In the Middle Ages pilgrimages were regarded as a mark of piety, but, as might have been expected, they gave rise to the most flagrant abuses. We find ac-
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cordingly pope Boniface, in a letter to Cuthbert, arch- bishop of » Janterbury, in the 8tb century, desiring tliat women and nuns mighl be restrained from i h< ir fre- quenl pilgrimages to Borne. The second Council of Chalons also, which was held in AD. 813, denounces in no measured terms the false i m~i reposed in pil- grimages to Rome, and also to the church of St.. Mar- tin at Timrs. "There arc clergymen," complains this
ecclesiastical By I, "who lead an idle life, and trusl
thereby to be purified from sin. and to fulfil the duties of their calling; and there are laj men who believe thai they may sin or have sinned with impunity because they undertook such pilgrimages; there are great men who, under this pretext, practice the grosses! extortion among ilieir people; and there are poor men who em- ploy the Bame excuse to render begging a more profit- able employment Such are those who wander round about, and falsely declare thai they are on a pilgrimage; while there are others whose folly is so great that they believe that they heroine purified from their sin- i>\ the
lucre sight of the holy places, forgetting the words of St Jerome, who says that there is nothing meritorious
in seeing Jerusalem, but in leading a good life there." It was between the 11th and the 13th centuries, how- ever, that the rage tor pilgrimages came to it- height
About the commencement of the period now referred to
the idea extensively prevailed throughout Europe that the thousand years mentioned in the Apocalypse were near their (dose, and the end of the world was at hand. A general consternation spread among all classes, and many individuals, parting with their property and abandoning their friends and families, set out for the Holy Land, where they imagined that Christ would ap- pear to judge the world. While Palestine had been in the hands of the caliphs, pilgrimages to Jerusalem had been encouraged as offering them an ample source of revenue; hut no sooner had Syria been conquered by the Turks, in the middle of the 11th century, than pil- grims to the Holy Land began to he exposed to every species of insult. The minds of men in every part of Christendom were now inflamed with indignation .at the cruelties and impositions of the Mohammedan pos- BesSOrS Of the holy places : ami in BUCb circumstances the
Church enthusiasts found little difficulty in originating
the Crusades (q. v.), and for two centuries vast armies ot pilgrims pound into the Holy Land. It was easier for the Crusaders, however, to make their conquests than to preserve them ; and accordingly, before the 13th century had passed away, the Christians were driven out of all their Asiatic posses.- ions, and the holy places fell anew into the hands of the infidels.
Iii almost every country where Romanism prevails pil- grimages have been ami -till arc common. In England, at one time, the shrine of Thomas a I Socket, and in Scot- land that of St Andrew, was the favorite resort of devout
pilgrims. I!ut even down to the present da\ there are various places in Ireland where station- ami holj wells attract crowds of devout worshippers every year: and many part- of that country are sacred to extraordinary worship and pilgrimage. From the beginning ol May till the middle of August every year crowds of popish peni- tents resort to an island near the centre of Lough Fin, or White Lake, in the county oi' I Donegal, to the amount of three or four thousand. These arc mostly of the
I rer sort, and many of them are proxies for those who
are richer; some of « hom, however, together w ith some
of the priests and bishops, on occasion make their ap- pearance there. When the pilgrim comes within Bight of the holy lake he mu-l uncover his hands and feet. and thus walk to the water-side, and i- taken to the isl- and for sixpence. Here are two chapels ami fifteen
other houses, to which arc added eonl'i — iona!-. BO con- trived that the priest cannot see the person confessing. 'I In penance varies according to the circumstances of the penitent, during the continuance of which (some- times three, six. or nine days) he subsists on oatmeal, sometime- made into bread. He lra\cr-c- -harp -tone-
on hi- hare knee- or feet, and l,'ocs through a variety of other forms, paying sixpence at every different -ion. When all i- o\ or the prie-t ho re- a gimlet-hole through the top of the pilgrim's staff, in which he fas- tens a cross peg; gives him as many holy pebbles nut of the lake as he cans n, carry away, tor amulets to be presented to his friends, and bo dismisses him, an object of veneration to all other papists not thus initiated, who no sooner see the pilgrim's cross in his hands than they kneel down to gel his blessing. Hut France, even in modern limes, remains the special patron of Roman- Catholic devotees. Thus the .Y.-)'. TrSnau correspond- ent writes undor Ail";. 27, 1875, from l'aris : "If half a million was a correct estimate— the faithful will tell you that it was too low- of the number of those who had already this year, at the date of my Huh of July letter, gone on loot or wheel- to pay their devotions at this, that, and the other French shrine, by this it should he near a million and a half. We are now in the height of the pilgrimage season. Never in modern times, if in any time, was there another like it for hrisk and inulti-