Pilgrim Routes
WE NEED YOUR HELP!!
So far, most of the information on this site has been gathered by Pilgrimage Publications, but the ultimate aim is to broaden this to include a comprehensive collection of facts, personal experiences and advice from a variety of sources If you have completed a pilgrimage and feel that you have anything useful to pass on, please let us know. Every contribution will be acknowledged and credited.
PILGRIM?
The dictionary definition of the word pilgrim is delivered in two separate statements. The first refers to "a person who journeys, usually a long distance, to some sacred place as an act of religious devotion", while the second and more current definition broadens this out to include any "traveller or wanderer".
Christian pilgrims have travelled across Europe since medieval times and for a variety of reasons. The route was long, arduous and often very dangerous, but pilgrims kept coming in their thousands. For some the motivation would have been entirely religious, but for many others it was far more basic and earthly. The sick hoped St James would cure their bodily ills. Criminals chose the long haul in preference to a prison sentence imposed by a court of law, while a large percentage of the other pilgrims would have been aiming to enhance their credibility and social status back home.
The majority would have been heading for three main sites of devotion, mostly on foot, covering anything up to 20 or 30 kilometres a day and usually carrying one of the three pilgrimage emblems: a cockle shell for Santiago de Compostela, keys for Saint Peter in Rome and a cross or palm leaf for Jerusalem.
Since those early days, the significance and popularity of the pilgrimage has decreased, but as anyone who has recently travelled along the St James Way will know, people are once again embarking on this very specific type of journey and finding that far from having an end; it is often only the beginning of another.
