- Time of past OR future Camino
- May 2023: Via Francigena, Lucca to Rome
Well this is something to think of next time any of us are bothered by crowds, commercialism, turigrinos, and party pilgrims - it looks like the 16th and 17th centuries had their own share of problems on the road to Compostelle.
This is all from an article by Denise Péricard-Méa (citation at the end) which tries to separate factual history from modern and medieval myths. I don't know enough to judge the scholarship of the article, but I definitely enjoyed a lot of the stories she shared.
(Note: the article is in French. Any mistakes in translation are mine)
Here goes: The "golden age" of European pilgrimages peaked in the 13th or 14th centuries. In the late 1500's there was an increase in the numbers of pilgrims to the various Catholic sanctuaries, and it was promoted as an act of penitence.
Not all pilgrims were properly penitent.
In Don Quixote, Sancho Panza meets a friend who has disguised himself as a Frenchman and "joined with those peregrinos who have the the custom of coming into Spain every year to visit her sanctuaries, which they treat like the Indies, certain of profit and gain." (Volume II, Chapter LIV)
(juntéme con estos peregrinos, que tienen por costumbre de venir a España muchos dellos, cada año, a visitar los santuarios della, que los tienen por sus Indias, y por certísima granjería y conocida ganancia).
The "pilgrims' beg alms from Sancho, then go off-trail, take off their begging clothes, and set out a picnic of olives, caviar, ham, cheese, and lots of wine.
Péricard-Méa also quotes Don Cristobal Perez de Herrera, who wrote in 1598: "Every year at the hospice in Burgos we provide two to three days of free food and shelter to 8000 to 10,000 French and Gascons, who come to our kingdom for pilgrimage ... in France, they say, they promise to bring back a dowry to their daughters, which they will amass on their voyage to and from Saint-Jacques as if it were the Indies, coming into Spain with all their cheap trinkets."
(On voit passer et on héberge chaque année à l’hospice de Burgos, où on leur donne à manger gratis deux ou trois jours, huit à dix mille Français et Gascons qui viennent dans nos royaumes à l’occasion du pèlerinage … En France, dit-on, ils promettent pour dot à leurs filles ce qu’ils auront amassé au cours d’un voyage aller et retour à Saint-Jacques, comme si c’était aux Indes, en venant en Espagne avec des pacotilles).
She mentions that the court at Castille tried to limit the number of foreigners allowed in its cities in 1523, 1525, and 1528; that Philip II required that all foreigners carried proof of their status from a religious authority; and that Louis XIV of France complained that "many of these so-called pilgrims leave for Saint-Jacques in Galicia, Notre-Dame de Lorette, and other holy sites outside the kingdom and quit their families, wives, and children, or leave their apprenticeships ... all in a spirit of libertinism."
(plusieurs soi-disant pèlerins partent à Saint-Jacques en Galice, Notre-Dame de Lorette et autres lieux saints hors du royaume en quittant parents, femmes et enfants, en laissant leur apprentissage, tout cela dans un esprit de libertinage)
Péricard-Méa provides one figure that suggests that the number of pilgrims who were actually heading towards Compostelle in this period was 15% of the total number of "pilgrims," and that most of these traveled in small groups and were reduced to begging.
- There's lots more in the main article! Brigands, thieves, and bad men who took new wives in Galicia ... those must have been fun times ...
[Denise Péricard-Méa et Louis Mollaret. «Le triomphe de Compostelle», SaintJacquesInfo [En ligne], Histoire du pèlerinage à Compostelle, mis à jour le 04/02/2016]
This is all from an article by Denise Péricard-Méa (citation at the end) which tries to separate factual history from modern and medieval myths. I don't know enough to judge the scholarship of the article, but I definitely enjoyed a lot of the stories she shared.
(Note: the article is in French. Any mistakes in translation are mine)
Here goes: The "golden age" of European pilgrimages peaked in the 13th or 14th centuries. In the late 1500's there was an increase in the numbers of pilgrims to the various Catholic sanctuaries, and it was promoted as an act of penitence.
Not all pilgrims were properly penitent.
In Don Quixote, Sancho Panza meets a friend who has disguised himself as a Frenchman and "joined with those peregrinos who have the the custom of coming into Spain every year to visit her sanctuaries, which they treat like the Indies, certain of profit and gain." (Volume II, Chapter LIV)
(juntéme con estos peregrinos, que tienen por costumbre de venir a España muchos dellos, cada año, a visitar los santuarios della, que los tienen por sus Indias, y por certísima granjería y conocida ganancia).
The "pilgrims' beg alms from Sancho, then go off-trail, take off their begging clothes, and set out a picnic of olives, caviar, ham, cheese, and lots of wine.
Péricard-Méa also quotes Don Cristobal Perez de Herrera, who wrote in 1598: "Every year at the hospice in Burgos we provide two to three days of free food and shelter to 8000 to 10,000 French and Gascons, who come to our kingdom for pilgrimage ... in France, they say, they promise to bring back a dowry to their daughters, which they will amass on their voyage to and from Saint-Jacques as if it were the Indies, coming into Spain with all their cheap trinkets."
(On voit passer et on héberge chaque année à l’hospice de Burgos, où on leur donne à manger gratis deux ou trois jours, huit à dix mille Français et Gascons qui viennent dans nos royaumes à l’occasion du pèlerinage … En France, dit-on, ils promettent pour dot à leurs filles ce qu’ils auront amassé au cours d’un voyage aller et retour à Saint-Jacques, comme si c’était aux Indes, en venant en Espagne avec des pacotilles).
She mentions that the court at Castille tried to limit the number of foreigners allowed in its cities in 1523, 1525, and 1528; that Philip II required that all foreigners carried proof of their status from a religious authority; and that Louis XIV of France complained that "many of these so-called pilgrims leave for Saint-Jacques in Galicia, Notre-Dame de Lorette, and other holy sites outside the kingdom and quit their families, wives, and children, or leave their apprenticeships ... all in a spirit of libertinism."
(plusieurs soi-disant pèlerins partent à Saint-Jacques en Galice, Notre-Dame de Lorette et autres lieux saints hors du royaume en quittant parents, femmes et enfants, en laissant leur apprentissage, tout cela dans un esprit de libertinage)
Péricard-Méa provides one figure that suggests that the number of pilgrims who were actually heading towards Compostelle in this period was 15% of the total number of "pilgrims," and that most of these traveled in small groups and were reduced to begging.
- There's lots more in the main article! Brigands, thieves, and bad men who took new wives in Galicia ... those must have been fun times ...
[Denise Péricard-Méa et Louis Mollaret. «Le triomphe de Compostelle», SaintJacquesInfo [En ligne], Histoire du pèlerinage à Compostelle, mis à jour le 04/02/2016]
