frequent, and the number of pilgrimages increased accordingly.
Sometimes the relics were those of unknown saints. When Pope Boniface
IV. (606) was about to dedicate to the Holy Virgin, and to all the
martyrs or confessors, the Pantheon of Agrippa, by transforming it into
a church, to be called Sancta Maria Rotunda, he caused to be conveyed
thither thirty-two chariot loads of bones, taken from the Catacombs.
Pope Pascal I. (817) also deposited a vast quantity of saints’ bones
in the Church of St. Praxeas at Rome, previous to consecrating it. The
names of these saints were not known, but the authenticity of their
remains and of their claims to veneration were verified before the
ceremony, by a committee appointed for that purpose.
Illustration: Fig. 282.--Henry I., Emperor of Germany, and one of his
Generals, Gautier Von der Hoye.--Equestrian statues in bronze, cast in
948 by order of the Emperor, and placed in the Church of Our Lady at
Maurkirchen (Austria), in commemoration of his victory over the Huns.
These statues, destroyed in a fire, were re-cast in plaster and placed
on the same spot, where they were visible until June 27th, 1865, when
the church was burnt to the ground.--After a Woodcut from a work called
“Thurnier-Buch,” in gothic folio: printed at Siemern in 1530.]
In the course of three centuries, from the ninth to the eleventh, the
discovery and the disinterment of saints’ bodies, their solemn removal
(Fig. 281), the foundation of monasteries, oratories, and churches in
their honour, the institution of anniversary fêtes, and the setting
apart of a number of private devotions at services, relating not only
to relics, but to holy images, abound in all the annals of the Catholic
world. This is supposed to be the epoch when were introduced into
Europe those ancient images, in sculpture and in painting, of the Holy
Mother of Christ, which were revered in the Middle Ages just as they
are in the present day; among these were black virgins, which were,
no doubt, of Abyssinian origin; tawny or yellowish virgins, from some
country of Africa; and brown and Byzantine virgins, of a stern and
hard-featured type, wanting in expression. These images, all of which
were very coarsely executed--though the last-mentioned seem to be
copied from a picture attributed to St. Luke (Fig. 283)--often peculiar
in their expression and character, but most of them of unquestionable
antiquity, were common in Italy, Spain, the Mediterranean Isles, and
many of the southern provinces of France. They were much rarer in the
west of Europe, in Belgium, Germany, and Ireland, where, however, they
were looked upon with just as much veneration--as, for instance, the
Notre-Dame de Luxembourg, which was tawny. In the North, in Hungary,
Poland, and Russia, but especially in Russia (Figs. 284 and 285), there
were only the dark and Byzantine images of the Virgin.
[Illustration: Fig. 283.--The Virgin of St. Luke (so called).--An
image painted on wood, placed in the Church of Sta. Maria
Maggiore, now San Paolo-fuor-gli-Muri, at Rome, in the Fourth or
Fifth Century.]
[Illustration: Fig. 284.--Greek _Panagia_, or Image of
the Holy Virgin, with a Portrait of Jesus Christ upon her
bosom.--From the “Antiquities of Russia,” by Sevastianof
(Thirteenth Century).]
The worship of relics, as well as that of miraculous images, had,
beyond question, sometimes degenerated into superstition; but it is
impossible to deny the services which it rendered to Christianity in
these ages of barbarism. The people, without anything to restrain or
to guide them, were in a state of perpetual commotion, easily tempted
to evil, a prey to the first adventurer who could show them some ready
road to plunder, impatient of all social restraint, moving about from
place to place, and dead to all family ties and love of country.
Amidst all this disorder, preaching unaccompanied by grand religious
spectacles would have been fruitless, and thus the Church revived the
worship of relics. Search was made in every direction for the bodies
of saints; the bishops themselves journeyed to Italy, to Africa, and
to the East to collect the precious remains of those who had sealed
their testimony with their blood. When these relics arrived at the
place for which they were destined, the people went out to meet them
and escort them back. Their transfer to the sanctuary, in which they
were solemnly laid, was made the occasion for ornate ceremonies and
for numerous pilgrimages (Figs. 286 and 287); and so devotion brought
together hostile races which had long been separated by bitter warfare.
The deeds done by the saint, who seemed as if present and visible to
the eyes of the faithful, were read from the pulpit; the miracles
which he had wrought might always be renewed under the influence
of fervent prayer; a few cures were soon worked in proximity to his
shrine, or upon his tomb. The pilgrims continually increased in number,
and the priests gradually regained the moral authority which they had
allowed to slip away from them.
[Illustration: Fig. 285.--Miraculous Image of Our Lady of
Vladimir, the goal of one of the most famous pilgrimages in
Russia.--From the “Antiquities of Russia,” by Sevastianof.
(Twelfth Century.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 286.--Coffer containing the Hair-cloths
of St. Louis, presented by Philippe le Bel, his grandson, to
the Abbey of Notre-Dame-du-Lis, near Melun.--The chest is in
beech-wood, covered with metal, and with painted designs of the
royal insignia of France and Castille, and various allegorical
subjects.--Work of the Thirteenth Century, in the Louvre, Paris.]
The Crusades were in reality but the general application, upon a larger
scale, of those pilgrimages to the Holy Land which the inhabitants of
Christian Europe had so long been performing. In the rear of the armed
hosts marched with unfurled banners a tribe of infirm pilgrims, women,
children, and old men (Fig. 288), led by priests in their sacerdotal
vestments--undisciplined multitudes, into whose ranks inevitably
crept a number of those miscreants who were the real authors of all
the misdeeds with which history has reproached the Crusaders. As to
the pilgrimages, the immediate result of this great movement of the
European population towards Palestine was the creation, along the road
which they had to travel, of a number of receiving-houses, supported
and managed by certain religious and military orders, who entertained
the wearied and sick pilgrims, and helped them on their journey.
[Illustration: Fig. 287.--Reliquary in chased copper (front
and reverse), with movable Panels, and containing round the
Crucifixion Scene, and in the space between the columns, Relics
of Apostles, Fathers of the Church, Saints, and Martyrs.--Flemish
work of the Thirteenth Century, preserved in the Convent of the
Sisters of the Sacred Heart, at Mons.]
[Illustration: Fig. 288.--Robert I., Duke of Normandy, father of
William the Conqueror, seized with illness during his pilgrimage
to Jerusalem (1035), is carried in his litter by negroes:
hence his jocular saying, “I am being taken by demons into
Paradise.”--From a Miniature in the “Chroniques de Normandie,”
a Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century, in the Library of M.
Ambroise Firmin Didot.]
That model of pilgrims, the good King Louis IX., collected, in the
course of his unsuccessful expeditions (1248–1270), a number of relics
(Figs. 290 to 293, and 305). These, brought back to France as trophies
of the crusade, were offered as gifts to ancient and venerable churches
already possessing many valuable relics, or deposited in new churches
which were built expressly for their reception, as in the case of
the Sainte Chapelle at Paris. And this brought about the increase of
pilgrimages throughout Europe, in which the worship, not only of relics
but of miraculous images, was ardently pursued. At the end of the
thirteenth century, which was undoubtedly the most brilliant as it was
the most solemn epoch of Christian art, in respect to the processional
and itinerant acts of devotion, there were said to be no less than ten
thousand Catholic sanctuaries, all of more or less celebrity, and each
of which attracted its share of pilgrims, either for its Madonna or
Notre-Dame. This was exclusive of the numberless images of Notre-Dame
which were occasionally honoured by a special worship, and which were
erected at cross-roads, at street-corners, and upon the fronts of
houses, as a protection for the wayfarer and for the inhabitants of
the locality. Many dioceses, such as those of Soissons and Toul, each
contained from sixty to seventy places of pilgrimage.
[Illustration: Fig. 289.--The Pilgrims of Emmaus.--Pilgrim’s
dress in the second half of the Thirteenth Century.--Portion of
the celebrated Altar-piece of Mareuil-en-Brie, reproduced in its
entirety in the article “Liturgy and Ceremonies.”]
The authentic titles of the principal pilgrimages, apart from those
of Rome and Jerusalem, thus date from the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries. Some, no doubt, were anterior to this period, but their
origin, though attested by tradition, cannot be said to rest upon any
indisputable evidence. Of this nature are the celebrated devotions of
Notre-Dame of Loretto, of our Lord’s robe at Trèves, of the seamless
robe of Jesus Christ in the village of Argenteuil, near Paris, of
St. Larme at Vendôme, of St. Face at Chambéry, of the blood of St.
Januarius at Naples, of the stole of St. Hubert, &c.
[Illustration: Fig. 290.--The Crown of Thorns brought into
France.--The three lower compartments represent: 1, the first
visit of the king to the Sainte-Chapelle, expressly built to
receive the crown of thorns; 2, the reception of the crown,
presented by Baldwin II., Emperor of Constantinople, and
brought to Paris in 1239; 3, the adoration of the crown in the
Sainte-Chapelle by the king and his mother, Blanche of Castille.
Above are the Island of Cyprus, the Crusaders’ fleet, and a
battle with the Saracens, as recalling the crusade of Louis
IX.--In the Burgundian Library, Brussels. (Fifteenth Century.)]
[Illustration: Figs. 291 and 292.--1. The Nail used in the
Crucifixion of our Lord, preserved in the Church of Santa Croce
di Gerusalemme, at Rome. 2. The Holy Bit of Carpentras, brought
to that town between 1204 and 1206. This is the bit which St.
Helena forged for the horse of the Emperor Constantine from nails
which had been driven into the holy cross.--After the Engraving
of M. Rohault de Fleury, in his work called “Mémoire sur les
Instrumens de la Passion de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ.”]
[Illustration: Fig. 293.--The Title or Superscription upon our
Lord’s Cross: fragment of the piece of cedar-wood given to the
Pope by St. Helena, and preserved in the Church of Santa Croce
di Gerusalemme, at Rome.--The Inscription, which signifies
“Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews,” was in Hebrew, Greek, and
Latin, written backwards and in sunken characters; only a third
remains.--Fac-simile from M. Rohault de Fleury’s Engraving for
his work called “Mémoires sur les Instrumens de la Passion de
Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ.”]
[Illustration: Fig. 294.--Touching the Relics of St.
Philip.--Fresco Painting by Andrea del Sarto, in the Cloister of
the Church of the Annunziata, at Florence.]
Christian Rome, bedewed with the martyrs’ blood and enriched with their
relics, has since the first ages of Christianity been the central
object of the great majority of pilgrimages. Her three hundred churches
have one after another been visited by a host of believers drawn
thither by pious recollections, by all kinds of effectual acts of grace
or indulgences, by an abundant hospitality, by a pompous ceremonial,
and, above all, by the ardour of their faith. On great anniversaries,
at jubilees and at the _Inventions_ of the bodies of saints, the
number of pilgrims multiplied indefinitely. As many as twelve hundred
thousand have been known to have arrived in the course of a single day,
from different parts of the world--pious bands which encamped around
the walls of the Eternal City, their ranks being constantly added
to by fresh arrivals during several consecutive months. Besides the
basilica of St. Peter, Rome possessed several privileged sanctuaries
which were at all periods the chief haunts of the pilgrims: these
were the Church of Sta. Maria Maggiore, where the manger in which our
Lord was born was seen; San Praxeas, the basilica which contained two
thousand five hundred martyrs; San Giovanni Laterano, in which are
the _scala santa_, the same steps blessed by the blood of Jesus
Christ when He was wearing the crown of thorns, and which are only
ascended by people upon their knees; San Pietro-in-Montorio, the crypt
of which stands upon the spot where that apostle was crucified; San
Sebastiano-fuor-gli-Muri, famous for its catacombs; San Paolo da Tre
Fontane--miraculous springs which gushed from the ground with three
leaps, just as St. Paul’s head rebounded three times from the ground
when he was executed; San Paolo-fuori-le-Muri, where is preserved the
crucifix which spoke to St. Bridget; San Lorenzo-fuori-le-Muri, where
are interred the bodies of St. Stephen and St. Lawrence; Santa Croce di
Gerusalemme (Fig. 293), a basilica founded by the august mother of St.
Constantine on her return from a pilgrimage to Palestine; St. Cecilia,
a church built upon the site of the house in which that saint lived,
and containing the bath-room in which she suffered martyrdom; as well
as twenty other churches which have been the cradles of the Christian
religion, and which, by their origin, tradition, and relics, command
the pious respect of those who visit them. No matter by what road the
pilgrims travelled, they passed on their way to Rome a vast number of
sanctuaries and stations which were dedicated either to the Virgin
Mary or to illustrious saints (Fig. 294). Upon the sea-coast, the
church of Our Guardian Lady and of Our Lady of Genesta, the tutelary
guardians of the Gulf of Lyons and the Gulf of Genoa; and with them
St. Martha and St. Magdalene; St. George, the legend of whose warlike
exploit is reproduced in so many pictures; at Lucca, Our Lady of the
Rose; in the Neapolitan States, Our Lady of the Commencement, Our Lady
of the Conception, Our Lady of the Assumption, Our Lady of Naples,
Our Lady of Mount St. Januarius; in Sicily, Our Lady of the Crown,
St. Restituta, St. Agatha, but particularly St. Rosalie; towards the
eastern shores of the Ionian Sea, several virgins of Byzantine origin,
who were worshipped conjointly with St. Nicholas and St. Spiridion;
along the Adriatic other Madonnas and other saints, conspicuous among
whom, like a precious pearl, shines the celebrated image known as
Our Lady of Victory. It was in her honour that an Eastern emperor
caused a triumphal car to be constructed, in order that she might be
drawn through the streets of Constantinople whenever the empire was
threatened with danger. Brought to Venice and deposited in the Church
of St. Mark, she was looked upon as the safe-guard of the republic,
and, in place of the triumphal car, a magnificent gondola was specially
reserved for this image. From the days of Godfroy de Bouillon, who,
with a part of the Crusaders, made a pilgrimage to Bari, on the “soil
of Monseigneur St. Nicholas,” before pursuing his journey to Jerusalem,
this august sanctuary became the scene of continuous devotions.
Joinville, Froissart, Philippe Giraud de Vigneulles, and other
chroniclers speak of the number of pilgrims who visited Bari to do
honour to the relics of St. Nicholas. The miracles accomplished there
through the intercession of the blessed Bishop of Myra, form a rich
volume of legends dating from the eleventh century, when forty burghers
of the town of Bari went into Asia Minor to rescue his precious body
from the violence of the Saracens.
We must not be astonished at the profanities committed by the
Mahometans at the places of pilgrimage in Palestine, since the
cessation of the Crusades left these venerable sanctuaries at their
mercy. It was to preserve the chapel of Nazareth from these outrages
that God commanded his angels to carry it into a Christian country.
According to a tradition confirmed by several papal bulls, the angels
who carried off this chapel deposited it, on May 10th, 1291, at
Rauneza, between Fiume and Tersatz, in Dalmatia. On the same night the
Virgin Mary appeared in a dream to a dying priest named Alexander, and
told him of the miracle. The chapel transported to Rauneza was no other
than the house in which the divine mother of God had been born and had
conceived the Redeemer. After her death the apostles had converted
it into a chapel; St. Peter had erected an altar in it, and St. Luke
had with his own hands carved in cedar a statue of the Virgin for
it. The priest who had had the vision rose from his bed cured of his
disease, and went to prostrate himself before the holy image previous
to making a public announcement of the apparition of the Virgin. The
house of Nazareth was there standing to confirm the truth of his
story. Then began the pilgrimages to Tersatz. The Emperor Rudolph, on
being informed of this marvellous occurrence, sent several persons
of distinction into Palestine to see whether the chapel of Nazareth
had really been removed. Their report was of the most satisfactory
character, and very soon the worship of Our Lady of Tersatz had become
very general throughout the Danubian provinces. In order to preserve
the treasure with which Providence had endowed this spot, the _santa
casa_ was surrounded by a wooden framework while the church of which
it was to form the sanctuary was being built. But after standing for
three years in Dalmatia, this holy house disappeared. Contemporary
chroniclers relate that, on the 10th of December, 1291, it was carried
up into the air by angels and borne across the Adriatic.
It appears that the _santa casa_, before taking up its definite
position, halted near Recanati, upon a property belonging to two
brothers who for eight months disputed its possession. In order to
bring about a reconciliation between them, and chiefly, no doubt,
because they were unwilling to leave this sanctuary at the mercy
of these two jealous rivals, the angels bore it off once more, and
finally deposited it in a field belonging to a poor widow of the name
of Loreta--whence the denomination Our Lady of Loreta. Here may still
be seen the _santa casa_, just as it came from Nazareth, but not
as it was decorated, endowed, and enriched by the sumptuous devotion
of the Middle Ages. Its treasures, valued at several million francs,
already much diminished by the religious wars brought about by the
great Western schism, ceased to accumulate in the sixteenth century
during the struggle of the Church against Protestantism, and they were
almost all carried off in 1796 by the pillaging armies of the French
Republic. Nevertheless the fervour of the pilgrims was not in the least
abated, and the splendid church in which the _santa casa_ was as
it were enshrined, was too small to contain all the votive offerings
brought thither from every part of the world. The popes had granted
numerous indulgences to those who made this pilgrimage, which was the
most celebrated as well as the most frequented of any outside Rome.
The legend of the pilgrimages, as marvellous in Spain as it was in
Italy, always associated the worship of St. James with that of the Holy
Virgin. After the ascension of our Lord and the descent of the Holy
Ghost, Santiago the Iberian--St. James, as we call him--bid adieu to
his elder brother St. John the Evangelist, and afterwards went to ask
the Virgin for her blessing. She said to him, “Dear son, since thou
hast chosen Spain, the country which I love best of all European lands,
to preach the Gospel, take care to found there a church dedicated to
me, in the town where you convert the greatest number of heathen.”
Santiago then left Jerusalem, and crossing the Mediterranean, arrived
at Tarragona, where, despite all his efforts, he only succeeded in
converting eight persons.
[Illustration: Fig. 295.--Our Lady of Mountserrat, with a
Spanish Inscription signifying “Celestial abode of Our Lady of
Mountserrat.”--This mountain derives its name from its rocks
being shaped like the teeth of a saw (_sierra_, saw). This
symbolical saw is seen in the hands of the Infant Jesus.--Reduced
Fac-simile of a Woodcut of the Sixteenth Century, belonging to M.
Bertin, publisher, of Paris.]
But in the night of February 4th, A.D. 36, whilst he and his
eight neophytes were sound asleep in the plain upon which Saragossa
now stands, they were awaked by celestial music, and this music was
the voice of angels celebrating the praises of the Virgin. Santiago
prostrated himself with his face to the ground, and before him he saw
the august mother of Christ, standing on a pillar of jasper, surrounded
with angels, and with the same smile of ineffable sweetness which he
had seen on her features when he left Jerusalem. “James, my son,” she
said to him, “you must build me a church upon this very spot. Take
the pillar upon which I am standing, place it, with my image upon its
summit, in the midst of a sanctuary dedicated to me, and to the end
of time it shall never cease to work miracles.” The apostle at once
commenced the work, aided by his disciples, and the church was soon
constructed. Such, according to the legend, was the origin of the
cathedral and the pilgrimage of Our Lady of the Pillar (_Nuestra
señora del Pilar_).
The Virgin of the Pillar (_Virgo del Pilar_) was not the only
one held in profound veneration by the Spaniards during the Middle
Ages; every petty kingdom, every principality, every important town
of the Iberian peninsula had its Madonna, its _Señora_, which
attracted numerous pilgrims. Amongst them may be mentioned Our Lady
of Mountserrat, in Catalonia (Fig. 295), Our Lady of France (_la
Rena di Francia_), half-way between Salamanca and Ciudad Rodrigo,
and Our Lady of the Dice (_Señora del Dado_), in the kingdom of
Leon--sanctuaries which stood in the midst of mountainous ranges, and
which could only be reached on foot or with mules.
In a small town called El Padron--the Monument--which is but the
ancient _Iria_, where Santiago, called James the Elder, taught
(Fig. 296), and which was for a long time the guardian of his earthly
remains, there flowed beneath the high altar of the church, which
was dedicated to him, a stream of spring water, the ripple of which,
like heavenly music, mingled with the prayers of the pilgrims, who
were so numerous that their knees have worn holes in the stone slabs
of the sanctuary. The body of the illustrious martyr, when brought
from Compostella to Santiago, was laid upon a granite block which was
miraculously fashioned into a tomb, and it never emerged therefrom save
as a phantom either to appear in vision before kings, prelates, and
other pious persons who had invoked it, or to seize a lance and combat
the enemies of Christianity. Thus, the legend tells us, he was seen
in 946, riding a white horse, holding in his hand a banner emblazoned
with a red cross (such as the knights of Santiago wear on the left side
of their mantles), and marching at the head of the Christian barons
against the Moors or Saracens.
The pilgrimage to St. James of Compostella was famous as early as the
ninth century; people came with votive offerings from all parts of the
Christian world. The road leading to this sanctuary was perpetually
crowded with an army of pilgrims, and such continued to be the case
throughout the Middle Ages. On returning to their own country, the
pilgrims of “Monseigneur St. James” formed a regular order of Catholic
chivalry; they kept up the pious devotions in which they had engaged
during their pilgrimage, and maintained till their lives’ end the
spirit of religious fellowship which had united them under the same
banner.
[Illustration: Fig. 296.--The Magician Armogenes, in the
presence of the Compostella pilgrims, orders devils to bring
him the apostle St. James (the legend of the saint gives the
contrary version).--After a Miniature from “The Holy Scriptures,”
a Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century (Burgundian Library,
Brussels).]