born, and brought up her son Jesus till he was twelve years of age! or to Par ay le Monial (q. v.), to pay homage to the Virgin Marie ii la Coque (q. v.).