Nineteenth-Century European Pilgrimages: A New Golden Age 0429198892, 9780429198892

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Contents
List of figures and tables
List of contributors
A new golden age of pilgrimages
1 The medieval revival: romanticism, archaeology and architecture
2 The Roman catacombs in the nineteenth century: 'Cradle and Archive of the Catholic Church'
PART I Jerusalem, Rome and Santiago de Compostela
3 Geopietism and pilgrimage/tourism to the Holy Land/Palestine (1850-1918) and the case of Thomas Cook
4 The Grand Tour and after: secular pilgrimage to Rome from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries
5 Compostela, Rome and the revival of the pilgrimages to Santiago
PART II Western Europe
6 The golden age of pilgrimages in France in the nineteenth century
7 Sacred archaeology in nineteenth-century England
8 The path to pilgrimage: travel and devotion in the British press
9 Pilgrimages, modernity and ultramontanism in Germany
PART III Eastern Europe
10 Pilgrimages in times of trial: the pilgrimage movement and sanctuaries in Polish lands in the second half of the nineteenth century
11 Orthodox faith on the move in late Imperial Russia
12 Pilgrimage and the becoming of Athonite monasticism
13 Pilgrimage to the miraculous Church of the Annunciation, Tinos, Greece
Lessons from a golden age: piety, publicity and mobility in nineteenth-century European pilgrimage
Index

Citation preview

NINETEENTH-CENTURY EUROPEAN PILGRIMAGES

Edited by Antón M. Pazos

NINETEENTH-CENTURY EUROPEAN PILGRIMAGES A NEW GOLDEN AGE Edited by Antón M. Pazos

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25-02-2020 18:10:28

Nineteenth-Century European Pilgrimages

During the Nineteenth-Century a major revival in religious pilgrimage took place across Europe. This phenomenon was largely started by the rediscovery of several holy burial places such as Assisi, Milano, Venice, Rome and Santiago de Compostela, and subsequently developed into the formation of new holy sites that could be visited and interacted with in a wholly modern way. This uniquely wide-ranging collection sets out the historic context of the formation of contemporary European pilgrimage in order to better understand its role in religious expression today. Looking at both Western Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Europe, an international panel of contributors analyse the revival of some major Christian shrines, cults and pilgrimages that happened after the rediscovery of ancient holy burial sites or the constitution of new shrines in locations claiming apparitions of the Virgin Mary. They also shed new light on the origin and development of new sanctuaries and pilgrimages in France and the Holy Land during the nineteenth century, which led to fresh ways of understanding the pilgrimage experience and had a profound effect on religion across Europe. This collection offers a renewed overview of the development of Modern European pilgrimage that used the new techniques of organisation and travel implemented in the nineteenth century, in intensive ways. As such, it will appeal to scholars of religious studies, pilgrimage and religious history as well as anthropology, art, cultural studies and sociology. This book has been undertaken within the framework of the research project of the Spanish Government entitled “Las peregrinaciones a Santiago de Compostela en la España de la segunda mitad del siglo XIX: entre tradición y modernidad en el contexto europeo”. MINEICO, Programa Estatal de Fomento de la Investigación Científica y Técnica de Excelencia, Subprograma Estatal de Generación de Conocimiento, 2015–2017, IP: Dr. Antón M. Pazos (CSIC), HAR2014–58753-P. Antón M. Pazos is currently a member of the Pontifical Committee of Historical Sciences and Vice President of the International Commission for History and Studies of Christianity (CIHEC). He is also Deputy Director of the Instituto de Estudios Gallegos Padre Sarmiento (IEGPS), a Research Institute of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, and a member of the editorial committees of the journals Hispania Sacra and Cuadernos de Estudios Gallegos. At the IEGPS he is the coordinator of a line of research into pilgrimage, which has been the driving force behind several research projects, especially in the organisation of the International Colloquia Compostela.

Nineteenth-Century European Pilgrimages A New Golden Age Edited by Antón M. Pazos

First published 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 selection and editorial matter, Antón M. Pazos; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Antón M. Pazos to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 9780367188627 (hbk) ISBN: 9780429198892 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by Apex CoVantage, LLC

Dedicated to Professor José Andrés-Gallego on the occasion of his 75th anniversary

Contents

List of figures and tables List of contributors

ix x

A new golden age of pilgrimages

1

ANTÓN M. PAZOS

1 The medieval revival: romanticism, archaeology and architecture

14

CHRISTOPHER GERRARD

2 The Roman catacombs in the nineteenth century: ‘Cradle and Archive of the Catholic Church’

46

MASSIMILIANO GHILARDI

PART I

Jerusalem, Rome and Santiago de Compostela 3 Geopietism and pilgrimage/tourism to the Holy Land/ Palestine (1850–1918) and the case of Thomas Cook

63 65

RUTH KARK

4 The Grand Tour and after: secular pilgrimage to Rome from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries

82

STEPHEN L. DYSON

5 Compostela, Rome and the revival of the pilgrimages to Santiago ANTÓN M. PAZOS

101

viii

Contents

PART II

Western Europe 6 The golden age of pilgrimages in France in the nineteenth century

119 121

MARC AGOSTINO

7 Sacred archaeology in nineteenth-century England

138

ISAAC SASTRE DE DIEGO

8 The path to pilgrimage: travel and devotion in the British press

146

MILAGROSA ROMERO SAMPER

9 Pilgrimages, modernity and ultramontanism in Germany

166

OLAF BLASCHKE

PART III

Eastern Europe

189

10 Pilgrimages in times of trial: the pilgrimage movement and sanctuaries in Polish lands in the second half of the nineteenth century

191

JAN PERSZON

11 Orthodox faith on the move in late Imperial Russia

205

CHRISTINE D. WOROBEC

12 Pilgrimage and the becoming of Athonite monasticism

223

RENÉ GOTHÓNI

13 Pilgrimage to the miraculous Church of the Annunciation, Tinos, Greece

241

JILL DUBISCH

Lessons from a golden age: piety, publicity and mobility in nineteenth-century European pilgrimage

252

SIMON COLEMAN

Index

256

Figures and tables

Figures 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 3.1 3.2 3.3 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.5 9.6

The Waltham Cross in Hertfordshire Picnic at Netley Abbey in Hampshire Belsay Park in Northumberland (1807–1817) Later medieval excavations in England, showing the general increase in interventions after c. 1840 and an early emphasis on castles and monasteries Durham Cathedral, plan of the east end of the Chapter House excavated in 1874 Table of hotels and hostels, 1901 Christian pilgrims and Cook’s tourists Thomas Cook’s network Typology of pilgrimages August Gustav Lasinsky, Wallfahrt zum Heiligen Rock im Jahr 1844 (1847) Der Heilige Rock zu Trier (1844) Franz Jüttner, and Gustav Brandt. “Auf nach Trier! [Heading towards Trier!]”. Kladderadatsch, 26 July 1891. Pilgrims to the Holy Robe in Trier, 1810–2012 Marian apparitions in Europe, 1803–1917

19 21 24 31 33 73 73 77 170 173 175 177 178 180

Tables 12.1 The ruling monasteries in order of precedence, date of foundation and national origins of the monks in 1489 and today

224

Contributors

Marc Agostino, Emeritus Professor of Contemporary History at Michel de Montaigne University (Bordeaux). Member of the Society of Bibliophiles of Guyenne and corresponding member of the Pontifical Committee of Historical Sciences. Olaf Blaschke, PhD in history (Bielefeld University). Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at the University of Münster. Simon Coleman, PhD in anthropology (University of Cambridge). Chancellor Jackman Professor, Department for the Study of Religion, University of Toronto. Past-President of the Society for the Anthropology of Religion and co-founder of Religion and Society. Jill Dubisch, Emeritus Regents’ Professor of Anthropology at Northern Arizona University. Former President of the Society for the Anthropology of Europe and board member of the Society for the Anthropology of Religion. Stephen L. Dyson, PhD in classical archaeology (Yale University). Distinguished Professor in the Department of Classics at the University at Buffalo. Honorary President of the Archaeological Institute of America. Christopher Gerrard, PhD in archaeology and geology (University of Bristol). Professor of Archaeology at Durham University. Member of the Society of Antiquaries. Former Vice-Chair of University Archaeology UK (2017) and Chair of the Gefrin Trust (2017). Massimiliano Ghilardi, Associate Director of the National Institute of Roman Studies (Italy) and Secretary General of the International Union of Institutes of Archeology, History and Art History in Rome. René Gothóni, PhD in theology (University of Helsinki). Emeritus Professor in the Department of Cultures at the University of Helsinki. Member of the Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters. Ruth Kark, Emeritus Professor at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Specialist in the history and historical geography of Palestine and Israel and on Western influences on the Holy Land.

Contributors

xi

Antón M. Pazos, PhD in history and PhD in theology (University of Navarra). Deputy Director of the Instituto de Estudios Gallegos Padre Sarmiento of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) in Santiago de Compostela (Spain). Member of the Pontifical Committee of Historical Sciences. Jan Perszon, PhD in theology (Catholic University of Lublin). Professor of Theological Sciences at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń. Member of the Polish Council of Scientific Excellence. Milagrosa Romero Samper, PhD in history (Complutense University of Madrid). Professor of Spanish Modern and Contemporary History at CEU San Pablo University, Madrid. Her research focuses on Spanish cultural movements and politics, religious tendencies and policies. Isaac Sastre de Diego, PhD in archaeology (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid). He has conduted his research in Spain, Italy and the UK. Since 2018, he belongs to the National Body of Curators. He works at the Department of Archaeology in the Institute of the Cultural Heritage of Spain (Ministry of Culture). Christine D. Worobec, PhD in history (University of Toronto). Emeritus Professor of History at Northern Illinois University. Specialist in Imperial Russia and Modern Ukraine, she is currently working on mapping and analysing Orthodox pilgrimages in these areas.

A new golden age of pilgrimages Antón M. Pazos

If the nineteenth century came to be known as the century of pilgrimages, this was mainly due to the new means to have emerged in Europe at the time for transporting people from A to B. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to claim that the second half of the nineteenth century was the communications era, whether physical or involving people or things. By the end of the century, millions of people were able to move around in large groups much more comfortably – at least some, installed in luxury carriages or cabins – and much more quickly, even the poor. Trains and steamships – or steam itself – were the symbol of a civilisation in universal expansion and in flux, particularly within the national sphere. Although mostly disjointed, rail lines sprang up, going on to form networks covering part of the European continent. In the United States, this saw the country definitively conquered from coast to coast. Trains not only influenced travellers, but just like in contemporary times, the new technologies forced changes that had repercussions in people’s everyday lives. Clocks – which until then would vary by minutes across the same region, according to each town’s location in relation to the sun – were unified across the entire nation or for large areas within the same nation, such as in Russia or the United States (due to their sheer size) in order to establish rail links. This meant that anyone boarding a train in Paris did not have to adjust their watch upon arrival in Bordeaux, and that connecting with another train would not entail worrying about the local time. Pilgrimages could thus also be combined on a national level, with trains collecting new carriages of pilgrims at railways’ convergence points. Food was also able to be brought in from much further away. Honeymoons became popular among the bourgeoisie. Villages with railway access grew and those more isolated languished. The world became smaller. Mass tourism was not yet a reality, but it was certainly on the horizon. The new methods of transport also allowed people to get around without a concern for much more than where to eat and sleep. As Stefan Zweig once wistfully remarked, Before 1914 the Earth had belonged to all. People went where they wished and stayed as long as they pleased. There were no permits, no

2

Antón M. Pazos visas, and it always gives me pleasure to astonish the young by telling them that before 1914 I travelled from Europe to India and to America without passport and without ever having seen one. One embarked and alighted without questioning or being questioned, one did not have to fill out a single one of the many papers which are required today. The frontiers which, with their customs officers, police and militia, have become wire barriers thanks to the pathological suspicion of everybody against everybody else, were nothing but symbolic lines which one crossed with as little thought as one crosses the Meridian of Greenwich.1

Such was the context of the new golden age of pilgrimages in nineteenthcentury Europe.

The Europe of the pilgrimages In the summer of 2019, with this book almost in print, I visited Lourdes. Although my time in the city was short, I was able to participate in the Eucharistic pilgrimage and the torchlight procession. Both are magnificent examples of the union between traditional piety and the technique of mass control, of such importance in Lourdes. Thousands of the sick in their wheelchairs and thousands of pilgrims make the necessary movements in the procession with pinpoint accuracy and apparent spontaneity. Behind this, however, is watertight organisation, involving hundreds of volunteers and a now wholly secular experience. What did I see there? Certainly a strand of emotive piety with theological – Marian and Eucharistic – roots and, more importantly here, a reflection of the Church’s universality, encompassing a mass delivered in Chinese at six o’clock in the morning, an international group of gypsies, Italian and French Diocesan pilgrimages, as well as hundreds of Spaniards and Asian Catholics of striking piety. There were also many couples and families on the edges of every group. These final two characteristics seem to constitute the most striking change in the last ten years, in which organised groups have dropped by 44 percent and pilgrims from outside Europe – whether from the Philippines, India, Sri Lanka or the Americas – have grown to almost outnumber the Europeans, certainly the French, with the 2018 torchlight procession formed of 90 percent foreign pilgrims.2 Latin, used in countless hymns, seems to have regained its universal appeal, while French is generally used in the sanctuary and somewhat overrepresented in the prayers given during the official acts. In the nineteenth century, the situation was the inverse, as the pilgrimages almost always took place in Europe and were national in character3 and organised. In some ways, although Lourdes was the symbol of the new “century of pilgrimages”, pilgrimages were carried out across the entire European continent, from Portugal to Russia. In the widest sense, therefore, the routes spanned the territory between the Atlantic and the Ural Mountains, with a particular concentration in Catholic and Orthodox countries.

A new golden age of pilgrimages

3

Such is the Europe contemplated in this book. A Europe that is also combative and penitent: many pilgrimages had political-social dimensions, such as in Spain, Italy and partitioned Poland, or were a reaction to the misfortunes of the pilgrims’ homeland, such as France in the aftermath of the FrancoPrussian War. Obviously, the demarcation of Europe has never been unequivocal or simple. And perhaps the European Union is particularly mistaken in its current quite desperate search for an identity intended to rest on universal principles, which may be considered contradictory. For some, the Lisbon Treaty is a clear example of how the European Union attempts to define Europe by blending universal values and geographical limits, with the former an inadequate means of demarcation and the latter lacking the very precision of a border.4 Although it may seem paradoxical, perhaps the nineteenth century had a clearer idea of what Europe was, or at least a clear idea of what it wasn’t. And, in referring to Europe, we are also referring to Europeans, for whom the criteria were clearer still. They were based on a common religion – Christianity, in its three main variations – a common ethnicity – with various gradations – and several languages derived from the Romance, Germanic and Slavic branches, with regional exceptions. These were the European pilgrims of the nineteenth century, whose activities ranged from the traditional local pilgrimages of the Orthodox world to the rediscovered pilgrimages in Great Britain and the very European – Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox – pilgrimages to the Holy Land. The Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society somewhat coincides with the Thomas Cook enterprise, or at least with its founder’s focus on piety, organisation and hotels. Perhaps the pilgrimage site which best represents this highly European – and new Western, particularly American – set of sensibilities and interests is Palestine. We may refer to these pilgrims as having shaped ecumenism, or at least interconfessional friction and coexistence, which was not the case for any other European pilgrimage. The aim of such a pilgrimage – to discover the traces of Christ on Earth – was common to all three branches of Christianity to have spread across Europe. The transnational character did not, however, only emerge in the Holy Land. As Olaf Blaschke highlights in his contribution to this work, ultramontanism exerted a unifying effect crossing the territorial borders of Catholic countries and among nations traditionally at loggerheads, such as France and Great Britain, sometimes in the face of confusion from non-Catholic citizens. Such was the case when the “Earl of Norfolk led the first National Pilgrimage to Paray-le-Monial”.5 If the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars had put an end to the classic, elitist Grand Tour of the eighteenth century, ultramontanism internationalised the new pilgrimages, peacefully combining Europeans from various nations in an organised manner, without them being run on a national basis. Otherwise, they served to unify nations such as “Poland, conspicuously absent from 19th-century maps of Europe”,

4

Antón M. Pazos

but which were clearly European and with a European conception of what it meant to be a nation, both then and now, i.e. a strong perception of a national identity that was well defined within a common identity. It was also in Paray-le-Monial in 1873 that “a new ritual [appeared], destined to underline the public presence of different nations and bodies represented in each pilgrimage”.6 It would not be inaccurate to speak of a religious “Grand Tour” to have emerged in the nineteenth century that was unimaginable in the eighteenth century, but which had the same global character and different aims: the pilgrims of Paray-le-Monial were able to afterwards make their way to Lourdes or Rome, without abandoning Walsingham. This represents a shift from a cultural Grand Tour to a “cultual” Grand Tour, as it were. The classic Grand Tour and the aristocratic taste for Roman excavations certainly paved the way for the Romantic interest in medieval history,7 however this new interest was not purely cultural, as it often implied a spiritual commitment to that which it sought or visited.8 This community of sensibilities across the entirety of Europe allowed the excavations made to Santiago Cathedral to be connected to the boom in sacred archaeology all across Europe, for example. The new crypt holding the remains found in these excavations was fashioned according to Roman models, in line with the Medieval Revival that permeated the continent in the nineteenth century, also contrasting with the classicist and decidedly unreligious spirit of the elitist eighteenth century.

Modernity, democratisation and women The aforementioned European character, with its community of literary, artistic and religious interests and to have filled the continent with medievalstyle buildings, fully coincides with other nineteenth-century characteristics that are also reflected in the pilgrimages analysed here. I shall now examine two of these characteristics that some have identified as significant and that appear in the following chapters, and these are the pilgrimages’ modern and democratic character. And they were modern not only in terms of their destinations, which were completely new, with the British press criticising the Catholic pilgrimage to Lourdes as “typical of that severance from antiquity which is characteristic of modern Roman Catholicism”.9 The continental movement constituting a new golden age of pilgrimages would not have been possible without modernisations to transport and the development of an intermediate social group, between the poor and the elites. This was a group that, in terms of pilgrimages, grew over the course of the century in parallel to the development of the railways and the consequent reduction in ticket prices, as more affordable prices attracted humbler pilgrims. The Countess of Pardo Bazán, a Spanish writer covering the national pilgrimage to Rome in light of Pope Leo XIII’s jubilee in 1887, recalls a comment another pilgrim made to her when purchasing a ticket for

A new golden age of pilgrimages

5

the train that would carry them to Rome: “I am – she said to me with the communicative expansion so characteristic of Spanish people – a miserable domestic servant, and have saved every penny I’ve earnt to pay for this trip, and now I’m going to see the Pope”.10 These trips – at least those normally analysed thanks to their participants’ written accounts – seem to be those so painstakingly planned by Thomas Cook to offer his customers the greatest security and comfort possible. The reality of the pilgrimages was somewhat different, however. Many pilgrims travelled with only the clothes on their backs, moving along slowly in wooden carriages for hundreds of kilometres in conditions constituting an involuntary form of penance. The hardships of the humblest pilgrims’ everyday lives were not soothed by the pilgrimages, and the conditions of rest, shelter and meals only worsened. But these pilgrims, who numbered in their thousands, fed the large democratic base of nineteenth-century pilgrimages, especially in the sphere of Catholicism and the Orthodoxy. Such a situation was perhaps less marked in the Protestant world, whose circles were more closed and often more affluent. The modern character of the pilgrimages – distanced as they were from the idealised times of the Middle Ages, despite their aim to imitate them – was marked by facets highly specific to their historical time period. One of these was organisation. I do not refer here to the organisation of trips, as mentioned, but instead the complex organisational system that sustained the pilgrimage movement across the entire continent. This organisational system became increasingly specialist over time, but first appeared in the early years of the century. It was perhaps the military background that was harnessed to provide the logistics necessary to mobilise hundreds or thousands of people and achieve precise goals in a highly specific timeframe. The experience of the Napoleonic Wars remains a point of reference when considering organisational capacities, while the army was an eternal school for logistics – in the form of the administrative division – and mass management. It is not by chance that many organisers of the material side of pilgrimages were – and still are – former army officials. This organisational thirst also appears from the outset in the less material side to the pilgrimages. There is little doubt that a specifically modern characteristic of the pilgrimage revival was organisation, with the French example particularly significant. The fact that ecclesiastical control also combined with spontaneity is also certain. This was the case for the pilgrimage to the site of the Marian apparition in Marpingen, Germany in 1876, whose free, non-organised character was not approved by the church authorities and “contradicts any teleological idea that the degree of organisation was increasing during the nineteenth century”, according to Blaschke.11 Despite these exceptions, however, organisational efforts were a clear hallmark of nineteenth century pilgrimages, which continued into the twentieth century. When Blaschke asks “What was modern about pilgrimages in the nineteenth century?”, he classifies pilgrimages according to their degree of organisation, running from the spontaneous to the more centralised.12 Obviously, what was archaic in

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the past – pilgrimages by foot – is post-modern today, but this does not apply to the nineteenth century: pilgrims travelling on foot, who had always existed were exceptions, and normally, very poor – without so much as a train ticket – or penitent – in exceptional cases – or from nearby parishes, such as in Trier or Compostela. This modern sense of organisation often had nothing to do with modern transport. In the case of Trier in Germany, “pilgrimage was modern because the flow of pilgrims was perfectly organised from top to bottom and all that without railways, all that in the early 19th and not in the late 19th century”.13 In the context of such organisation and in line with modernity, the importance of the press must also be mentioned. Newspapers, and even those published in England, as is demonstrated in the chapter on the English press by Milagrosa Romero, followed the new pilgrimage movement with interest. The same occurred in other countries, while the nineteenth century saw the Europe-wide construction of a veritable network for the Catholic press, which was known in Spain – and in other Catholic countries – as the “good press”.14 In France, this was even more specialist, with press exclusively dedicated to serving the pilgrimages also appearing. The same occurred in the Orthodox world, which experienced “an explosion in religious print literature”,15 according to Worobec. And mentioning the press also means mentioning advertising, until that point limited to printed paper. If a comparison between the modernity of the nineteenth century with present times must be made, several correlations seem clear. The explosion in the press would be equivalent to that of our modern-day internet; the lowering of transport prices thanks to steam technology would correspond to our low-cost flights; and the pilgrimages organised hierarchically would have their equivalent, although not exclusively, with today’s tour operators specialising in religious tourism. We might nowadays affirm, however, that we have in some sense returned to the tourism of the Grand Tour, distanced from religion, if it were not for the fact that modern tourists do not have cultural interests, as they did in the eighteenth century. For this reason, the Grand Tour’s travellers, according to Dyson, paved the way for a “complicated ‘tourist memory’ industry . . . whose products replaced the relics and indulgences of the religious pilgrims”.16 The opposite occurred in the nineteenth century, when trips were religious and democratic. It was probably the first time that people were able to travel in such a continuous fashion across Europe to visit places of different types of religious worship. This marked the start of the overlap between pilgrimage and tourism. The pilgrim always had other motives apart from worship, with nineteenthcentury tourists making their way to Rome – and this is perhaps the clearest example – also interested – even the humblest – in the marvels of the surroundings. The pilgrimages revealed a new world democratising for the masses what had previously been reserved for the very few. The slow process of suppressing political and social differences to have developed in the nineteenth century, beginning in an oligarchic fashion and

A new golden age of pilgrimages

7

ending in a democratic fashion, widely influenced the pilgrimages. Pilgrimages were (and still are) a popular phenomenon, in the strictest sense of the word, and this continued to be the case in the nineteenth century. And now this may be the case more than ever, as the Catholic “working classes” are able to travel, as we have seen, to places unimaginable a few years ago. This was in perfect alignment with the organisations at the base of the different religions, parishes and monasteries. The democratising force of the nineteenth-century pilgrimages was probably more significant than that which may be glimpsed in reports by some of the most select pilgrims. The fact that the pilgrimage trains featured third-class carriages does not point to a true democratisation of the group. A considerable percentage of the 8,000 Spanish pilgrims17 making their way to Rome in 1876 were humble travellers: one of the various trains used in the expedition had four firstclass carriages, two second-class carriages and four third-class carriages. This suggests that almost half of the passengers were “sons of work”, to use the euphemistic expression provided by the trip’s chronicler.18 The same spirit of “democratisation” is present in the Orthodox world in the emancipation of Russia’s serfs in 1861. Along with the dramatic growth in Russian railway lines, these measures prompted a considerable development of pilgrimages which were markedly working class. A similar phenomenon occurred with Catholic emancipation and the reestablishment of the Catholic hierarchy in England, which facilitated the liberal organisation of mass pilgrimages on a clearly working-class basis, in line with what was British or Irish Catholicism. The role of women must also be highlighted in the context of this democratising process. By slowly normalising their situation over the course of the century, women came to occupy a prominent place in nineteenth-century pilgrimages.19 Apart from the nineteenth century’s feminisation of piety, the pilgrimages represented a great opportunity for women to travel, at least across a large section of Europe. The most democratic countries – particularly the United States – saw a significant number of emancipated women travelling in an increasingly consistent fashion. There were considerable numbers of North American tourists in Europe, which also meant many female pilgrims. As Dyson writes in his book, “the other group added to this new Roman ‘pilgrimage tourism’ both European and American, was women . . . . Part of this increased interest in a religious tourism focused in the Early Christian Rome grew out of the increased presence of women as tourist”.20 This female presence probably also influenced the character of the pilgrimages, which were generally very different from the tourist excursions. Logically, an analysis would be required of the differences between the religious groups, and within them, the different countries. There are various differences in the reports to have survived, however. One of these is the acceptance of discomfort, i.e. the penitent character of the pilgrimages, even the Catholic British pilgrimages, such as that held to Lourdes in 1873

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and led by the Duke of Norfolk. As one English reporter wrote: “Nothing can be farther from the truth than the suggestion that pilgrimage has partaken of the character of a pic-nic”.21 Although this specifically refers to material difficulties and time constraints, it also touches on the intensive religious activity sustained throughout the expedition. This was normal in Catholic pilgrimages, which began with a religious ceremony, sometimes with a bishop’s blessing, and included various pious exercises throughout the entirety of the journey. All of this had a strong female component. It was no accident that many chronicles make significant mention of the presence of “countless priests and women” in the expeditions.22 Women undoubtedly marked the tone of the century’s pilgrimages, and most of them were working-class women. The chroniclers make a special point of mentioning the “ladies” or “aristocrats” that joined the pilgrimages, perhaps to make them seem more exotic or to exemplify the fact that the upper classes signed up for trips that were so distinct from their normal system of leisure.

Chapters and authors Although I have just summarised the geographical and thematical framework of this book, a brief explanation of the contents made by each contributor shall also be useful at this point. After a general introduction, the volume is divided into three large sections corresponding to the great currents of pilgrimages undertaken in the nineteenth century: Europe, both Western and Eastern, and the Holy Land. Christopher Gerrard’s on “The medieval revival: romanticism, archaeology and architecture” focuses on the eighteenth-century vision of archaeology and ancient architecture, which helped shape Romanticism and the Gothic Revival. This serves as both a theoretical introduction to the current of thought that paved the way for historicist Romanticism, ever present in the nineteenth-century Christian revival. Gerrard’s text analyses the eighteenth-century excavations, the taste for ancient ruins and the restoration – or invention in one case – of many of those appearing in England. Such an atmosphere – with different nuances, depending on the country – paved the way for the later enthusiasm for sacred architecture, particularly in Rome, but also in the rest of Europe. Massimiliano Ghilardi, in “The Roman catacombs in the nineteenth century: ‘Cradle and Archive of the Catholic Church’”, studies the evolution of the view on the Roman catacombs, which also shifted with the passage of time. While they initially served as a centre supplying relics to the Catholic world, by the end of the century they had been converted into a privileged research site and a site of religious sentiment that brought pilgrims into contact with the martyrs to have given witness to their faith over the course of the centuries. Ghilardi’s description of the systems of extraction for relics and their evolution is of particular interest.

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Beginning after these two initial chapters, the first section focuses on the three classic pilgrimage centres: Jerusalem, Rome and Santiago de Compostela. The first two witnessed a boom in the nineteenth century unimaginable a few decades prior, while the third rather unsuccessfully attempted to engender its own new golden age but had to wait until the twenty-first century to see this dream realised. Its attempt was, however, sparked by sacred archaeology, by means of the search for the remains of St James, hidden for centuries. In her chapter on “Geopietism and pilgrimage”, renowned specialist in tourism to the Holy Land, Ruth Kark, analyses pilgrimages to Palestine as well as the figure and activities of Thomas Cook. This pious pioneer of mass tourism not only organised and planned his tours of the East in detail, when political circumstances allowed, but also launched charity initiatives in the Holy Land among the local populations. Kark’s chapter discusses the different groups that organised travel to the Holy Land, whether Catholic, Protestant or Orthodox, as well as prominent travellers. This also gives an idea of the economic boost the pilgrimage revival gave to the territory. The other classic pilgrimage hub was Rome, with distinct focuses before and after Italian unification. While pilgrims making their way to Rome pre1870 did so in order to see the city and to see the Pope, after unification they went to see the Pope and to see Rome. But Rome was not only a spiritual city and the See of Peter but was also for many the site of an exceptional concentration of art and architecture. This is the focus adopted by Stephen L. Dyson in his chapter entitled “The Grand Tour and after: secular pilgrimage in Rome from eighteenth to the twentieth centuries”, also demonstrating the relationship between the two means of approaching the Eternal City. The “secular values” of the age were manifested in the countless groups of travellers who undertook what the author refers to as “cultural secular pilgrimages”. The analysis of the non-Catholic groups that visited Rome in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries reveals this presence of “secular values”, as well as their penetration by spiritual values, particularly by means of the many women who formed part of the groups, particularly from North America. Despite its efforts, nineteenth-century Santiago de Compostela did not welcome the number of pilgrims customary for Europe’s hubs at the end of the century. In “Compostela, Rome and the revival of the pilgrimages to Santiago”, Antón M. Pazos outlines these attempts to revive pilgrimages at the end of the nineteenth century, when Archbishop Miguel Payá of Santiago de Compostela launched a comprehensive plan to restart the old pilgrimages, both from a religious and tourist perspective. At the heart of the project were excavations carried out in 1878–1879 in search of the apostle’s remains and the construction of a new crypt to venerate the remains found, which improved the face of the Cathedral but failed to attract large European pilgrimages. Nonetheless, this did serve as a starting point for

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reviving nearby pilgrimages, welcoming some from abroad and preparing for future developments with well-executed renovations to the sanctuary. The second part of the book analyses the pilgrimages in several countries of particular significance. In “The golden age of pilgrimages in France in the nineteenth century”, Marc Agostino summarises what the nineteenthcentury Marian apparitions meant to French Catholicism and the pilgrimages organised – with varying degrees of success – around the new centres of piety. France is perhaps the country – and Lourdes the site – best exemplifying the set of modern advances facilitating the new golden age of pilgrimages: railway developments, advertising techniques and mass production. Lourdes is the standard for the new pilgrimage centres successfully uniting old rituals with the emergent travel culture and mass consumption. Isaac Sastre de Diego’s work on “Sacred archaeology in nineteenth century England” complements Gerrard’s work in its singular focus on the sacred archaeology of the nineteenth century, also in England, which was very different in character to the eighteenth-century excavations. In the nineteenth century, more personal or spiritual commitment was shown by the scholars to have unearthed religious remains in ancient churches or the renewed pilgrimage centres. Although archaeologists, they were highly involved in spiritual matters and were conscious that they were revealing the traces of their own religious identity. Milagrosa Romero Samper’s investigation into the British press in “The path to pilgrimage: travel and devotion in the British press” is remarkable for its originality. It does, of course, analyse the view held among the British press of the pilgrimages, particularly focusing on the transformation to have occurred over the course of the century. In the nineteenth century, a kind of shift occurred in the mass media – travel guides included – from tones of derision to respect, before the adoption of an active interest in this new phenomenon that manifested a remarkable vitality. This was also supported by all of the technical possibilities offered by modern times. Olaf Blaschke’s work on “Pilgrimages, modernity, and ultramontanism in Germany” is also one of methodological reflection, with his investigation into pilgrimages in Germany approached in three stages. First, the issue is embedded in the context of scholarly debates concerning Catholicism in the nineteenth century, before a system of the 14 variations of pilgrimages is unfolded, and the two prominent examples of Trier (1844) and Marpingen (1876) are subsequently located in this framework. The third section on Central and Eastern Europe deals with a fundamentally Orthodox terrain. The first chapter by Jan Perszon, entitled “Pilgrimages in times of trial: the pilgrimage movement and sanctuaries in Polish lands in the second half of the nineteenth century”, provides an analysis of a country with significant Catholic pilgrimages not on the European map at that time. But this was Europe, and it was perhaps more Western than Eastern. Perszon’s chapter starts by presenting the anti-Church policies of the “partitioners” (Russia, Austria and Prussia),

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and then proceeds to discuss the pilgrimage movements associated with selected sanctuaries. Considering the different socio-political backgrounds of religious life in each of the partitions, the author discusses the following sanctuaries in turn: Kalwaria Zebrzydowska in the Austrian Partition, Laki Bratianskie in the Prussian Partition and Jasna Góra (Czestochowa) in the lands ruled by Tsarist Russia. In his summary, Perszon attempts to portray the unique characteristics of the Polish pilgrimage movement, that is, the sources of the religious unification (Catholicism) and the struggle for independence. In “Orthodox faith on the move in late Imperial Russia”, Christine D. Worobec provides an accurate and lively summary of Orthodox pilgrimages in Imperial Russia, analysing, more specifically, different aspects linked to Russian religious life, the pilgrims and forms of pilgrimage (short- and long-distance), the major sacred pilgrimage sites for Russian-Orthodox Christianity and the impact of the steam technology and the new means of transport (railway and steamship) on the Russian pilgrimages after the Emancipation period. René Gothóni, in “Pilgrimage and the becoming of Athonite monasticism”, on the other hand, focuses on the history of pilgrimages to the well-known sanctuary of Mount Athos. The unique character of this monastery complex as a pan-Orthodox pilgrimage centre renders Gothóni’s extensive historical study highly relevant, as an understanding of the characteristics of pilgrimages to Athos and the evolution of modernday Athonite monasticism requires a clear picture of the early history of Athonite monasticism and the final centuries of Byzantium, which, unexpectedly perhaps, proved to be a period of a great Renaissance for many of the ruling monasteries. The author’s aim in this chapter is thus first to outline the basic facts of the foundation of Athonite monasteries and the historical circumstances during the last centuries of Byzantium, and thereafter to focus on the periods of decline, crisis and change during the five centuries of Ottoman rule as well as on the renewal and revitalisation to have occurred during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries – a process still underway today. This section concludes with an analysis of the most famous Orthodox pilgrimage sanctuary in Greece, investigated by Jill Dubisch in her chapter on “Pilgrimage to the miraculous Church of the Annunciation, Tinos, Greece”. While most pilgrims make their way to this location for personal reasons – to be healed of illness, for help with family problems, to pray for children, to fulfil a vow made in times of crisis or simply to experience the power of the shrine’s miracle working icon – the church also holds layers of deeper meaning, for its history and symbolism are closely tied to the history and politics of Greece itself. Not only was the icon of the Annunciation that is the heart of the shrine purportedly discovered shortly after the beginning of the Greek struggle for independence in the early nineteenth century, other elements of the shrine’s history tie it not only to early Orthodox Christianity but also to

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pre-Christian Greece, thus asserting a long continuity of Greek identity as well as a history of struggle in times of darkness and adversity. Today the shrine embodies both Orthodox faith and its association with Greekness, as well as patriotism and military strength, and on major holidays provides a political platform for the expression of these values. The chapters collected in this volume are obviously of interest in themselves, as remarks Simon Coleman at the end in “Lessons from a golden age: piety, publicity and mobility in nineteenth-century European pilgrimage”. Although in some cases, the connection may seem stronger than in others with the new golden age of nineteenth-century pilgrimages, the set as a whole provides an accurate representation of the religious revival experienced throughout Europe over the course of the century. This was a century that was not only an era of secularisation but also one of spiritual revitalisation, manifesting itself in the harnessing of the century’s techniques for relaunching the general pilgrimage movement. And in a significant number of countries, the masses participating in pilgrimages served to demonstrate Catholicism’s vitality and rallying power.

Notes 1 Zweig, The World, 308. 2 Pistoletti, cath.ch. Portail Catholique Suisse, www.cath.ch/newsf/lourdes-baissede-frequentation-et-defis-pastoraux/. Accessed 27 August 2019. 3 A single French priest gave a sermon in 1873 to 120,000 pilgrims in 20 pilgrimages in France. Besson, L’Anné des pèlerinages. 4 See Engels, Le Déclin, 51. 5 See in this volume Romero, “The Path to Pilgrimage”. 6 Ibid. 7 As reflected in the title of Barush’s classic work Art and the Sacred Journey. 8 See in this volume Sastre, “Sacred Archaeology”. 9 London Daily News, 16 August 1886. Cit. Romero, “The Path to Pilgrimage”. 10 Pardo Bazán, Mi romería, 13. 11 See in this volume Blaschke, “Pilgrimages”. 12 Ibid. 13 Ibid. 14 Pazos, “La buena prensa”. 15 See in this volume Worobec, “Ortodox”. 16 See in this volume Dyson, “The Grand Tour”. 17 Carbonero, Crónica, 140. 18 Ibid., 136–8. 19 Up to 80 percent in some places. See Perszon, “Pilgrimage in Times of Trial” in this book. 20 See in this volume Dyson, “The Grand Tour”. 21 London Daily News, 8 September 1873. Cit. Romero, “The Path to Pilgrimage”. 22 Up to 60 percent in Trier or 80 percent in Jasna Góra Monastery. See Blashke, “Pilgrimages” and Perszon, “Pilgrimages in Times of Trial”, in this volume.

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Sources and bibliography Barush, K. Art and the Sacred Journey in Britain. London: Routledge, 2016. Besson, L. L’Anné des pèlerinages, 1872–1873. Besançon: Tourbergue, 1874. Carbonero y Sol, L. Crónica de la peregrinación española a Roma. Madrid: Antonio Pérez Dubrull, 1876. Engels, D. Le Déclin: La crise de l’Union européenne et la chute de la République romaine: quelques analogies historiques. Paris: Éditions du Toucan, 2019. Pardo Bazán, E. Mi romería. Madrid: M. Tello, 1888. Pazos, A.M. “La buena prensa”. Hispania Sacra 44, no. 89 (1992): 139–60. Pistoletti, P. “Lourdes: baisse de frequentation et defies pastoraux”. cath.ch. Portail Catholique Suisse, 24 February 2019. www.cath.ch/newsf/lourdes-baisse-defrequentation-et-defis-pastoraux/. Accessed 27 August 2019. Zweig, S. The World of Yesterday. London: Cassell, 1943.

1

The medieval revival Romanticism, archaeology and architecture Christopher Gerrard

The formative development of later medieval archaeology and architecture during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Britain is a surprising story which must be told in the context of contemporary political ideas and cultural life. Four central themes are discussed here: the Landscape Movement in gardens, Romanticism in poetry and fiction, the Picturesque in painting and the Gothic Revival in architecture. Through this broad focus I hope to demonstrate the extent to which medieval archaeology (here AD 1000–1500) is itself a historical and cultural product.1 Specifically, this chapter argues that engagement with the medieval past shifted from a largely literary and sensory appreciation dictated by the values of Romanticism and the Picturesque and characterised by a relative indifference to both archaeological sites and artefacts to one in which there was a greater desire for historical context and scholarship. This change is associated with the impact of the Gothic Revival in architecture in the second half of the nineteenth century and with a new shaping of national identities at a time of social upheaval and political revolution when many European countries opted to situate the birth of their nation in the Middle Ages. In turn, this created significant imbalances in the understanding of individual artefact types and monument classes, which were not corrected in Britain until well into the twentieth century. At the end of the chapter I reflect on the relevance of this northern European context for events in Santiago and the archaeological excavations in the cathedral there in 1879.

Gardens and Gothic patriotism For much of the eighteenth century neo-classical was the architectural style of choice in Britain, but during the 1730s and 1740s buildings “of the Middle Ages” became a popular addition to parks and gardens as an alternative to those inspired by ancient Rome and Greece.2 They were part and parcel of a taste for the irregular or “serpentine” style of gardening first practised by designer and architect William Kent (1685–1748). These new gardens created vistas in the “picturesque fashion”, framing structures old and new within the garden and beyond its perimeters;3 some were mere imitations

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of medieval buildings while others boasted genuine medieval stonework. In 1743, for example, stones from the Premonstratensian monastery at Halesowen in Worcestershire were transported nearly 40 miles to construct a castle folly at Edge Hill in Warwickshire, while in 1756 a Norman chancel arch from a parish church was re-erected as an “eye-catcher” at Shobdon in Herefordshire.4 Sometimes medieval buildings needed no further embellishment; at Studley Royal in Yorkshire after 1716 the Aislabie family created a 60 hectare water garden in the French style along the axis of the River Skell; the visual climax here being the grassy ruins of the Cistercian abbey at Fountains, which were cleared and tidied accordingly.5 How should we interpret this enthusiasm for Gothic in the Georgian garden, the “delicious game” in Macaulay’s phrase?6 The re-use of architectural fragments in later buildings is a well-documented phenomenon in archaeology7 and often given to signify either a deliberate celebration of the past or a form of domination over it. Both meanings are appropriate here, so that the recycling of stonework in a sham castle might underline lineage and the legitimacy of authority as a deliberate reference to and revival of the medieval past, even while damaging or destroying its original archaeological context in the process.8 On the other hand, ruined abbeys allowed Uvedale Price to “glory that the abodes of tyranny and superstition are in ruin”,9 so here the monastic ruins reaffirmed Anglican confidence and encouraged another kind of inward contemplation. Different classes of monument served different purposes and further subtleties of interpretation were implied by their condition. Thus, in their abandoned state, Gothic buildings might portray an ancient political and social order under threat, but when built anew this represented the resurgence of ancient liberties, in effect an anti-authoritarian statement. At Cirencester Park (Gloucestershire), the Earl Bathurst constructed Alfred’s Castle in 1721 precisely as a symbol of the ancient constitution and a statement of his belief in the legitimacy of royal succession.10 Likewise, at Stowe near Buckingham, the architect James Gibbs (1682–1754) was responsible for the Gothic Temple, built in 1744–1748 for the Viscount Cobham to indicate his support for ancient Parliamentary traditions and in opposition to what Cobham believed to be a trend towards continental absolutism under Hanoverian monarch George I and Whig leader Robert Walpole. In this case Cobham’s choice of Gothic architecture for his temple stood for Saxon freedom, Protestantism and defiance against the imposed cultures of Catholicism and classicism – everything that was “foreign, illiberal, grandiose”;11 inside there is an inscription which reads “I thank God that I am not Roman”. Whereas in the 1710s and 1720s Palladianism had triumphed, with its echoes of Britain as a new Rome, political circumstances were by now generating a new set of connections between architecture, politics and designed landscapes. This notion of England as a “Saxon” nation had materialised during the previous century. In the 1610s James I had been accused of threatening “Saxon” parliamentary privileges and a generation later, during the English

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Civil War, Republicans and Levellers claimed their ancestry as Germanic Saxons and so asserted their rights as free-born Englishmen.12 Their logic was this: the genetics of British politics and society were believed to have emerged with free self-governing communities and assemblies in the Saxon period when a flood of immigrants had arrived in the middle of the fifth century AD from southern Scandinavia, Germany and the north of France. These immigrants, understood to be of different Germanic origins (Lombards, Saxons, etc.), were collectively labelled as “Gothic nations”.13 It was Richard Verstegen’s 1605 Restitution of Decayed Intelligence, drawing upon the combined authority of Tacitus, Gildas, Bede and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which had originally popularised the idea of transmigration and so underlined the seemingly impeccable ancestry of the British parliamentary constitution, casting aside the historical inconveniences of later invasions.14 This view had become historical dogma by the first half of the following century15 but, to add a further layer of complication, the term “Gothic” was by now a synonym for anything post-Roman and dating up to the Renaissance. King Alfred therefore fitted into this chronology as easily as Edward III, and what would today be called a “Romanesque” church was as much “Gothic” as another built 350 years later. This explains how periodicals such as the Gentleman’s Magazine could so readily equate “the bold arches and the solid pillars” of Gothic architecture with a robust “old Gothick Constitution”:16 in short, “Gothic” reflected what it was to be English. What was the practical impact of these notions of “medieval” and nationalism on antiquarian scholarship? Advancing understanding of medieval architecture in the 1740s and 1750s faced three major impediments, the most debilitating being the assumption that the documented foundation of a building supplied the date of the standing fabric of the surviving structure. Thus, the twelfth-century Norman infirmary in the cathedral precinct of Ely was mistakenly thought to have been built about AD 673.17 Secondly, the chronology of architectural styles was poorly appreciated and still based largely on the use of round or pointed arches, which were mainly on display in churches. As the frustrated antiquarian Richard Gough (1735–1809) complained: “We should have had all its parts reduced to rules; their variations and their dates fixed together”.18 Finally, architectural vocabulary was inconsistent and liberally mixed stylistic terms such as “Saracenic” with historical periods such as “Norman”; in this new fashion for “Gothic” garden structures, historical precision was simply less important than visual impression. That is not to say, however, that practitioners were unread or lacked familiarity with medieval buildings. Influential garden designer Batty Langley (1696–1751), writer of influential Gothic pattern books, based his ideas on a lengthy study of Westminster Abbey while Horace Walpole (1717–1797) freely mined the seventeenth-century engravings of antiquarian William Dugdale for his remodelling of Strawberry Hill in Twickenham (London) after 1748, copying motifs from parts of Rouen Cathedral and York Minster for his own devices.19 Walpole‘s interests, however, lay firmly

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in reproducible interior detailing and “taste” rather than archaeology or architectural history, and it was only in the second half of the eighteenth century that a synthesis of medieval architectural styles was attempted by Thomas Warton,20 before James Bentham,21 a minor canon at Ely, brought greater rigour to the subject in a study of his own cathedral church. The last 30 years of the eighteenth century, in particular, represent a turning point. High standards of achievement in architectural recording were achieved by draughtsmen like John Carter, editors and publishers like Richard Gough22 and Francis Grose who included accurate plans of buildings in his architectural and archaeological inventories such as The Antiquities of England and Wales (1773–1789) and The Antiquities of Scotland (1789–1791).23 Always at the centre of this web of correspondence lay the Society of Antiquaries, as a means of sharing information, identifying topics of inquiry and acquiring assistance for publication,24 although the focus was unerringly on sites which might be said to have played a part in national history. For example, in 1769 at the royal medieval palace at Clarendon outside Salisbury (Wiltshire), the site of Thomas Becket’s infamous argument with Henry II in 1164, James Harris was busy measuring the outlines of abandoned buildings. Harris was collaborating with another Parliamentarian, George Lyttelton of Hagley Park (1709–1773), who had just published the first two volumes of his History of the Life of Henry the Second.25 Their appetite for archaeological recording was directly motivated by constitutional history. The idea of Gothic as a “national style” persisted in poetry, prose and architecture, feeding Anglo-centric attitudes and fostering a kind of “populist cultural nationalism”.26 A broader fascination with the medieval past was expressed through the compiling of dictionaries, the setting up of national academies of art and music, the writing of new histories27 but, above all, it was an important driver for the Gothic Revival in architecture28 and for associated scholarly studies. This is the reason why Tintern Abbey (Gwent) could be referred to as a “national ornament” in the Antiquarian Repertory29 and why such fierce argument could erupt over the geographical origin of Gothic architecture. Both English and Germans laid claim here; the English case being built partly on a misguided interpretation of architectural features at St Cross Hospital outside Winchester.30 Similar sentiments lay behind a growing concern for the preservation of medieval buildings. Here escalating levels of protest at destruction and loss ranged from mild admonition to the illustration of monuments in passive acceptance of their imminent disappearance, and from hostile shaming and professional slurs to what today might be referred to as “direct action”. Antiquarian John Tickell’s regret voiced when the floor of Meaux Abbey was dug up to repair local roads31 fits into the first category, while in the second is the medieval Gloucester Cross which was drawn for the pages of Vetusta Monumenta32 by the Society of Antiquaries shortly before its demolition. In the third category is the case of Durham Cathedral, where celebrated architect James

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Wyatt found himself personally opposed in his “repair” and “improvement” schemes and the work had eventually to be suspended.33 When Wyatt was finally elected to the Antiquaries in 1797, Richard Gough, the Director of the Society of Antiquaries from 1771 to 1797, resigned over what was termed “the devastating and disgusting hand of architectural innovation and improvement”.34 Finally, examples of “direct action” include antiquarian William Stukeley who persuaded the Society of Antiquaries to purchase two oak posts to protect the Waltham Cross from damage by passing carriages35 (Figure 1.1). Among a small section of society the subject of architectural restoration aroused strong passions; architect and artist John Carter wrote no less than 380 letters on the matter to the Gentleman’s Magazine between 1797 and 1817. In the absence of laws to protect medieval monuments (these did not come into force until the early twentieth century), this was the origin of a new, interventionist, school of architectural antiquarianism, a movement which finally emerged as the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings at the end of the next century.36 The early Gothic Revival of the eighteenth century also brought greater connoisseurship in some categories of archaeological artefact, particularly portable fixtures and fittings which could be “re-set” elsewhere. There are many examples of this. Stukeley collected “medieval salvage” in the form of stone sculpture from Crowland Abbey and stained glass for his house at Grantham in the 1740s, Walpole incorporated stained glass from a parish church and floor tiles from Gloucester Cathedral at Strawberry Hill, while the Aislabies invented pedestals and platforms for the medieval floor tiles from Fountains Abbey.37 These collectors made little effort to understand the objects themselves – their value lay in their colour, texture and aesthetic qualities, and access to them remained limited. At the end of the century, however, the spolia of the French Revolution was traded across the Channel in some volume; Rouen was a favoured destination and stained glass the preferred product, though carved wood and architectural fragments were also sold.38 The windows from the castle at Écouen, outside Paris, today in the Lord Mayor’s Chapel in Bristol, were bought in Paris in 1802 by a German merchant living in Norwich, for example. Cloth traders exploited their existing commercial networks to transport and warehouse the glass, but some surprisingly substantial pieces also travelled. The great oriel window from Les Andelys in northern France, demolished in 1835, was among the many artefacts acquired for Highcliffe Castle in Hampshire by Lord Stuart de Rothesay.39 In a broader European sense, the Revolution encouraged medieval scholarship and was an important turning point. At the Musée des Monuments Français, opened in 1791, the tombs from St Denis and other displaced church fittings stripped out by revolutionaries were stacked together, in part to prevent access to counter-revolutionary artefacts. The new attraction soon became one of the Paris sights; numerous catalogues were published and the museum was much frequented by artists and scholars alike. The first French inspector of historic monuments was appointed in

Figure 1.1 The Waltham Cross in Hertfordshire is one of three surviving “Eleanor Crosses” which commemorate the resting place of Queen Eleanor’s coffin on its journey from Lincoln to London in 1290. The cross was engraved by George Vertue in 1721 at the expense of the Society of Antiquaries who also paid for posts to protect the monument from damage from passing carriages. Source: Vetusta Monumenta, 13.

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1830 and thereafter inventories of medieval monuments were collated and regional museums began to be established.40

Romanticism and the emotional For English poets and novelists, the early part of the eighteenth century was dominated by so-called Augustan writers such as Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift who drew their inspiration from classical models of writing and criticism, but from the late 1720s writers began to emerge with a fascination for “sensibility” and “nature”. James Thompson and John Dyer were publishing poems that foreshadowed the Romantic movement in the 1720s; the “graveyard” poets were active in the 1740s; Horace Walpole’s “Gothic” novel, The Castle of Otranto, followed in 1764; Romantic works by Robert Burns, William Blake and William Beckford were already well read by the late 1780s and it is the period between 1785–1800 and 1825–1850 that is generally thought of as the age of Romanticism. “Pregnant with poetry” was Thomas Gray’s verdict on medieval ruins41 and, as Edmund Burke’s philosophical enquiry into the sublime and the beautiful explained,42 it was the very terror induced by drawing the visitor closer to primitive and natural experiences that made archaeological sites such an appropriate sensory setting.43 Planted up with vegetation, they gave aesthetic pleasure, while their wrecked condition turned the mind towards the transience of human endeavour – “the triumph of time over strength”, as Lord Kames (1762) called it.44 Romantic aesthetics and antiquarian activities were often intertwined. On the one hand, the poet Thomas Gray (1716–1771) puzzled over Gothic architectural chronology and routinely visited churches and cathedrals, noting down his observations in his Commonplace Book.45 On the other hand, Grazia Lolla argues46 that heightened sensibility can be seen on the faces of the inquisitive travellers who confront medieval monuments in the pages of Vetusta Monumenta, and perhaps this is something that can be encountered too in the antiquarian preference for opening tombs. There was a long tradition of this:47 Edward I in Westminster Abbey in 1774, Bishop Grosseteste of Lincoln in 1782, Edward IV at St George’s Chapel, Windsor in 1789, King John in Worcester Cathedral in 1797, Charles I at Windsor again in 1813 and, judging by the length of this list, the caricature of the corpseobsessed antiquary might seem well deserved. Among the higher investigative purposes claimed by antiquarians was their curiosity about artefacts found within the tombs such as finger rings and chalices, because these were closely dated by the death of the individual. Another was a broader interest in medieval medical practices, something which explains the “scientific” analysis of the “liquor” from the Edward I and Edward IV’s coffins.48 However, even acknowledging their intellectual curiosity and the “national interest” that might be invested in these burials, there is also an evident relish in the more macabre details of putrefaction and maggots. More than one archaeological excavation owed something to this Romantic spirit. At the same

Figure 1.2 Picnic at Netley Abbey in Hampshire. The abbey was the subject of Romantic poetry, an operatic farce and even a Gothic novel. Source: Mudie, 172.

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time, the Romantic movement also encouraged public access, particularly to monasteries. Netley Abbey, a Cistercian abbey in Hampshire dissolved in 1536 and by the eighteenth century overgrown with ivy and interspersed with trees, is an early example of this (Figure 1.2). Horace Walpole thought it “paradise” in 1755, artists John Constable (1776–1837) and Joseph Turner (1775–1851) visited and Netley was much celebrated in sentimental romantic verse. Improvements in cartography and eighteenth-century roads further encouraged an intrusive public who might be treated to refreshments and music; the very first guidebook was written for York Cathedral in 1730. Later, in the aftermath of the French Revolution, medieval ruins became a Romantic inspiration right across Europe. At Villers near Brussels, for instance, the Cistercian abbey was bought by a French contractor and largely demolished but by the 1820s the site had begun to attract artists, writers and poets in much the same way that Netley had done 70 years previously.49 During the nineteenth century archaeological sites were central to the artistic identity of the English “horror-Romantics”: Byron at Newstead Abbey,50 Wordsworth at Furness Abbey and Bolton Priory. Walter Scott’s novels The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805), The Antiquary (1816) and The Monastery (1820) all feature abbeys; the Templar preceptory at Temple Hirst near Selby is claimed to be the setting for Ivanhoe (1819) and Conisburgh Castle sees the climax of the action. Scott himself had many antiquarian interests; his house at Abbotsford borrowed designs from nearby Melrose Abbey and even recycled its medieval stonework.51 By 1830 a third of all the novels published in France were by Scott,52 even though France had Romantic historical fiction of its own in Alexandre Dumas and Victor Hugo. Their novels were diverting, exciting and portrayed a golden age of paternalistic social relations which had democratic and nationalistic appeal.53 Medieval motifs could be personalised in jewellery, dress and hairstyles, and were now introduced into house interiors in carved wood, stained glass and tapestries.54 The Romantic image of the knight held enduring appeal for the aristocracy, in particular arms and armour were consistently of antiquarian interest,55 as was furniture.56 This accent on authenticity meant that, for example, the figures and dress in Ford Madox Brown’s history painting Chaucer at the Court of Edward III, painted in 1856, were based on the artist’s study of tomb effigies while the head dresses were copied from medieval manuscripts. Even at its most trivial, medievalism might inspire reading and adventure; when the American artist Thomas Cole introduced anachronistic castle scenery into his paintings, he had not only read Scott but he had also visited Abbotsford, Westminster Abbey, Newstead Abbey, Kenilworth and Warwick castles in the 1820s to the 1840s.57

Picturesque and the visual If the Romantic movement had aroused a particular emotional and interpretative sensitivity to ruins among English poets, it was the concept of the

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“picturesque” that was to influence their visual and aesthetic appreciation.58 For most of the eighteenth century this term had dual meanings: a scene or vista that might inspire a painting or else a scene that actually resembled a painting, and was usually deliberately designed to do so. Italian and Dutch landscape painters whose works landowners had admired and collected on the Grand Tour were especially favoured, and, naturally enough, given that their compositions evoked classical authors, medieval buildings were often omitted. The true impact of the picturesque movement on medieval studies only becomes clear late in the century when the term gained slightly different connotations following influential publications by propagandists William Gilpin, Uvedale Price and Richard Payne Knight. By this date “picturesque” had come to imply not merely “painterly” but a specific kind of landscape setting which displayed irregularities, roughness, evidence of the passage of time and an element of surprise. It was these characteristics that, according to Price,59 distinguished “picturesque” from “sublime” and “beautiful”. Thus, at Belsay in Northumberland, Charles Monck planted up a quarry near his new house (1807–1817) in imitation of paintings by Salvator Rosa (1615–1673), encouraging visitors to navigate narrow and overgrown canyons before emerging unexpectedly into an open park with its castle and fourteenth-century tower.60 It is the variety in this landscape which marks it out as “picturesque” while the medieval architecture creates contrast and mood through its evident age and lack of geometric uniformity (Figure 1.3). These same visual qualities were also sought out in new buildings such as Downton Castle in Shropshire, the home of Richard Payne Knight.61 Common to both Belsay and Downton is the idea that certain shapes and lines in architecture, often displayed in the accretional layout and asymmetrical facades of medieval buildings, furnished particular aesthetic qualities that smooth classical lines could not. The most important manifestation of the “picturesque” from an archaeological perspective was “the tour”, an itinerary through the British countryside in search of specific viewpoints to contemplate or record in sketches, paintings and diaries. Once war was declared against France in 1793 and foreign travel became more difficult, so travellers such as Sir Richard Colt Hoare turned their attention to scenery at home, in his case with several journeys into Wales to take in sites such as “the most picturesque form” of Conwy castle (Gwynedd).62 The quintessential tour experience, however, as popularised by the Reverend William Gilpin, was the trip down the River Wye.63 Relaxing on a barge, the Beaufort family made this excursion attended by 20 musicians from the county militia in 1799.64 A more commercial version involved a first day on the river on a canopied pleasure boat from Ross to Monmouth, and then a second down to Chepstow. The boats provided tables at which the traveller could sketch or write, and there were stops along the way for picnics and night visits by torchlight. Among the sites which could be viewed from the river were Goodrich Castle and Tintern Abbey, which the painter Joseph Turner and poet William Wordsworth had

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Figure 1.3 Belsay Park in Northumberland (1807–1817). A landscape laid out in the Picturesque style and designed to evoke contrasting emotions. The tower house here dates to 1439–1460 and acted as an “eyecatcher”. Source: Christopher Gerrard.

visited several times in the 1790s, and Chepstow Castle, where tourists could lodge in one of the nearby inns. With beggars crowding outside the gate at Tintern and living among the ruins, the experience was clearly full of interest; admittance to Chepstow Castle was gained by hammering at the oak door with a cannon ball.65 Gilpin himself included little history in his works but others took advantage of that omission: the Tintern guidebook was already in its eleventh edition by 1828. One anonymous tour diary of 1798 advises the reader to “enjoy Tintern Abbey properly, and at leisure” by bringing wine and cold meats; “spread your table in the ruins”, it recommends.66 Among the archaeological clues to these and other antiquarian outings are broken wine bottles, teacups, forks, teaspoons and clay pipes, the remnants of the picnics shown on contemporary engravings (Figure 1.2). Buttons, cufflinks, watch chains and finger rings are also found, presumably accidental losses.67 A walking stick ferrule and telescope eyepiece from Beeston Castle68 might suggest a better prepared explorer although no examples of “Claude mirrors” are as yet known from archaeological contexts. These curious accessories, specific to

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the Picturesque visitor, were small sepia-tinted oval mirrors which could be tilted to reflect a particular landscape view and give it “a soft, mellow tinge like the colouring of that Master”.69 Alternatively, “Claude glasses” with coloured lenses were worn to filter the light so that the viewer could imitate the experience of viewing a monument at different hours of the day or seasons of the year.

The Gothic revival, religion and society By the late eighteenth century antiquarians had begun to piece together an architectural history of the English Gothic style, publish measured drawings of medieval buildings and to evaluate the authenticity of their “restorations”. “Gothic”, however, was still not the dominant style, even if it did prove attractive in the gardens of the rich and, occasionally, for secular buildings too. The major change which took place in Britain during the nineteenth century was in the everyday experience of architecture.70 Within 50 years there was Gothic for public buildings such as railways, libraries, prisons and hospitals; Gothic for the rich in their castles and manor houses; rustic cottages for the large estate for gamekeepers and foresters; Gothic for middle class villas on the edge of the city where the newly affluent moved out into semi-rural areas; and Gothic for schools and universities.71 Its appeal crossed readily into mainland Europe, particularly after Waterloo in 1815, and the exchange of ideas was speeded by Academies of Art, journals such as Annales Archéologiques in France,72 translations of practical treatise like those of French architect Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc (1814–1879), personal contacts and “tours” by architects such as Augustus Welby Pugin (1812–1852), work placements, design competitions and the growth of architecture as a profession.73 Thereafter, the picturesque villa crossed the Atlantic to America, and was exported around the world by the British to Canada, India, New Zealand and Australia and by the French as far as French Polynesia and the Fiji islands and in the prefabricated mission churches shipped out to Africa and South America. In this globalised Gothic there was never any coherent project; interpretations and rationales differed. On the outskirts of Vienna in Austria, the fantasy Romantic castle at Franzenburg (1792–1801) housed medieval exhibits belonging to Emperor Franz II, a fake castle built on a fake island, incorporating building materials from two monasteries. Here the castle symbolically asserted the power of monarchy, not least when combined with the European fashion for neo-medieval titles and symbols. Elsewhere, modernity and religious revitalisation have been claimed as the motives behind the Revival in Catholic Belgium74 and in the New World Gothic displaced local cultures, reaffirmed colonial identities and reinforced ideals of nationhood, consolidating cultural, familial and historical links. The flexibility of “Gothic” was one secret to its popularity. For an estate cottage or a hospital, there were associations with paternalism and social control,75 for a schoolroom

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“Gothic” invoked continuity of learning, for a gaol it was authoritarianism and for the re-designed Houses of Parliament after 1834 “Gothic” was an expression of the antiquity of that institution as well as delivering a sense of national identity and patriotism. By contrast, the political and religious affiliations of Gothic in Ireland were quite different, being regarded as the introduction of the Anglo-Norman invader and marking the end of Early Christian and Romanesque architecture.76 For a jobbing architect with a Gothic commission the specifics were drawn from pattern books, among them the bestselling Encyclopaedia of Cottage, Farm and Villa Architecture and Furniture (1833) compiled by John Loudon (1783–1843), which offered hundreds of perspectives and line drawings.77 Influential antiquarian publishers provided the scholarly underpinning, such as John Britton (1771–1857),78 who was also an important source of inspiration for the German Romantic landscape painter Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840).79 The names of John and J.C. Buckler, John Coney and J.S. Cotman might be singled out from an impressive list of architects and artists who drew views, plans and details of English churches.80 There were also important expanded editions of earlier antiquarian works81 but the defining synthesis was penned by self-taught architect Thomas Rickman (1776–1841). His volume, An Attempt to Discriminate the Styles of English Architecture (1817), is the first history of medieval architecture in the British Isles and isolated the four historical styles still used to describe Gothic architecture today: Norman, Early English, Decorated and Perpendicular. When observing buildings at first hand, Rickman applied the principles of archaeological stratification. At the church at Barton-on-Humber in Lincolnshire, for example, Rickman noted two stages of build: the upper stage he recognised as “evidently early Norman” and from this he deduced that the lower stage “must be of an earlier date . . . it may be real Saxon”.82 This new objectivity, it has been argued, stemmed in part from Rickman’s non-conformist background and a lack of classical education, which led him to rely on visual clues.83 Rickman’s lead was taken up by his friend Robert Willis, a scientist who sought to separate the written evidence for a building from an analysis of its fabric.84 Unlike Pugin, Willis was entirely uninterested in the moral, religious or emotional implications of Gothic buildings,85 but practising architects were also largely indifferent to his views because they lacked his awareness of chronology and structural phasing. Church architecture in Britain, in particular, enjoyed a spectacular boom during the years of the Gothic Revival. Between 1818, the year of the Church Building Act, and 1856, just 38 years later, expenditure on new churches in England reached 8 million pounds and the great majority of these churches were “Gothic”.86 The perceived “Englishness” of the Gothic style was central to its preferred selection for new buildings, but specific structural impact on the existing stock of medieval churches came from quite another direction. In his 1836 publication Contrasts, recent Catholic convert Augustus Welby Pugin touted the Middle Ages as the zenith of art, craftsmanship, religion

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and society, insisting on a connection between architecture and religious truth which demanded authenticity and serious architectural study.87 Earlier, this moralising stance had been adopted by another Catholic, John Milner, who also believed in Gothic buildings as an exemplification of Christian faith, and later it was taken up by the Anglican members of the Cambridge Camden Society, who were in turn influenced by the theological ideas of the Oxford movement, which laid emphasis on the role of the priest and the sacraments. The underpinning message of their beliefs was that architecture, faith and social values are profoundly related; the Society’s influential publication The Ecclesiologist, established in 1839, announced Gothic to be the only true outward expression of “Christian architecture”88 and promoted structural features highlighting specific aspects of the liturgy. For instance, they encouraged large prominent chancels and baptisteries with a step in the floor from the nave to distinguish one space from the other and they advocated decorative luxuries in the chancel such as altar candles, stained glass, tiles and metalwork. Fidelity to the medieval precedent was deemed paramount and came to be championed across Europe by the influential German architect August Reichensperger (1808–1895), among others.89 In practice, however, this amounted to disapproval of any church that was not axially arranged with clear views into the chancel, including those with obtrusive pulpits that encouraged low-church preaching, and others with seating that faced in different directions with little space for processions to circulate. Together with its sister society, The Oxford Society for Promoting the Study of Gothic Architecture, the Camden Society prescribed functional, aesthetic and artistic requirements to which churches were asked to conform, and into which they were often pressured through the publication of scathing verdicts on restoration projects and their architects. Of the 8,000 pre-Victorian churches in Britain today, just 140 (less than 2 percent) retain interiors that were not affected by nineteenth-century restoration.90 Often there was little sensitivity towards the original fabric; stained glass, for example, was ill-advisedly removed and re-arranged. To take one illustrative project, the restoration at St Peter and St Paul, Godalming, by George Gilbert Scott in the 1870s removed an Anglo-Saxon arch of the central tower; the justification for this being to increase visibility into the chancel and allow the choir to be heard.91 Episodes like this activated opposition on many levels. Canon William Greenwell openly criticised incumbents when he visited their churches with members of the Architectural and Archaeological Society of Durham and Northumberland (formed in 1862), obliging the Church to respond through the local newspapers.92 Victorian medievalist Edward Freeman read a memoir to the Philosophical Institution in 1851 in which he openly opposed the “prevalent practice of ‘Restoration’” and “strongly advocated . . . the principle of leaving ancient remains in their integral condition, in situ, and abstaining from . . . mutilations”.93 Likewise John Ruskin was famously vocal in his condemnation,94 echoing the views of Carter, Gough and others in their opposition to Wyatt in the

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1790s, and later inspiring the message of William Morris when the Society for the Protection of Ancient buildings came into being in 1877.95 Disturbances to the structural fabric of churches did lead to new discoveries. Scraping back the old distemper and plaster revealed medieval wall paintings at Preston, Sussex,96 Stanton Harcourt, Oxfordshire,97 Croydon, Surrey98 and many other churches across the country. Artefacts too came to light: at Womersley in Yorkshire a crucifix was discovered under the floor;99 at Fordington in Dorset a fifteenth-century brass seal fell out of the wall;100 while at Llanarmon Dyffryn Ceiriog (Clwyd) a hoard of around 100 gold and silver medieval coins was found in the demolition rubble.101 The distinction between “restoration” and scholarly inquiry was finely drawn, so that when a thirteenth-century bishop’s tomb at Chichester came to be refurbished, the effigy and its stone table were removed for repair but investigation then proceeded on to the grave itself, in due course revealing pilgrim’s staves cut from hazel, among other items.102 New architectural detail was exposed too: the tomb of a fourteenth-century bishop in Rochester Cathedral,103 a thirteenth-century monumental niche at Worksop together with a grave slab and skeletal remains, among others.104 Graves were often disturbed, as they were at Kingswear in Devon, where infant burials had been inserted under the wall of the chancel.105 In this case, the church itself had been taken down and when this happened further discoveries were always possible; cross shafts were “discovered when pulling down St Alkmund’s church, Derby”106 and pre-Conquest sculptures were recovered from the chancel foundations at Brompton in Yorkshire107 in 1867. Sometimes architects happened upon hidden architectural features which they then recorded, as was the case when the Houses of Parliament were rebuilt by Charles Barry and Pugin after the fire of 1834 and mouldings and capitals were drawn,108 and in the search for perfect authenticity new buildings might be re-erected on medieval foundations. When Alexander Hope, a keen member of the Camden Society and English correspondent for the Annales Archéologiques, purchased property at the site of St Augustine’s Abbey in Canterbury in 1844, the undercroft of the Abbot’s Hall was excavated so as to provide a suitable structure for a library for his new missionary college on the original medieval foundations.109 Continuity of Christian institutions was doubtless uppermost in Hope’s mind. Likewise, when William “Billy” Burges (1827–1881) came to rebuild at Castell Coch in south Wales he also sought legitimacy for his design by making use of the medieval footprint established by earlier excavations at the castle.110 Although everyday artefacts held less attraction, the widespread restoration of medieval structures boosted an existing interest in the “decorative arts”. Floor tiles, being portable, collectable and decorated with heraldic designs, were dug up at abbey sites and relaid in summerhouses and elsewhere (at Fountains, Meaux, Byland and Jervaulx among the Yorkshire monasteries111). During Hope’s restoration and excavation work at Canterbury a medieval floor tile pavement found in the nave of the abbey church

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was copied for use, and when the Temple Church in London came to be restored, the committee “anxious that the Church should be restored and adorned in the most correct manner” examined the floor of the chapter house at Westminster Abbey for suitable examples. When the boarded floor was removed, they happened upon the original pavement in a perfect state, and this was then traced and copied.112 By this time there was already a long tradition of engraving tile pavements, ornamental brasses and stained glass, for example, William Fowler at York Minster.113 More generally, as designs for new churches showed a steady improvement in their archaeological accuracy, so there was a continued focus on materials being correctly employed, and this resulted in a phenomenal increase in the demand for stained glass, woodwork and encaustic tiles (such as those by Minton & Co at Stoke-on-Trent) to replace the worn originals which inevitably depended upon an improved knowledge of patterns.114 Sometimes these neo-medieval additions were even passed off as forgeries, as they were in the case of the early stained glass at Canterbury Cathedral.115 Finally, there was interplay between the growth of the ecclesiological movement and interests in archaeology. Around the mid-point of the nineteenth century, when archaeological societies began to be established in some numbers, a high proportion of society members were clergy116 and medieval topics were close to the top of their agenda. The Archaeological Association, for example, was founded in 1843 to promote research into “the arts and monuments of the early and middle ages” and had 1,200 members in its first year;117 the Archaeological Institute was founded in 1845. County societies followed, including Sussex in 1846 and Somerset in 1849.118 To some extent therefore these earlier archaeological societies echoed the principles of the Cambridge Camden Society of 1839 by expressing an interest in archaeology of the Middle Ages as representative of Christianity. However, not all antiquarians were attached exclusively to the study of religious buildings, secular buildings also appealed. The first 20 years of the Hampshire Field Club and Archaeological Society were dominated by studies of medieval standing buildings119 and the first volume of the Sussex Archaeological Society in 1848 made clear that castles, mansions and churches were all suitable targets for excavation, documentary study and architectural recording.120 The three-volume survey of domestic architecture published in the 1850s121 is testimony to that same spirit of endeavour which acknowledged the importance of studying the buildings alongside the written sources and set out, for the first time, the development of the domestic house from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries, giving many examples of each period. Detailed case studies of individual buildings were soon reported upon complete with plans and drawings of key architectural features. Here too, there was a strong awareness of threats to surviving buildings, characterised in one case as “the utilitarianism of modern days” and “so-called improvements by persons alike unconscious of their value and careless of their preservation”.122

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Later medieval archaeology in perspective This analysis of disciplinary developments from a wider cultural perspective reveals that, during the eighteenth century in Britain, medieval architecture was mostly valued for its imagined associations rather than for its own sake; the record of the past was largely literary and visual, not topographical. Only 18 excavations are known on later medieval sites prior to 1800 and artefacts remained of little interest unless they were intrinsically valuable or unusual, though structural fittings such as floor tiles did occasionally attract the eye. The low point in medieval studies was perhaps in the decades after 1714 when an interest in British national history could not be turned to the advantage of a German royal dynasty. Nevertheless, many of the themes developed over the next century were already in play; the equation between “Gothic” architecture and “Englishness” and the construction of national identities, for example, was well understood long before the French Revolution and it affected attitudes towards “restoration”. The popularity of Romanticism also brought medieval monuments to the attention of a wider public and it is here that we can see the emergence of tourist facilities such as guidebooks as well as the more scholarly interests required to write and paint scenes from the Middle Ages and to draw the Gothic Revival into people’s homes and furnishings. The French Revolution was an important turning point. It projected the Middle Ages onto a European stage and innovated the conservation, recording and display of monuments. In France buildings of national importance such as cathedrals were restored to exemplify national identity and restoration projects by architects such as Viollet-le-Duc became the defining act of the French Gothic Revival.123 For restored nations like the German principalities and for new nations like Belgium, neo-Gothic was a source of historical legitimisation in postNapoleonic Europe because it adopted the architectural grammar of a celebrated period in the country’s history. In Britain the spolia of war shaped its own peculiar antiquities market but the “picturesque” tour brought little directly in the way of scholarship; its emphasis was visual and entirely architectural so that, for example, artefacts were excluded. Nevertheless, it did continue to drive attention towards native monuments and encouraged a sense of pride at what remained; publications such as Archaeologia reflected this in their focus on medieval architecture. Finally, the importance of the ecclesiological movement cannot be ignored because it identified the Gothic Revival as the ideal idiom through which to address a religious revival.124 This led to many new discoveries under the whitewash of English churches and vocalised opposition to restoration in such a way as to create a distinctive British conservation movement by the end of the century. The number of medieval monuments under excavation in England reflects this growth of interest during the nineteenth century (Figure 1.4). Whereas only 76 campaigns are known from the first half of the century, that number rises to 301 in the second half. Early targets might be

Figure 1.4 Later medieval excavations in England, showing the general increase in interventions after c. 1840 and an early emphasis on castles and monasteries. Data from the English Heritage Excavation Index. Source: Data provided by the ADS 24/12/2013.

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broadly categorised as monuments of Church and State with a particular emphasis on castles and monasteries. The Benedictine house at Evesham, for example, was excavated by Edward Rudge during the summer months over the decade 1812–1822, “tracing walls and dimensions” with the aim of producing “a regular ground plan and survey of the buildings”.125 “Living” monasteries across Europe provided a template for men like Rudge and many monastic houses had enjoyed at least a minimum of earlier antiquarian interest, so their locations were often known about. Another motive, stated by John Walbran126 for Fountains Abbey and doubtless felt by many working on private land with local patrons, was to develop and improve the general appearance of the surviving buildings. Not all excavated sites were religious in nature, however, as Figure 1.4 shows. Thomas Phillipps was probably inspired to dig at Clarendon Palace in 1814–1824127 because of the site’s clear links to national history en route to the English Reformation. As we have seen, the surge in the number of medieval excavations after 1850 can at least partly be explained by Gothic Revival restoration programmes. Figure 1.4 demonstrates the steady increase in interventions at cathedrals, churches and chapels. Elsewhere there were national interests at play; one of the reasons given for the examination of royal tombs in Westminster Abbey in 1871 was its significance “for English History generally”128 and the study of documents outpaced publications of articles on architecture in the pages of the Archaeological Journal between 1844 and 1899: 205 (28 percent) of 740 contributions on documents, against 162 (22 percent) relevant to architecture. After 1850 the creation of archaeological societies was undoubtedly important in broadening the range of sites under investigation (rural and industrial sites, for example) because it introduced more shared projects for like-minded scholars and set out rudimentary frameworks for research. The Wiltshire Archaeological Society, for example, was credited with being “the means of bringing [Shaftesbury Abbey] to light once more” when part of the nunnery church was excavated in 1861 at the expense of the Marquis of Winchester.129 Other excavations arose more spontaneously; the excavation on the site of the chapter-house of Durham Cathedral in 1874 was inspired by the “curiosity” of the “party of friends staying at the Deanery” who discovered “something hard” under the garden when they forced an iron rod into the ground.130 The archaeological works which followed were published to a high standard, including artefacts such as three episcopal finger rings and parts of two bishop’s crosiers (Figure 1.5). Since the turn of the century there had been an appetite for finds such as coins, armour and seals but, under the influence of the Gothic Revival, this range now extended to include window glass, church bells and plate; papers on artefacts made up 16.8 percent of the contributions to the Archaeological Journal in the period 1844–1899. Collections of national importance included the metal objects recovered from the laying of drainage and water pipes in Salisbury between 1852 and 1854131 and the remarkable

Figure 1.5 Durham Cathedral, plan of the east end of the Chapter House excavated in 1874. This excavation is almost contemporary with that at Santiago and demonstrates an advance in recording standards in the last quarter of the nineteenth century including the “microscopical and chemical examination” of textiles found in graves. Source: Fowler, “An account”, pl. XXX.

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medieval dress accessories from Meols132 on the North Wirral coast, into which Anglican priest Abraham Hume conducted extensive research from the 1840s. These finds came to the attention of a wider audience when they were displayed at the Congress of the Archaeological Institute in York in 1846 and exhibitions like this remained an important mechanism for spreading information.133 By the middle of the century Roach Smith’s catalogue134 of his private collection included sections on medieval sculpture and carving, pottery, embossed leather (shoes, purses, etc.), pilgrim badges, seals, miscellaneous dress accessories and lead tokens, all of which had been collected by workmen from the city of London during the excavation of sewers there. Given this background, it might be questioned why later medieval archaeology did not progress in the same way as prehistory or Roman archaeology during the second half of the nineteenth century. After all, in Britain this was the period when university history courses were first created and the classification of historical documentation began; in effect an interest in the medieval past was becoming more specialised, more comprehensive and better resourced. A central record office was opened in the 1850s, with ambitious publication initiatives for national archives such as the Rolls Series (launched 1851), Pipe Roll Society (1883) and the Victoria County Histories (launched 1886). At the same time the Department of British and Medieval Antiquities and Ethnography was established at the British Museum in 1866; many pieces being purchased at sales of private collectors such as Walpole and Pugin with a few items from excavation such as the textiles from a burial excavated in Worcester Cathedral in 1861.135 Two critical factors seem to have held later medieval archaeology back. The first was that chronologies of everyday medieval material had proved difficult to establish. In 1847 members of the British Archaeological Association still claimed that “specimens of medieval pottery are supposed to be of a very rare occurrence”136 while the catalogue for Charles Roach Smith’s private collection states clearly that he too thought it to be “comparatively rare, and completely void of beauty, taste, or sightliness”.137 This perception only put off collectors and the situation was not helped by the lack of readily accessible collections, at least until 1866. The second is the focus of scholars on ecclesiastical architecture and on documentary history in the face of the Gothic Revival and nationalist ideologies. Even by 1900 there was little awareness of the contribution archaeology might make to understanding medieval sites that lay out of sight and below ground, particularly so in the countryside and in spheres of study such as rural settlement, industry and peasant housing. The latter, for example, only attracted serious scholarly attention after the Second World War. Turning finally to the excavations in the cathedral at Santiago in 1879, what is the link with events in northern Europe? As we have seen, in Britain it was the absence of classical remains that stimulated antiquarian interests in other periods like prehistory and medieval. The British did not trace their

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national heritage and constitutions to the classical world and ancient Rome, as was the case in Germany or Spain where the scholarly language was Latin. In the states that made up Germany before the end of the Napoleonic war, where there had been a handful of garden buildings in the Gothic style in the eighteenth century (for example at Dessau-Wörlitz, Saxony-Anhalt, where extensive landscaping began in 1765 and the Gothic House was built in 1774) and essayists such as Goethe had promoted it, Gothic had little resonance. And whereas the political and religious differences evident in eighteenth century Britain found a particular voice through the interpretation of medieval monuments, the same circumstances did not exist in Spain,138 where the focus of nationalist revivalism lay elsewhere in the historical record. That said, the Santiago venture does not sit in an archaeological vacuum. It should be understood in the context of a revival in medievalism which affected Europe generally during the nineteenth century. Specifically, the inspiration may lie in Rome with the creation of the Commission for Sacred Archaeology in 1852, inspired by the discoveries of Giovanni Battista de Rossi (1822–1894) and others in the catacombs beneath the city and in the subsequent development of “Christian archaeology” with its focus on the funerary practices of the first Christians and the study of their monuments.139 Across Europe we can reconstruct a network of friendships and collaborations among distinguished Catholics with interests in archaeology and architecture; de Rossi, for example, collaborated widely with colleagues in France and Germany and with English priest J.S. Northcote (1821–1907), whom he had met in Rome in the late 1840s. Northcote was president of England’s leading Catholic public school, Oscott College, from the 1860s, where the Pugins, father and son, had designed buildings and tutored and where John Milner had worked earlier in the century.140 Nicholas Wiseman (1802–1885), the first Roman Catholic cardinal to be appointed to Britain since the Reformation, also maintained strong interests in early Christian art and archaeology and he was one of those who supported Edward Pugin’s appointment as architect for the new church of the Venerable English Church College in Rome; Pugin later designed his tomb.141 Places and people were therefore inter-related and in Britain publications by de Rossi and others found an appreciative readership in the climate of interest in religious architecture and Church history which characterised the Gothic Revival and particularly the English Catholic Revival. In 1851 Pope Pius IX even presented relics of the second-century martyr, St Primitivus, discovered by de Rossi in the catacombs two years earlier, to mark the Catholic conversion of Lord Fielding and the building of a new Catholic church at Pantasaph near Holywell142 which was adapted by Augustus Pugin from a design by James Wyatt. Here archaeology, architecture and religion collide in surprising ways, just as they did at Santiago a quarter of the century later, but both stem from common roots and cultural contexts.

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Acknowledgements I am grateful to Tim Evans at Archaeological Data System (ADS) for the national excavation data, Derek Craig for sight of his unpublished William Greenwell paper and to my colleagues Sarah Semple and Anna Leone for guiding me to bibliography on nineteenth-century finds of Anglo-Saxon stone sculpture and Christian archaeology in Italy. Alejandra Gutiérrez compiled the publication data for me and drew Figure 1.4 as well as copy editing the text.

Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40

Díaz-Andreu, “Islamic Archaeology”, 71–2. Jacques, Georgian Gardens. Williamson, Polite, 58–68. Thompson, Ruins. Mauchline and Greeves, Fountains Abbey. Macaulay, Pleasure. For example, Brilliant and Kinney, Reuse Value; Kinney, “The Concept”. Brooks, The Gothic, 101; Watt, Contesting. Price, An Essay, quoted in Watkins and Cowell, Uvedale Price, 96. Williamson, Polite, 64; and see Gerrard, The Patriot, 126, for other political statements in buildings. Buchanan, “Interpretations”, 43. Kliger, The Goths, 6; Gerrard, The Patriot, 108–49. For example, in 1734–1736 by the poet James Thomson; Wright, “Introduction”. Lucy, The Early, 7–9. For example, Oldmixon, Critical History. “Common Sense”, 641. Roberts, “Thomas Gray’s Contribution”, 55. 1768, quoted in Evans, A History, 136. Brooks, The Gothic, 91; Mowl, Horace. Warton, Observations. Bentham, The History. Frew, “An Aspect”; Rodwell, English Heritage, 22. Bending, “Every Man”. Sweet, Antiquaries, 94–5. James and Gerrard, Clarendon. McCalman, Oxford, 266. Such as Turner, History. Frew, “Gothic”; see next. “Tintern Abbey”, 129. Bradley, “The Englishness”; Duggett, Gothic. Tickell, The History, 179. Vetusta Monumenta. Frew, “Richard Gough”; Roberts, Durham, 50–2. Badham, “Richard Gough”; Sweet, “Gough, Richard”. Evans, A History, 72. Frew, “Richard Gough”; Miele, “The First”. Smith, “William Stukeley”; Stopford, Medieval Floor Tiles, 265. Lafond, “The Traffic”. Hill, “Antiquaries”. Gran-Aymerich, Naissance.

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Quoted in Sambrook, “Netley”, 22. Burke, A Philosophical. Buchanan, “Interpretations”, 36–7; Smith, Architecture. Janowitz, England’s Ruins, 60. Roberts, “Thomas Gray’s Contribution”. Lolla, “Ceci n’est pas”. Scalia, “The Grave”. Grose, The Olio; Lind, “Analysis”, 2. Coomans, “From Romanticism”. Beckett and Aley, Byron. Malley, “Walter Scott’s”; McAuley, “Representations”, 194. Wright, “Scott’s Historical Novels”. Lee, “A Divided Inheritance”. Wainwright, The Romantic. See, for example, Meyrick, A Critical Inquiry. Lewis, “Drawings”, fig. 10. Carso, “Gothic Castles”. Charlesworth, “The Ruined Abbey”. Price, An Essay. White, Belsay Hall. Ballantyne, “Downton Castle”. Thompson, The Journeys, 109–52. Gilpin, Observations; Andrews, The Search, 85–108. Heath, Historical, 94. Knight, Tintern; Rainsbury, “Chepstow Castle”. Quoted by Andrews, The Search, 104. Such as those from Launceston Castle, for example; Saunders, Excavations. Ellis, Beeston Castle. Gilpin, Remarks, 224–6; Maillet, The Claude Glass. Dellheim, The Face. Brooks, The Gothic. 1844–1881; this journal focused largely on the history of medieval art. Maeyer and Verpoest, Gothic. Maeyer, “The Neo-Gothic”. Brooks, The Gothic, 193. Moss, “Appropriating the Past”. McMordie, “Picturesque”. Britton et al., The Beauties; Britton, The Architectural; Britton, Cathedral. Crook, “John Britton”; Reusch, “Caspar David”. For example, Buckler, “Remarks”, at St Mary Overy in Southwark, where the nave roof had been removed in 1831. Such as Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum. Rickman, An Attempt, 11–13; Rodwell and Atkins, St Peter’s, 12. Aldrich, “Gothic Architecture”. Willis, The Architectural. Buchanan, “Robert Willis”. Morris, Churches, 428. Hill, God’s Architect. Faught, The Oxford Movement. Brooks, The Gothic, 261–9. Chatfield, Churches, 9. Bott, A Guide. Craig, “Greenwell”. “Annual Meeting”.

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94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142

Ruskin, The Seven. Miele, “The First Conservation”. Townsend, “Account”. Dyke, “Decorations”. “Proceedings”, 194. Fowler, “The Womersley Crucifix”. “Archaeological Intelligence” (1847), 150. “Proceedings”, 270. “Archaeological Intelligence” (1846), 262–3. Kempe, “Description”. “Archaeological Intelligence” (1847), 264. “Archaeological Intelligence” (1846), 263–4. “Proceedings”, 87. Lang, Corpus, 65. Smirke, “Remarks”; Smirke, “Second Letter”. Sparks, “The Recovery”. McLees, Castell. Stopford, Medieval Floor Tiles, 265. Cottingham, “Tile Pavement”, 390. Fowler, “Principal Patterns”. Cheshire, Stained Glass. Caviness, The Early Stained Glass. Speight, “A Gentlemanly Pastime”. Marsden, Pioneers, 25. Levine, The Amateur. Whinney, “One Hundred Years”. Blaauw, “On Sussex”, 7. Turner, Some Account. Godwin, “Notice”. Brooks, The Gothic, 269–75. Maeyer and Verpoest, Gothic. Rudge, “Description”, 566. Walbran, Memorials, 145. James and Gerrard, Clarendon, 170. Stanley, “On Examination”, 309. Kite, “Recent Excavations”, 272. Fowler, “An Account”. Saunders and Saunders, Salisbury Museum. Griffiths, Philpott, and Egan, Meols. For example, Stopford, Medieval Floor Tiles, 266. Smith, Catalogue. Cherry, “Franks”. “Archaeological Intelligence” (1847), 79. Smith, Catalogue, 113. Álvarez, “The Nation-Building”; Díaz-Andreu, “Islamic Archaeology”. Moatti, In Search. Holmes, More Roman. Richardson, “Edward Pugin”. Pantasaph Franciscan Friary.

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Álvarez, J. “The Nation-Building Process in Nineteenth-Century Spain”. In Nationalism and the Nation in the Iberian Peninsula: Competing and Conflicting Identities, edited by C. Mar-Molinero, and A. Smith, 89–106. Oxford: Berg, 1996. Andrews, M. The Search for the Picturesque: Landscape Aesthetics and Tourism in Britain, 1760–1800. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1989. “Annual Meeting, 1851: Held at Bristol, July 29th, to August 5th”. The Archaeological Journal 8 (1851): 322–36. “Archaeological Intelligence”. The Archaeological Journal 3 (1846): 255–70. “Archaeological Intelligence”. The Archaeological Journal 4 (1847): 72–83, 145–64, 252–64. Badham, S.F. “Richard Gough and the Flowering of Romantic Antiquarianism”. Church Monuments 2 (1987): 32–43. Ballantyne, A. “Downton Castle: Function and Meaning”. Architectural History 32 (1989): 105–30. Beckett, J., and S. Aley. Byron and Newstead: The Aristocrat and the Abbey. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2001. Bending, S. “Every Man Is Naturally an Antiquarian: Francis Grose and Polite Antiquities”. Art History 25, no. 4 (2002): 520–30. Bentham, J. The History and Antiquities of the Conventual and Cathedral Church of Ely: From the Foundation of the Monastery, A.D. 673 to the Year 1771. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1771. Blaauw, W.H. “On Sussex Archaeology”. Sussex Archaeological Collections 1 (1848): 1–13. Bott, A. A Guide to the Parish Church of St Peter and St Paul in the Town of Godalming. Godalming: Alan Bott, 1978. Bradley, S. “The Englishness of Gothic: Theories and Interpretations from William Gilpin to J. H. Parker”. Architectural History 45 (2002): 325–46. Brilliant, R., and D. Kinney, eds. Reuse Value: Spolia and Appropriation in Art and Architecture from Constantine to Sherrie Levine. Farnham: Ashgate, 2011. Britton, J. The Architectural Antiquities of Great Britain. London: Longman, 1807–1826. Britton, J. Cathedral Antiquities. London: Longman, 1814–1835. Britton, J., J. Harris, T. Hood, T. Rees, J. Bigland, F. Shoberl, F. Laird et al. The Beauties of England and Wales: Or, Delineations Topographical Historical and Descriptive of Each Country. London: Thomas Maiden, 1801–1816. Brooks, C. The Gothic Revival. London: Phaidon, 1999. Buchanan, A. “Interpretations of Medieval Architecture, c.1550-c.1750”. In Gothic Architecture and Its Meanings 1550–1830, edited by M. Hall, 27–52. Reading: Spire Books, 2002. Buchanan, A. “Robert Willis and the Rise of Architectural History”. Ph.D. diss., University College London, 1994. Buckler, J. “Remarks Upon Some Remains of Ancient Architecture, Disclosed in Taking Down a Portion of the Church of St Mary Overy, in Southwark”. Archaeologia: Or, Miscellaneous Tracts Relating to Antiquity 29 (1842): 241–2. Burke, E. A Philosophical Enquiry Into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful. London: R. and J. Dodsley, 1757. Carso, K.D. “Gothic Castles in the Landscape: Sir Walter Scott and the Hudson River School of Painting”. Gothic Studies 14, no. 2 (2012): 1–22. Caviness, M.H. The Early Stained Glass of Canterbury Cathedral, Circa 1175–1220. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977.

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Charlesworth, M. “The Ruined Abbey: Picturesque and Gothic Values”. In The Politics of the Picturesque: Literature, Landscape and Aesthetics Since 1770, edited by S. Copley, and P. Garside, 62–80. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Chatfield, M. Churches the Victorians Forgot. Ashbourne: Moorland, 1989. Cherry, J. “Franks and the Medieval Collections”. In A. W. Franks: NineteenthCentury Collecting and the British Museum, edited by M. Caygill, and J. Cherry, 184–200. London: British Museum Press, 1997. Cheshire, J. Stained Glass and the Victorian Gothic Revival. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004. “Common Sense, Dec. 15, No. 150”. The Gentleman’s Magazine 9 (1739): 640–2. Coomans, T. “From Romanticism to New Age: The Evolving Perception of a Church Ruin”. Tourisme, Religion et Patrimoine 24, no. 2 (2005): 47–57. Cottingham, L.N. “Tile Pavement of the Chapter House, at Westminster”. Archaeologia: Or, Miscellaneous Tracts Relating to Antiquity 29, no.1 (1841): 390–1. Craig, D. “Greenwell and Anglo-Saxon Sculpture”. Forthcoming. Crook, J.M. “John Britton and the Genesis of the Gothic Revival”. In Concerning Architecture: Essays on Architectural Writers and Writing Presented to Nikolaus Pevsner, edited by J. Summerson, 98–119. London: Allen Lane, 1968. Dellheim, C. The Face of the Past: The Preservation of the Medieval Inheritance in Victorian England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982. Díaz-Andreu, M. “Islamic Archaeology and the Origin of the Spanish Nation”. In Nationalism and Archaeology in Europe, edited by M. Díaz-Andreu, and T. Champion, 68–89. London: University College London Press, 1996. Dugdale, W. Monasticon Anglicanum: A History of the Abbies and Other Monasteries, Hospitals, Frieries, and Cathedral and Collegiate Churches, With Their Dependencies, in England and Wales, edited by J. Caley, H. Ellis, and B. Bandinel. London: Longman, 1817–1830. Duggett, T. Gothic Romanticism: Architecture, Politics, and Literary Form. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. Dyke, W. “Decorations in Distemper in Stanton Harcourt Church, Oxfordshire”. The Archaeological Journal 2 (1845): 365–8. Ellis, P., ed. Beeston Castle, Cheshire: A Report on the Excavations 1968–85 by L. Keen and P. Hough. Archaeological Report 23. London: English Heritages, Historic Buildings & Monuments Commission for England, 1993. Evans, J. A History of the Society of Antiquaries. London: Society of Antiquaries, 1956. Faught, C.B. The Oxford Movement: A Thematic History of the Tractarians and Their Times. University Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003. Fowler, J. “The Womersley Crucifix”. The Yorkshire Archaeological and Topographical Journal 2 (1873): 35–42. Fowler, J.T. “An Account of Excavations Made on the Site of the Chapter-House of Durham Cathedral in 1874”. Archaeologia: Or, Miscellaneous Tracts Relating to Antiquity 45, no. 2 (1880): 385–404. Fowler, W. “Principal Patterns of the Norman Tiles from the Floor of St. Nicholes Chapel York Minster (1801)”. The British Library: Online Gallery. Accessed 6 September 2019. www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/kinggeorge/p/003ktop000000 45u007kk000.html?_ga=2.191058026.1739714641.1556005618-436438034. 1556005618.

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Frew, J.M. “An Aspect of the Early Gothic Revival: The Transformation of Medievalist Research, 1770–1800”. Journal of the Warburg Courtauld Institute 43 (1980): 174–85. Frew, J.M. “Gothic Is English: John Carter and the Revival of the Gothic as England’s National Style”. The Art Bulletin 64, no. 2 (1982): 315–19. Frew, J.M. “Richard Gough, James Wyatt, and Late Eighteenth-Century Preservation”. Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 38 (1979): 366–74. Gerrard, C. The Patriot Opposition to Walpole: Politics, Poetry, and National Myth, 1725–1742. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994. Gilpin, W. Observations on the River Wye, and Several Parts of South Wales, &c. Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty; Made in the Summer of the Year 1770. London: R. Blamire, 1782. Gilpin, W. Remarks on Forest Scenery and Other Woodland Views (Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty), Illustrated by the Scenes of New-Forest in Hampshire. Vol. 2. London: R. Blamire, 1791. Godwin, E.W. “Notice of an Example of Domestic Architecture at Colerne, Wiltshire”. Archaeological Journal 18 (1861): 125–7. Gran-Aymerich, E. Naissance de l’Archéologie Moderne, 1798–1945. Paris: CNRS Editions, 1998. Griffiths, D., R. Philpott, and G. Egan. Meols: The Archaeology of the North Wirral Coast: Discoveries and Observations in the nineteenth and twentieth Centuries, With a Catalogue of Collections. Oxford University School of Archaeology Monograph 68. Oxford: Institute of Archaeology, University of Oxford, 2007. Grose, F. The Olio: Being a Collection of Essays, Dialogues, Letters, Biographical Sketches, Anecdotes, Pieces of Poetry, Parodies, Bon Mots, Epigrams, Epitaphs, &c. London: S. Hooper, 1792. Heath, C. Historical and Descriptive Accounts of the Ancient and Present State of Tintern Abbey. Monmouth: Charles Heath, 1806. Hill, R. “Antiquaries in the Age of Romanticism: 1789–1851”. Ph.D. diss., Queen Mary, University of London, 2011. Hill, R. God’s Architect: Pugin and the Building of Romantic Britain. London: Allen Lane, 2007. Holmes, J.D. More Roman Than Rome: English Catholicism in the Nineteenth Century. London: Burns & Oates, 1978. Jacques, D. Georgian Gardens: The Reign of Nature. London: Batsford, 1983. James, T.B., and C. Gerrard. Clarendon: Landscape of Kings. Bollington: Windgather Press, 2007. Janowitz, A. England’s Ruins: Poetic Purpose and the National Landscape. Oxford: Blackwell, 1990. Kempe, J. “Description of a Sepulchral Effigy of John de Sheppey, Bishop of Rochester, Discovered in Rochester Cathedral, AD 1825”. Archaeologia: Or, Miscellaneous Tracts Relating to Antiquity 25 (1834): 122–6. Kinney, D. “The Concept of Spolia”. In A Companion to Medieval Art: Romanesque and Gothic in Northern Europe, edited by C. Rudolph, 233–52. Malden: Blackwell, 2006. Kite, E. “Recent Excavations on the Site of Shaftesbury Abbey”. Wiltshire Archaeological Magazine 7 (1862): 272–7. Kliger, S. The Goths in England: A Study in Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Thought. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1952.

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Knight, J.K. Tintern and the Romantic Movement. London: Department of the Environment, 1977. Lafond, J. “The Traffic in Old Stained Glass from Abroad During the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries in England”. Journal of the British Society of Master Glass-Painters 14, no. 1 (1964): 58–67. Lang, J. Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture. Vol. 6: Northern Yorkshire. Oxford: The British Academy, 2001. Lee, Y.S. “A Divided Inheritance: Scott’s Antiquarian Novel and the British Nation”. English Literary History 64, no. 2 (1997): 537–67. Levine, P. The Amateur and the Professional: Antiquarians, Historians and Archaeologists in Victorian England, 1838–1886. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. Lewis, E. “Drawings of Antiquities in the Society’s Albums c.1750–1860”. Antiquaries Journal 87 (2007): 365–86. Lind, J. “Analysis of the Liquor Found in the Leaden Coffin of King Edward IV”. In Vetusta Monumenta: Quae ad Rerum Britannicarum Memorian Conservandam Societas Antiquariorum Londini Sumptu suo Edenda Curavit. Vol. 3, 2–3, plate 9. London: Societas Antiquariorum Londini, 1796. Lolla, M.G. “Ceci n’est pas un monument: ‘Vetusta Monumenta’ and Antiquarian Aesthetics”. In Producing the Past: Aspects of Antiquarian Culture and Practice 1700–1850, edited by M. Myrone, and L. Peltz, 15–34. Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999. Lucy, S. The Early Anglo-Saxon Cemeteries of East Yorkshire: An Analysis and Reinterpretation. BAR British Series 272. Oxford: John and Erica Hedges, Archeopress, 1998. Macaulay, R. Pleasure of Ruins. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1953. Maeyer, J. de. “The Neo-Gothic in Belgium: Architecture in a Catholic Society”. In Gothic Revival: Religion, Architecture and Style in Western Europe 1815–1914: Proceedings of the Leuven Colloquium, 7–10 November 1997, edited by J. de Maeyer, and L. Verpoest, 19–34. KADOC-Artes 5. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2000. Maeyer, J. de, and L. Verpoest, eds. Gothic Revival: Religion, Architecture and Style in Western Europe 1815–1914: Proceedings of the Leuven Colloquium, 7–10 November 1997. KADOC-Artes 5. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2000. Maillet, A. The Claude Glass: Use and Meaning of the Black Mirror in Western Art. New York: Zone Books, 2004. Malley, S. “Walter Scott’s Romantic Archaeology: New/Old Abbotsford and The Antiquary”. Studies in Romanticism 40, no. 2 (2001): 233–51. Marsden, B.M. Pioneers in Prehistory: Leaders and Landmarks in English Archaeology (1500–1900). Ormskirk: G.W. & A. Hesketh, 1984. Mauchline, M., and L. Greeves. Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal. London: The National Trust, 1988. McAuley, J. “Representations of Gothic Abbey Architecture in the Works of Four Romantic-Period Authors: Radcliffe, Wordsworth, Scott, Byron”. Ph.D. diss., University of Durham, 2007. McCalman, I., ed. Oxford Companion to the Romantic Age: British Culture, 1776–1832. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. McLees, D. Castell Coch. Cardiff: Cadw Welsh Historic Monuments, 1998. McMordie, M. “Picturesque Pattern Books and Pre-Victorian Designers”. Architectural History 18 (1975): 43–59.

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Meyrick, S.R. A Critical Inquiry Into Ancient Armour, as It Existed in Europe, but Particularly in England, from the Norman Conquest to the Reign of Charles II. London: R. Jennings, 1824. Miele, C. “The First Conservation Militants: William Morris and the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings”. In Preserving the Past: The Rise of Heritage in Modern Britain, edited by M. Hunter, 17–37. Stroud: Alan Sutton, 1996. Moatti, C. In Search of Ancient Rome. London: Thames and Hudson, 1993. Morris, R.K. Churches in the Landscape. London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1989. Moss, R. “Appropriating the Past: Romanesque ‘Spolia’ in Seventeenth-Century Ireland”. Architectural History 51 (2008): 63–86. Mowl, T. Horace Walpole: The Great Outsider. London: John Murray, 1996. Mudie, R. Hampshire: Its Past and Present Condition, and Future Prospects. Vol. 1: The Valleys of the Itchen and Test. Winchester: D.E. Gilmour, 1838. Oldmixon, J. Critical History of England, Ecclesiastical and Civil. London: J. Pemberton, 1724. Pantasaph Franciscan Friary. “Pantasaph St. David’s Church”. Accessed 6 September 2019. www.pantasaph.org.uk/st_davids_church.html. Price, U. An Essay on the Picturesque, as Compared With the Sublime and Beautiful; and on the Use of Studying Pictures, for the Purpose of Improving Real Landscape. London: J. Robson, 1794. “Proceedings of the Central Committee of the British Archaeological Association”. Archaeological Journal 2 (1845): 71–92, 183–211, 267–73. Rainsbury, A. “Chepstow Castle as Picturesque Ruin”. In Chepstow Castle: Its History and Buildings, edited by R. Turner, and A. Johnson, 243–52. Woonton: Logaston Press, 2006. Reusch, J.J.K. “Caspar David Friedrich and National Antiquarianism in Northern Germany”. In Producing the Past: Aspects of Antiquarian Culture and Practice 1700–1850, edited by M. Myrone, and L. Peltz, 95–114. Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999. Richardson, C.M. “Edward Pugin and English Catholic Identity: The New Church of the Venerable English College in Rome”. Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 66, no. 3 (2007): 340–65. Rickman, T. An Attempt to Discriminate the Styles of Architecture in England from the Conquest to the Reformation. London: John Henry Parker, 1848. Roberts, M. Durham. London: Batsford, 1994. Roberts, M. “Thomas Gray’s Contribution to the Study of Medieval Architecture”. Architectural History 36 (1993): 49–68. Rodwell, W. English Heritage Book of Church Archaeology. London: Batsford, 1989. Rodwell, W., and C. Atkins. St Peter’s, Barton-Upon-Humber, Lincolnshire: A Parish Church and Its Community. Vol. 1: History, Archaeology and Architecture Part 1. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2011. Rudge, E. “Description of the Remains of Henry of Worcester, Abbot of Evesham, Found in the Ruins of the Abbey Church of Evesham, September 10, 1822”. Archaeologia: Or, Miscellaneous Tracts Relating to Antiquity 20 (1824): 566–9. Ruskin, J. The Seven Lamps of Architecture. London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1849. Sambrook, J. “Netley and Romaticism”. In Netley Abbey, edited by A. Hamilton Thompson, 22–6. London: H.M.S.O., 1976.

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Wainwright, C. The Romantic Interior: The British Collector at Home 1750–1850. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989. Walbran, J.R. Memorials of the Abbey of St Mary of Fountains. Vol. 2.1. The Publications of the Surtees Society 67. Durham: Andrews & Co., 1878. Warton, T. Observations on the Fairy Queen of Spenser. London: R. and J. Dodsley, 1762. Watkins, C., and B. Cowell. Uvedale Price (1747–1829): Decoding the Picturesque. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2012. Watt, J. Contesting the Gothic: Fiction, Genre and Cultural Conflict, 1764–1832. Cambridge Studies in Romanticism 33. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Whinney, R. “One Hundred Years of Hampshire Archaeology”. Proceedings of the Hampshire Field Club and Archaeological Society 41 (1985): 21–36. White, R. Belsay Hall, Castle and Gardens. London: English Heritage, 2005. Williamson, T. Polite Landscapes: Gardens and Society in Eighteenth-Century England. Stroud: Alan Sutton, 1995. Willis, R. The Architectural History of Canterbury Cathedral. London: Longman, 1945. Wright, A. “Introduction: Gothic Materials of the Eighteenth Century”. Gothic Studies 14, no. 1 (2012): 1–6. Wright, B.S. “Scott’s Historical Novels and French Historical Painting 1815–1855”. The Art Bulletin 63, no. 2 (1981): 268–87.

2

The Roman catacombs in the nineteenth century ‘Cradle and Archive of the Catholic Church’ Massimiliano Ghilardi

At the end of 1805 the Roman priest Giacinto Ponzetti,1 Custos (Custodian) of Sacred Relics and Cemeteries from 1801 until his death in 1812, began to write a detailed account of the duties of his post, for the exclusive use of his successors. This still unpublished work, in 18 chapters, entitled Istruzzione [sic] sopra l’Officio del Custode delle S.e Reliquie dell’E.mo, e R.mo Signor Card. Vicario di N.S. Visitatore de Sacri Cimiterj, e deputato specialmente alle estrazioni de corpi de Ss. Martiri,2 describes the activities of the Custodian, under the authority of the Cardinal Vicar, from the moment of his appointment to the most minute aspects of the extraction and distribution of relics. Among the many points of interest in Ponzetti’s account, one in particular deserves close attention, because it concerns a type of pilgrimage that began to develop in the catacombs at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The purpose of this exclusive form of pilgrimage, reserved for a particularly wealthy elite, was to identify and subsequently remove the bodies of martyrs. It must have been a remote possibility, at least in the Custodian’s initial perception, because extracting a martyr from the catacombs was a very delicate operation of great spiritual significance, and certainly not an exclusively worldly matter to be reported in the drawing rooms of the well-to-do. Yet judging by the many graffiti and charcoal drawings left on the walls of the catacombs by visitors testifying to the rediscovery of bodies of martyrs, it cannot have been such an unlikely eventuality.3 Nevertheless, extracting relics, a practice already known since at least the beginning of the seventeenth century, was subject to strict rules. Those authorised to do so could not freely choose the body of the martyr to be exhumed, nor take any part in the process of extracting the relics, because all these matters were entrusted to the Custodian and to the fossores (in ancient times, gravediggers skilled in excavating the tufa rock) who worked for him. The lucky pilgrim could only assist the operations by praying. Ponzetti explains in detail in his manuscript how everything had to be done. First, a considerable financial contribution was required from the client. Obviously the relics could not be sold to the pilgrims without committing simony. Nevertheless, they were obliged to pay a substantial sum to the

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Custodian and the fossores to allow the work to begin. According to Ponzetti, all the “living expenses” that such complicated underground explorations entailed had to be paid in advance, because it could not be guaranteed that a martyr’s body would be recovered quickly. Identifying a burial site, he observed, could take weeks, and in some cases the search might not be successful; the client therefore had to make a substantial deposit to cover full reimbursement of the salary paid by the Custodian to the fossores (since the Apostolic Dataria, which normally paid them, was not willing to meet non-institutional expenses of this kind): The Custodian often receives requests from distinguished persons to have excavations and works conducted at their expense, so as to obtain the body of some Holy Martyr on their behalf. The Custodian must proceed very cautiously in this matter, and must also consult His Eminence the Cardinal Vicar if he thinks that this request could be granted, which should only be to important personages or eminent clerics, since this has been done in the past, but he must demand that the money to be spent on those works should be deposited in advance, because it could happen that after many days’ work without finding any holy bodies they fail to provide the money to pay for the work done by the diggers, and in such circumstances the Custodian could be liable for the expense incurred.4 Only after permission had been obtained from the Cardinal Vicar and the payment had been made did the fossores begin the exploration, guided by a Corporal (a trusted foreman). The client could choose the cemetery in which to conduct the search, among the many discovered and partly investigated at the time, and the sex or age of the martyr, but it was the Custodian, receiving daily reports from the Corporal on the progress of the search, who decided whether to intervene in the catacomb to investigate signs of martyrdom found by the fossores. Indeed, only the Custodian had the authority and the competence to identify, among the thousands of ancient graves present in the cemeteries, the specific signa that unequivocally defined the status of a martyr.5 Having confirmed the signs of martyrdom, the Custodian could then summon the client and proceed to open the loculus in his presence, and above all in the presence of a notary to certify that the operations were being conducted properly. However, as Ponzetti also notes, the recipient could only witness the opening of the loculus and the removal of the relics; the handling of the remains, for obvious reasons of sacredness, was performed exclusively by clerics: And in my experience many of these distinguished personages want to take part in the excavation and extraction of holy bodies themselves; so the Custodian must first have the work done and find the graves with true signs of martyrdom, and only then must he admit them to let them

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Massimiliano Ghilardi observe how the bodies are situated in their loculi, and the phials of blood attached and adjacent to such graves, which must inspire veneration and devotion in true good Christians who have been present at the extraction of bodies of Holy Martyrs.6

The whole process followed a precise ritual and involved a significant financial outlay, in addition to long waiting times. Considerable further expenses were incurred when the faithful, having been granted the much sought-after holy relics, decided to dress them and prepare them for public display. Costly fabrics, sometimes also encrusted with precious stones or embroidered with gold thread, had to be used to make the martyrs’ vestments, and precious materials were also used to make the arch-reliquary, a monumental wooden case lined with satin or velvet and covered with slabs of glass. Moreover, in order to simulate a real body, the bone remains were set by experts, preferably priests or religious, since as with extraction it was advisable to avoid married men or women touching the sacred bones and contaminating them. A wax mask, concealing the climactic and ecstatic moment of passing to the afterlife, was laid over the facial bones, and the hands, arms and feet were also covered; but the bones had to be partially visible. After verifying that everything had been done properly and completing the certification of authenticity, the Custodian sealed the case with the Cardinal Vicar’s seal.7 Only then could the relics be released by the Custodian and solemnly translated, in a sort of reverse pilgrimage, to their final destination, with the help of skilled workers to transport such a precious object. Reading Ponzetti’s Istruzzioni would lead one to believe that this exclusive pilgrimage to the loca sancta of the catacombs was a highly exceptional practice limited to a handful of members of the clergy or the Italian or European nobility. In fact, however, as already mentioned, there are many testimonies in the cemeteries engraved on the walls by those who witnessed the removal of relics. Moreover, according to contemporary accounts, extracting the body of a martyr was a ritual performed by a rich cast of characters, including both leading actors and extras. A particularly detailed and entertaining tale of such exhumations is the little-known novel Les Catacombes de Rome by the French scholar Paul Lacroix, librarian of the Arsenal Library in Paris from 1855, better known by his pseudonym Bibliophile Jacob.8 A large group of religious and representatives of various confraternities – over 50 people, according to Jacob’s colourful description – accompanied the Custodian and the fossores in opening the loculi, arousing intense emotion and enthusiasm in the crowd waiting outside the cemeteries.9 On these occasions, which were quite frequent, judging by the records of the Custodians, the entire city made a pilgrimage to the tombs of the martyrs in the suburbs, evoking the famous passage in Jerome’s Epistle 107 to Laeta: mouetur urbs sedibus suis et inundans populus ante delubra semiruta currit ad martyrum tumulos.10

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The Custodian was not the only official authorised to exhume martyrs’ remains. By virtue of a highly controversial provision in the Diversae Ordinationes circa extractionem Reliquiarum ex Coemeteriis Urbis, & Locorum circumvicinorum, illarumque custodiam, & distributionem, by which Clement X established the office of Custodian of the Sacred Relics and Cemeteries, the Praefectus Sacrarii Apostolici (Pontifical Sacristan) could also extract relics from Roman cemeteries and dispose of them personally, on behalf of the Pontiff, to satisfy the growing demand of the market for sacred items. For a long time, at least until the mid-nineteenth century, the Custodian and the Sacristan monopolised the management of exploratory pilgrimages in the area around Rome. Limited sectors of some underground cemeteries could be visited, a less involving and exciting experience than the extraction of relics, though equally effective from the spiritual point of view. They were mainly short stretches of galleries frequented continuously since the early Middle Ages because they were directly accessible from the subdial (open-air) or hypogaean (subterranean) basilicas constructed in ancient times above the tombs of the martyrs housed there. This was true of the churches of San Sebastiano, San Pancrazio, Sant’Agnese, San Lorenzo and San Valentino. In these galleries it was possible for visitors, usually accompanied by a friar, to see the graves of early Christians. As the flourishing though stereotyped travel literature of the period shows, these underground visits were not particularly popular among travellers in the first half of the nineteenth century, who were mostly attracted to the romantic and sometimes melancholy open-air architecture or the imposing majesty of churches, even in areas outside Rome. Visiting the catacombs, which many illustrious tourists explicitly discouraged, was confined to those deeply motivated by spiritual considerations. It is well known that since late antiquity (that is, since the barbarian invasions), and even more systematically from the early Middle Ages, the tombs of the martyrs once housed in underground cemeteries had been moved inside the intramural churches, and therefore the Roman catacombs were seen mostly as bare, cold, deserted and dispiriting places devoid of artistic attraction. As mentioned, there are illustrative testimonies of this in early nineteenth-century novels and travel literature. An example is a passage from Madame de Staël’s novel Corinne ou l’Italie, published in 1807, in which the protagonist explains why she no longer wishes to visit the catacombs: “I shall not take you to the catacombs”, Corinne said to Lord Nevil, “although by a strange chance they are beneath the Appian Way, so that graves rest upon graves. But there is something so grim and so terrible about this refuge of the persecuted Christians that I cannot bring myself to go back there. It is not the touching melancholy that is inspired by open spaces; it is the prison cell next to the sepulchre; it is the torture of life beside the horrors of death. One is undoubtedly

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Massimiliano Ghilardi filled with admiration for the men who, by their zealous enthusiasm, were able to endure this subterranean life and so cut themselves off entirely from the sun and nature, but one’s soul is so uncomfortable in this spot that no benefit can be obtained from it. Man is part of creation; he must find his moral well-being in the universe as a whole, in the usual order of destiny. Certain fearful, violent exceptions may astonish the mind, but they terrify the imagination so much that the usual state of the soul can derive no benefit from them. Instead, let us go and see Cestius’ pyramid”, continued Corinne. “Protestants who die here are all buried around this pyramid and it is a gentle haven, tolerant and liberal”.11

In addition to the limited appeal of the catacombs for visitors more attracted to classical remains, their use by tourists was probably further discouraged by the imaginative and unlikely stories that proliferated over time, to the point of taking deep root in popular culture. Fantastic tales of entire groups of visitors swallowed up by the bowels of the earth, inextricable paths inhabited by evil spirits and dark tunnels hundreds of miles long where it was impossible not to get lost certainly helped to deter visitors of a fearful disposition and those not attracted for religious reasons.12 An example of this is the experience of an exceptional traveller, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who visited Italy in 1786–1788 but whose Italienische Reise was published between 1816–1817 and 1829 and therefore falls within the period under consideration here. Goethe was passionately devoted to classical antiquities, but was also interested in the natural features of the Italian subsoil – he had been Minister for Mining (Minister für Bergwerksangelegenheiten) in Weimar. While fervently admiring the smallest details preserved from the past, he expressed his aversion to the catacombs, postponing his visit until the last days of his second stay in Rome. Goethe’s account, not very different conceptually from that of Madame de Staël, clearly illustrates the feeling of oppressiveness that the narrow cemetery galleries could induce even in the most motivated visitor, causing him to return rapidly to the surface: On my list of things to be visited before leaving Rome were two very disparate monuments, the Cloaca Maxima and the Catacombs of St Sebastian. The former was even more colossal than Piranesi’s designs had led me to expect. My visit to the Catacombs, however, was not much of a success. I had hardly taken a step into that airless place before I began to feel uncomfortable, and I immediately returned to the light of day and the fresh air and waited, in that unknown and remote quarter of the city, for the return of the other visitors who were more daring and less sensitive than I. Later I learned all about what I had seen, or rather failed to see, from Antonio Bosio’s great work Roma sotterranea, which made up sufficiently for what I had missed.13

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Like Goethe, the famous Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen was unmoved by the Roman catacombs, which, he says, made no impression on him. Andersen refers to the catacombs of San Sebastiano in his En digters Bazar (A Poet’s Bazaar), published in Copenhagen in 1842, not in the section devoted to the churches of Rome but as a passing reference in the description of his visit to Malta, where he had the opportunity to visit the local catacombs, comparing them to similar Roman galleries: Citta Vecchia, the bishop’s see, and once the capital of the island, is not an inconsiderable town. The church, which is dedicated to St. Peter and St. Paul, is quite in the same style as the Italian churches, airy and diversified with colours: but the traveller who comes from Italy is so surfeited with seeing churches, that even a church like this produces no effect. We also saw the catacombs here, which are just like those under Rome; they are narrow, inconvenient passages, of which, having seen ten yards, one has a perfect conception of the appearance of the next ten. In the vault under St. Paul’s Church is a cavern of small extent; in the centre stands a marble statue of the Apostle, who is said to have lived here after he was stranded in a storm on the coast of Malta. But neither the cavern, catacombs, nor church made any sort of impression on me. I was glutted with the sight of such things . . . . What interested me in this city was the manners of the people.14 Another obstacle to the wider popularity of visiting the Roman catacombs was the stereotyped description of the friar who acted as guide. The glacial spectrality of this figure soon became a topos in travel literature, passing from author to author. Charles Dickens, who gave an entertaining account of a visit to the galleries below the Basilica of the Via Appia in his Pictures from Italy, published in 1846, could not resist describing the friar of San Sebastiano. The disturbingly calm and potentially unstable demeanour of the “gaunt Franciscan friar, with a wild bright eye” made a strong impression on Dickens and his fellow explorers, as he noted: and I could not help thinking, “Good Heaven, if, in a sudden fit of madness he should dash the torches out, or if he should be seized with a fit, what would become of us!”15 Three years later, the Anglo-Irish Protestant clergyman Michael Hobart Seymour included an even more graphic and striking description of the accompanying friar in his Mornings among the Jesuits at Rome, first published in 1849. According to the author, the ghostly monk, “a moving plague – a personification of the malaria – a walking pestilence . . . a living skeleton”, who moved “with steps slow and solemn, and as stealthily as if he feared to disturb the slumbers of the dead . . . might well have passed for one of the ancient inhabitants of the Catacombs called again to life”.16

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In other cases, such as the cemetery of San Pancrazio on the Via Aurelia, the friars who guided the pilgrims seemed to be more kind and accommodating. According to Edmond Lafond in his Lettres d’un pèlerin, the Carmelite who accompanied the faithful on visits allowed them to touch the relics of the martyrs, though not to take any fragments away. As Lafond describes it, it was a unique experience, linked by a spiritual channel of great intensity directly to the Creation of man: The Carmelite let me touch several of these human remains left in the open loculi; it is a startling experience to feel, as you touch them, that the centuries have made these bones soft and flexible like a damp sheet of paper; it is a sort of human paste which yields under the pressure of your finger: they have become once again what they were at the moment of creation, the silt, the human clay, the plaster from which the eternal Sculptor shaped the statue of man, when He made it in His image and animated it with a breath from His mouth. In other loculi all that remains is a sprinkling of whitish powder which still vaguely traces out a human form, but which vanishes if you blow on it. I would very much like to have taken a little of that human dust; but it is forbidden, on pain of excommunication, to remove anything from the catacombs.17 The excessively lax attitudes of some of these friars, despite the prohibitions, and especially the often illicit and over-casual behaviour of the Custodians and Sacristans, soon gave rise to public disdain and condemnation, especially among Protestants, but also enlightened Catholics, who accused the ecclesiastical hierarchy of the time of inventing saints who never existed and encouraging their cults, without any proper control. The frenzy to find relics at all costs, stimulated and amplified by the substantial and increasing income they generated, progressively led to the ruin and devastation of early Christian cemeteries. The fossores left miles of empty, ransacked tunnels behind them. Around 1840, the Jesuit scholar Giuseppe Marchi,18 mentor of Giovanni Battista de Rossi, who was later described by his contemporaries as the “prince of sacred archaeology”, was moved to outrage by this devastation of the most sacred places of early Christianity, where the very land being trampled on, according to an idealistic view, was still rubricatae sanguine sanctorum (soaked in the blood of martyrs), and also by the trade in bone remains. He denounced these abuses, together with the ignorance of those appointed to guard the Christian funerary antiquities, in a harsh letter to the Cardinal Secretary of State, Luigi Lambruschini.19 Father Marchi suggested that a simple test involving reading and interpreting a Latin and a Greek inscription would be sufficient to establish the capacity of the Custodians.20 It would also be easy, as the Jesuit scholar noted in another manuscript, to demonstrate to the Holy Father how false relics were generated by the Custodians for money; a comparison between the records of the discoveries

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and those of the transfer of the relics would be enough to show how often the status of martyrdom had been conferred on a holy body at the table.21 Father Marchi’s constant representations to the Church authorities persuaded Pope Gregory XVI to create the office of Conservatore dei Sacri Cimiteri (Keeper of the Sacred Cemeteries) specifically for him at the beginning of 1842. By the mid-nineteenth century there were therefore three distinct figures concerned with catacombs and relics: the Custodians of the Relics, the Pontifical Sacristan and now the Keeper of the Sacred Cemeteries, appointed explicitly to oversee them. The work undertaken by Father Marchi did not come to an end with the death of Gregory XVI in 1846; indeed, it was further consolidated during the pontificate of Pius IX. On 5 July 1851, following the short-lived Roman Republic of Armellini, Mazzini and Saffi, the time had come for the Pope to establish the Commissione di Sagra Archeologia (Commission for Sacred Archaeology), a pontifical institution with overall responsibility for the protection of Christian antiquities, officially ratifying it on 6 January 1852.22 By decision of Pius IX the financial subsidies formerly assigned to the Custodian and the Sacristan were transferred to the newly formed Commission, marking the end of the practice of removing holy bodies from the cemeteries. The two teams of fossores were merged and now engaged only in excavation for research and documentation purposes. The figure of the Custodian, like that of the Sacristan, was not immediately abolished, but the progressive abandonment of the systematic search for the bodies of martyrs deprived it of its original function. Largely through the persistent efforts of Father Marchi, modern Christian archaeology was born, established at last on a scientific basis and almost entirely free from the extreme confessionalisation that had characterised it since the first pioneering research conducted by seventeenth-century explorers. The archaeological discoveries of Father Marchi, of great spiritual value, including the intact loculus of the martyr Hyacinthus in the cemetery of Hermes, and especially those of his student Giovanni Battista de Rossi,23 revived public interest in the catacombs. The Church’s purchase of land desired and repeatedly requested by de Rossi proved to be fundamental for the history of Christian archaeology. One day in 1849 de Rossi noticed some marble slabs that had just been unearthed during agricultural work by the owner of a vineyard in what is now known as the Eastern Cella Trichora of the Callixtian Complex. He realised at once that one of them, on which a mutilated Latin text reading . . . RNELIVS MARTYR was legible, clearly referred to the burial of Pope Cornelius the Martyr (AD 251–253).24 Given the obvious importance of the marble slab accidentally rediscovered in the Appian vineyard, de Rossi requested an audience with Pius IX to ask him to purchase the land where it had been found. The Pope listened to him calmly but showed no sign of being willing to do so. De Rossi withdrew, resigned to failure, and reported the audience to Pius’s confidant, Monsignor Frédéric-François-Xavier Ghislain de Mérode, who had mediated for

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him previously. When de Mérode entered the Pope’s office, Pius laughed heartily and admitted he had been playing a joke on the young archaeologist: “I have driven de Rossi out like a whipped cat, but nevertheless I will buy the vineyard”. He was fond of teasing de Rossi, telling him that archaeologists were “dreamers and poets”.25 The Pope’s decision soon proved providential and de Rossi rapidly rediscovered momentous remains from the early history of the Church. In 1852, after removing a large amount of rubble, the fossores were able to penetrate a vast underground hall later recognised as the crypt in which Pope Cornelius was buried. A fragment of a marble slab found in situ partially covering the opening of a loculus perfectly matched the mutilated inscription found by the farmer three years earlier. There was now no possible doubt; the full name of Pope Cornelius could finally be read and his tomb definitively identified.26 Two years later, in March 1854, one of the most important archaeological discoveries ever made took place in that same labyrinth of galleries under the vineyard: the Crypt of the Popes, one of the most sacred places of the Early Christian era, containing the graves of nine third-century popes: Pontian, Anteros, Fabian, Lucius I, Stephen I, Sixtus II, Dionysius, Felix I and Eutychian. On the floor, broken into 126 fragments, de Rossi also found a touching inscription by Pope Damasus I engraved on marble by his stonecutter Furius Dionysius Philocalus in honour of the saints venerated in that place.27 When he heard of these sensational discoveries, Pius IX decided to visit the excavation, which was still in progress at the time. On the afternoon of 11 May 1854 Pius IX arrived at the Cemetery of Callixtus, where he found de Rossi waiting for him with Father Marchi, both eager to show him the results of their joint work and the wealth of material being recovered daily during the excavations. Thrilled to tears as he read the names of his predecessors engraved on the inscription of Damasus, the Pope asked de Rossi if it was all true and there was no possibility of error. Mindful of the doubts Pius had once expressed over the investigations to be carried out in the vineyard, the archaeologist, according to his biographer, ironically replied: “But they are all dreams, Holy Father, they are all dreams!” “Oh how naughty you are, de Rossi!”, came the reply.28 By his willingness to pray in those sacred places and follow those paths still believed to be steeped in the blood of the martyrs, Pius IX decisively relaunched the celebrated early-medieval practice of the itinera ad sanctos at a popular level. Thanks to the efforts of the Church authorities, and especially to the fortunate archaeological discoveries of those years, the catacombs of the Roman suburbs once again became destinations for thousands of pilgrims eager to pray in the loca sancta of early Roman Christianity. The numerous works of travel literature published in the 1850s, true guides to the catacombs in every respect, are eloquent proof of this,29 as is also the explosion of Romantic novels of hagiographic inspiration.30

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Not all the faithful, however, could afford to make the pilgrimage to the Roman catacombs. The material difficulties of travelling in Europe in the Early Modern age31 and the insecurity of the countryside around Rome – infested by bandits who often chose the cemetery galleries of the Roman suburb as their safe hiding places (the pontifical archives contain numerous documents to this effect, but Romantic literature has also left us immortal portraits of the phenomenon, such as Luigi Vampa’s band of brigands hidden in the catacombs of San Sebastiano in Le Comte de Monte-Cristo by Alexandre Dumas)32 – constituted for a long time a serious obstacle to the development of mass pilgrimage to the catacombs. Consequently, the decision of the Vatican hierarchy to create full-scale models of catacombs to be sent out of the country must be interpreted as a way of making them widely available. An example is the facsimile of a catacomb designed by Giovanni Battista de Rossi for the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1867,33 built in wood covered with cork bark and decorated with paintings on terracotta slabs and plaster inscriptions. Made by the carpenter Filippo Settele with the help of the painters Giuseppe Gnoli and Gregorio Mariani, under the careful guidance of Giovanni Battista de Rossi and his brother Michele Stefano, the replica was first exhibited on 28 January 1867 in the upper portico of St Peter’s Basilica, where it was visited by Pius IX himself, and then transported, cut up and packed in numbered boxes, to Paris, where it arrived at the end of February of that year, ready to be reassembled by Gaetano Barlocci, a Vatican technician sent specially from Rome. This reproduction of a catacomb, inspired by sections of the cemeteries of Callixtus, Domitilla and Priscilla and set up, after lengthy negotiations, in the park of the Champ de Mars as an autonomous Vatican pavilion, with a final size of 64 square metres, was unexpectedly popular, creating long queues and great anticipation and posing various problems for the organisers of the exhibition; one of them noted, for example, that the constant and unstoppable flow of visitors had destroyed the tent decorating the entrance to the pavilion and it needed to be replaced. As Hippolyte Gautier commented in his account of the exhibition, the “Lilliputian fragment” of the Roman catacomb, “despite its archaeological character . . . has the privilege of attracting the crowds, for whom the word catacombs exerts an irresistible fascination”.34 The Parisian catacomb facsimile was therefore a pole of attraction for the curious and for pilgrims unable to visit the Eternal City and see the authentic galleries preserved there. It did not remain an isolated experiment, however. Some 40 years later, in 1909, a new replica started to be built in Valkenburg, in the province of Limburg in the Netherlands, this time dug into the rock and designed to last (it still exists and constitutes a valuable tourist attraction). It was commissioned by the wealthy Dutch industrialist Jan Diepen. Fascinated by the writings of the Redemptorist Father Lambertus Hagen35 and struck by the image of a painting of a Roman cemetery on a postcard received from

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Rome, he decided to build a faithful copy of a catacomb in his own country without ever having visited the Holy City.36 The construction works, authorised by the Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archaeology, which allowed Diepen to reproduce copies of ancient cemetery images in exchange for large sums of money to finance excavation and restoration work in the Roman catacombs, lasted until 1913 and were entrusted to the famous Dutch architect Petrus Josephus Hubertus Cuypers,37 already distinguished in his homeland in 1867 for the reducedsize reproduction of the Vatican Basilica of St Peter in the town of Oudenbosch, dedicated to St Agatha and St Barbara.38 The Commission officials, Josef Wilpert, Orazio Marucchi, Rodolfo Kanzler and later Augusto Bevignani, travelled to the Netherlands on more than one occasion to check on the progress of the works and verify the accuracy of the reproductions of original Roman paintings; their discussions with the client and his workers were not entirely without controversy.39 Apart from the galleries, which were made wider to allow visitors to pass more easily, the final result was an exact full-scale copy of a generic catacomb, selecta e coemeteriis romanis, based on 14 different Roman cemeteries.40 It was blessed by Pope Pius X himself, who received Jan Diepen on 1 December 1909, congratulating him on his precious work of Catholic devotion. This monumental undertaking immediately attracted a large number of visitors, especially from the neighbouring countries of northern Europe, who wished to admire faithful copies of Roman antiquities and experience the thrill of a pilgrimage ad limina sanctorum at a reduced cost in time and money. The monument, which soon became a pilgrimage destination and a centre for the promotion of Christian studies of antiquity, must have generated quite substantial profits, given that the local archives documented 7,000 visitors in the first year and some 10,000 the following year. The growing international fame of the Valkenburg catacomb is evident from a striking quotation reported in The New York Times, describing it as “one of the most curious modern constructions in the world”.41 In the mid-nineteenth century the long-forgotten Roman catacombs once again became prominent pilgrimage destinations, as they had been in the early Middle Ages, thanks above all to papal patronage and the excavations and discoveries of Giovanni Battista de Rossi. The reasons for this success can be summed up in the words Pope Leo XIII used when he received the archaeologists of the Commission in private audience on Sunday 18 August 1901 so that they could show him the new discoveries made in recent years in the underground cemeteries around Rome: the Roman catacombs were “the cradle and archive of the Catholic Church”.42

Notes 1 On Ponzetti (1737–1812), in addition to the brief notes compiled by Ferretto, Note, 298–9, see now the most recent biographical entry by Heid, “Giacinto”.

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2 It is preserved in the Regestum Secundum Corpora et Reliquiae Ss. Mm. quae conceduntur a Custode ab anno MDCCLIV ad annum MDCCC, formerly in the Vicariate archive, now in the Vatican Library. 3 See, for example, Ferrua, “Ultime scoperte”, 204–6. 4 Ponzetti, Istruzzione, cxlii. 5 On this subject, see Ghilardi, “Quae signa”. 6 Ponzetti, Istruzzione, cxliii. 7 “Those who have obtained these holy bodies usually have them clothed in the ancient manner, placing them in caskets, so with the permission of the Custodian the box in which the holy remains are stored may be unsealed by persons experienced and skilled in the art of clothing holy bodies, among whom are women and married men. The recipient of the relics must be warned never to use such people when they have the task of having them clothed and adorned, because it is not fitting for women and married men to touch and handle these sacred relics, which is prohibited in the Acts of the Church of Milan of St Charles Borromeo; and since there are nowadays some religious and priests highly skilled in making these vestments, whom I normally use when I have permission and authority to have them clothed, the Custodian should propose these priests for making such vestments to those persons who wish the holy body, granted to them by the office of Custodian of His Eminence the Cardinal Vicar, to be clothed. The Custodian should suggest to these persons who clothe these holy bodies that they leave some part of the sacred bones visible to inspire greater devotion in those who look at them, such as the forehead, putting the usual wax mask under the forehead, or leaving the soles of the feet or the palms of the hands uncovered, or covered with talc or glass. Once the holy body has been placed in the casket, firmly closed with glass panels all round and wooden panels at the back, the Custodian must make his observations on whether it has been clothed with proper Christian decency, and when this has been verified he will place the seals of His Eminence the Cardinal Vicar behind the panel of the casket, with ribbons in the form of a cross, and in the other places where it can be opened, and will draw up a new certificate of authentication with a detailed and distinct description of how the holy body is clothed, specifying the colour and quality of the vestments and other adornments and how many panes of glass and wooden panels are used to enclose it in the casket, whose colour and painting he must describe, so that the certain identity of the holy body will always be known in the future”. Ibid., clv–clvi. 8 See the brief portrait by Blémont, “Lacroix”. 9 Jacob, Les catacombes, 187–212. 10 “The city is stirred to its depths and the people pour past their half-ruined shrines to visit the tombs of the martyrs”. Nicene, 190. 11 Staël, Corinne, 80–1. 12 On these stories, see Ghilardi, “Miti”. 13 Goethe, Italian, 492. 14 Andersen, A Poet’s, 146. 15 Dickens, Pictures, 198. 16 Seymour, Mornings, 339–40. 17 Lafond, Rome, 222–3. 18 On Marchi, in addition to the information collected by Molinari, “Marchi”, with an extensive bibliography, see now the detailed profile compiled by Heid, “Giuseppe”. More generally, on the cultural context of the time, with particular reference to the figure of Father Marchi in relation to the flourishing of Christian archaeological studies, see the reconstruction by Milella, “Padre Marchi”. 19 “From the pontificate of Benedict XIV onwards, the Roman cemeteries, without ceasing to be what they were and are, have become almost entirely useless

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22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

Massimiliano Ghilardi for sacred scholarship. Nor should one disguise the main reason for this situation. Since that time unlearned persons have been appointed as custodians of the cemeteries, instead of learned ones, and devotees of their own comfort instead of active devotees and seekers of sacred monuments. Besides the fact that one cannot either love or value that which one is incapable of recognising, they prefer to direct the excavations sitting at home and leaving that highly delicate work entirely to the mercy of the diggers, who through excessive ignorance demolish and destroy half of what they find, and through misguided greed secretly sell the other half, which those of sound judgement value at very large sums of money, to foreign collectors or Roman dealers for a pittance”. Father Marchi’s letter to Cardinal Lambruschini is published in Fausti, “Documenti” (the passage quoted is at 132). A significant part of the letter is also published in Fausti, “G. Marchi”, 454–5. See Fausti, “Documenti”, 132: “His Eminence the Cardinal Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for Studies and Librarian of the Holy Roman Church, in his dual capacities, can remedy so dishonourable a calamity. With the agreement of the Holy Father, His Eminence the Cardinal Vicar and Monsignor the Pontifical Sacristan, the two priests who, while occupying the posts of Custodian of the Sacred Relics, are now also in charge of the cemeteries could be summoned and subjected to a little test of their understanding. The reading and interpretation of a Latin and a Greek inscription taken at random from those in the cemeteries would be a more than sufficient subject for their examination. If they are found to be capable, they should merely be given a few rules to be observed with scrupulous fidelity. If they are clearly inadequate, then without removing them for now from the position of Custodian of the Sacred Relics it would be advisable by true religious title to supplement them with one or more intelligent and hardworking persons to oversee the cemeteries and monuments with them and to take steps to enlighten them from time to time”. The same passage can also be read in Fausti, “G. Marchi”, 455. Fausti, “Documenti”, 143: “It would take a long time to piece together the story of the trickery with which the diggers multiply bodies, and especially those with identified names, to increase their profits. However, when they commit such excesses they are alone in the dark, so it would not be easy to convict them of committing them, unless whoever examined them were highly experienced in everything to do with sacred cemeteries and holy bodies. But it would require very little to reveal the faults of the Custodians. Let the extraction records be compared with the distribution records and the key to the problem will be found”. Ferrua, “I primordi”. On de Rossi, see now the complete profile, with a very full bibliography, compiled by Heid, “Giovanni”. de Rossi, La Roma, 250, 277, 305. Baumgarten, Giovanni, 42–3. The episode is also narrated by Lanciani, Pagan, 215–18. See de Rossi, La Roma, 278–9. The story of the discovery is in Ibid., 252–6. Baumgarten, Giovanni, 44. See Bunbury, A Visit; Mac Farlane, The Catacombs; Anderdon, Two Lectures; Kip, The Catacombs; and Northcote, The Roman Catacombs to cite just a few examples in English. I am referring particularly to the novel Fabiola by the Cardinal Wiseman, translated into several languages, and also (confining myself to Victorian literature) the numerous novels inspired by Wiseman’s story, notably including Callista by Newman; The Youthful Martyrs by Oakeley; and Vestina’s Martyrdom by Pitman.

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31 On this point I am reminded of the still unsurpassed study of the Polish historian Mączak, Travel. 32 On the subject of brigands in the catacombs, see my reconstruction in Ghilardi, “‘Il sangue’”. 33 See Capitelli, “L’archeologia”. 34 Gautier, Les Curiosités, 49. 35 Hagen, Geschiedenis. 36 Rutgers, “Die Katakomben”. 37 The architect himself left a volume of memoirs on the construction of the Valkenburg catacomb: see Cuypers, De Katakomben. 38 This building, known as the “Basiliek van de H.H. Agata en Barbara”, was designed by Cuypers in 1867, but the façade was modified, making it identical to that of the Lateran basilica, by Gerardus Jacobus van Swaay in 1892. 39 Sörries and Lange, “Josef”. 40 Holzem, “Katakomben”. 41 “Restorations”. 42 “Il Sommo Pontefice”.

Sources and bibliography Anderdon, W.H. Two Lectures on the Catacombs of Rome. London: Burns and Lambert, 1852. Andersen, H.C. A Poet’s Bazaar: Pictures of Travel in Germany, Italy, Greece, and the Orient. New York: Hurd and Houghton, 1871. Baumgarten, P.M. Giovanni Battista de Rossi, fondatore della Scienza di Archeologia Sacra: cenni biografici, translated by G. Bonavenia. Roma: Tipografia della Pace di Filippo Cuggiani, 1892. Blémont, H. “Lacroix (Paul)”. In Dictionnaire de biographie française, directed by J. Balteau, A. Rastoul, and M. Prévost. Vol. 19, 57–8. Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 2001. Bunbury, S. A Visit to the Catacombs, or First Christian Cemeteries at Rome, and a Midnight Visit to Mount Vesuvius. London: W.W. Robinson, 1849. Capitelli, G. “L’archeologia cristiana al servizio di Pio IX: ‘la catacomba in facsimile’ di Giovanni Battista de Rossi all’Esposizione Universale di Parigi del 1867”. In Martiri, santi, patroni: per una archeologia della devozione, edited by A. Coscarella, and P. De Santis, 555–66. Cosenza: Università della Calabria, 2012. Cuypers, P.J.H. De Katakomben Rome Valkenburg: Gedenkschrift Samengesteld door de Archaeologische Commissie van Advies der Katakomben-Stichting. Bussum: Paul Brand, 1916. de Rossi, G.B. La Roma sotterranea cristiana. Vol. 1. Roma: Cromo-litografia Pontificia, 1864. Dickens, C. Pictures from Italy. London: Bradbury & Evans, Whitefriars, 1846. Fausti, R. “Documenti inediti sull’azione innovatrice del P. G. Marchi S. J. († 1860) negli studi di archeologia”. Atti della Pontificia Accademia Romana di Archeologia: Rendiconti series 3, 19 (1944): 105–79. Fausti, R. “G. Marchi S. I. e il rinnovamento dell’Archeologia Cristiana auspici Gregorio XVI e Pio IX”. Miscellanea Historiae Pontificiae 7, no. 9–16 (1943): 445–514. Ferretto, G. Note storico-bibliografiche di Archeologia Cristiana. Città del Vaticano: Tipografia Poliglotta Vaticana, 1942.

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Ferrua, A. “I primordi della Commissione di Archeologia Sacra 1851–1852”. Archivio della Società Romana di Storia Patria series 3, 91, no. 1–4 (1968): 251–78. Ferrua, A. “Ultime scoperte a San Callisto”. Rivista di Archeologia Cristiana 52, no. 3–4 (1976): 201–19. Gautier, H. Les Curiosités de l’Exposition Universelle de 1867. Paris: Ch. Delagrave et Cie, 1867. Ghilardi, M. “Miti e realtà delle catacombe romane”. Storiografia 7 (2003): 71–99. Ghilardi, M. “‘Quae signa erant illa, quibus putabant esse significativa Martyrii’? Note sul riconoscimento ed autenticazione delle reliquie delle catacombe romane nella prima età moderna”. Mélanges de l’École française de Rome – Italie et Méditerranée modernes et contemporaines 122, no. 1 (2010): 81–106. Ghilardi, M. “‘Il sangue solo esce’: Le catacombe romane asili di briganti: realtà e miti letterari”. In I briganti del Lazio e l’immaginario romantico, edited by F. De Caprio, and V. De Caprio, 213–24. Città di Castello: LuoghInteriori, 2016. Goethe, J.W. von. Italian Journey (1786–1788), translated by W.H. Auden, and E. Mayer. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1970. Hagen, L. Geschiedenis en Getuigenis der Katacomben van Rome. Amsterdam: F.H.J. Bekker, 1908. Heid, S. “Giacinto Ponzetti”. In Personenlexikon zur Christlichen Archäologie: Forscher und Persönlichkeiten vom 16. bis 21. Jahrhundert, edited by S. Heid, and M. Dennert. Vol. 2, 1033–4. Regensburg: Schnell und Steiner, 2012. Heid, S. “Giovanni Battista de Rossi”. In Personenlexikon zur Christlichen Archäologie: Forscher und Persönlichkeiten vom 16. bis 21. Jahrhundert, edited by S. Heid, and M. Dennert. Vol. 1, 400–5. Regensburg: Schnell und Steiner, 2012. Heid, S. “Giuseppe Marchi”. In Personenlexikon zur Christlichen Archäologie: Forscher und Persönlichkeiten vom 16. bis 21. Jahrhundert, edited by S. Heid, and M. Dennert. Vol. 2, 863–5. Regensburg: Schnell und Steiner, 2012. Holzem, A. “Katakomben und katholisches Milieu: Zur Rezeptiongeschichte urchristlicher Lebensformen im 19. Jahrhundert”. Römische Quartalschrift für christliche Alterthumskunde und für Kirchengeschichte 89 (1994): 260–86. Jacob, P.L. Les catacombes de Rome, épisode de la vie d’un peintre français. Vol. 2. Bruxelles: Meline, Cans et Compagnie, 1845. Kip, W.I. The Catacombs of Rome as Illustrating the Church of the First Three Centuries. New York: Redfield, 1854. Lafond, E. Rome, lettres d’un pèlerin. Vol. 2. Paris: Ambroise Bray, 1856. Lanciani, R. Pagan and Christian Rome. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1893. Mac Farlane, C. The Catacombs of Rome. London: George Routledge and Co., 1852. Mączak, A. Travel in Early Modern Europe, translated by U. Phillips. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995. Milella, A. “Padre Marchi e lo studio dell’archeologia cristiana a Roma al tempo di Gregorio XVI”. In Gregorio XVI promotore delle arti e della cultura, edited by F. Longo, C. Zaccagnini, and F. Fabbrini, 121–32. Pisa: Pacini, 2008. Molinari, M.C. “Marchi, Giuseppe”. In Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani. Vol. 69, 674–7. Roma: Treccani, 2007. Newman, J.H. Callista: A Sketch of the 3rd Century. London: Burns & Oates, 1856. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Second Series. Vol. 6: Jerome: Letters and Select Works, edited by P. Schaff, and H. Wallace. New York: Cosimo Classics, 2007.

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Northcote, J.S. The Roman Catacombs, or, Some Account of the Burial-Places of the Early Christians in Rome. Philadelphia: Peter F. Cunningham, 1857. Oakeley, F. The Youthful Martyrs of Rome: A Christian Drama. London: Burns and Lambert, 1856. Pitman, E.R. Vestina’s Martyrdom: A Story of the Catacombs. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1869. Ponzetti, G. Istruzzione sopra l’Officio del Custode delle S.e Reliquie dell’E.mo, e R.mo Signor Card. Vicario di N.S. Visitatore de Sacri Cimiterj, e deputato specialmente alle estrazioni de corpi de Ss. Martiri, Regestum Secundum Corpora et Reliquiae Ss. Mm. quae conceduntur a Custode ab anno MDCCLIV ad annum MDCCC. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. “Restorations of the Roman Catacombs on an Estate in Holland”. The New York Times, 21 September 1913. Rutgers, L.V. “Die Katakomben von Valkenburg”. In Giuseppe Wilpert archeologo cristiano, edited by S. Heid, 467–84. Città del Vaticano: Pontificio Istituto di Archeologia Cristiana, 2009. Seymour, M.H. Mornings Among the Jesuits at Rome. London: Seeleys, 1852. “Il Sommo Pontefice Leone XIII e gli scavi delle catacombe romane”. Nuovo Bullettino di Archeologia Cristiana 7, no. 1–2 (1901): 176–7. Sörries, R., and U. Lange. “Josef Wilpert und die Katakomben von Valkenburg”. Antike Welt 24, no. 3 (1993): 235–43. Staël, Madame de. Corinne, or Italy, translated and edited by S. Raphael. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. Wiseman, N.P. Fabiola or the Church of the Catacombs. London: Burns & Oates, 1854.

Part I

Jerusalem, Rome and Santiago de Compostela

3

Geopietism and pilgrimage/ tourism to the Holy Land/ Palestine (1850–1918) and the case of Thomas Cook* Ruth Kark

Introduction One of the dominant characteristics of modern times is the phenomenon of mass travel and tourism. Tourism is so widespread and accepted today, particularly in the Western world, that we tend to take it for granted. Large numbers of people travelling for pleasure in foreign countries is a relatively modern occurrence, however, only dating back to the early nineteenth century. Although travel for business, exploratory, religious, cultural, educational, sporting or medical purposes, or even for entertainment, have occurred throughout human history, they were formerly practised by a select few and were limited in scope. The beginnings of pre-modern cultural and pleasure tourism in the Western world date back to the sixteenth century. Technological and social transitions associated with the Industrial Revolution brought about the development of new modes of travel and, eventually, the emergence of the holiday industry. According to Burkardt and Medlik, the word “tourism” did not appear in the English language until the early nineteenth century.1

Geopiety A discussion of the topic of pilgrimage and tourism to places perceived as holy may benefit from the analytical framework of Wright and Tuan in their conceptions of geopietism, and in Vogel’s adoption of the term. “Geopiety” is a term borrowed from John K. Wright to represent a special complex of relations between man and nature. “Geo” means earth; earth refers to the planet, the globe or its surface vis-à-vis heaven; it is also the soil and, by extension, land, country and nation. “Piety” means reverence and attachment to one’s family and homeland, and to the gods who protect them. “Geopiety” covers a broad range of emotional bonds between man and his terrestrial home. “The term ‘piety’ covers relations not only among men but also between man and the gods, and man and nature; in fact the three relations are closely interwoven”. Wright also pointed out that “we might conceive of such geopious sites as Mecca, Lhasa, Jerusalem, sacred groves and so forth as arousing geopious emotions on the part of geopious persons”. (or those who have, and have experienced, geopious awareness).2

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Vogel in his study on America and the Holy Land further expanded on the definition of geopiety by Wright and Tuan and convincingly used the term for the first time in the Holy Land context: geopiety, then, in the sense being used here, is the expression of dutiful devotion and habitual reverence for a territory, land, or space. In this broader form, the term seems tailor-made to describe the range of national attachments to the Holy Land, a place that has evoked devotion and habitual reverence among peoples and cultures in various ages.3

Pilgrimage to the Holy Land For centuries, the Holy Land had been a centre of pilgrimages for Christians, Jews and Muslims. The nineteenth century marked a decisive turning point in the history of Palestine. The Holy Land is of interest not only in itself, but also as both pilgrimages and even modern tourism to Israel reflect the interface between religion and space, time and place. This was demonstrated by the visit of atheist Mark Twain in 1867, and recently in visits of Christian groups such as the Japanese Makuya of Christ. Another prominent example is the annual Feast of Tabernacles gathering organised by the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem. In October 2017, it drew some 6,000 Christians from many countries, with live broadcasts of the weeklong events available over the internet.4 Mircea Eliade (1961) and Erik Cohen (1972) are just two authors to have offered typologies of holy places, pilgrims, travellers and tourists.5 While the pilgrim’s movement is motivated by spiritual and moral imperatives, the traveller, or the pre-modern tourist, combined religious and cultural motives and the modern tourist travels for pleasure.

The budding of tourism and the innovations of Thomas Cook Mass tourism and inclusive package tours replaced the Grand Tour and the traditional pilgrimage. Train and steamer passage opened up opportunities for travel not only to new socio-economic groups, such as the expanding middle class, but also changed attitudes towards gender and race. One of the main innovators in this sphere was Thomas Cook (1808–1892), who from 1841 onwards developed the modern business of tourism in England and abroad. By 1864, he had claimed one million customers. Cook’s “Eastern Tours” were inaugurated shortly after this and helped to transform Palestine from being a Terra Sancta for pilgrims, as it had been for generations, into a destination for mass tourism.6 Cook’s personal piety and his ambition to combine religious sensibility with commerce in Palestine led to the modernisation and rediscovery of the Holy Land through tourism. Cook created new travel components, choosing land and sea routes and various means of transport. Cook’s innovations

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meant a change in the types of tourists and their roles, their biblical images, activities and experiences in Palestine, and an increase in their numbers. His importance is attested by the fact that four-fifths of all British and American tourists who visited the country between 1881 and 1883 were brought by the Cook Agency. Cook’s operations in Palestine had a significant impact in modernising the local economy and society, and on European and American culture. Thomas Cook was a printer, Baptist missionary (1828) and an active pacifist. He began by developing package holidays known as “Temperance Tours” designed to distract people from the evils of drink and nicotine. In 1841, he persuaded the Midland Counties Railway Company to run a special train between Leicester and Loughborough for a temperance meeting. It was believed to be the first publicly advertised excursion train in England. From 1841 Cook went on to advance modern tourism in England and abroad.7 By 1850 he was arranging tours for the English middle class to Paris, Italy and the Alps. In 1851, he scored his first big success when he was asked to organise visits to the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park, London. He transported 165,000 people, accommodating them in “dormitories with clean towels and soap”. His method was to use new railways and steamships and advance-purchase tickets for resale, and to conduct the tours in person. He also published guidebooks, realising that travellers needed hotel and restaurant recommendations. A coupon service was devised to provide hotel facilities, and in 1873 Cook introduced circular notes, the forerunners of travellers’ cheques, to save tourists carrying gold, which was both dangerous and inconvenient. His newspaper, Cook’s Excursionist (1851–1902) contained long articles directed toward working men on the virtues of self-improvement through travel. Women tourists were also encouraged. Cook wrote: As to their energy, bravery and endurance of toil . . . they are fully equal to those of the opposite sex, while many of them frequently put to shame the “masculine” effeminates . . . . [T]hey push their way through all difficulty and acquire the perfection of tourist character. When put into practice, such a stance flattered middle-class women, who became an integral part of Cook’s groups, increasing the general appeal to the middle classes.8 In 1867, Cook led the first excursion to the United States. At that time he estimated that in the 27 years of the company’s existence it had served nearly two million travellers, for whom “God granted his protection”.9 Not only did he transport 75,000 visitors to the Paris exhibition of 1878, but during the 1880s took on military and postal services between Britain and Egypt.10 Reminiscing in 1867 about his tourist initiative embarked upon almost three decades earlier, Thomas Cook related his success to enthusiasm and “a passionate love for the great work” combined with “the realisation of the thought that suddenly flashed across the mind, that the powers and appliances of steam and locomotion might be turned to useful account in the advancement

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of social and educational movements”.11 His words reflect mid-nineteenthcentury missionary concepts and connotations. We may also gain some insight into Cook’s self-perception from a short article in the 1873 Excursionist. He viewed himself as an original thinker and doer in the sphere of tourism: I never borrowed ideas of Tours from any one, though my original “ideas” have been moulded into a good many Tourist systems of public companies; and as for individual speculators, they have made it their chief business to get hold of my arrangements, copy my Tickets, and then call them their own names. When offered a partnership in Tours to the East by a Vienna contractor, he replied “that I always preferred to do my own work, in my own way, and to bear my own responsibility”.12 Many years later, British statesman William E. Gladstone (1809–1898) said: Among the humanising contrivances of the age I think notice is due to the system founded by Mr. Cook, and now largely in use, under which numbers of persons, and indeed whole classes have for the first time found easy access to foreign countries, and have acquired some of that familiarity with them which breeds not contempt but kindness. This is consistent with Cohen’s (1972) assertion: It seems mass tourism as a cultural phenomenon evolves as a result of a very basic change in man’s attitude to the world beyond the boundaries of his native habitat. So long as man remains largely ignorant of the existence of other societies, other cultures, he regards his own small world as the cosmos.13

Cook’s Eastern and Holy Land Tours A trip to Jerusalem had been an ambition of Thomas Cook’s since 1850, when travelling through the Highlands of Scotland on one of his Highland Tours “he fell in with a Clergyman just returned from the East, who provided a wealth of valuable information on Eastern travel and enthusiastically vouched for the practicality of the project”. He sought advice on organising a round trip to Egypt and Syria from James Silk Buckingham (1786–1855), a writer, traveller in the Middle East and member of parliament who had visited Palestine in 1816 and published a two-volume account in 1823. Around 1853, Cook saw proposals advertised in Scottish periodicals for a planned tour to Palestine, at a cost of about £200. A friend of his from Nottingham, Alderman Cullen, later suggested in a social gathering of Excursionists at Land’s End, that Cook should conduct his patrons to the Holy Land. The implementation of the idea was postponed until Cook had built

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up a solid American and British clientèle, and the railway and steamship routes were sufficiently established to cope with large groups. He kept the project in mind, and “however silently the idea slept under the heavy load of other engagements, I had always anticipated that it must be done at some convenient season”. Between 1865 and 1867, a connection with a Mediterranean steamer company strongly focused Cook’s attention on the subject. Several letters were received from a writer in Constantinople, urging the practicability of an eastern tour, and offering personal and other friendly assistance. As one of Cook’s principles was to make “for his own guidance and satisfaction an exploratory visit” before announcing a new tour, he preferred “in the great matter of an Eastern Tour . . . to arrange and work out his own plans, availing himself of all practicable counsel and assistance”. He mentioned that one of the main factors of not being able to apply this principle was “isolation in my work, and the impossibility of leaving home for so long a period as 70 or 80 days”. He was thus only able to advance the project two years after his son, John Mason Cook, joined the firm in 1864, becoming competent enough to look after the home business.14 Thomas proudly stressed his role as “originator” of the Eastern Tours, although in the arranging and carrying out of Tours to the East, I have had the instant and energetic co-operation of my Son, I adhere, for special reasons, to the personal pronoun in my brief notes of their origin, progress and results.15 In 1867 Thomas Cook made arrangements to spend Christmas 1868 in Jerusalem. He declared that before making an official announcement of a tour to Palestine he would go there himself to examine the conditions. The information to be obtained will include – the best time of the year for being in Palestine – the best travelling facilities, the best Hotel accommodation – the best Guides that can be engaged – the best places of interest to be visited – the routes to and from England – and the cost of the whole tour for two months. The entire cost is roughly estimated at £100 or 100 guineas. Cook promised to pay attention to the gender aspect as well: “How far it is practicable for ladies to undertake this tour, will constitute one of the interesting subjects of enquiry. The aim will be to provide for their company”.16 In September 1868, Cook travelled via Italy and Constantinople to Smyrna, Beirut, Jaffa and on to Alexandria and Cairo in order to negotiate future activity in the area with local agents. Although he planned to go to Jerusalem, and had letters of introduction to several of the most influential residents there, he did not have enough time. He did make hotel and dragoman arrangements at Beirut and Jaffa, however, and in Beirut met several missionaries including Mrs Thompson, the founder of Beirut and Lebanon

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schools, and Mr and Mrs Mott. In Cairo, he was approached by Alexander Howard (a Maronite from Beirut and Jaffa who had Anglicised his name from Awad to Howard) and his partner Abdullah Joseph, who asked Cook to give them a share of his future work, and be employed exclusively by him. Cook decided to hire Howard as a dragoman, and was very satisfied with his loyalty and performance.17 In 1869, the year in which the Suez Canal opened, Cook led the first party of ten travellers through the Holy Land and Egypt, whose adventures were recorded in the diary of one of the party, a Miss Riggs of Hampstead.18 In later years, the company organised the transport of groups of German Templers from Jaffa to Jerusalem (1874); transported more than a thousand French Catholic pilgrims to the Holy Land and back (28 April to 30 May 1882); planned the tour of the second Shayara (“Convoy”) of British Jews belonging to the Order of Ancient Maccabians (1897); and conducted royalty around the Holy Land – the British princes Albert Victor and George (later George V) in 1882, and Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany in 1898.19 Although pilgrims had made their way to the Holy Land for centuries, the first organised tours began in the early 1850s: Catholic groups from Italy travelling on the Lloyd Triestino steamship line and parties organised by the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, which set out twice yearly from Marseilles at Easter and in August. The journey from France was prohibitively expensive and women were not allowed on these tours until after 1868. The first organised “pleasure trip” to Palestine came, predictably, from the United States, part of a huge package deal, early in 1867: 150 Americans, organised by Henry Ward Beecher’s Plymouth Church, planned to tour the continent of Europe and from there continue to the Holy Land and Egypt. This was the famous cruise of the Quaker City, described by Mark Twain in The Innocents Abroad.20 In the course of the nineteenth century, Palestine became a “must-see” in the itineraries of many British and Americans travelling abroad. As Handy and Vogel have noted, although Protestant Christians placed less emphasis on pilgrimage, many sought out the scenes of Jesus’ ministry and other sites with biblical associations as an act of faith. Others, who came mainly as observers of exotic lifestyles were affected by the cultural and spiritual connotations of the Holy Land – as was even Mark Twain, who was undoubtedly one of the most cynical.21 The tourist trade to Palestine grew steadily, largely due to the efforts of Thomas Cook, whose advertisement, published in a guidebook from the Mandate period reminds potential tourists that: “Cook’s were established in Jerusalem long before there were railways and roads and when the only means of exploring the country was on horseback with camp”.22 A British missionary in Palestine, Reverend James Neil, in his book, Palestine Re-peopled, gave a very good description of the change in the 1870s: Nor must we omit to mention amongst the causes of the present improved condition of the country, the annual influx of a very great

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and increasing number of visitors. The entirely healthful mode of travelling it necessitates, with all the excitement and pleasure of camp life, the deep interest of its hallowed spots, the wide field it affords for exploration, and the wild beauty that still lingers everywhere on its natural features, combined to make Palestine a place of resort as soon as the modern facilities for travelling brought its shores to within an easy fortnight’s distant from our own . . . Royal personages have been conspicuous among the number. Formerly only a few very wealthy travellers could accomplish the journey. Now it may be said to be within the reach of ordinary tourists. There are two well known conductors of travelling parties in England, Mr. Cook and Mr. Gaze, and one in Germany. The first of these repeats his visits four times during a single season, and in that of 1874 made arrangements for no less than 270 visitors to the Holy Land. Such is the number of Germans who flock to the country . . . American visitors, though they have to come three thousand miles further than others, are, to their credit be it said, the most numerous, and after them our countrymen furnish by far the largest contingent. This is, of course, excepting the Russian pilgrims, members of the Greek Church, who now, together with crowds from the neighboring countries, representatives of the Greek, Armenian, Syrian, Coptic, and almost all Oriental Churches, come up every year by thousands.23 Facilities for pilgrims were available in Palestine from early times and much improved when the rule of Muhammed Ali (1831–1841) brought greater security. However, they were scarcely adequate to the mounting pressure generated by the sheer numbers of tourists, let alone their demands for physical comfort. Cook had to create proper hotels, find good guides and resolve problems concerning food, water and accommodation. The company’s organisation of its Palestinian tours was based around the demands of its middle-class Protestant clientèle, English and American, and were often accompanied by Thomas Cook or his son John. Almost everything was paid for in advance, reducing the risk of robbery. The dragomans were handpicked. In 1875, Cook’s acquired a house and grounds near the Jaffa gate of Jerusalem and threatened to concentrate their business there if local contractors and hoteliers “do not treat our travellers and ourselves as they and we ought to be treated”. Among Cook’s innovations were “Biblical Educational and General Tours”, “designed specially for ministers and Sunday School teachers, and others engaged in promoting scriptural education”, and “educational tours for young gentlemen”, later opened to others.24 A Cook’s tour was not cheap; in the 1860s it averaged 31 shillings a day, including accommodation, dragoman, military escort and provisions imported from Britain. In 1873, for the journey out to Palestine, Cook’s used the railways to Genoa and Trieste or the Danube Steam Navigation to Varna on the Black Sea. From the Mediterranean ports, Austrian Lloyds or

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Rabattino S.S. Co. took travellers to Alexandria, Port Said and Jaffa, then back again from Beirut. Once in Palestine, two tour routes were available. The short route took the tourists from Jaffa to Gaza, Beersheba and Jerusalem, on a round trip to the Dead Sea near Jericho, to Samaria, Nazareth, Cana, the Sea of Galilee, Damascus, Baalbek and Beirut. Another possibility was to start at Beirut, go down the coast to Sidon, Tyre, Haifa and Jaffa, and then on the excursion described earlier. At the end of 1873, new routes to Moab and the Houran were added, going around the Dead Sea and north through Transjordan to Damascus via the Sea of Galilee or the Houran.25 In 1876, the first edition of Cook’s Tourist’s Handbook for Palestine and Syria included 12 itineraries. The numbers of tourists visiting the Holy Land increased significantly due to the work of Thomas Cook & Son and similar companies, such as the one established in New York by Frank C. Clark (one of the children of the American Adams colonists at Jaffa). The annual total increased from between 2,000 to 3,000 in the first half of the century to around 7,000 in the 1870s, and some 30,000 on the eve of World War I.26 Melman, who studied women travellers to the Middle East between the years 1719–1918, suggested that 13 percent were tourists, typically Cook’s tourists, or “Cookites”.27 In the 1830s, it was said that between 10,000 and 12,000 pilgrims came to Jerusalem annually. The accuracy of this figure is difficult to ascertain, although it is similar to figures cited by the U.S. consul in Jerusalem for 1868 (12,500 including 150 Englishmen and 250 Americans). Between 1869 and 1883, Cook brought about 4,500 travellers to Palestine; he claimed that this accounted for around two-thirds of the total number of tourists arriving from the West. By comparison, the French Catholics organised 35 caravans between 1853 and 1873 carrying only 618 pilgrims, and still vastly outnumbered, of course, by Eastern pilgrims from Russia, the Balkans and the Near East. According to the statistics collected by Vidal Cuinet, there were 28 hostels and hotels, of which some were luxurious and modern, available in Jerusalem in 1898 (see Figure 3.1). In 1901, Cuinet recorded 18,700 visitors of all denominations, which included 7,000 brought by the Cook Agency to Palestine (see Figure 3.2). Prior to World War I, Baedecker and other sources estimated the number of annual visitors at between 15,000 and 25,000, of which about onequarter were tourists and the rest pilgrims. In 1910–1911, a total of 5,759 tourists and 20,000 pilgrims were reported, and 28 percent of the tourists (1,625) were Americans.28 The local economy benefited from the increasing influx of tourists by importing foreign capital to religious institutions, stimulating demand for food, services and other products. Both the local population and the Ottoman authorities benefited from the increased income. For example, Cook claimed 300 people and 200 horses and mules served the 300 tourists who visited

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Figure 3.1 Table of hotels and hostels, 1901. Source: Cuinet, Syrie, 542.

Figure 3.2 Christian pilgrims and Cook’s tourists. Source: Cuinet, Syrie, 551.

Palestine at the beginning of 1880. According to Ruppin, visitors to Greater Syria brought in an annual sum of 10 million francs (£400,000).29 Several towns in Palestine, mainly Jerusalem and Jaffa, developed tourist infrastructure: hostels and hotels, catering services, currency exchange,

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souvenirs, tourist guides and so on, as they became pilgrimage and tourist centers. In the first half of the nineteenth century, pilgrims were accommodated at monasteries. The first modern-style hotel, which offered some of the comforts of Europe, was opened in Jaffa in the 1850s by Kopel Blatner & Sons. Tourist accommodation improved further in the 1870s, when Cook’s opened the Twelve Tribes Hotel in Jaffa. Additional modern hotels were opened in Jaffa from the 1870s onwards. Jerusalem had no hotels and only a few hostels, such as the Franciscan Casa Nova, in the mid-nineteenth century. A few large complexes, such as the Russian Compound and the Austrian Hospice, were built between 1850 and 1860 to accommodate pilgrims. Cook allocated a camping area for his groups outside the Jaffa and Damascus Gates of the old city. In the second half of the century, however, many new hostels and hotels were built. Several hotels – the Jerusalem, Mediterranean, New Grand and Fast Hotels – had an annual contract, or some kind of arrangement with Cook’s and Clark’s travel agencies: in 1903 Cook had three branch offices in Palestine (Jerusalem in David Street, Jaffa in the German Colony and Haifa near Hotel Carmel).30 By the end of the nineteenth century, the major travel agencies handling tourists were Cook, Tadras, Clark, Hamburg, Barakat and Nasir and Farajalla. Commissioners could be hired to help passengers disembark, release luggage from customs and secure lodgings, horses and carriages. Ferrying and wagon services were available, as were hundreds of porters, guides and escorts, with over 23 caravansarays in Jaffa alone in 1905. Local firms proliferated. Restaurants and coffee houses multiplied: in Jaffa there were 64 restaurants and 81 coffeehouses in 1905.31

Piety, philanthropy and commerce in the Holy Land Thomas Cook’s operations in the Holy Land always reflected his missionary background. On the eve of his reconnaissance trip to Palestine, Cook expressed his pious feelings towards Jerusalem and the Holy Land: the vision is certainly an enchanting one to be near the spot with which are associated the Star of Bethlehem, the song of the Angels, the adoration of the Magi, the wonder of the shepherds, and all those other New Testament incidents and associations comprehended in the fulfillment of all the prophecies which centred upon the Nativity.32 In a personal confession he wrote: It will be joyous event to see the “mountains round about Jerusalem”, but its culminating glory would be to look beyond those mountain ranges to the “Jerusalem above” and if a tour to famed attractions of Palestine should inspire all who accompany us to seek the “better land”, a rich reward crowns our labours.33

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Cook’s tours combined visits to the Holy Places, the missions and their schools and “biblical excavations”. The parties carried not only maps and guide books but Bibles and hymn books, and sang as they went. Mention has already been made of the “Biblical Educational and General Tours”, but it is worth noting that in the first edition of Cook’s Tourist’s Handbook (1891), the editor “endeavoured to incorporate . . . not merely the references to the passages of Scripture descriptive of places of interest, but the words of the sacred text also”.34 Cook’s philanthropy in Palestine Cook also used his tours to support philanthropic work in Palestine. For example, there was a stop listed on the advertised schedule for 1877 at Miss Arnott’s Mission School in Jaffa, a property which Cook had purchased for the mission. Another stop was in Nablus at the house of Selim el-Karey, a convert from the Greek Orthodox faith to Protestantism.35 The Jaffa Tabeetha Mission School, founded in 1863 by Miss Walker Arnott, a Scottish Presbyterian, was one of the first Arab girls’ schools in Palestine; Miss Arnott remained involved until her death in 1911 or 1912. In 1877 the Tabeetha Mission Committee was formed in Edinburgh to help run the school. Miss Arnott also received an annual grant from the Society for Promoting Women’s Education in the East, a ladies’ voluntary group near Glasgow and, more substantially, a grant from Thomas Cook & Son. In the 1870s, Thomas Cook purchased a sizeable tract of land on a hill outside Jaffa town wall, not far from the new gate. Here he erected a two-storey building as the headquarters of the mission and school. According to Nile, the massive sandstones used for the building were from the Jaffa old town wall pulled down by order of the governor and sold as building material for the new school house.36 The building was rectangular in shape with an open inner courtyard and a tiled roof. For 18 years Cook also maintained a number of Arab scholars at his own expense. The building, located on modern-day Yefet Street in Jaffa, remains an Anglican girls’ school.37 Cook’s Excursionist published appeals for help for the school.38 The Excursionist in 1869 published a report on the annual meeting of the Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF, established in 1865), and announced the collection of contributions for the Fund by the Cook office in London and by Miss Cook in Leicester. The newspaper reported on the progress of the Survey of Western Palestine and later, the Survey of Eastern Palestine being undertaken by the PEF.39 Cook’s support was also instrumental in setting up the PEF’s geological expedition of 1883 to 1884 to Arabia Petraea, the Arabah and Western Palestine, headed by the Irish Professor Edward Hull. Hull’s report noted that the Cook company had provided all the travelling arrangements by land or sea, tents, food and attendants, and advanced money when needed “without the slightest profit, directly or indirectly to the firm”. When the

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expedition members left London by train on their way to Dover and Egypt, John Mason Cook was on the platform at Ludgate Hill Station, to wish them a good journey.40 A decision to open a British Hospice and Ophthalmic Dispensary was reached in London on July 1882. It was opened in 1883 by the English League of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, to provide free care to all nations and races. Cook’s took upon itself to collect contributions for the hospital.41 From the “First Annual Report of the British Hospice and Ophthalmic Dispensary in Jerusalem, under the Management of St. John of Jerusalem (English Langue)”, whose patron was the Prince of Wales, we learn that John Mason Cook was one of three members of the institution’s local committee in Jerusalem, together with British Consul Noel Temple Moore and Thomas Chaplin, M.D. The local committee, including Cook, and Sir Edmund, the vice-chairman of the British Order, and his wife, Lady Lechmere, who came to Jerusalem, selected a site with a building, at a cost of £1,050.42 In his 1883 report to the General Assembly, Sir Edmund Lechmere wrote: “And our thanks are specially due to Mr J. M. Cook, who has, from the first, rendered us essential service by the generous manner in which he has placed the resources of his establishment at Jerusalem, and the services of his agents at our disposal”.43 From this report we learn that Thomas Cook & Son “very handsomely undertook to send out our Surgeon at the net cost, and to see that on arrival in Jerusalem suitable quarters were provided for him”. We also see that John Mason Cook’s donation of £100 for that year was the highest received. From additional correspondence between John Cook and Lechmere in 1889, found in the archives of the Order in London, we see that Cook persisted in his support of the Jerusalem Hospital.44 There was a tension here, for John Cook, a hard-headed businessman, disapproved from the start his father’s involvement with missions. It was also clear that the Palestine tours were not profitable and had to be subsidised from earnings made in Europe and America, as well as by local cost-cutting.

Conclusion The nineteenth century marked a decisive turning point in the modern history of Palestine, and the beginning of change and modernisation in many spheres. Thomas Cook had a significant impact on Palestine during the period of transformation from traditional journey and pilgrimage to the Holy Land to semi-modern tourism. The distinction of the Holy Land with its unique history and religious associations for Christians and Jews inspired attempts to create a special content for the tourist experience, differing substantially from travel plans for other foreign destinations. Leisure

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and recreation were not the only aim. Thomas Cook was a businessman and a talented organiser, who brilliantly gauged the potential for tourism in Europe and America. But he was also a man of faith and vision regarding tourism in the Holy Land. He insisted on preserving and subsidising these tours although they were not profitable. His activities in Palestine reflected his personality and his intention to combine his tourist business with Christian activities. He was personally involved in funding missionary health and educational institutions, as well as other British organisations such as the Palestine Exploration Fund, often not to the liking of his son and partner, John Mason Cook, though he, too, played a part. The creation of new institutional frameworks and travel components by the company went hand in hand with the changing perceptions, images and motivations of the travellers, and change in the type of tourists brought to the Holy Land (including women, Protestants, Catholics, British Zionist Jews, princes and the German Kaiser) and in the tour routes and means of transport. Cook’s operations in Palestine affected the modernisation of the local economy and local society, on the one hand, and European and American culture and society, on the other. It is obvious that the Holy Land and Jerusalem have served as pilgrimage sites for generations, However, I suggest that compared to other holy places elsewhere, they may be seen as a unique example, in which even the semi-modern and modern tour organisers and secular tourists of the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries combine “geo” and “pietism” and maintain the sentiment of geopiety.

Figure 3.3 Thomas Cook’s network. Source: Ruth Kark.

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Notes * Part of this paper was previously published as Kark, “From Pilgrimage”. The author is indebted to the editors and to ASTENE (the Association for the Study of Travel in Egypt and the Near East) for their permission to re-use this paper. 1 Burkardt and Medlik, Tourism. 2 Wright, “Notes”, 252; Tuan, “Geopiety”, 36. 3 Vogel, To See, 8; see also Kark, “Sweden”. 4 Speeches and events connected with the feast are also live-streamed, attracting numerous Christians outside of Israel: International Christian Embassy Jerusalem [ICEJ]. Accessed 5 August 2019. https://int.icej.org/. 5 Eliade, Image, 164–82; Cohen, “Toward” (1977). 6 Burkardt and Medlik, Tourism; Cormack, A History, 1–49; Towner, An Historical, 96–138; Whithey, Grand Tours, 1–134. 7 Lamb, “They Didn’t”; Swinglehurst, Cook’s Tours. The Thomas Cook abruptly closed on 22 September 2019, stranding many of its customers. (The Sun, 25 September 2019: https://www.thesun.co.uk/travel/9103150/thomascook-news-latest-holiday-flights/). 8 Feifer, Tourism, 170; Cook, “Personal”. 9 Cook, “Personal”. 10 Lickorish and Kershaw, “Tourism”. 11 Cook, “Personal”. 12 Cook, “Brief History”. 13 Cohen, “Toward” (1972); Feifer, Tourism. 14 Cook, “Tour to Palestine”; Cook, “Brief History”. 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid. 17 Smyirk, “Beginning”, 21; Cook, “Brief History”. 18 Shepherd, The Zealous, 173–5. 19 Cook’s Excursionist, 1 November 1881 reports that a third generation of Cooks went on an excursion in the spring of 1880; Kark, “The Keiser”; Cook’s Excursionist, 13 May 1882; Maccabaean Pilgrimage; Shepherd, The Zealous; Bentwich, “Anglo-Jewish”. 20 Shepherd, The Zealous; Twain, The Innocents. 21 Handy, The Holy, xvii-xviii; Vogel, To See, 9–18. 22 Luke and Keith-Roach, The Handbook, 4. On tourism during the British Mandate period, see Cohen-Hattab and Katz, “From Terra Sancta”. 23 Neil, Palestine, 23–7. 24 Shepherd, The Zealous, 180. 25 Neil, Palestine, 23–7. 26 Kark, American Consuls, 235–40. 27 Melman, Women’s Orient, 40. 28 United States National Archives, RG59 T471/2; Kark, American Consuls, 235–6; Kark, “The Development”, 181–2, 215–19; Cook’s Excursionist, 1 April 1880. 29 Kark, Jaffa, 285–8; Cook’s Excursionist, 1 November 1883; Shepherd, Zealous, 180; Schick, “The Railway”; Kark, American Consuls, 285–8; United States National Archives, RG84. 30 Kark, Jaffa; Program of Tours; Haviv, “Thomas Cook’s Company”, 25; Floyd, Letters, 106–7; Ahtola, “Thomas Cook & Son”; Brendon, Thomas Cook, 182–200. 31 Kark, Jaffa; Program of Tours; Haviv, “Thomas Cook’s Company”, 25. 32 Cook, “Tour to Palestine”. 33 Cook, “Personal”. 34 Cook’s Tourist’s Handbook, iv.

Geopietism and pilgrimage to the Holy Land 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44

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Shepherd, The Zealous. Neil, Palestine, 27. Kark, Jaffa, 97, 169–79; Melman, Women’s Orient, 54. Cook’s Excursionist, 29 October 1874; Cook’s Excursionist, 26 January 1876. Cook, “Palestine Exploration Fund”; Cook’s Excursionist, 6 June 1877; Cook’s Excursionist, 16 December 1880; Cook’s Excursionist, 2 April 1881; Cook’s Excursionist, 1 November 1882; Cook’s Excursionist, 22 July 1882. Hull, “Narrative”, 114–17. Cook’s Excursionist, 1 May 1883. Order of St. John’s Archive, London, E. Lechmere, “First Annual Report” (1883), 3–5. Ibid., 10–11. Order of St. John’s Archive, London, Volume-Hospice, J.M. Cook to Sir E. Lechmere (8 March 1889). Cook advised the Order on attitudes of the Pasha and Ottomans: “I am convinced the Turkish Government at the present time is not desirous of allowing Christians or Europeans to do anything that they can possibly prevent”.

Sources and bibliography Order of St. John’s Archive, London. E. Lechmere, “First Annual Report” (1883). Order of St. John’s Archive, London, Volume-Hospice. J.M. Cook to Sir E. Lechmere (8 March 1889). United States National Archives, RG59 T471/2. Lorenzo M. Johnson, U.S. Acting Consul, Jerusalem to William H. Seward, Secretary of State, Washington, DC (30 September 1868). United States National Archives, RG84, Haifa Consular Agency, Misc. & Official Corres. Rec. 1875–1917. Correspondence, Cook’s agent at Haifa to the U.S. Vice Consulate, Haifa (3 March 1903).

*** Ahtola, J. “Thomas Cook & Son and the Egyptian Season”. In Travel Patterns: Past and Present, Three Studies, edited by J. Ahtola, T. Toivonen, and A. Kostiainen, 7–32. Finnish University Network for Tourism Studies 1. Savonlinna: University of Joensuu, 1999. Bentwich, N. “Anglo-Jewish Travellers to Palestine in the Nineteenth Century”. Miscellanies (Jewish Historical Society of England) 4, Essays Presented to Elkan Nathan Adler on His Eightieth Birthday (1942): 9–19. Brendon, P. Thomas Cook: 150 Years of Popular Tourism. London: Secker & Warburg, 1991. Burkardt, A.J., and S. Medlik. Tourism: Past, Present, and Future. London: Heinemann, 1974. Cohen, E. “Toward a Sociology of International Tourism”. Social Research 39, no. 1 (1972): 164–82. Cohen, E. “Toward a Sociology of International Tourism”. In Tourism: Principles, Practices, Philosophies, edited by R.W. McIntosh, 47–58. Columbus: Grid, 1977. Cohen-Hattab, K., and Y. Katz. “From Terra Sancta to Tourism: The GeographicalHistorical Study of Tourism and Its Contribution to the Historiography of Eretz-Israel”. Cathedra 91 (1999): 113–36. Cook, T. “Brief History of Our Eastern Tours”. Cook’s Excursionist and Home and Foreign Tourist Adviser, 24 November 1873.

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Cook, T. “Palestine Exploration Fund”. Cook’s Excursionist and European and American Tourist Adviser, 10 July 1869. Cook, T. “Personal”. Cook’s Excursionist and European and American Tourist Adviser (supplement number), 25 November 1867. Cook, T. “Tour to Palestine”. Cook’s Excursionist and European and American Tourist Adviser (supplement number), 25 November 1867. Cook’s Excursionist and Home and Foreign Tourist Adviser, 29 October 1874. Cook’s Excursionist and Home and Foreign Tourist Adviser, 26 January 1876. Cook’s Excursionist and Home and Foreign Tourist Adviser, 6 June 1877. Cook’s Excursionist and Home and Foreign Tourist Adviser, 1 April 1880. Cook’s Excursionist and Home and Foreign Tourist Adviser, 16 December 1880. Cook’s Excursionist and Home and Foreign Tourist Adviser, 2 April 1881. Cook’s Excursionist and Home and Foreign Tourist Adviser, 1 November 1881. Cook’s Excursionist and Home and Foreign Tourist Adviser, 13 May 1882. Cook’s Excursionist and Home and Foreign Tourist Adviser, 22 July 1882. Cook’s Excursionist and Home and Foreign Tourist Adviser, 1 November 1882. Cook’s Excursionist and Home and Foreign Tourist Adviser, 1 May 1883. Cook’s Excursionist and Home and Foreign Tourist Adviser, 1 November 1883. Cook’s Tourist’s Handbook for Palestine and Syria. London: Thomas Cook & Son, 1891. Cormack, B. A History of Holiday, 1812–1990. History of Tourism 4. London: Routledge – Thoemmes, 1998. Cuinet, V. Syrie, Liban et Palestine: Géographie administrative, statistique, descriptive et raisonnée. Vol. 1.4. Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1901. Eliade, M. Image and Symbols: Studies in Religious Symbolism, translated by P. Mairet. London: Harvill Press, 1961. Feifer, M. Tourism in History: From Imperial Rome to the Present. New York: Stein & Day, 1986. Floyd, R. Letters from Palestine: 1868–1912, edited by H. Palmer Parsons. Dexter: Privately printed, 1981. Handy, R.T., ed. The Holy Land in American Protestant Life, 1800–1948: A Documentary History. New York: Arno Press, 1981. Haviv, M. “Thomas Cook’s Company and the Holy Land”. Seminar Paper presented at the Department of Geography, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, 1989. Hull, E.G. “Narrative of an Expedition Through Arabia Petraea, the Valley of the Arabah, and Western Palestine”. Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement 16, no. 2 (1884): 114–36. Kark, R. American Consuls in the Holy Land, 1832–1914. Detroit: Wayne State University Press; Jerusalem: The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Magnes Press, 1994. Kark, R. “The Development of the Cities Jerusalem and Jaffa From 1840 up to the First World War (A Study in Historical Geography)”. Ph.D. diss., Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1977. Kark, R. “From Pilgrimage to Budding Tourism: The Role of Thomas Cook in the Rediscovery of the Holy Land in the Nineteenth Century”. In Travellers in the Levant: Voyagers and Visionaries, edited by S. Searight, and M. Wagstaff, 155–74. Astene Publications 2. Durham: Astene, 2001.

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Kark, R. Jaffa: A City in Evolution 1799–1917, translated by G. Brand. Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi Press, 1990. Kark, R. “The Keiser in Jerusalem”. Etmol 23 (1998): 3–6. Kark, R. “Sweden and the Holy Land: Pietistic and Communal Settlement”. Journal of Historical Geography 22, no. 1 (1996): 46–67. Lamb, C. “They Didn’t Just Book It – They Thomas Cooked It”. Financial Times, 13 January 1990. Lickorish, L.J., and A.G. Kershaw. “Tourism Between 1840–1940”. In Tourism: Past, Present, and Future, edited by A.J. Burkardt, and S. Medlik, 11–26. London: Heinemann, 1974. Luke, H.C., and E. Keith-Roach. The Handbook of Palestine and Trans-Jordan. London: Macmillan & Co, 1934. Maccabaean Pilgrimage to Palestine, Itinerary and Program. London: Thomas Cook & Son, 1897. Melman, B. Women’s Orient: English Women and the Middle East, 1718–1918. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1995. Neil, J. Palestine Re-peopled; or, Scattered Israel’s Gathering. London: James Nisbet, 1883. Program of Tours in Egypt and the Holy Land, arranged and personally managed by Messrs, Nissaire, Farajallah & Co. (c. 1910–1911). Schick, C. “The Railway from Jaffa to Jerusalem”. Palestine Exploration Fund: Quarterly Statement 25 (1893): 20–3. Shepherd, N. The Zealous Intruders: The Western Rediscovery of Palestine. London: Collins, 1987. Smyirk, R. “Beginning of Tourism to the Holy Land”. In The Second Million: Israel Tourist Industry, Past – Present – Future, edited by C.H. Klein, 21–4. Tel Aviv: Amir, 1973. Swinglehurst, E. Cook’s Tours: The Story of Popular Travel. Poole: Blandford Press, 1982. Towner, J. An Historical Geography of Recreation and Tourism in the Western World, 1540–1940. Chichester: John Wiley, 1996. Tuan, Y. “Geopiety: A Theme in Man’s Attachment to Nature and to Place”. In Geographies of the Mind: Essays in Historical Geosophy in Honor of John Kirtland Wright, edited by D. Lowenthal, and M.J. Bowen, 11–39. American Geographical Society, Special Publication 40. New York: Oxford University Press, 1976. Twain, M. The Innocents Abroad. Project Gutenberg. Accessed 8 September 2019. www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3176. Vogel, L.I. To See a Promised Land: Americans and the Holy Land in the Nineteenth Century. University Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993. Whithey, L. Grand Tours and Cook’s Tours: A History of Leisure Travel, 1750 to 1915. New York: William Morrow and Company, 1997. Wright, J.K. “Notes on Early American Geopiety”. In Human Nature in Geography: Fourteen Papers, 1925–1965, edited by J.K. Wright, 250–85. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966.

4

The Grand Tour and after Secular pilgrimage to Rome from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries Stephen L. Dyson

The title of this essay paper may appear at first to be oddly contradictory, even quixotic. Pilgrimage is generally seen as a religious experience, embedded in the practices of a great variety of beliefs, but normally not considered “secular” in nature. If anything, it is very much the opposite, for religiosity is generally seen as part of the core experience. However, I would argue that the term pilgrimage defines a journey undertaken for some higher goal than commerce or curiosity. It can embrace a range of activities and experiences which border on the religious. They encompass a range of activities including intellectual and cultural preparation and directed travel including travel that “enhance the spirit” and result in cultural and intellectual self-improvement. Such secular pilgrimages – like spiritual pilgrimages – have their tangible dimensions. They may involve the collection of objects of “special meaning”, the equivalent of relics or other blessed objects. These objects were brought home by the secular pilgrims and were then displayed in the home or in some more public venue like a library or a museum. They served as “memory aides” to recall episodes in the pilgrimage experience itself. They also served as “identity markers”, associating their owners with the distinctive, usually elite cultural universe that stimulated the secular pilgrimage in the first place. A classical statue purchased in Rome displayed in a British country house or a Piranesi print hung on the wall of a cultured German professional like Wolfgang Goethe’s father not only reminded the original collector of long past, pleasant times spent in Italy, but future generations of the importance of ancient Greek and Roman culture.1 They also served to identify the owners with the venerable elite world of cultural classicism. Cultural pilgrimage of the type considered in this paper is a specific manifestation of what has become a diverse range of ideological pilgrimages. Many of those are closely intertwined with the world of national and international political ideologies. In cases where religious and secular identities overlap, a single pilgrimage can serve both causes. For an Anglican Englishman, a visit to Westminster Abbey meets both religious and secular needs. With the rise of new international ideologies in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, movements, which often had an anti-religious agenda, new

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forms of pilgrimage had to be created. They drew on the impulses and agendas of the old religious systems but created their own types of pilgrimages to rally the “political faithful”. The most famous example of this new type of “secular pilgrimages” was that associated with Lenin’s Tomb in Moscow’s Red Square. While communism was supposedly an international political ideology, the Russians had seized control of the movement. Lenin was therefore elevated to the level of Marx among the ideological founders of the movement. While Marx was buried in Highgate Cemetery in London, Lenin was “mummified” and his corpse displayed in a special tomb located in Red Square. In the heady days, when International Communism seemed to represent the wave of the future, long lines of Russians and also representatives from all sections of the Communist International passed by the corpse, in the same way that the religious faithful worshipped at the shrine of a saint or holy man. Soviet Communism did not hold the monopoly on promoting diverse types of pilgrimage based on politically focused ideologies, both national and international. The United States, whose developing nineteenth culture will be considered during the later phases of the Grand Tour, early created a world of pilgrimage ranging from historical homes (George Washington’s residence at Mount Vernon) to battlefields such as Gettysburg.2 They shaped and affirmed a national identity, which was by European standards extremely shallow. Cultural pilgrimages, that is, visits to pay homage to great art and artists, separate from religious or other categories of past greats, go back to the early Renaissance and increased in frequency and intensity in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. The expanding phenomenon centred on the revival of classicism and included the educated from throughout Europe. Publications of visitors’ accounts and of visual representations of great works seen reinforced the cult of classicism throughout Europe. The focus of this paper will be two specific and very distinctive manifestations of that classical “pilgrimage” tourism: the Grand Tour of the eighteenth-century and its more bourgeois successors of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Like their religious counterparts, these pilgrimages had a “higher goal”. That was for the “pilgrim” to experience classical culture at its greatest ancient centre, that is, the city of Rome. The religious pilgrim visited the Shrine of St Peter. The classically oriented Grand Tour pilgrim toured the Forum of Caesar and Cicero. Both were organised undertakings, complete with a guide, guidebooks, hostels and hotels. Each returned with memorials of the visit: blessed objects or relics for the Christians and prints or works of art for the classical pilgrim. The initial focus of my discussion has to be the eighteenth-century Grand Tour, for it embodied all the qualities of what I consider “cultural pilgrimage”. It had a motivating ideology, which was based on the centrality of classical culture, and especially art and architecture, to the cultivated life in

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eighteenth-century Europe and especially eighteenth-century Great Britain. Classics, especially the classical languages, were at the centre of elite secondary and university education. All aspects of British high culture and especially the visual arts drew inspiration from Greece and Rome. The eighteenth-century Grand Tour had what we would call today a “target audience”. That was the cohort of mainly British elite young males, who had been educated in the classics at preparatory schools and at university. The standards for participation on the Grand Tour need not be high. Cynics suggested that the main qualification need not be the mastery of classical languages, but inebriation. The historian Edward Gibbon, probably the most famous of the Grand Tourists, learned his advanced Greek and Latin from the “port sotted” dons of Oxford.3 Still the young men (it was almost totally a male undertaking) probably knew the literature and culture of ancient Greece and Rome better than that of any other, including their own. Most undertook the Grand Tour soon after leaving Oxford or Cambridge. They were young and free without much in the way of family obligations. Economically they ranged from educated young men of relatively humble means to rich noblemen, who took with them many aspects of their world of privilege. Some went alone, while most had an entourage that ranged from coach drivers and servants to the often pathetic academic mentor known as the “bear leader”.4 This was leisurely travel with diversions to places of edification and pleasure. That might include Paris and especially Venice, famous for its courtesans.5 However, the principal destination was Rome itself. While eighteenth-century papal Rome was not a major political centre, it remained the great “museum city”. For an age of neoclassicism its ancient art and ruins remained an important source of inspiration. While it was the abode of the popes, the popes of the era created a mellow atmosphere where English and North European protestants could feel comfortable.6 There the Grand Tourist would settle down for an extended stay. In the same way that the religious pilgrim benefitted from a network of hostels and hospitals, the cultural pilgrim found a range of support service. There was lodging, food and drink to meet diverse economic and social needs. Ciceroni, both Italian and British, were available to guide the neophytes through the ruins.7 For those who were unfortunate enough to die in Rome, there developed the so-called Protestant Cemetery, since non-Catholics could not be buried in the church-run cemeteries of Rome.8 Stays were often extended. Most used the time to study and appreciate the ruins and museums of the city, usually under the guidance of a local cicerone.9 Some few used the experience to conceive major literary or artistic creations. The British historian Edward Gibbon followed the standard Grand Tour activities during the course of his stay in Rome in 1764. In his case it proved to be more inspiring and productive than for most. In the course of his meditations on the Campidoglio he conceived the idea of

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writing the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.10 While papal Rome did not offer as many secular diversions as Venice or Paris, still it was not without its pleasures. Some ventured south to visit the sensual, cosmopolitan city of Naples or the new excavations at Herculaneum and Pompeii.11 Considering the importance and expense of the Grand Tour experience and the affluence and cultural pretensions of the participants, it is not surprising that a complicated “tourist memory” industry developed, whose products replaced the relics and indulgences of the religious pilgrims.12 Talented artists, like Pompeo Batoni, set themselves up in Rome to provide elegant painted portraits, which later graced stately homes in England and Scotland.13 Today they represent some of the best images of the Grand Tour experience. A more affordable and in many respects a more useful souvenir was the engraved print that captured in vivid detail the monuments, their settings and their original appearance, when they were part of the architectural glories of imperial Rome. The Middle Ages had seen the production of a variety of highly abstracted topographical images of the city. These highlighted the seven hills, some of the more prominent ruins and important pilgrimage churches.14 There was no pretence toward historical accuracy. Since they were hand produced, they had limited numbers and limited accessibility. With the classical humanism of the Renaissance the world of “tourist prints” changed. Since accurate imitation of classical forms was a central element in contemporary art and architecture, detailed and true images of the contemporary ruins had to be provided. That was made possible by the development of instruments like the camera lucida, which facilitated the transfer of the visual image to the page. Such techniques were applied not only to the individual monuments, but also to the whole cityscape.15 That allowed the reproduction of monuments but also the creation of cityscapes both of contemporary Rome and of the ancient city.16 The invention and spread of the printing press allowed for multiple reproductions. The artist most closely associated with this new world of print production and marketing was Giovanni Piranesi, a Venetian who settled in Rome in 1745.17 He developed a distinctive style in which both the ruins and the reconstructed monuments were presented in an accurate, but dramatic manner. Piranesi had a cultural agenda in which he defended the artistic virtues of the ancient Romans against the emerging preference for things Greek. Returning with a Piranesi print become one of the cultural necessities of the Grand Tour. Mention has already made of the Piranesi in Goethe’s paternal home. The more affluent were not satisfied with a single image but wanted bound sets for their libraries. Piranesi, who cultivated contacts with the British elite, was happy to oblige. Even today in British stately homes bound sets of Piranesi join with ancient statues and fragments of classical architecture as reminders of the family’s participation in the Grand Tour.

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Since the Grand Tour was focused on the glorification of classical antiquity, the most important souvenir that the returning tourist could bring was a major piece of classical art. That would have been the equivalent of the body of a saint or a large portion thereof for a medieval pilgrim. The Grand Tour produced the greatest transfer of ancient art from Italy to North Europe until the rise of the professional antiquities trade in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.18 The range of objects that were being returned to England can be appreciated from a collection that never made it. A British vessel laden with Grand Tour purchases was captured by a French warship. A detailed inventory of its contents including the antiquities was made and has been preserved.19 The sources were several. The noble families of Rome had grand collections of classical art, which went back to the Renaissance and even before. Political, social and economic changes in eighteenth-century Italy left many of them strapped for cash. They were quite happy to part with their classical art for a price. The popes disapproved of such transactions and there were even some legal restrictions on such exports. However, almost everything could be arranged in eighteenth-century Rome, and the “Grand Tour Community” included facilitators, who could make such things happen. The supply of ancient art in Rome was not fixed and finite. New finds were constantly being made on the farms and estates outside of Rome, for those were the areas where the ancient Romans had created their statue rich villas. Chance finds were regularly supplemented by more systematic excavations. Often those were organised by the artist-guides, who served the Grand Tour in other ways.20 The tastemakers of the eighteenth-century worshipped classical perfection, so that battered torsos of ancient Greek and Roman men and women had to be made whole again. “Scientific” restoration, which combined the technical ability to blend in a seamless way the ancient and the modern with a well-developed sense of the changing styles of classical art, was an appreciated craft in eighteenth-century Rome. That can be seen in illustrations of the artisan activities in the workshops of master craftsmen like Giovanni Cavacepi.21 The Grand Tour did not necessarily stop at Rome. A fair number continued south to Naples, which was then one of the most elegant and cultured cities in Europe. From there they could visit some of the cities and villas destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79. Herculaneum began to be cleared in the 1720s but could be seen only by entering the dark and dangerous tunnels. By the mid-century open area excavations had exposed large areas of ancient Pompeii. The growing interest in Greek as opposed to Greco-Roman art led some to visit the ruins of the Greek temples at Paestum. A few went onto Sicily and even fewer onto Greece itself.22 While ancient Greece was increasingly replacing ancient Rome as the reference for classical culture, the modern country of Greece never became a focus for cultural pilgrimage. It was a backward part of the Ottoman

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Empire, where travel was never easy. Athens had its ruins, but otherwise was little more than a backward Turkish village and not a sophisticated city with a rich cultural heritage like Rome. Most of this discussion has focused on the Grand Tour pilgrimage as a British phenomenon. For reasons that have been outlined earlier, the social economic and educational structures of Britain fitted best into the Grand Tour phenomenon. However, the artists and intellectuals of other European countries made Rome part of their cultural education. The French monarchy continued to support the Academie Française. Pris de Rome artists and architects continued to use that as their primary base. The architects continued to use the ruins of the city both for detailed studies of standing remains and reconstructions of the ancient buildings, which shaped their architectural design when they returned to France.23 While Germany remained politically divided, intellectually and culturally the elites increasingly found a cultural cohesion around literary and artistic classicism. Indeed, it was from Germany that came two of the most central figures in eighteenth-century classicism. Most important was J.J. Winckelmann, a fervent advocate of the classical ideal, who migrated from North Germany to Rome, where with the patronage of the Albani family he established himself as the leading arbiter of classicism in mid-eighteenth-century Rome.24 His intellectual, cultural and ideological positions were articulated in his highly influential History of the Art of Antiquity.25 Later came Wolfgang Goethe, advocate of a more literary classicism, poet, dramatist, diplomat, polymath and increasingly arbiter of culture in the German-speaking world. His was a more traditional Grand Tour pilgrimage, inspired by his father’s visit to Rome. He had a prolonged stay in Rome.26 Then he headed south, extending his sojourn into Sicily. He wrote Roman Elegies and had his friend Tischbein do what is probably the most famous of Grand Tour portraits: Goethe in the Roman Campagna. The apartment where he stayed in Rome has become a German cultural centre. The grave of his son in the Protestant Cemetery became a pilgrimage goal for German tourists in the same way that Keats and Shelley were for English and Americans. What disrupted the Grand Tour was not the lure of Greece, but the events of the French Revolution and the ambitions of Napoleon. The French had historically created an identity with classical culture and with Rome that was deeper than that of Rome. The Academie Française in Rome had been created in the seventeenth century as a study centre for French artists. Neo-classicism shaped French art as much or more than it had that of Great Britain. From the Renaissance onward, French artists and figures of culture visited Rome. However, France did not have the extended class of gentry and nobility that supported the Grand Tour. Both the political and cultural leaders of the French Revolution and the government of Napoleon had a strong classical identity. That was expressed in painting, sculpture and architecture. It was most fully embodied in the

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painter David.27 The Academie Française continued to flourish. Napoleon even looted classical art from the museums of Rome to stock his new “universal museum”.28 During the extended periods when the French directly administered Rome, great attention was paid to the conservation of the ancient monuments.29 However, for much of this period, England and France were at war, and travel to the continent was limited or impossible. For short periods, such as that after the Treaty of Amiens in 1806, the continent opened up but then quickly closed. Lord Elgin, the diplomat who had arranged for the Parthenon marbles to be shipped back to London, got caught in this changing political scene, and spent some time as a captive in France.30 Obviously, under those circumstances, such a complicated institution as the Grand Tour could not be sustained. Napoleon fell in 1816, and Italy was once again open to visitors of all nations. British noblemen did return to Rome as tourists, but that whole complex world of the Grand Tour did not revive. Taste had changed and there was no longer the concentrated focus on Roman classicism. Some followed Elgin in their pursuit of genuine Greek art. Others were into medieval Romanticism and spent their money on faux castles. However, Rome did not cease to be a place of pilgrimage both religious and cultural. There was a Catholic Revival in many parts of Europe including Great Britain, and that resulted in an increase in the number of religious pilgrims. They came to visit the holy shrines, to pray and to be blessed by the pope. However, many had had a classical education and they explored classical as well as Christian Rome. Two other phenomena carried cultural pilgrimage in Rome in new directions. The first of these was represented by what I would call the rise of “bourgeoisie tourism”. Society in Europe and America was changing with the expansion of commerce and the growth of the Industrial Revolution. That promoted the rise of an educated middle class, who saw the mastery of culture and especially of classical culture as a means of affirming their status. Two new groups joined this world of bourgeoisie tourism. The first was represented by North Americans and especially by citizens of the newly created United States of America. The United States, lacking a unifying historical culture and history, embraced classicism in almost every category from forms of government to taste in architecture.31 Greco-Roman architecture shaped every type of structure from churches and state capitals to the houses of prosperous farmers.32 Classical imagery dominated sculpture from representations of George Washington as Olympian Zeus to images of tombstone in the newly fashionable Garden Cemeteries.33 Nor was this world of North American classicism limited to the elite of the East Coast. As Americans moved west, they founded colleges and universities, where the Greek and Roman classics were at the centre of the curriculum, and they erected public and private buildings in the Greco-Roman style.

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Few of the first generation of “classical Americans” had the time or resources to join the English in the Grand Tour experience. One exception was the South Carolina merchant Ralph Izard and his wife, who had a Roman portrait piece worthy of the British Grand Tour painted by the great American painter John Singleton Copley. The scene is set in Rome and the couple is depicted with a classical Attic vase in the background.34 The attitude of Americans toward European and especially Italian travel had changed dramatically by the second third of the nineteenth century.35 Americans were more prosperous and cosmopolitan. Transatlantic travel, while still primitive by modern standards, was much improved in speed, safety and comfort. By mid-century a high percentage of educated Americans had travelled to Rome. The other group added to this new Roman “pilgrimage tourism”, both European and American, was women. The presence of Mrs Izard in the Copley portrait was exceptional, for the Grand Tour was overwhelmingly a male experience. Partly it was custom. Partly it was the reality of a long arduous journey with amenities poor both on the route and in Rome itself. Women became an increasingly important part of the “new” Grand Tour, especially in the middle and later years of the nineteenth century. Part of that grew out of changes in custom and values. Tourism, which had long been largely a young male experience, now became a family undertaking. Husbands, wives and sometimes children and other family members travelled together. The travel itself became faster and more comfortable. Horseback riding and journeying in crowded, uncomfortable carriages was replaced by railroads, which by the mid-century had lined all of the major centres in Europe. Improvements in transatlantic travel, especially the introduction of more efficient sailing and steam vessels, encouraged more Americans, both male and female, to make the journey. Accommodations also improved. A whole class of hotels designed to provide comfort and security to the new brand of tours came into existence. For longer stays the rental market in apartments and even palaces were available. Support facilities such as bankers and doctors improved in quality and efficiency. Thomas Cook and other travel agencies met the need for a range of services. For both men and women, a stay in Rome became more of a “domestic experience”. The middle- to upper-middle-class women brought a new seriousness to the Roman Grand Tour. While formal instruction even for elite European and American women was still limited, more informal modes of education opened up the world of information and taste to women. They read the journals and revues, went to the Lycaeum lectures and visited the museums and the cast-galleries. Since even this education was not a given, they approached its potentials and possibilities with a new seriousness. They brought that new seriousness to their travel. The determined female tourist became an important feature of the new touristic experience.

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The guides, much a central part of the Grand Tour world, were still there. However, their information and misinformation were now supplemented by increasingly informative and accurate guidebooks. The famous Baedeker’s led the way, but French and English publishers also moved into the market. All of this brought a new seriousness to the Grand Tour experience. A study of the pioneering Americans who undertook this adventure was entitled The Fortunate Pilgrims.36 It captured a new spirit, which linked more closely this new Grand Tour to the more traditional pilgrimage experience. There was continuity but also a considerable amount of subtle change to this new pilgrimage experience. The museums and the archaeological sites remained central to the tour experience. The art and archaeological objects taken away by the French had been returned, and new pieces were continually being added, the results of excavations in and around Rome. A few new galleries like the Museo Etrusco had been added, but most of the displays were unchanged from the days of the Grand Tour.37 The world of the archaeological sites was changing more significantly. The French during their occupation had launched new excavations and restorations at several important archaeological sites. That had continued, although at a reduced scale, with the return of the popes. A great deal of their efforts was centred in the Roman Forum, which went from a village with ruins to an archaeological site in the course of the nineteenth century. The unearthing and interpretation of these ancient remains fed a growing enthusiasm for antiquarian archaeology and a new scientific approach to the study of Roman history. The serious tourist could no longer just gaze enchanted at the ruins, but had to relate the stones to the most recent German, French and Italian interpretations. This new pilgrimage was also shaped by the currents of Romanticism and various forms of religious revivals. While the more serious archaeological tourists tried to relate the ruins more closely to Roman history, others read them as evocations of cultural decay, pagan temptation and human mortality. Early in the century the French writer Chateaubriand set the tone for such romantic reveries.38 Moonlit visits to ruins and candlelit tours of museums added to the aura. In 1860 the American Nathaniel Hawthorne published The Marble Faun with its vision of the American artistic community in Rome caught up in the neo-classical identity that becomes almost pagan in form.39 Late in the century Henry James evoked such sentiments in a new context as his American girl heroine Daisy Miller dies from Roman fever after an ill-advised nighttime visit to the miasma haunted Colosseum. Daisy Miller was laid to rest in the Protestant Cemetery, a place that had become one of the most important destinations of the Romantic Grand Tour. The Protestant Cemetery (or the more appropriately named Cimeterio Acattolico) had been created in the eighteenth century as a burial place for the protestant Grand Tourists who died in Rome. The place chosen was a plot of land at the edge of the city in the shadow of the Pyramid of Cestius and the Aurelian Walls.

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It gradually expanded during the eighteenth and during the early years of the nineteenth century. Those buried there included Grand Tourists and diplomats, but also increasingly Europeans and Americans who came to Rome in the hope of improving their health. Most famous of the last group was the English poet John Keats, who died in Rome in 1821. He was joined by the poet Shelley, who drowned off the shore of Italy, and the son of the German cultural hero Goethe.40 During the course of the nineteenth century they were joined by other Europeans and Americans, famous and not so famous. Keats and Shelley in particular drew visitors out from the city. In that quiet spot with its pines and pyramid they could meditate on fame, beauty and mortality.41 There was continuity but also change in the artistic community in Rome. The French Academy continued to provide residences for artists, who continued to draw inspiration from the city. By the end of the century it had been joined by other national art academies. However, they were now only a part of a much broader artistic community resident in Rome. From early in the nineteenth century onward, artists and especially painters and sculptors from throughout Europe and North America came to Rome for long periods of study and productivity. Some spent their entire remaining life there, finally being buried in the Protestant Cemetery. Some worked in lonely isolation. Others congregated in national enclaves, living in the same neighbourhoods and frequenting the same tavernas. Living was cheap, and inspiration was everywhere. The American colony became one of the largest.42 Most were sculptors and painters, and they had distinct if overlapping agendas. The sculptors obviously came for the rich collections of ancient marbles in the museums and galleries. They worked in a neo-classical style that was inspired in part by antiquity, but also by such eighteenth- and nineteenth-century sculptors as the Italian Canova and the Dane Thorvaldsen.43 They also found that living in Italy was cheap, and that it had abundant supplies of fine marbles and skilled stone workers, who could turn their concepts into marble reality. Some settled in Rome, others in Florence. The international community also included a certain number of women, especially British and American. They formed a distinct group, what the American author Henry James described as the “white marmorean flock”.44 Some, like the Bostonian Harriet Hosmer, acquired a certain international reputation in the production of rather bland neo-classical pieces.45 Visits to the studios of these sculptors became part of the new Grand Tour, where works in progress could be viewed and orders placed. Portraits and mythological pieces proved to be very popular. Occasionally a more relevant subject was selected. Among the most controversial was The Greek Slave, designed by the Italian based American sculptor Hiram Powers.46 The figure was that of a classical nude Venus. However, Powers set in the background a pillar draped with her garment and a cross. The classical deity had become a Christian woman stripped naked and sold on the slave market.

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The sculpture was dispatched to America, where it was widely displayed. It gained special popularity from the strong American support for the Greek Wars of Independence. Americans of culture were somewhat scandalised by the rather risqué presentation of a politically charged subject. The Anglo-American painters who flocked to Rome also formed cohesive communities and support groups. They could be more free and flexible, since they did not depend on the support groups of quarrymen and stone carvers. Some continued to work in the neo-classical landscape traditions of Claude Lorrain and Nicholas Poussin.47 Views of contemporary Rome with its churches and ruins continued to be produced, but with more emphasis on the play of light and less on archaeological precision. Others developed a more contemporary landscape style. They moved out of city into the stillundeveloped Campagna with its ruins and scenes of rustic life, and views of the surrounding Alban Hills provided them with rich subjects.48 Landscape painting had become especially popular in America, where the Hudson River School painters explored the visual potential of North America’s untamed wilderness vistas. When those artists came to Rome they tended to take their easels out of the city, where the Campagna provided tamer and more mellow vistas and more of the vestiges of great fallen civilisations. Thomas Cole was the greatest of these American landscape painters who worked in Rome. He brought his skills honed in the American landscape to the Roman Campagna, with its largely deserted countryside and ruined aqueducts.49 He also expressed his reflections on the fate of Rome in the allegorical paintings, which formed another major direction of his work. Most “Roman” was The Course of Empire Series, a large-scale cycle of paintings, which following the course of a “mythic” empire from its Arcadian origins through its rise to excessive greatness and then to destruction and its “afterlife” as evocative ruins in a landscape modelled on the Roman Campagna.50 The paintings referenced ancient Rome, but also Cole’s contemporary America, which was entering its first imperial phase, which many of Cole’s contemporaries saw as leading to arrogance greatness and violent destruction. This new “bourgeoisie” Grand Tour had a more complex relation to religion and especially to the Roman Catholic Church than did its eighteenthcentury predecessor.51 The young gentlemen of the eighteenth-century Grand Tour were for the most part conventional Anglicans. Their main contacts with Roman Catholics in Rome would have been with exiles, both lay and clerical, who had supported the Stuart cause. The popes and their clerics did not push a conversion agenda. That ambiguity toward proselytisation was reflected in the decision to abolish the Jesuit Order in 1776.52 Religious dynamics in Europe in general and in England in particular had changed dramatically by the time that the bourgeoisie Grand Tour was firmly established. Rational classicism was increasingly replaced by various forms of Romanticism. The cult of ruins expanded to include Christian as

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well as classical remains. Travellers from Britain now decorated their homes with real and faux medieval ruins as well as classical souvenirs from the Grand Tour. Part of this increased interest in religion was reflected in the nineteenth-century tourist program. This romanticised Christian revival led to a greater interest in the Christian monuments. Of special appeal were the catacombs, which were now becoming objects of new scholarly research as well as instruments of religious conversion.53 Torchlit tours of the catacombs became an expected element of tourism in Rome. They combined the romantic fascination with morbidity and death and the pursuit of the simple genuine world of early Christianity. Part of this increased interest in a religious tourism focused on Early Christian Rome grew out of the increased presence of women as tourists. At home they played a leading role in religious revival, and they brought their interests and passions to Rome. It also reflected the Anglo-Catholic Revival, associated in England with figures like John Henry Newman. It was a movement that had devotees in the United States, especially in the urban centres of the East Coast, which sent off many of the new breed of Grand Tourists.54 They identified with the historical and doctrinal traditions of the Roman Catholic Church. While some became neo-medievalists, others sought an original Christianity, which could still be experienced in the catacombs and the ancient churches of Rome. This new world of bourgeoisie tourism also produced its own relics. They did not on the whole collect original works of art. The Americans did not have the same stately home tradition as had been found in Grand Tour Britain. Even the British tourists were more bourgeoisie with less interest in sumptuous display. The great American art museums did not begin developing until late in the nineteenth century. What the Americans did send back were the neo-classical productions of the sculptural studios of American artists in Rome and Florence. A procession of marble nymphs, romanticised Native Americans and Greek slaves made their way across the Atlantic. There they graced libraries, lecture halls and a few homes of the very affluent and cultured. Their edifying subjects met with approval, while the nudity provided just the right level of scandal. Not all of the new brand of tourists could even afford these sculptural souvenirs. Like their predecessors in the Middle Ages, the contemporary artisans and technicians of Rome produced a range of objects that would meet the expectations of travellers of more middle-class values and resources. As the century progressed, plaster casts of ancient works of art in Roman collections became more available. Almost every important ancient sculpture and many architectural elements became available from workshops in Italy and Germany. The local library or Latin classroom might have a single example of some great works. By the end of the century, university and urban museums had formed comprehensive collections of ancient works of art.55 The other new collectible medium of memory was the photograph. The first tourist photographs of Rome appeared in the form of daguerreotypes,

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not long after the medium had been invented in France and the first bourgeoisie tourists had appeared in Rome. Each new stage in the evolution of photography was represented in the souvenir images available to the visitors. By the 1870s the well-stocked photographic galleries could provide images of every important site, monument or work of art. They became the Piranesi prints of the later nineteenth century. They came in large print format, suitable for framing and display in the study or the classroom. They were available in stereopticon format, suitable for viewing and discussion in parlours. For teaching purposes representative portfolios of images could be created. Toward the end of the century they appeared in the form of glass lantern slides, which transformed the teaching of ancient art. The golden age of the bourgeoisie pilgrimage was ending by the 1870s. In America the Civil War claimed the attention and often the lives of those who might have travelled to Rome. Then in 1870 the Piedmontese army stormed into Rome, and the city became the capital of the new Italian nation. The Pope retreated into the Vatican, separating church and city for several generations. Papal rituals that had contributed so much to the touristic charm of old Rome largely disappeared.56 The new national government undertook a massive building program aimed at turning the musty papal Rome into a national capital suitable for a modern nation. Whole new quarters were built in the periphery once dominated by the villas of the old noble families and the clerical elite.57 New avenues were cut through the centre of the city, damaging or destroying historic neighbourhoods that had long been the delights of old Rome. Extensive excavations at sites like the Roman Forum provided much new archaeological information, but destroyed the complex web of ancient ruins, Christian churches and active neighbourhoods that had made the old Campo Vaccino so charming for Grand Tour visitors. Dominant paradigms in both art and archaeology were changing, and those changes reduced the centrality of Rome for those important cultural communities. Foreign academies continued to attract artists to Rome with the Prix de Rome. However, the neo-classical style was no longer dominant in the arts, and much more creativity could be found in Paris. The art studios in Rome became fewer and fewer, and the tourist visits rarer and rarer. Changes in taste and cultural emphases also impacted classical archaeology. By the 1870s scholars like Charles Eliot Norton of Harvard were teaching about the superiority of Greek sculpture and architecture over that of Rome.58 The brightest young archaeological scholars now made their way to Athens rather than to Rome. New archaeological and cultural institutions, such as the Archaeological Institute of America and the American School of Classical Studies in Rome, centred their research on ancient Greece rather than on ancient Rome. In those decades the classical cultural pilgrimage whose roots went back to the days of the Grand Tour and in some respects back to the Renaissance

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morphed into the increasingly bland world of mass tourism. Visitors still came to Rome, but with a variety of agendas and little ideological focus. However, the blending of classical ideology and focused tourism was to have one final “golden age” during the interwar fascist era. Benito Mussolini’s brand of fascism was strongly centred on the cult of Romanità.59 He aimed to revive in modern Italians the spirit of ancient Rome. The city of Rome became the central focus for these propagandistic efforts. An extensive building program was undertaken, which used an architectural style that blended classical Roman architecture with modernism. Massive urban clearing projects were undertaken, which destroyed large sectors of the medieval and early modern city.60 However, the ancient Roman buildings were cleared and restored, so as to make the glories of the ancient Romans visible to the modern citizens of the city. Broad new avenues were laid out, which used the ancient buildings as stage settings for fascist military and civic parades. New museums were created, which emphasised the Roman heritage. Regular exhibits were mounted, which again highlighted the Roman heritage and the special accomplishments of emperors like Augustus. Fascist Rome was intended as a place of pilgrimage, which linked the current regime propaganda with politically highlighted past. A crowded program of parades and presentations brought the fascist faithful to Rome. Reduced trains fares and special tours encouraged this new pilgrimage of the politically faithful. Once in Rome they could celebrate their political loyalty at rallies held in front of Il Duce’s residential palace. They could parade down the newly opened Via del Impero, which cut through the ancient fora of the Roman emperors. They could visit the museums and exhibitions, and generally glory in the urban centre of the new Romanità. The Rome of the new pilgrimage that celebrated the Romanità of the new political order also returned the city to the old order of Christian pilgrimage. In 1929 the pope and the fascist government signed a Concordat which restored the Roman Catholic Church to its central role in the ceremonial life of the city. The pope came out of his exile in the Vatican, and the Christian pilgrimage life of the city emerged with new vigour. This new “pilgrimage city” which combined Caesar and Christ extended its appeal beyond the world of fascist Italy. Fascism had more than just a national appeal. The politically sympathetic and those from Europe and America curious to experience the new order which had “made the trains run on time” flocked to the city. The “modernity” of fascist Rome had appeal, but so did the links with the classical past. When in 1937 the fascist launched massive celebrations to honour the bimillennium of the birth of the emperor Augustus, the event had appeal outside of Italy and especially in England and America. Augustus was a highly idealised figure among British Roman historians, professional and amateur. In America the Vergilian Society organised tours to visit Mussolini’s Rome, so that professors of classics

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and teachers of Latin could visit the new excavations, the new museums and the great special celebratory exhibition, the Mostra Augustea. Those British and Americans who came to Rome in 1937 to celebrate the emperor Augustus were in many respects the last true cultural pilgrims in the tradition that had begun with the Grand Tour. World War II, which started not long after the Augustan celebrations, destroyed Italian fascism and to a certain degree discredited the identity with ancient Rome. The visual arts, which had long provided major support for classicism, moved into modernism. The classical humanities fared better, and indeed the years after the war were a golden age for classical literary studies. However, partly as a result of the experiences of the war, these new classical humanities were focused on democratic Greece rather than authoritarian Rome. In Rome itself the history of pilgrimage came full circle. Romanità had been discredited. The archaeological sites were neglected and the Mussolini-era museums were either closed or allowed to slide into decrepitude. However, the Roman Catholic Church had emerged strengthened, the religious bulwark to atheistic communism. Once again Rome emerged as a pilgrimage destination, a revival facilitated by improvements in air travel. That pilgrimage revival was especially strong in the United States, where many parish priests organised tours that provided a little classical archaeology, but mainly focused on the great churches and a papal audience. Gregory the Great would have been more satisfied with this change than Winckelmann or Goethe.

Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

Paloscia, Due Passi, 45. Wills, Lincoln. Gibbon, The Autobiography, 70–91. Craddock, Young, 199–299. Hibbert, The Grand Tour, 21, fig. 2. Ibid., 12–139. Bowron and Rishel, Art in Rome. Bignamini and Hornsby, Digging, 195–345. Beck-Friis, The Protestant. Haskell and Penny, Taste, 62–73. Gibbon, The Autobiography, 152–4; Churchill, Italy, 7–9. Cummings and Wood, “Preface”; Haskell and Penny, Taste, 74–78; Parslow, Rediscovering Antiquity. D’Agliano and Melegati, Ricordi. Belsey, “Cameos”. Scherer, Marvels, pl. 5–7. Ibid., fig. 13. Ibid., fig. 14. Murray, Piranesi; Wilton-Ely, Giovanni. Girouard, Life, 176–9. Sánchez-Jáuregui and Wilcox, The English Prize. Bignamini and Hornsby, Digging. De Grummond, An Encyclopedia, 258–60.

The Grand Tour and after 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60

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Cummings and Wood, “Preface”. Ciancio, Pisani and Uginet, Roma Antiqua. Potts, Flesh. Winckelmann, History; Leppmann, Winckelmann. Paloscia, Due Passi. Rosenblum, Transformations; Lee, David; Roberts, Jacques-Louis David. Haskell and Penny, Taste, 108–16; Ridley, “An Unpleasant Bicentenary”. Nicassio, Imperial City. St. Clair, Lord Elgin, 119–50. Pierson, American Buildings; Reinhold, Classica Americana; Richard, The Founders; Richard, The Golden Age. Pierson, American Buildings. Wills, George. Dyson, Ancient Marbles, 5, fig. 1. Vance, America’s Rome I. Baker, The Fortunate Pilgrims. Pietrangeli, “The Vatican Museums”. Maurois, Chateaubriand, 109–24; Gregori, Un Virtuose. Vance, America’s Rome I, 113–25. Beck-Friis, The Protestant, 16–18, 27. Liversidge, “Catalogue I”, 119, fig. 38. Wynne, Early Americans; Vance, America’s Rome I; Vance, America’s Rome II. Eustace, Canova; Grandesso, Bertel. Dabakis, A Sisterhood. Culkin, Harriet. Vance, America’s Rome I, 237–41. Ibid., 43–67. Edwards, “The Roads”; Webb, “City of the Soul”; Liversidge, “Rome Portrayed”. Vance, America’s Rome I, 68–135. Truettner and Wallach, Thomas Cole, 60, fig. 70. Foshay, Mr. Luman, 130–40; Truettner and Wallach, Thomas Cole, 85–101. Vance, America’s Rome II. Mitchell, The Jesuits, 177–214. Bisconti, Giovanni. Vance, America’s Rome II. Dyson, “Cast Collecting”. Bolton, Roman, 1–153. Lanciani, Notes. Dyson, Ancient Marbles, 28–121; Turner, The Liberal. Painter, Mussolini’s. Manacorda and Tamassia, Il Picone.

Sources and bibliography Baker, P.R. The Fortunate Pilgrims: Americans in Italy, 1800–1860. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1964. Beck-Friis, J. The Protestant Cemetery in Rome: The Cemetery of Artists and Poets. Malmö: Allhems Förlag, 2003. Belsey, H. “Cameos from the Grand Tour: The Paintings of Pompeo Batoni”. History Today 32, no. 8 (1982): 46–9. Bignamini, I., and C. Hornsby. Digging and Dealing in Eighteenth-Century Rome. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010.

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Bisconti, F., ed. Giovanni Battista de Rossi e le catacombe romane: mostra fotografica e documentaria in occasione del 1° Centenario della morte di Giovanni Battista de Rossi (1894–1994). Città del Vaticano: Tipografia Vaticana, 1994. Bolton, G. Roman Century: A Portrait of Rome as the Capital of Italy, 1870–1970. New York: Viking Press, 1971. Bowron, E.P., and J.J. Rishel, eds. Art in Rome in the Eighteenth Century. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art in association with Merrell, 2000. Churchill, K. Italy and English Literature, 1764–1930. Totowa: Barnes & Noble, 1980. Ciancio Rossetto, P., G. Pisani Sartorio, and F.-Ch. Uginet, eds. Roma Antiqua: ‘Envois’ degli architetti francesi (1786–1901): Grandi Edifici Pubblici. Roma: Edizioni Carte Segrete, 1992. Craddock, P.B. Young Edward Gibbon: Gentleman of Letters. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982. Culkin, K. Harriet Hosmer: A Cultural Biography. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2010. Cummings, F.J., and J.N. Wood. “Preface and Acknowledgments”. In The Golden Age of Naples: Art and Civilization Under the Bourbons, 1734–1805, edited by S. Caroselli, and S. Rossen. Vol. 1, XI-XIV. Detroit: Detroit Institute of Arts; Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1981. Dabakis, M. A Sisterhood of Sculptors: American Artists in Nineteenth-Century Rome. University Park, Pennsylvania: State University Press, 2014. D’Agliano, A., and L. Melegati, eds. Ricordi dell’Antico: Sculture, porcellane e arredi all’epoca del Grand Tour. Cinisello Balsamo: Silvana Editoriale, 2008. De Grummond, N.T., ed. An Encyclopedia of the History of Classical Archaeology. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1995. Dyson, S.L. Ancient Marbles to American Shores: Classical Archaeology in the United States. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998. Dyson, S.L. “Cast Collecting in the United States”. In Plaster Casts: Making, Collecting, and Displaying from Classical Antiquity to the Present, edited by R. Frederiksen, and E. Marchand, 557–76. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2010. Edwards, C. “The Roads to Rome”. In Imagining Rome: British Artists and Rome in the Nineteenth Century, edited by M. Liversidge, and C. Edwards, 8–19. London: Merrell Holberton, 1996. Eustace, K., ed. Canova: Ideal Heads. Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 1997. Foshay, E.M. Mr. Luman Reed’s Picture Gallery: A Pioneer Collection of American Art. New York: Harry N. Abrams, New-York Historical Society, 1990. Gibbon, E. The Autobiography of Edward Gibbon, edited by D.A. Saunders. New York: Meridian Books, 1961. Girouard, M. Life in the English Country House: A Social and Architectural History. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978. Grandesso, S. Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770–1844). Cinisello Balsamo: Silvana Editoriale, 2015. Gregori, E. Un Virtuose des Ruines: Chateaubriand au Pays des Antiquités et de l’Archéologie. Padova: Cooperativa Libraria Editrice Università di Padova, 2010. Haskell, F., and N. Penny. Taste and the Antique: The Lure of Classical Sculpture, 1500–1900. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981. Hibbert, C. The Grand Tour. London: Thames Methuen, 1987. Lanciani, R. Notes from Rome, edited by A.L. Cubberley. London: British School at Rome, 1988.

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Lee, S. David. London: Phaidon, 1999. Leppmann, W. Winckelmann. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1970. Liversidge, M.J.H. “Catalogue I: Representing Rome”. In Imagining Rome: British Artists and Rome in the Nineteenth Century, edited by M. Liversidge, and C. Edwards, 70–124. London: Merrell Holberton, 1996. Liversidge, M.J.H. “Rome Portrayed: ‘To Excite the Sensibility, and to Awaken the Admiration of Mankind’”. In Imagining Rome: British Artists and Rome in the Nineteenth Century, edited by M. Liversidge, and C. Edwards, 38–53. London: Merrell Holberton, 1996. Manacorda, D., and R. Tamassia. Il Piccone del Regime. Roma: Armando Curcio Editore, 1985. Maurois, A. Chateaubriand: Poet, Statesman, Lover, translated by V. Fraser. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1938. Mitchell, D. The Jesuits: A History. London: MacDonald, 1980. Murray, P. Piranesi and the Grandeur of Ancient Rome. London: Thames and Hudson, 1971. Nicassio, S.V. Imperial City: Rome Under Napoleon. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005. Painter, B.W. Jr. Mussolini’s Rome: Rebuilding the Eternal City. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. Paloscia, F. Due Passi a Roma con Goethe. Milano: Este, 1997. Parslow, C.C. Rediscovering Antiquity: Karl Weber and the Excavation of Herculaneum, Pompeii, and Stabiae. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Pierson, W.H. Jr. American Buildings and Their Architects. Vol. 1: The Colonial and Neoclassical Styles. New York: Oxford University Press, 1970. Pietrangeli, C. “The Vatican Museums”. In The Vatican Collections: The Papacy and Art, 14–25. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Harry N. Abrams, 1982. Potts, A. Flesh and the Ideal: Winckelmann and the Origins of Art History. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994. Reinhold, M. Classica Americana: The Greek and Roman Heritage in the United States. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1984. Richard, C.J. The Founders and the Classics: Greece, Rome, and the American Enlightenment. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994. Richard, C.J. The Golden Age of the Classics in America: Greece, Rome, and the Antebellum United States. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009. Ridley, R.T. “An Unpleasant Bicentenary: The Treaty of Tolentino”. Xenia Antiqua 6 (1997): 175–94. Roberts, W. Jacques-Louis David and Jean-Louis Prieur, Revolutionary Artists: The Public, the Populace, and Images of the French Revolution. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000. Rosenblum, R. Transformations in Late Eighteenth Century Art. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969. Sánchez-Jáuregui, M.D., and S. Wilcox. The English Prize: The Capture of the Westmorland: An Episode of the Grand Tour. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012. Scherer, M.R. Marvels of Ancient Rome. New York: Phaidon Press for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1956. St. Clair, W. Lord Elgin and the Marbles: The Controversial History of the Parthenon Sculptures. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.

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Truettner, W.H., and A. Wallach, eds. Thomas Cole: Landscape Into History. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994. Turner, J. The Liberal Education of Charles Eliot Norton. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999. Vance, W.L. America’s Rome I: Classical Rome. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989. Vance, W.L. America’s Rome II: Catholic & Contemporary Rome. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989. Webb, T. “‘City of the Soul’: English Romantic Travellers in Rome”. In Imagining Rome: British Artists and Rome in the Nineteenth Century, edited by M. Liversidge, and C. Edwards, 20–37. London: Merrell Holberton, 1996. Wills, G. George Washington and the Enlightenment. London: Robert Hale, 1985. Wills, G. Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992. Wilton-Ely, J. Giovanni Battista Piranesi: The Complete Etchings. San Francisco: Alan Wofsy, 1994. Winckelmann, J.J. History of the Art of Antiquity, translated by H.F. Mallgrave. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2006. Wynne, G. Early Americans in Rome. Rome: Daily American Printing Company, 1966.

5

Compostela, Rome and the revival of the pilgrimages to Santiago* Antón M. Pazos

In 1879, human remains were discovered in Santiago Cathedral. After a long process, they were confirmed by Leo XIII as those of the Apostle St James, hidden centuries before. This find, which can be considered a new inventio, or reinventio, after the original one in the ninth century, was used to try to relaunch the pilgrimages to Compostela, in line with the renaissance taking place all over Europe. The plans for disseminating the discovery, papal support and the remodelling of the cathedral, with a new crypt, taking advantage of the excavations that had been carried out, sought to make a connection with the great pilgrimages of the period – from Rome to Lourdes – which served as a model to give new life to the tradition of St James and to revitalise the city of Santiago.

The reinventio of St James in the nineteenth century The inventio or discovery of a tomb in the ninth century at a remote spot in the north-west of the Iberian Peninsula gave rise to a stream of pilgrimages to what is now Santiago de Compostela.1 Following a succession of building works, the tomb was soon concealed from the faithful, and moreover the remains it contained were transferred to a secret location by reason of2 the English invasion of La Coruña in 1589. Nearly 300 years later, excavations were undertaken to find the tomb. The aim of their promoter, the new Archbishop of Compostela, Miguel Payá,3 was to revitalise the former pilgrimages and the city of Santiago itself, by then in decline.4 These excavations, carried out in 1878–1879,5 are well known. They were analysed and published straight away by direct witnesses and by those actively involved in the find: archaeologists, doctors,6 chemists7 and historians8 who discovered the remains or examined them in situ. It is therefore fair to say that we have a sufficiently broad and detailed range of publications,9 beginning at the actual time10 of the discovery, which clarify the archaeological iter of this second apostolic inventio, the reinventio of 1879. We also have a precise summary of the excavations11 carried out in the cathedral in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and two complete biographies of those who can be regarded as the leading

102 Antón M. Pazos players in the nineteenth-century reinventio, Cardinal Miguel Payá12 and Antonio López Ferreiro.13 We are therefore not short of works on what the reinventio was. There are still aspects that remain to be analysed, and I am working on some of them, such as the initial negative response from the Roman Congregation of Rites to the request for the remains found in 1879 to be recognised as authentic. The Congregation did not consider that the evidence provided in the file14 sent to Rome was sufficient. This required a supplementary investigation, with a new file and an official from the Congregation travelling to Pistoya, Madrid and Santiago. With the new information, which supplemented the initial report, the remains found were declared by Pope Leo XIII’s bull Deus Omnipotens to be authentic.15 This, in summary, is the process of the nineteenth-century reinventio. Any further details or new documents that may be consulted will qualify, but not radically change, what we already know. Here, therefore, I am not going to discuss the archaeological and canonical process of the reinventio, which is well known and which I have already dealt with elsewhere,16 but rather attempt to relate it to the pilgrimages in the nineteenth-century.17 I will also try, as far as possible, to analyse how the 1879 find was useful to the city and to the Church in Compostela. Both placed great hopes, as reflected in the press at the time, in the relaunch that the reinventio would mean for the city. Those hopes must be seen in relation to the renewal of international pilgrimages that was then taking place in Europe and could consequently serve to revitalise the city, which, under the new liberal state, had lost the power it had held up to the eighteenth century. If the nineteenth century was “the century of pilgrimages”,18 as it was called in a chronicle of the Jubilee Year of 1875, Cardinal Payá embarked on the adventure of the reinventio precisely in order to join in the trend of that century.

Objectives of the reinventio The reinventio was therefore deliberately sought. It did not happen by chance. But it was the archbishop who sought it, not the cathedral chapter. López Ferreiro,19 the archaeologist who directed the excavations, made both these points clear in a little book written in 1888, ten years after the discovery. The find had not been a “very pleasant surprise” while carrying out improvements in the cathedral, as Cardinal Payá had presented it,20 but the result of an “intentional” search.21 And for that very reason the excavations were “bitterly” criticised.22 One of Cardinal Payá’s aims in looking for the tomb was probably to revive the international pilgrimages. Local pilgrimages were well enough established, though still of modest proportions. And although the rediscovery was indeed reported in the national press, and to some extent internationally as well, the practical results, that is to say the influx of foreign pilgrims, were meagre.

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Simplifying somewhat, we can divide the objectives into two groups: internal and external. The internal ones were those aimed at arousing the declining city of Compostela and revitalising it, including from the religious point of view, in the modern nineteenth-century style. The external objectives were directed – at least ideally – at positioning Compostela once again as a point of reference for the whole of Christendom. Attaining that position meant incorporating it into the great pilgrimage routes, which were growing rapidly towards the end of the century. Neither of these two aims, it seems to me, was achieved. Let us first consider the internal objectives. When Payá arrived in Compostela he found a city that had gone from being the indisputable capital of Galicia to not even being the capital of its local geographic and administrative area, having come under the authority of La Coruña in 1834, following the division of Spain into provinces. Another severe blow was the disentailment of the monasteries, starting in 1835, which left much of the city’s artistic heritage abandoned and in ruins. Only very slowly were the ruins gradually recovered or used for other military or civil purposes, as schools or charitable institutions. It had become a small ecclesiastical and university23 city, which had proved incapable, moreover, of adapting to the capitalist and industrial expansion of the nineteenth century: “It was barely even a shadow of its former splendour”.24 The city of Santiago, seat of the diocese, was no more than a local market town, with a population of around 25,000, of a strongly traditional stamp.25 The market women prayed the rosary together26 and the local events were the novenas of the various confraternities. Only the brilliant festivities of St James the Apostle, on 25 July, gave some idea of what Santiago could be if the same thing were achieved all year round with pilgrims from Spain and Europe. It could become a centre for “visitors”, with all that this entails: boarding houses, restaurants, hotels and modern communications. The economic and international relaunch of Santiago can be seen as an external objective. Although Payá came from Cuenca, a much smaller diocese in every sense, he knew what a big city was. First of all, he was well acquainted with Madrid, whose urban expansion was in full swing, and with Rome, which was modernising its streets, squares and monuments to adapt to its new role as the capital of Italy. He had taken part in major pilgrimages, such as the one to Rome in 1877, which coincided with his elevation to the cardinalate.27 On that journey, moreover, he had stopped over in Lourdes. He stayed as a guest at the palace that the bishop of Tarbes, the local ordinary, had at the shrine. And he was able to see for himself what a great mass pilgrimage centre was like. The combination of Lourdes and Rome – especially Lourdes, perhaps – made a deep impression on him,28 which he expressed in a pastoral letter29 in August that year. Nevertheless, Payá’s objectives, as analysed in recent research, were apparently more limited than those that other contemporary shrines, from Lourdes to the Pilar, may have had. There does not seem to have been – and

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the press of the period does not reflect – any attempt to use the find for political purposes, nor to restore a Catholic presence in the public sphere (there was no need to do so in Santiago), nor to oppose anti-religious legislation (Payá was a royal chaplain, closely linked to the liberal monarchy), nor to construct a fighting machine to combat positivism, as in Lourdes, through miracles, which did not exist in Compostela. Recent studies on the reinventio have highlighted this difference from the burgeoning cults of nineteenth-century Christendom; it must therefore be seen from a different perspective.30 The particularities of Spanish Catholic popular devotions, as distinct from those of other European countries,31 must also be taken into account in the relaunch of Compostela, which was not exclusivist, but sought – after Cardinal Payá, with his fellow cardinal José María Martín de Herrera32 – to restore the traditional role of protector of Spain attributed to the St James the Apostle.33 The reinventio, therefore, can only be seen as a practical attempt to take advantage of the potentialities of the Jacobean cult, carried out by a man of active disposition.34 It is summed up very clearly in 1884, after the finding of the relics was confirmed by the Congregation of Rites: In this unceasing throb of modern life, which seeks elements of excitement and bustle on all sides, Santiago seemed, perhaps, to strike a somewhat discordant note, because being far away from certain centres . . . it was not much in demand from travellers and tourists; when lo and behold, this delightful city, which has no pretensions to being frivolous, or commercial, or industrial, sees rising up before it the beautiful prospect of a glorious resurrection, the brilliant image of its true primacy, of its religious primacy.35 So the Official Bulletin of the Archdiocese saw it when giving an account of the translation of the relics to the crypt, following the confirmation that they were authentic, as the Roman Congregation of Rites had just decreed.36 The reinventio was also, in a sense, an opportunity to give the name of the diocese – and of its bishop – the widest possible impact.

Effects of the reinventio: new dissemination of an old pilgrimage Some of the consequences of the reinventio were immediate, such as the dissemination of the find and the promotion of the pilgrimages, in which Leo XIII, in the bull Deus Omnipotens, invited all the faithful to take part. These first effects took place when Payá was in Santiago. Other results, in the medium term, were divided between Payá and his successors, especially Martín de Herrera,37 and a crucial part was played in them by Canon López Ferreiro, the joint architect of the reinventio.

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Let us look first at the immediate results, that is, the result of the excavations and their dissemination. The reinventio has sometimes been regarded as the great moment in the revival of the pilgrimages. This is an valid statement, but only if it is qualified. For one thing, the pilgrimage never disappeared. There were pilgrims to Compostela, in greater or lesser numbers, before and after the find. For another, the reinventio did not lead to a continuous development of the pilgrimages from nothing to the explosion of the twenty-first century. There were ups and downs over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.38 And we also need to distinguish (a) the Jacobean cult, (b) the pilgrimages and (c) the Camino de Santiago, or Way of St James. These are three different facets which may or may not be present at the same time. For example, the promotion of great celebrations of the Feast of St James by the City Council and the Chapter at the end of the nineteenth century had little to do with pilgrimages but a great deal to do with the cult. The shift towards the Camino did not really take place until the twentieth century.39 In the nineteenth there were only the cult, and the pilgrimages, linked to it,40 but not the Camino de Santiago.41 Taking the points just mentioned into account, we can try to see the real results of the 1879 find. First objective: to disseminate the find, the starting point for renewing the cult of St James, and by extension the pilgrimages. This was achieved quickly and with some success: the secrecy with which the excavations were begun immediately gave way to publicising what had been found. Between the two extremes, secrecy and publicity, there was no transition, which was typical of Cardinal Payá’s character and way of acting. Although it should be said, in the light of contemporary accounts – and the statements of those who were present – that there was no longer any need to be discreet, or even to reserve judgement, for as soon as the ossuary containing the bones appeared everyone assumed that they had found the tomb they were looking for. The find at once became the “issue of the day”, as the press put it.42 The first official step taken to spread news of the discovery was a pastoral letter from the archbishop published a few days later.43 Payá, as already mentioned, described it as a “very pleasant surprise”, resulting from the “cleaning and decorating work” in the cathedral and from underground inspections in the chancel and behind the high altar, with the intention of seeing whether we could find at least some remnant of the foundations of the original tomb in which the body of the Holy Apostle was placed . . . and some further relics of his body, in addition to the bones which have always been and still are venerated in the tomb, constructed after that period, situated under the table of the high altar.44 This pastoral letter, which was perhaps premature, was criticised by López Ferreiro himself and by part of the chapter when they unsuccessfully made a

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complaint against the archbishop to Rome three years later.45 This was not the only pastoral letter Payá issued on the reinventio, but it fully covered the local part of the process; every last inhabitant of the diocese was informed of the find, since the letter was read, as was customary, in every church in the diocese. The second step was to disseminate the find in the European Catholic world. The most influential event in this respect was certainly the publication of Leo XIII’s confirmatory bull in 1884, which did have some impact in the international press. But before this the discovery had already been written about in the national and foreign press, though really very little outside Spain. Fidel Fita and Aureliano Fernández-Guerra, the two members of the Royal Academy of History who travelled from Madrid to Santiago, at Payá’s invitation, to analyse the excavations, were followed on their expedition by several newspapers, to which they sent reports of the journey. And in view of the interest these travel articles aroused, they published them in book form the following year.46 This book already hints at the difficulty that might be encountered in having the find confirmed by Rome as the apostolic tomb and in its subsequent universal dissemination. Indeed, in the list of illustrations, the caption corresponding to the ossuary that was found is guardedly expressed: “Repository in which the relics presumed to be those of St James and his two disciples Theodore and Athanasius were found”.47 The certainty of Cardinal Payá and the favourable local press was beginning to be at least qualified. And this gave rise to a process that lasted several years until the desired result of universal promotion of the recently discovered tomb, with sufficient endorsements, was achieved. The key to that dissemination – as Payá and all those who initially participated in the find, from López Ferreiro to Fidel Fita, were aware – lay in Rome. And Rome was more difficult to convince, especially at a time when scientific positivism and historical criticism were in full sway. Sure enough, not only did it prove more difficult, but the diocesan file drawn up in Compostela and sent to Rome48 – the first step to obtaining papal approval – was initially rejected. In the absence, as yet, of conclusive evidence, we must assume that only Payá’s good relations with the Vatican – and probably with the royal household49 – made it possible for the requested review to be resolved in a few months. Even so, an official from the Congregation of Rites had to travel to Santiago with the task of assessing the evidence submitted. Once this obstacle had been overcome, the bull Deus Omnipotens, in which Leo XIII confirmed the discovery of the remains of St James and his disciples, was published. The way was thus clear for international promotion, initially in the form of reporting and translating the papal bull,50 which was done not only in Italy and Spain but also in the Catholic press in France51 and Great Britain.52 This international reaction – albeit moderate – helped to make it effectively known in Europe that there was a new reason for the medieval tradition of making the journey to Compostela: to pray, as in earlier centuries, before the

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recently discovered tomb of the Apostle St James, which doubtless satisfied the desire of the new pilgrim-travellers to see with their own eyes, and also linked in with the nineteenth-century medieval revival.53 The reactions varied. Most reported the news of the bull or the find enthusiastically, or at least neutrally. But there were also negative responses. These occurred in Spain in the anti-clerical press and also, more generically, in Protestant newspapers, which, starting from the premise that St James could not have come to Spain, did not fail to point out that only Catholic fanatics could believe that they had found his remains in Santiago Cathedral.54 It can therefore be said that the news was reasonably well disseminated. The objective could be regarded as having been achieved. A further element that must be seen as part of the same process was the publication of a guide book, Guía de Santiago,55 that was entirely worthy of comparison with those of Cook or Baedeker.56 The authors produced it in expectation of “the gratifying renaissance of the former pilgrimages, which will undoubtedly receive great impetus from the venerable remains of the Holy Apostle and the remarkably laudatory terms in which the current Pontiff recommends them in confirming the authenticity of the sacred Relics”.57 Let us now look at two practical effects of the reinventio, which were certainly of a local nature but were indispensable factors for reinforcing the find. First, the utilisation, as we would say nowadays, of the archaeological excavations. This utilisation basically involved adapting the cathedral to the model of a pilgrimage site with a crypt. Once again, the person entrusted with implementing it was López Ferreiro.58 Initially, a passage resulting from the excavations was left free underneath the altar and two bronze doors were installed;59 this was done early on, in the time of Payá’s successor, Archbishop Guisasola,60 who died soon after arriving in Santiago. In other words, before the crypt was finished pilgrims could already go down and see the essential item: the recently rediscovered relics which had been the purpose of the medieval pilgrimages. The desire to offer pilgrims the key point of reference in the cathedral – the relics – was clear in this provisional opening of the crypt.61 To house the newly found relics a silver urn,62 intended to be visited by the faithful in the new crypt,63 was made by popular subscription. This highlighted the devotional nature of the tomb. The pilgrims had to go and prostrate themselves before the holy remains, rather than the relic coming out to meet the faithful.64 Its status as a tomb and as the foundation of the cathedral, the city and the kingdom was thereby made evident. The designer of the crypt as a whole was also López Ferreiro, who was inspired – as in the urn for the relics – by Romanesque art. The works concluded with the consecration of the altar in the crypt on 2 May 1891. The date, the anniversary of the popular uprising against Napoleon in 1808 which initiated the Spanish War of Independence, somehow connected St James once again with the patronage of Spain in defence

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of Christian civilisation, at a time when “our Peninsula, like the whole of Europe, is menaced by a formidable crisis which threatens to blow the social edifice apart”,65 in the words of López Ferreiro. As in other shrines, the tangible presence of the titular saint made it possible to hold ceremonies with the faithful in attendance. In the case of Santiago the participation of those present was severely limited by the canons’ choir stalls, which blocked the nave and which Payá tried to remove, but without success, owing to the opposition of the chapter. But it was a logical step in a pilgrimage shrine – indeed, they were eliminated half a century later. Following the bull Deus Omnipotens and the papal grant of an Extraordinary Jubilee Year in 1885, Payá planned a great ceremony which was an almost exact copy of the consecration of the Lourdes Basilica, held in 1876. In Lourdes, 35 prelates, 3,000 priests and 100,000 faithful had gathered.66 That was the benchmark. In 1884, “on the occasion of the transfer of the Apostle’s relics, duly certified”, to the new crypt, Payá delivered a full and fervent sermon in which, among other news, he announced splendid festivities for the following year, praying for a magnificent attendance of outsiders headed by the Court and the Grandees of Spain, the Councils of State and the military orders, the Chapter of the Knights of the Order of Santiago and nothing less than all the bishops of the nation and the two thousand priests and sacristans of the diocese.67 The plague epidemic which occurred that year – among other factors – abruptly shattered Payá’s dream, but the model was clear: multitudinous pilgrimages, of which Lourdes was the paradigm. Payá also designed spectacular liturgical or folk processions, loaded with symbolism, such as the one recalling the tribute of the virgin maidens paid to the Moors, of which the Christians rid themselves through the intervention of St James.68 Such activities were part of the process of modernising the pilgrimage to Santiago, a process that culminated with the ostentation of the relics and their transfer to the new crypt, which was not yet completely finished. The press, including foreign publications,69 reported the ceremony. All that remained was to complete the final refurbishment works in the cathedral and wait for the anticipated revitalisation of the former pilgrimages, which would bring Santiago into line with the new mass pilgrimage sites.

Achievements and conclusion However, the keenly awaited revival of mass pilgrimages did not occur suddenly, nor in such a linear fashion as it might seem when viewed in a broad perspective, taking stock of the century and a half from then until now.70 From a practical point of view, the dissemination of the find and

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Leo XIII’s call to make the pilgrimage to Compostela did not lead to the expected appearance of distant multitudes. It is important to emphasise that the pilgrimages had to be distant and multitudinous, because Santiago was accustomed to mass gatherings of the faithful from neighbouring provinces.71 A mere romería or procession to the nearby hermitage of San Payo do Monte in 1882, organised by the Franciscans of Compostela, brought together “some 6,000 people”.72 It was quite normal for large crowds to come from the surrounding areas.73 Certainly there was now another reason to convene them, to honour the new-found remains, and it was done systematically with the parishes in the diocese, continuing in subsequent years, especially Jubilee Years. But this did not represent any substantial change. It is clear from the studies published on the nineteenth century74 that pilgrimages of foreigners never disappeared.75 But the reinventio was not – as hoped – a spectacular transformation of the traditional trickle of pilgrims, isolated,76 in families or small groups,77 who arrived from all over Europa78 or even other continents.79 The press might mention these exotic pilgrims as a curiosity, but they were still within the bounds of normality.80 Nor had great pilgrimages disappeared in the nineteenth century, before the reinventio. The Jubilee Year of 1875 probably brought together crowds worthy of the “century of pilgrimages”,81 as a chronicler who took part as a pilgrim wrote. In contrast, the 1880 Jubilee Year, after the reinventio, is classified as one of the weakest of the century, though only on the basis of data on income at the Hospital Real (Royal Hospice), which must be interpreted with great caution, since they only reveal part of the reality.82 What was it that was lacking for the reinventio to succeed in reviving the former pilgrimages or giving rise to new middle-class pilgrimages by train and hotel, as in Lourdes or Rome? Precisely communications. The nineteenth century was the new golden age of pilgrimages, but it was so thanks to steam power. In the case of Santiago, not until 1944 was it possible to reach the city by train, from La Coruña, which was connected to the national network. It is true that Santiago had a small railway line, opened in 1873, which went as far as the little port of Carril, but there it ended. To come by train from Madrid one had get off in Curtis, seven hours by coach from Santiago.83 Or if one went to La Coruña, by boat or train,84 then it took a further ten hours85 by coach to reach the Compostelan cathedral. Many travellers preferred to arrive from Madrid via Portugal as far as Tuy, and then Pontevedra,86 but even so, there was no direct train; they had to resort to the coach again.87 Reaching Santiago still had a certain flavour of adventure,88 which was not ideal for attracting large groups of ladies and gentlemen who could travel in comfort to Lourdes89 or Rome by train or to the Holy Land on Cook’s or P&O’s well-appointed ships. Moreover, the few rare souls who arrived on foot – and who were not in the least middleclass, but rather poor pilgrims – lost the right to sleep at the Hospital Real in 1879, when it became a mere provincial hospital.90 The logistics were not helpful in promoting the pilgrimages.

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However, in the nineteenth century the ground was prepared for the future growth of the pilgrimages, precisely on the basis of the reinventio. The remodelling of a new crypt, which reinforced the nature of the cathedral as a pilgrimage site, established a well-defined goal for every pilgrim: the urn containing the remains which, from then on, all of them venerated on arriving and departing from Compostela. And during the lengthy pontificate of Martín de Herrera it laid the foundations on which the mass pilgrimages would be organised in the following century: modern travel guides, with special editions for the current Jubilee Year, reductions in train and hotel prices and special reception of groups of pilgrims in the cathedral. With the passage of time, by now in the twentieth century, the resurgence of the Camino was no obstacle to reinforcing the central importance of the crypt. On the contrary, the latter had to be enlarged for the 1965 Jubilee Year, as already mentioned. Only with the most recent development of the Camino, somewhat secularised by the civil authorities since the end of the twentieth century,91 have the remains found in the nineteenth century lost that central position. The old alternative tradition as a substitute for the relics, embracing the statue of the Apostle, has come to the fore again, relegating the crypt to a secondary position, contrary to the logic of the pilgrimage.

Notes * This work has been undertaken within the framework of the research project of the Spanish Government entitled “Las peregrinaciones a Santiago de Compostela en la España de la segunda mitad del siglo XIX: entre tradición y modernidad en el contexto europeo”. MINEICO, Programa Estatal de Fomento de la Investigación Científica y Técnica de Excelencia, Subprograma Estatal de Generación de Conocimiento, 2015–2017, IP: Dr. Antón M. Pazos (CSIC), HAR2014–58753-P. 1 The most recent general study of the complex evolution of the tomb of St James is Barral, El sepulcro. 2 Not discounting the fear that Felipe II would wish to transfer them to the new monastery of El Escorial, for which he was assembling a collection of relics that eventually contained 7,422 items; it was said that the only ones missing were those of St Joseph, St John the Baptist and . . . St James. See Santos, Antonio López Ferreiro, 85. 3 Miguel Payá y Rico (1811–1891), Archbishop of Compostela from 1874 to 1886. 4 For a more detailed study of the aims of these excavations, see Pazos, “The course”. 5 The explorations were conducted between August 1878 and June 1879, although the climactic moment was the finding of the remains on the night of 28–29 January 1879. For a thorough study of the discovery, see Santos, Antonio López Ferreiro, 180–224. 6 Francisco Freire Barreiro, Professor of Medicine, and Timoteo Sánchez Freire, Professor of Surgery, at the University of Santiago. 7 The chemical analyses were performed by Antonio Casares, Rector of the University and Professor of Pharmacy. 8 After the excavations, Archbishop Miguel Payá summoned two members of the Royal Academy of History to review the procedures and deliver a verdict on the

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remains that had been found, from a historical point of view. They were Fidel Fita, a Jesuit, and Aurelio Fernández-Guerra. Their journey from Madrid to Santiago was followed by the press of the time and the two historians published a text immediately afterwards recounting their experience in Galicia: Fita and Fernández-Guerra, Recuerdos. To those mentioned must be added the work published by Cardinal Bartolini, who was also an archaeologist and historian, in 1884, with the intention – I think – of scientifically reinforcing the bull Deus Omnipotens with which Leo XIII confirmed that the remains found were authentic relics. This book by the Prefect of the Congregation of Rites represents an unusual endorsement of a papal bull. The text recounts the motives, course and verification of the reinventio in great detail. It was published in Italian as Bartolini, Cenni and was immediately translated into Spanish and published, also in Rome, as Bartolini, Apuntes. The author had been one of the experts appointed by Leo XIII for the opening of the Vatican Secret Archives the previous year. Semeraro, “La Commission”, 332. The first was the pastoral letter of the archbishop himself: Payá, “Carta pastoral” (5 February 1879). Based on this letter and on news gathered at the time an article on the finds was also published, including a plan: Villaamil, “La Tumba”. In Guerra, Exploraciones, an excellent work, considered virtually unsurpassable, as say Pombo, O Cardeal, 359, n. 703. Pombo, O Cardeal. Santos, Antonio López Ferreiro. AAV, Expediente. The original Latin text is in Leo XIII, Litterae. A facsimile edition of the original parchment and a Spanish translation in La bula, 59–75, 79–89. See Pazos, “The course”; Pazos, “La reinventio”. As in Pazos, “La reinventio”, where I analyse it somewhat more extensively. Meseguer, “El Ángel del Peregrino”, 337. Antonio López Ferreiro (1837–1910), historian, novelist and canon of Compostela. Outstanding among his works is the monumental Historia of Santiago Cathedral. Payá, “Carta pastoral” (22 August 1877), 52. López, Las tradiciones, 8. Ibid., 4. The University was also in decline at that time, as the government had abolished several faculties. Fernández and Freire, Santiago, Jerusalén, Roma, 186. Fernández and Freire, Guía de Santiago, 18. Unless otherwise indicated, translations in this chapter are ours. See Pose, La economía. See Fernández and Freire, Santiago, Jerusalén, Roma, 186, 191. “While we were in Rome, numerous, estimable and edifying pilgrimages arrived from all over the world”. Payá, “Carta pastoral” (22 August 1877), 306. Pombo, O Cardeal, 351, n. 670. Payá, “Carta pastoral” (22 August 1877). “The Jacobean movement differed fundamentally from other Catholic cults of the period that scholars have interpreted as popular responses to the dislocations of urban industrial society”. Pack, “Revival”, 336. The essential features of Spain, unlike other European countries, were that (a) there was a revival of already traditional devotions rather than an emergence of new Marian shrines, which was the usual pattern in Europe at that time, and (b) there was no national hegemony or centralisation, but rather spheres of influence that did not compete with each other. Ramón, “A New Lourdes”, 138.

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32 José María Martín de Herrera, Archbishop of Santiago de Compostela from 1889 to 1922. He was created cardinal in 1897. Previously he had been archbishop of Santiago de Cuba (1875–1889). He therefore had a lengthy pontificate in Santiago de Compostela and prolonged episcopal experience – 47 years – in the two Santiago. 33 This was especially necessary at the end of the nineteenth century, for a “nation which once laid down the law to the world, and has now been expunged from the list of the great powers”. López, Sermón, 4. 34 One who, moreover, had an “undisguised construction mania” (Pombo, O Cardeal, 335) or “burning passion for building” (“passionem ardentem aedificandi”), as some canons complained to the pope in 1880. “Breve del Cabildo al Santo Padre”, in Ibid., 1134. 35 “Solemne traslación”, 277–8. 36 “Judgment on the identity of the Holy remains having been pronounced and confirmed, His Eminence the Cardinal ordered that they be translated from the oratory in the Palace, where they were stored, to the Cathedral”. “Solemne traslación”, 278. Following this it includes information about the “Publication in Rome of the decree concerning the relics of the Holy Apostle”. 37 This was recognised by the city of Santiago, which dedicated a plaque to him, in 1915, by the sculptor Mariano Benlliure, placed on the outside wall of the cathedral, describing him as a “zealous and tireless organiser of pilgrimages” to Compostela. 38 Although Sasha Pack introduces the necessary qualifications in the course of his article on the “Revival of the Pilgrimage to Santiago”, the initial summary paragraph presents it as an unstoppable process of linear growth from the beginning: “Cardinal Payá’s announcement of 1879 set in motion a protracted revival of the Jacobean cult in Spain and throughout the Catholic world over the course of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Its immediate effect was to breathe new life into the cult of the relic. St. James Day (July 25) festivities grew, and collective pilgrimages became a sizable public event, first regionally, then nationally and internationally, acquiring enduring political significance”. Pack, Revival, 336. 39 Through Manuel Aparici, who suggested to Pius XI the idea of a great world pilgrimage for the 1937 Jubilee Year. The proposal was postponed because of the Spanish Civil War and the Second World War and was not implemented until 1948. It could be considered the first World Youth Day. See Caamaño, “Manuel Aparici”. 40 Albeit distantly, as in the case of the British pilgrimage of 1909, which went from the railway station to the Episcopal Palace “in carriages”: in other words, without ever setting foot on the Camino. “La peregrinación inglesa”. 41 The idea of revitalising the Camino de Santiago never entered the heads of nineteenth-century pilgrims. They preferred the new means of transport, even if it meant making large detours, as suggested by Pardiac, who recommended taking the monthly steamship line from Bordeaux to Rio de Janeiro, stopping at Lisbon. Pardiac, Histoire, 11–12. Reproduced in Rucquoi, Michaud-Fréjaville and Picone, Le voyage, 1067. 42 “Cuestión del día”. 43 Payá, “Carta pastoral” (5 February 1879), to be read in every parish in the diocese. 44 Ibid., 50. 45 With reference to the pastoral letter, they stated that “it clearly shows, in several inaccuracies and other gratuitous assertions, the confusion that was present in the mind of its author”. See Pombo, O Cardeal, 1124. 46 Fita and Fernández-Guerra, Recuerdos. Fita also contributed to the international dissemination of interest in St James through academic studies, derived from the

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59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68

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journey to Santiago and published as Le codex. The academic internationalisation of the find was set in motion alongside the popular process. Fita and Fernández-Guerra, Recuerdos, 152. On the preparation of the Compostela file see Pazos, “La reinventio”. When he published the text of Deus Omnipotens in the Official Bulletin of the Archdiocese of Santiago, along with the usual ecclesiastical acknowledgements, such as those to the pope and the chapter, he also expressed his gratitude for the efforts “of our august monarch”. Payá, “Nota”, 418. For example, in the Boletín Eclesiástico del Obispado de Tuy, which uses the translation published in La Ciudad de Dios. The Royal Academy of History also published a translation in its Boletín. All of them reproduce the translation by J. Cugnonis, with the same title. In general, the bull was reasonably well disseminated in Spanish. See Leo XIII, “Letras Apostólicas”. In November 1884 Annales Catholiques published the French translation: Leo XIII, “Lettres Apostoliques”. See Romero, “Reinventio y tradición”, 105–8. The British press considered it preferable to travel to Compostela rather than to Lourdes. See Romero, “The Path to Pilgrimage” in this volume. On the evolution from fanatical criticism to artistic admiration in British publications during the nineteenth century, both in the press and in travel guides, see Romero, “Reinventio y tradición”, 94–104. Fernández and Freire, Guía de Santiago. Guide books are obviously a symptom of increasing numbers of travellers. The new edition of another guide, Álvarez’s Guía del viajero, already included the bull Deus Omnipotens. Álvarez’s first edition, published in 1875, coincided with the book by Fernández and Freire, Santiago, Jerusalén, Roma, the first volume of which was published separately in 1885 as Guía de Santiago. Fernández and Freire, Guía de Santiago, vi. See López, Altar y cripta. This is a 35-page booklet which traces the historical development of how the crypt might have been from its origin and the traditions associated with it. The point that interests us here is that it gives copious details of what the author himself intended to do and did in the crypt beneath the high altar, clarifying his account with prints by the Santiago jeweller Mayer. The crypt is practically the same today. In the second half of the twentieth century, at the instigation of José Guerra Campos, the passage was widened by half a metre to facilitate access for the numerous pilgrims expected for the 1965 Jubilee Year. Guerra Campos’s proposal, dated 26 February 1963, is in Guerra, Exploraciones, 301–3. “Noticias”. Victoriano Guisasola Rodríguez, Archbishop of Santiago de Compostela from 1886 to 1888. A French priest who made the pilgrimage to Compostela alone in 1883 was already able to tell his parishioners, on his return, that he celebrated mass “on the tomb of the blessed Apostle”. Jaspar, Relation, 9. A very precise description of the urn and the festivities for the transfer and safekeeping of the relics can be found in “Correo de Galicia”. On the crypt and the alterations in the cathedral, see Mera, “La capilla”. Although in describing the new urn the Official Bulletin of the Archdiocese of Santiago refers to two: an outer one, in silver, and an “smaller urn” inside it, containing the relics, intended “for processions”. “Urnas”, 216. López, Altar y cripta, 34. Blenner-Michel, “Le couronnement”, 68–9. Pombo, “O rexurdir”, 176, n. 59. Pombo, “O rexurdir”, 176–7, including other novelties devised by Payá, such as the façade of fireworks – which was used until very recently – representing the triumph of the faith over Islam.

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69 “The relics of St. James the Apostle, and of companions SS. Athanasius and Theodore, which were discovered a few years ago at Compostela, were lately transferred with great solemnity to a more fitting shrine of gold adorned with precious stones . . . . The faithful came in large numbers to take part in the procession, and venerate the relics of the first apostle of their country”. “Catholic News”. 70 As already mentioned with reference to Pack, “Revival”, 336, who, as I have also said, qualifies this apparent uninterrupted progression. 71 Primarily Galicia, but also Portugal, Asturias and Castile. 72 “Ecos de Galicia”. 73 An account of the diocesan pilgrimages in the Jubilee Year of 1897 can be found in Fuentes, Las Peregrinaciones, 37–8, but those present, though numerous, were “the sons of the mountains and valleys” of Galicia, not pilgrims from outside Spain. Ibid., 39. About foreing pilgrimages, specially of the Royal Navy see Vidal, La tumba, 149–52. 74 Guerra, “Relación”; Martínez, “Las peregrinaciones”; Pellistrandi, “Les pèlerins”; Pugliese, El Camino; Andrés-Gallego, “The Politics”. 75 See the accounts of nineteenth-century pilgrims and travellers collected in Rucquoi, Michaud-Fréjaville and Picone, Le voyage, 1058–192. 76 The founder of the French Filles de la Croix (Daughters of the Cross), exiled in Spain, tried to make the pilgrimage from Calahorra for penitential reasons, “isolated, without saying a word, without observing the curiosities that could be found”. Rigaud, Vie, 44. 77 Such as the pilgrimage from Poitiers, that of a group of students from Paris, or that of the French Augustinians, which arrived in Santiago in the years of the reinventio, but were seen “as reminiscences of those others whose numbers filled the broad naves of the basilica”. Fuentes, Las Peregrinaciones, 35. 78 Such as the British pilgrimage of 26 May 1909, “the first for three and a half centuries since 1558, when the Protestant Elizabeth, who deserved to be called the female Tiberius, ascended the throne of England”, which Cardinal Martín de Herrera, speaking to the pilgrims of El Morrazo, considered “an admirable thing”, comprising “twenty priests, six ladies, two soldiers and twenty-two lay persons”, and led by a bishop. “La peregrinación de Morrazo”. 79 “In these last few years we have seen illustrious pilgrims from Portugal, France, Belgium, Italy, Germany, Hungary, Poland, England, the Ottoman Empire and other places in the Orient walking the streets of Compostela”. Fernández and Freire, Guía de Santiago, 46. 80 “In the last Jubilee Year the urn of the Apostle was visited by two Berbers, who came on foot from Portugal”. Fuentes, Las Peregrinaciones, 34. 81 Meseguer, “El Ángel del Peregrino”, 337. See Pombo, “O rexurdir”, 161, n. 16. 82 Pombo rightly recommends adopting “a somewhat cautious position, at least for the last quarter of the century”. Pombo, “O rexurdir”, 157, n. 2. 83 Fernández and Freire, Guía de Santiago, IX. 84 The journey from Madrid, “when the line was completed . . . in 1883, could be done in twenty-four hours, although it regularly took somewhat longer”. Nárdiz, El territorio, 262. For a description of the journey by coach, narrated by the British traveller H. Gadow, see Ibid., 261. 85 Jaspar, Relation, 12. However, the author presents the opening of the railway line to La Coruña as an advance that could encourage his parishioners to undertake the pilgrimage. And a little before this a Hungarian traveller, whose book reflects the beginnings of the railways very well, stated on his visit to La Coruña bound for Santiago that “when they finish the railway Britain will be connected to Spain”. However, the coach journey from La Coruña to Santiago took him from 11.00 in the evening until 6.00 in the morning. Zádori, Viaje, 364–5.

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86 As Payá did when he returned from Rome after the conclave of 1878. Pombo, O Cardeal, 680. 87 “Which is so disagreeable after the train”. Fita and Fernández-Guerra, Recuerdos, 19. 88 As described by Jaspar himself, whose journey by coach under “a serene sky, all sparkling with stars and framed by majestic mountains, remains indelibly imprinted in my memory”. Jaspar, Relation, 7, n. 1. 89 “Lourdes, finally, which saw 140,000 pilgrims in 1873, transported in 216 special trains”. Maes, “Les pèlerinages”, 289. 90 “Since the Hospital was entrusted to the Provincial Council (1879), healthy pilgrims have lost their lodging”. Guerra, “Relación”, 334, n. 5. 91 The coin minted for the 1993 Jubilee Year was dedicated to the “Camino de Santiago – Camino de Europa”, with no reference to St James.

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Pose Antelo, J.M. La economía y la sociedad compostelanas a finales del siglo XIX. Monografías da Universidade de Santiago de Compostela 192. Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, 1992. Pugliese, C. El Camino de Santiago en el siglo XIX. Santiago de Compostela: Xunta de Galicia, Xerencia de Promoción do Camiño de Santiago, 2003. Ramón Solans, F.J. “A New Lourdes in Spain: The Virgin of El Pilar, Mass Devotion, National Symbolism and Political Mobilization”. In Marian Devotions, Political Mobilization and Nationalism in Europe and America, edited by R. Di Stefano, and F.J. Ramón Solans, 137–67. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Rigaud, R.P. Vie du Vénérable Serviteur de Dieu le bon Père André-Hubert Fournet. Poitiers: Typographie Oudin, 1885. Romero Samper, M. “Reinventio y tradición jacobea en la prensa británica”. In La renovación de las peregrinaciones a Santiago de Compostela en el siglo XIX: entre tradición y modernidad, edited by A.M. Pazos, 87–122. Monografías de Cuadernos de Estudios Gallegos 16. Santiago de Compostela: Editorial CSIC, 2017. Rucquoi, A., F. Michaud-Fréjaville, and P. Picone. Le voyage a Compostelle du Xe au XXe siècle. Paris: Robert Laffont, 2018. Santos Fernández, C. Antonio López Ferreiro [1837–1910]: canónigo compostelano, historiador y novelista. Santiago de Compostela: Cabildo de la S.A.M.I. Catedral, Consorcio de Santiago, Alvarellos Editora, 2012. Semeraro, C. “La Commission Cardinalice pour les études historiques”. In Le Pontificat de Léon XIII. Renaissances du Saint-Siège?, edited by P. Levillain, and J.-M. Ticchi, 243–50. Collection de l’École Française de Rome 368. Rome: École Française de Rome, 2006. “Solemne traslación de las reliquias del Apóstol Santiago”. Boletin Oficial del Arzobispado de Santiago 23, no. 961 (1884): 277–8. “Urnas del Santo Apóstol”. Boletín Oficial del Arzobispado de Santiago 25, no. 1062 (1886): 216–17. Vidal Rodríguez, M. La tumba del Apóstol Santiago. Santiago de Compostela: Tipografía del Seminario C. Central, 1924. Villaamil y Castro, J. “La Tumba del Apóstol Santiago”. La Ilustración Gallega y Asturiana 5 (1879): 50–1; 8 (1879): 87–8; 10 (1879): 116. Zádori, J. Viaje a España 1868, edited by A. Pombo Rodríguez, translated by J.M. González Trevejo. Santiago de Compostela: Xunta de Galicia, 2010.

Part II

Western Europe

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The golden age of pilgrimages in France in the nineteenth century Marc Agostino

France has an extremely important legacy of pilgrimages, especially up to the early Middle Ages. The country’s Christian heritage is easily recognisable in place names, but also in the great pilgrimage sites that answered spiritual needs, with the memory of a saint, and miraculous deeds worked by such a saint, attested by witnesses, traditions and cures. However, the most famous ancient shrines, such as Jerusalem, Loreto, Rome or Santiago de Compostela, are located outside France and have a long uninterrupted tradition. Economic and social developments and disagreements led to changes in at least two phases. Pilgrimage in the nineteenth century, integrated into the modern world, still evoked tradition, but introduced dramatic innovations by “negotiating” with the spirit of the times and with its techniques and forms of behaviour, reappropriating a tradition and creating new modes of pilgrimage and prayer, for which the motivations were stronger than ever.

The mixed heritage of the French pilgrim world: the phases For centuries, during the Ancien Régime, pilgrim activity was extremely intense in France, leaving its mark on names and landscapes. The great classical pilgrimages had been in evidence since antiquity: Jerusalem, of course (see the itinerary of the anonymous pilgrim from Bordeaux to Jerusalem in the fourth century), which was obviously the quintessential holy land. The pilgrimage to Rome ultimately increased in importance based on the prestige of the Urbs and the triumph of the papacy. Finally, a little later, Santiago de Compostela inundated France with its routes and its pilgrims and became a prime destination.1 These essential pilgrimages were outside France and pertained to a common Christian quest or form of worship. Pilgrim Europe maintained these three cornerstones in practically every century, whereas France remained rather on a national level. Much later, the Middle Ages and late antiquity linked pilgrimage to the presence of relics of a saint and the latter to inherent virtues, endowed with a well-established meaning based on a legend or image. The territory of France is adorned with old saints’ names which represented important local meeting points. The saints often became the

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dedicatees of beautiful churches, perpetuating their memory. In Bordeaux, to take a regional example, St Seurin (Severinus) was reputedly the patron of the first cathedral. Place names reflect and at the same time transmit the memory of the ancient saints to whom pilgrimages were directed. Local saints attracted numerous pilgrims, but within a limited geographical radius, apart from a few illustrious cases. Pilgrimages developed in the Middle Ages, particularly those dedicated to the Virgin Mary. A whole culture in the Ancien Régime was organised around these saints and pilgrimages which offered indulgences, fulfilled a vow or effected a cure. The great pilgrimages emerged within this existing group, leaving few regions outside the scope of the phenomenon. The Mont Saint-Michel pilgrimage was emblematic in every century, combining a strikingly beautiful setting, the saint’s miracles and a symbol of identity. The pilgrimage to Our Lady of Le Puy also attracted large crowds. The network of sanctuaries of the Virgin constituted a fervent and ongoing cult. Our Lady of Boulogne, like Le Puy, originated from a statue. This veritable ferment of pilgrim activity was not weakened by the Reformation, whose impact was felt in quite a different arena. On the other hand, the eighteenth century saw a decline linked to that of the religious orders. The philosophical critique formulated in the Enlightenment inevitably brought the very concept of pilgrimage into disrepute. The widely scattered local pilgrimages were ridiculed by the philosophes, who saw them as a sign of peasant religion. The cult of the Virgin, linked, as has been said, to ancient traditions and miraculous statues, was firmly rooted in France, but was now manifested less vigorously than in the seventeenth century. According to Diderot and d’Alembert’s Encyclopédie, pilgrimage was based on superstition, ignorance and fraud. Enlightenment Catholicism itself seemed less conducive to such practices. The great pilgrimages to Rome, Loreto and Santiago de Compostela enjoyed less support, but in France the very notion of the more common kind of pilgrimage and religion was called into question in the mental world of the time. Domestic and local pilgrimages gave rise to often indecent festivities.2 Jansenism, for all its austerity, spawned the Convulsionnaires of Saint-Médard. France was particularly affected by a lack of interest accompanied by the abandonment of certain sites and an unsympathetic policy from then on towards pilgrims, who were seen as sanctimonious beggars. Where it survived, pilgrimage became an opportunity for festivities, and the beginnings of a “secularisation” of such festivities, so clearly evident in our own time on certain occasions, heralded even more difficult days to come. The attitude to pilgrims was expressed two centuries later by Claude Manceron, who painted a sad portrait of a great pilgrim of the period to Rome, Benoît Labre, presenting him as a flea-ridden beggar. This, admittedly, is a historian’s interpretation, but it is revealing of an image that he could have found in certain writings. The eighteenth century was obviously fertile ground for the eradication of this form of devotion in France, and even its disappearance under the Revolution.

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From the outset the revolutionary period discouraged pilgrimages, which it linked to superstition and credulity. Disengagement had begun, encouraged particularly by the religious orders, which were in a state of crisis. The Revolution entered a phase of demolition. In the swirl of revolutionary events, the inspiration of eighteenth-century ideas, the hostile attitude to religious congregations, whether in the Civil Constitution or the Reign of Terror, and changes of mindset called into question the very notion of pilgrimage, a demonstrative public act linked to ancient beliefs, reflecting an Ancien Régime world that they wanted to see disappear, to do away with, like congregations themselves. The phenomenon of the curtailment of pilgrimages made its mark on France and was naturally accompanied by a decline in the great pilgrimages to Rome, Loreto and Santiago de Compostela. The abandonment of major shrines (and more modest ones) led to indifference and vandalism. Reduced to recalcitrant clandestinity, religion was not in a position to mount large gatherings and the shrines were given over to civil use or dilapidation. The most obvious example is Mont Saint-Michel. The great pilgrimage was now no more than a memory and the abbey building was put to a quite different use. Nothing was safe in this difficult period in the face of such adversity. Many fervent small pilgrimages that had grown up around statues of the Virgin, linked to a building or a place, underwent the momentous experience of losing their statues. All that remained of them was the legend. These poor people’s statues were often hidden and then found again in the nineteenth century, like a sign of a buried religion being brought back to light. Pilgrimage was certainly glorified by certain members of religious orders (the Virgin of the Pillar in Zaragoza was a rallying point for émigrés); Chateaubriand outlined its grandeur and the splendid charitable works associated with it in the past, and the great names retained their emblematic value. But ordinary French pilgrimage as a symbol of the faith of a society no longer existed.

A new type of pilgrimage The return of part of the population to the Catholic religion, following the Concordat and the introduction of a new spirituality, revived some ancient pilgrimages and formed part of a great quest. The reinitiation of pilgrimages, in pursuit of traditions great and small, ushered in a “golden age”. Old pilgrimages were reborn in a new form. Under the Restoration, the Duke and Duchess of Angoulême made a pilgrimage of thanksgiving to Our Lady of Boulogne on behalf of Charles X in 1827 after the statue was recovered. Cases of this kind in which a statue was lost and then rediscovered were common. Numerous pilgrimages thus regained a legitimate existence and it became possible to organise them at a local or national level. Some of these small-scale pilgrimages had a glorious past which was reactivated, and this re-legitimised ancient but neglected Marian sanctuaries. These pilgrimages were invitations to engage in public worship of Mary.

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The new era of Our Lady of Le Puy began after considerable difficulties. This enormous pilgrimage had formerly attracted large crowds, but it also suffered some measure of decline at the time of the Revolution. In this case the finding of the statue in the contemporary era was a deliberate act by the bishop. He had the statue erected on the “Corneille rock”, reviving the pious pilgrimage and giving it new meaning. Similarly, other Virgins were put up in sight of more or less popular pilgrimages and devotions. This reactivation of a cult by the bishop was a widespread practice, found, for example, in Lyon with Our Lady of Fourvière. The revival of former pilgrimages through statues can also be seen in the two classic shrines in western France: St Michel and St Martin of Tours. The destruction of the Basilica of St Martin and the burial of the saint’s tomb had put an end to that great pilgrimage. Here it was the actions of the “Holy Man of Tours” and the archbishop that brought it back to life, following the “discovery” of the saint’s tomb in 1860. The pilgrimage, which drew on France’s Christian roots, was launched by the Archbishop of Tours and the construction of a new basilica was undertaken. The great pilgrimage to Mont Saint-Michel was also an interesting case. It took nearly three-quarters of a century for the Mont to find new monks and see the building return to its original functions. A return to origins was therefore endorsed by piety and circumstances and marked by a succession of revived sanctuaries founded on reputedly miraculous statues. A catalogue of the inventio of Black Madonnas in the course of the nineteenth century would lead us somewhat further afield, to Algiers. This process, which was so important in fostering devotion in the places concerned, can be illustrated with a few examples. Two important pilgrimages in the diocese of Bordeaux were supported by inventio. The Verdelais pilgrimage was ancient and was based on worship of a miraculous statue discovered on a mule’s foot. The statue disappeared during the Revolution and was then rediscovered, giving rise to a revival of the cult adapted to the nineteenth century: construction of a basilica, installation and development of the Marian devotion by a pilgrimage. Similarly, the pilgrimage to Our Lady of Talence was restarted in this diocese, centring on a refound statue. The example of Bordeaux could be matched by many regions. Putting the Revolution behind them and returning to ancient pilgrimages constituted a need, linked to a clearly Marian and eucharistic form of spirituality to which they adhered, establishing a local distinction, restoring the past. These pilgrimages were founded on tradition and on having refused to disappear at the time of the Revolution. They were joined by pilgrimages based on modern statues intended to adorn the basilicas or cathedrals of the cities already mentioned, or by the resurgence of ancient cults such as that of St Anne of Auray. Nineteenth-century spirituality, sentimental, ultramontane and often dolorist, crystallised around pilgrimages, among other things, to reconstruct a Christian community, a way of being together. Ultramontanism gave it a universal face with the stamp of certainty. Society at large stood outside it

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and very quickly came into confrontation with it over the issue of pilgrimage, which was a clear affirmation of faith. The radical revival of pilgrimage arose from new events, fixed in the public mind by the press, linked to progress in their common scientific consideration. The nature of pilgrimage changed according to its distinctions. Great pilgrimages originated from this emergence of new times that were seen as threatening, with a rejection of former times well symbolised by the rediscovery of statues. Other miraculous phenomena gave rise to pilgrimages. The miraculous medal and the visions of Catherine Labouré were widely publicised, but did not lead to a mass pilgrimage at the actual place of the apparition in the chapel in the Rue du Bac. Pilgrimage made Notre-Dame-des-Victoires a place of constant splendour. This great, somewhat untypical devotional site, supported by an archconfraternity, was unexpectedly founded in 1836. It was a pilgrimage by correspondence, facilitated by the technical resources of the time for minting and distributing the medal. The site became liturgical in connection with the apostolic initiation of an exceptional priest. This priest, Dufriche-Desgenettes, who died in 1860, created a devotional space of spiritual regeneration in the exercise of his priesthood. His contemporary, Jean-Marie Vianney, was behind the pilgrimage that developed around his name and his person. The Ars pilgrimage is a well-studied phenomenon in the nineteenth century. Here we shall simply attempt to situate it in its time. Ars was a pilgrimage established in the actual lifetime of the “Holy Curé”, thaumaturge of the soul and body. The pilgrimage was pursued after the death of the priest of Ars and people continued to seek his presence and his intercession. The bedrock of this pilgrimage, in which the supernatural vied with benefits and with simplicity, was its strong roots in the Ars region. It fostered a continuous flow of pilgrims, sustained after the death of the “saint”, and prefigured a quite different kind of pilgrimage practised in the nineteenth century. The gradual construction of the image of the saint, cultivated by fioretti, was followed by the nature of the site, more strongly representing a place of pilgrimage. The pilgrimages of Notre-Dame-des-Victoires and Ars constituted a revival and, at the same time, witnessed a succession of important events in the nineteenth century which marked the activation of pilgrims. Two priestly figures were directly or indirectly responsible for the introduction of this new type of pilgrimage. The holy Curé of Ars, “canonised in his own lifetime”, attracted crowds in search of a thaumaturge or a leader in life. The Ars pilgrimage continued beyond his death and became a place of still greater devotion, both as such and as a reaction to revolutionary issues associated with a priestly figure. But the new forms of pilgrimage acquired a wider scope, beginning in a category revived at the height of the modern era, that of Marian apparitions.3 The nineteenth century in France was rich in apparitions of the Virgin, and here too, as with the Curé of Ars, rumour was rife. Networks of monasteries

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and preachers, the beginnings of a popular religious press and a period of religious revival in the face of a radical intellectual transformation all contributed to the popularity of the phenomenon, which followed on from Parisian devotions and constituted the immediate focus of devotion to Marian apparitions as something long expected, anticipated and approved by the papacy. The great period from 1815 to 1870, already very plentiful, was crowned by two important apparitions with immediate consequences, but also abundant prospects. In fact the foundations were laid on an “improvised” basis, awaiting the great blossoming that occurred at the end of the nineteenth century. Among the categories presented so far, direct apparitions were not prominent. The message was heard, transmitted by priests or marked by statues, but the apparition was not quite complete. The sites of apparitions from the preceding centuries had undergone a real decline since the Revolution. Those at La Salette were therefore a major event;4 these apparitions, the object of serious studies by the Missionary Fathers of La Salette and an extensive literature, arose at a philosophically barren time in France, under the liberal monarchy. On 19 September 1846 two uneducated shepherd children, Mélanie and Maximin, reported the apparition of a beautiful sad lady at a steep, isolated spot. This set in motion a process that we also observe later at Lourdes. The doubts of many contemporaries (including Cardinal de Bonald, who reported the event) crystallised around the initial reservations of the Curé of Ars. The apparition of the “weeping Virgin” was controversial. However, the Bishop of Grenoble, Mgr de Bruillard, recognised its authenticity after holding a commission in 1851. The pilgrimage developed spontaneously, despite the difficult conditions. Mgr de Bruillard’s recognition did not meet with unanimous agreement. Opposition to La Salette was strong, it was publicly debated and the episode of the Curé of Ars, who was sceptical after meeting young Maximim, created a considerable stir. Recognition of the apparition was linked to the traditional, even slightly mysterious bishop Mgr de Bruillard. Opposition to La Salette came from various quarters; a process, which one finds again later at Lourdes, was established. Sceptical statements, allegations that it was an eccentric woman named Mlle de La Merlière in disguise and the presence of an earlier text fuelled a widespread debate. Mgr de Bruillard’s successor, Mgr Ginoulhiac, was cautious, but decided to uphold his predecessor’s declaration and defy authoritative opponents such as Mgr de Bonald, Archbishop of Lyon. None of these difficulties prevented the pilgrimage from developing. The approval of Cardinal Villecourt, an influential member of the Curia, carried weight from the beginning. In 1848 a wooden chapel was built and the pilgrimage gradually became established. Mgr de Bruillard bought the land and in 1852 he appointed three priests at the sanctuary as chaplains of the pilgrimage. La Salette very quickly produced cures described by doctors as miraculous: in 1847, in 1849, in 1854, etc. From 1848 onwards, an archconfraternity was founded in 1852 and the chapel was finished in 1863. It was a minor basilica of a Byzantine type

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which allowed for pilgrimage based on confession. This type of pilgrimage, always highly controversial, rested on a dolorist form of devotion, to Mary as Mediator and Reconciler, emphasising the commandments of the Church, in particular the first (against blasphemy), the third (sanctification of the Sabbath) and the fifth and sixth (fasting and abstinence). This stage of the history of La Salette was indeed of a quite new kind, with two vulnerable children and an environment to be rechristianised; the source specified divine power and could be the sign of healing. The pilgrimage was organised spontaneously, with curiosity, piety and episcopal approval. Images of Our Lady of La Salette, crowned and addressing the two children, became popular. The pope was petitioned and the debate raged, but the diocese of Grenoble stuck to Mgr de Bruillard’s line. The Missionary Fathers of La Salette placed themselves at the service of the pilgrimage. It became a national phenomenon from 1872. Much ink has been spilled over the secret of La Salette. The organisation of the pilgrimage was transformed. The mountain, to which access remained difficult despite technological progress, certainly did not make reaching the sanctuary more straightforward. A turning point for the pilgrimage came in 1875. By now the political issues connected with Napoleon III were settled. The basilica was consecrated in 1879 on behalf of a multitude of pilgrims. The religious institute of the Missionaries of La Salette received papal authorisation. The message was confused and subjected to debate and comment, but the pilgrimage was established and the site recognised as a true and firmly structured place of prayer. The argument about the authenticity of the event and the account of it remained open, but devotion to Our Lady of La Salette took a new turn. She represented the inaccessible; the path now reached Corps but could not ascend to La Salette. The descriptions by writers and travellers were very expressive. The apparitions at Lourdes and their consequences served to consummate this highly significant, novel and lasting form of pilgrimage. What is striking about Lourdes is that whilst the process was similar to La Salette, Lourdes seems to have brought the new pilgrim experience to its apotheosis. Should its success be attributed to the fact that Mary had never abandoned France since the eighteenth century, as J.-K. Huysmans said? The events at Lourdes therefore underwent a process that was similar in the way it unfolded but quite different in its spirit and outcome. The apparitions there were a series spread over several months and took place in the presence of witnesses.5 The seer of Lourdes was a pious but uneducated girl who attended the village church. Her family adhered to traditional values and her father, a miller, was a victim of competition in a modernising society. The beautiful lady in white appeared to Bernadette 18 times in a place similar to but more accessible than La Salette. Moreover, Lourdes very quickly attracted crowds and the pilgrimage established itself as one of the most prominent in Europe. The Lourdes apparitions are notable for their continuity and their distinctiveness. The continuity has been highlighted by a number of authors, including Huysmans in the literary

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sphere. Lourdes is located in a group of sites devoted to the Marian cult forming a retinue around the town. The area extends from the province of Bigorre into that of Béarn nearby, with its well-known sanctuary of Bétharram, which underwent a revival after the Revolution. Tarbes and the Pyrenean region itself were among the most “constitutionalist” dioceses. In the context of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy the diocese of Hautes Pyrénées chose a bishop of conviction, Molinier, who refused to abandon his seat in 1801. The diocese was abolished and then re-established in 1822, and life resumed its course with relatively moderate or “Gallican” bishops such as Mgr Double and Mgr Laurence. Priests remained divided between the two major factions, “Gallicans” and ultramontanes. Lourdes does not seem to have been a belligerent area in terms of Roman Catholicism. It is striking to note that the public temperament of this small Pyrenean town precisely reflects the broad features of French society as a whole. The apparitions reveal a cross-section of the diverse attitudes. Modernity existed side by side with a traditional mentality. The reactions to the apparitions claimed by Bernadette were normal for a small town in the Second Empire. Bernadette’s story and personality were more sophisticated than La Salette and the content of the messages was profound. The apparitions immediately aroused keen interest among the faithful. The message was religious, it was very clear and it matched the expectations of Catholic opinion, profoundly affected by recent history and by scientific and other critiques. The elements of the apparitions challenged accepted ideas and brought the pilgrimages of the nineteenth-century revival to their peak. The Parisian setting of the miraculous medal and of Notre-Dame-des-Victoires was succeeded once again by a mountain setting, in Lourdes, but this time it was much more accessible than La Salette, as we shall see. The event took place in an evolving rural society. From a Catholic point of view the Lourdes apparitions aroused both keen interest, especially among curates, and also reservations. The parish priest, Peyramale, was 57 and had been ordained in 1835. He firmly distanced himself at first. Lourdes responded rapidly to Bernadette’s descriptions, but the Church itself, still marked by the earlier unrest around 1830, wanted to hear more from the local incumbent, who confined himself to an attitude of cautious reticence. The reasonably high-ranking notables of the town, alerted to the events, conducted a sceptical enquiry, with witnesses, holding meetings in an atmosphere reminiscent of Madame Bovary. Popular piety gave rise to large gatherings, conveying mockery but treating the apparitions as if they had been expected. Patriotism was an underlying factor, but not the main issue. It was an ultramontane religious theory that overcame Abbé Peyramale’s reservations: the Immaculate Conception, a real challenge by the Church to the rationalist world and a symbol of ultramontanism. For Catholics, pilgrimage was based on a clear signal from the papacy, a detailed spiritual message, the demand for construction of a church. Scientific critiques and scepticism could not prevent adherence to these values. The mechanism of major pilgrimages arising from

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the apparition at La Salette and especially from those at Lourdes followed a precise process, which differed greatly from one pilgrimage to another, but La Salette and Lourdes were very suspect in the eyes of science. The arguments were often simple (fraud) or medical (hallucinations). Sources were also sought for the seers’ texts, with influential people involved. This was blatant in the case of La Salette, where an earlier document was produced, but it also occurred to a different degree at Lourdes, with a comedy by a lady of the town. At Lourdes the political authorities clearly intervened to appoint and then repudiate the commissioner Jacomet, an honest but very sceptical official. Did the Second Empire favour the Lourdes pilgrimage under the influence of the railway companies? There is a great contrast in accessibility between the two sites. La Salette is difficult to reach. It is a steep place well away from major roads. All the texts emphasise this point. The means of access are particularly difficult. A steep-sided little path leads to a small plateau. In 1910 the Baedeker Guide was still pointing out the difficulties of reaching it. The Grenoble-La Mure railway, completed in 1888, is a narrow-gauge line, beautiful but inconvenient. There were plans to build a line from La Mure to Corps, where a coach connection was still required to get to the site at the beginning of the twentieth century. On foot it took three hours. The inconvenience of access is hardly open to argument. The route to Lourdes was obviously clear and straightforward. The second “holy place”, in Alphonse Dupront’s sense,6 which gave rise to major pilgrimages, was quite accessible, as has been said. Close to Tarbes, with important markets, a stopover on the way to the Pyrenean spas, Lourdes was a small town with a range of functions and the apparitions took place at a site that was romantic and wild but nearby and accessible. The business of the Lourdes railway is well known. In 1859, with the railway construction policy in full swing, it was decided to add a branch line to Lourdes on the Toulouse-Bayonne line, which was under construction. At the urging of the Pereire brothers, according to some critics, Lourdes was chosen as a junction, and perhaps one day as the terminus for the Pyrenees. The first trains ran in 1866, and the railway became an important vector of the great pilgrimage which so fully epitomised the Marian atmosphere of the nineteenth century. Emile Zola gives a precise description of the arrival of various trains in the national pilgrimage at the station in Lourdes. The two pilgrimage sites became “holy places” through episcopal approval and their enormous success. In both cases, recognition of their authenticity by the bishop established a foundation that was rapidly consolidated by miracles. Mgr de Bruillard, a prelate of the old school, “Gallican and rigoristic” (J.O. Bourdon), recognised the apparition as a guarantee of penitential practice for all. Mgr Ginoulhiac confirmed the decision of his predecessor, albeit with misgivings, since controversy was raging. Young Bernadette’s apparitions were submitted to Mgr Laurence, a bishop of the July Monarchy, a fervent devotee of the Virgin Mary but

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hardly ultramontane, who recognised the apparitions and the message after numerous investigations and the work of a commission of enquiry. This vitally important recognition came from a level-headed bishop who had examined the evidence.

Organised pilgrimages and new structures This pair of major apparitions, the culmination of a long wait for Marian devotions, acted in synergy, and pilgrimages were organised on the same pattern, with dazzling success for Lourdes. The pattern at La Salette reflected the personality of the bishop, but also that of the priests who became propagandists for the apparitions. The parish priest of Corps informed the bishop quite rapidly, while the priest of La Salette encouraged children. Recognition of the pilgrimage was an essential step, even if there were arguments, as we have seen, involving personalities such as the Curé of Ars. The basis of the pilgrimage was the recognition of the diocesan missionaries in 1852 and the construction of a complex with a chapel and a hospice. It was an immediate success, with reports of miracles and cures. La Salette became an important place; however, the railway to Corps was not contemplated until the end of the Second Empire. The pilgrimage began spontaneously as early as 1846 and grew. The missionaries of La Salette were founded in 1850 by Mgr de Bruillard and were entrusted with diocesan duties, particularly the smooth running of the sanctuary and the tasks arising from the presence of pilgrims. The impressive setting amid the mountains, at once rugged and inspiring, the polemics and the beauty of the landscape created an atmosphere of strangeness, but at the same time one of certainty. The pilgrimage for the reconciliation of sinners was active and courageous in tackling the physical difficulties of the site with the will to achieve purification and observance. It was organised by the missionaries and followed a schedule. The “weeping Virgin” received 50,000 pilgrims from 1850 and the consecration of the basilica was a huge success. This success was immediate and was swathed in an aura of exegetical mysteries. The pilgrimage was prominently reported in the press and this Queen of Repentance directed the nineteenth century to repudiate prevailing social norms and embrace traditionalism, well represented by the bishops and the clergy. The “weeping Virgin”, penitence and the mystery, unsophisticated though it was, attracted fine writers, drawn by this mystery and by the expansion of the pilgrimage. The “secret” of La Salette aroused comments and curiosity, as did the debates within the diocese itself. The pilgrimage’s founding bishop had a much less confident successor. The controversy was echoed in literature from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Léon Bloy spent a long time preparing his book on the apparitions. In Celle qui pleure7 he recalls that it was begun in 1879 at a time when La Salette was practically unreachable. This work, published in 1926, is a mixture of beautiful meditations and fitting remarks on matters such as Napoleon III’s war

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on La Salette. He presents a fearsome portrait of the French clergy. He was a devotee of La Salette who attached great importance to Mélanie, one of the original seers. The pilgrimage was organised around missionaries who translated the message in the spirit of the Assumption. The pilgrimage to La Salette was made possible by the construction of the basilica, the progress of the railways and the approval of the Holy See. This settled the dispute between “Gallicans” and ultramontanes. Miracles occurred from 1847 and continued at a steady rate during the 1850s. The statue of the weeping Virgin was erected in 1858, as were the bronze statues on the very site of the apparition. The culmination in 1879, with the blessing of the basilica, confirmed this great pilgrimage, which was nevertheless controversial in the nineteenth century. In 1870 one can detect the dolorist, penitential spirituality that marked France in defeat and in the decline of Christian customs. The pilgrimages took place especially in the summer: large groups from the diocese of Grenoble in July, the Feast of the Assumption in August and the celebration of the anniversary of the Apparition on 19 September. Lourdes received such a flood of pilgrimages that it has been called the “Marian Rome”. We find points in common with La Salette, but also notable differences. Lourdes was in the midst of a constellation of Marian sites and access was primarily by rail. It was a wild place; its beauty was entirely inward. The message was delivered modestly, in a Franciscan-style grotto with purifying mountain water at its foot. The apparitions contained a substantial message which had to be reconstructed. The texts were long and the apparitions quite short, but the message was at once clear and complex. The same overall pattern is found in common at La Salette. The Lourdes seer was uneducated; nothing seemed to predestine her for that role. Her account was collected with care and does not seem to have undergone any alteration. The attitudes of the authorities and witnesses also show a certain similarity. However, the personality of the parish priest was crucial here. Abbé Peyramale was the central figure in getting the pilgrimage started. This priest from Bigorre, well integrated into Landais society rich and poor, seems to have been converted to Bernadette by the Immaculate Conception and for a long time he protected her. When she left Lourdes it was he who, faced with the flood of pilgrims, took the pilgrimage in hand. The immediate success of the pilgrimage to the Grotto was supported by the priest and the diocese, which took up the baton: a chapel was built, the spring was channelled, the statue was put up and the now diocesan site in Lourdes drew the crowds. From this point, Lourdes conformed to a full-scale and well-organised pilgrimage policy. The bishop entrusted the Domain of the Grotto to four religious, who became chaplains. The year 1870 was an important date for La Salette and for Lourdes, which were incorporated into the great penitential movement of the 1870s as illustrious examples. An entire organisation was placed at the service of pilgrims, and at Lourdes the concept of a national pilgrimage came to

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fruition. In the 1870s the Church and France itself, in their adversity, were fertile territory for such pilgrimages of reparation. France was defeated and harshly treated in 1870–1871. Society rejected the Church in part, and the latter was dealt a blow to its very head with the capture of Rome. With the pope-king and sinful Gaul suffering, other “holy” places were offered to the piety of the faithful and for reparation. Catholics in the Moral Order were concerned for the future of France, as, moreover, were Ernest Renan and many others in the same period. It was decided to build a new type of urban sanctuary, the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, which gradually became a place attracting large numbers of pilgrims. It was a voluntary model, taking up the spiritual experience of Paray-le-Monial, whose great pilgrimage to the Sacred Heart was revived in the nineteenth century. In spirit, these pilgrims were extending La Salette and Lourdes. Construction lasted until 1920. Pontmain is a clear expression of those practices characteristic of the new times and the prevailing patriotism. It is also firmly in line with La Salette and Lourdes. Here too the Virgin Mary called for conversion and repentance. But the country was at war and the Germans were crossing France after the heavy fighting in Lorraine. Laval, the seat of the diocese, seemed to be under threat. The Pontmain apparition, which called for a return to Christian duties, had strong patriotic and religious connotations.8 France had to forget the Revolution and its consequences, so to speak. Those involved were simple people and their lives had been very pure. Here again the local curé played a very important role. The good priest was a declared devotee of Mary and a true missionary in this small country parish, which was clearly well attuned to the Virgin. Being of a penitential and patriotic disposition, he was immediately convinced and fought for recognition of the event, which took place on 17 January 1871. The bishop of Laval quickly lent his support to endorsing the apparition. A chapel was planned and started to be built. From the outset there were many pilgrims for the anniversary on 17 January, but also during the rest of the year. Access here was relatively easy and it was the Oblates of Mary Immaculate who took charge of this substantial pilgrimage, also marked by signs of the times such as the National Vow, a procedure that served as a declaration of identity of the Catholic nation. Local pilgrimages, mostly revived from earlier times, proliferated in France. Pilgrimages linked to the nineteenth century really did occupy a considerable and notable position, even in European terms. Two major pilgrimages were organised around individuals regarded as saints and emblematic figures. The Ars pilgrimage, as we have seen, was established during the lifetime of Jean-Marie Vianney, whose advice and blessing were sought. By his death, in 1859, this was probably the leading pilgrimage in France. Its success is undeniable, and the monuments erected, such as the basilica, prove it. The ascetic face of the priest, the humble glory of the priesthood and the need for forgiveness aroused constant fervour. With this French version of a starets, the Ars pilgrimage constituted a change in the face of the

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Church; the supernatural was mediated by it. The century concluded with the tremendous spiritual experience of St Thérèse of Lisieux. This young Carmelite nun gave rise to a major pilgrimage in the twentieth century. There was no apparition in her cult. The required miracles presented for her beatification and canonisation in the twentieth century were not necessarily tied to a place at first. Thérèse became known through the circulation of her Histoire d’une âme in the Carmelite network, initially in the form of a “circular” on her death. Apparitions and holy places were succeeded by a return, this time intimate and silent, to the signs of the times. The pilgrimage that began at Lisieux reflects features of a different order, but it arose from the same trend and responded to the same need. The facts were established, the witnesses were present and were examined. The miracles were studied. The approvals (for Thérèse, in the “cause”), by the local bishop with the support of the parish priest (or Thérèse’s sisters), were official. As an act of the Church, pilgrimage increasingly turned its back on rigorism and on a society stemming from the upheavals of the Revolution. The pope soon became a central character in these pilgrimages. Saints produced miracles, but above all an attachment to exemplary individuals. The perspective had changed.

Lourdes, the site that epitomised the golden age of pilgrimages in France Over the course of the century the little Pyrenean town became a world pilgrimage site, a holy place with an international reputation. The mystery transcended the event itself, since the seer left Lourdes quite quickly, having grown tired of the clamour surrounding her. She left a very moving story, a more or less approved statue and a message. Lourdes, the archetype of contemporary pilgrimage, presented a tangible showcase of miracles, of incursion of the marvellous into simple everyday life, with obvious evangelical and biblical allusions. The phenomenon of Lourdes responded to a need among Catholics at that time. The clash with positivism, changes of mindset and the impression of a Church judged to be behind the times were combatted with the weapons of a supernatural dimension, expressed in the idea of the miraculous as something accessible, experienced day by day. Lourdes was obviously attacked on this point, which was the source of its popularity, disputed in the domain of science and defended in that of faith. Pilgrimage was the expression of a conflict. The other national pilgrimages also attracted numerous pilgrims, particularly La Salette with its mysteries, which combined all the ingredients of a great pilgrimage. Ancient pilgrimages regained colour, and new ones, in the patriotic context of the time, were gradually incorporated into social customs, but above devotional practice. It was a regeneration of France, certainly, but above all a regeneration of humanity as a whole. Lourdes rested on a theological affirmation and on the

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approval of a parish priest of good qualities, who, once he had decided, was determined. The matter was discussed from a supercilious standpoint characterised by the reasoning, commitments and convictions of the time. The division of opinion that was established gave rise to discussion of Lourdes, attracting the attention – from a contrasting perspective – of the imperial couple, who were very interested in the Pyrenean regions. The French episcopate itself took a keen interest in the apparitions and in the fate of the seer, for whom a status had to be found. The way in which the pilgrimage developed clearly indicates its fundamental importance. To the material phenomena of interpretation, which need to be emphasised, must be added the spiritual construction, which had a certain originality. The material phenomena, as well as the atmosphere in the town, surrounded the development of the pilgrimage. The young girl from Lourdes aroused too much curiosity and left the town, as the pilgrimage brought a large number of people there. In the political debates, the opposition between the participants is very well known. The strict police commissioner Jacomet did not share Estrade’s view. The prefect Massy, the Town Council and the Minister of Worship argued with Mgr Laurence about a modest episcopal residence. However, the necessary steps were quickly taken with the purchase of Massabielle. Authorisation to build the chapel was granted in 1862. The great programme of works was underway. Was the investment profitable? As mentioned previously, a correlation was made with the railway. It was a cause, a means and a beneficiary of a pilgrimage phenomenon that never ceased to assert itself. Without detracting from the importance of other pilgrimages, and even favouring them by a form of synergy, whether renaissance, revival or new pilgrimage, Lourdes enjoys a remarkable specificity in France. Its resonance was manifested by its immediate popularity, as is the way with sites of apparitions, but it soon became a crowd, and a massive crowd, after the arrival of the railway and the systematic organisation of pilgrimages to Lourdes, starting with the “National” – the national pilgrimage – in 1872. The apparitions received widespread publicity from the press coverage and the numerous works devoted to them, chief among which was Henri Lasserre’s Notre Dame de Lourdes. This is a well-written book, firmly argued in support of its hagiographic demonstration, and a pleasant and convincing read (1869). The work was written by the recipient of a miraculous cure, who said that he had recovered his sight thanks to the water of Lourdes. Other features, involving a mixture of modernity and belief, contributed to the popularity of the pilgrimage. The miracle at Lourdes was tangible: the water from the spring. The role of the Assumptionists was crucial in publicising and organising pilgrimages to Lourdes, in the “National”, and Lourdes station was well served by the railways, with numerous special trains. Bordeaux, for example, had a regular connection to Lourdes, as well as specials. Prayer, penitence and faith in the Immaculate Conception were simple and powerful distinguishing elements. Admittedly the other pilgrimages, particularly La Salette, bore

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witness by miracles, but Lourdes became symbolic in the eyes of the public. Medical science was called upon to investigate the miracle cures. A medical bureau examined all miraculous cases. Dr Boissarie, an honest, meticulous doctor, wrote a very rich medical history of Lourdes. This phenomenon coincided with nineteenth-century research, with Charcot and his analyses of hysteria, which were cited by sceptics. Zola wrote very powerfully on the subject. Lourdes opened the way to mystery, but also to scientific debate; in any case, science is cited by Boissarie, who provides a medical history of those miracles that were recognised by the Church. Lourdes is therefore a summation of the great French pilgrimages and of the great reconciliation with the Holy See, the symbol of simple faith invoking spirituality in the midst of modernity. The important nineteenth-century pilgrimages shared these features, but their destinations seem more precise and less universal and ecclesial than Lourdes. Patriotic and penitential pilgrimages such as Pontmain and those arising from the National Vow were marked by the signs of the times, but this gave them a very French character. La Salette preceded Lourdes, but its pilgrimage was tainted by politics, which was only indirectly the case with Lourdes. The success of La Salette was not comparable, but the transport links were different, as has been said. Literature played a part in the influence of Lourdes from the nineteenth century. La Salette attracted the attention of major writers such as Louis Veuillot, who gave an account of the pilgrimage, and it gave rise to two literary works produced by two great (but very personal) Catholic writers of the middle and end of the nineteenth century. In Celle qui pleure, by Léon Bloy, La Salette is regarded as the great nineteenth-century apparition, but the book was published only belatedly, in 1908. Bloy expresses his faith in this highly evocative place (one “is from” La Salette and one “goes to” Lourdes) and later he sees it as calling for a reading of the signs of the times. Huysmans is more sceptical about this apparition. His impression of La Salette, in Là-haut, ou, Notre Dame de La Salette, is negative, but at the same time he is moved by the setting and the message. However, the great literary debate did not focus on La Salette, even though it was behind his conversion. Though essential, it was more circumscribed, one might almost say more intimate, than Lourdes. That great debate was indeed about Lourdes, and it unfolded and spread in the public sphere, reflecting both the extent of the Lourdes phenomenon and the symbolism of these apparitions at a time of anticlericalism and division of public opinion on the majority religion. In any case, Huysmans’s work, dating from 1891, remained in manuscript and was not published until the 1960s. The great debate was between Emile Zola, the gifted spokesman for the sceptics, and Dr Boissarie. But above all, in the literary domain, between Zola and Huysmans. Zola’s work, Lourdes, was part of the “three cities” trilogy. He was already recognised as an accomplished player. His book, a “play in five acts”, describes a pilgrimage in a very readable style, a testimony that is at once precise, documentary and committed, and was carefully published in 1894. This work was the object

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of much debate, particularly with Dr Boissarie. Zola’s infinite respect for the pilgrims contrasts with his thesis on Bernadette’s hallucination. Lourdes therefore remained controversial, a sign of society that could not be ignored. The book, which was a bestseller, had a resurgence in 1906 with Huysmans’s Les foules de Lourdes,9 in which the author is more struck by the pilgrimage than by the mystery of Lourdes, which he ultimately found less affecting than La Salette. Lourdes was a symbol, a call to action, a touchstone for this religious dimension of France in the nineteenth century. Before we conclude, let us try to go back over the specific situation of the great pilgrimages in France, and in particular the singularly significant and eloquent case of Lourdes. Like the other pilgrimages, it was situated in a divided country, where scepticism and then open challenging of religion were accompanied by political attitudes imbued with it. The “two Frances” confronted each other and each used its arguments to influence the other. Scientism versus religion? Progress versus tradition? A little later, it was the State without the Church. The interdependence of religion and the nation was revealed in the conflict, but with very different inflections. The Lourdes apparitions constituted a clear Catholic response in the spirit of the papacy, and they combined physical cures and a spiritual message. They offered a spiritual, Marian approach to a fallen world, a response to questions founded on faith. Zola was well equipped to present a scientific critique of the miracle with the idea of hallucinations; the Church responded by emphasising the coherence of Bernadette’s account. The debate between Zola and Boissarie on the miracles reiterated the arguments case by case. The intention in Lourdes was to put the debate on a scientific and medical footing, without concessions or bias. In fact, Zola delivered a very critical account case by case, and Boissarie tried to answer him case by case in a conference held at the Cercle de Luxembourg.10 The literary and scientific debates were not conducted in a classical manner. Lourdes was a true symbol of that golden age of apparitions in France. Zola was convinced of it, as he wrote: “It was not the Immaculate Virgin that appeared, but the Immaculate Conception, the abstraction itself, the dogma, so one could wonder whether the Virgin would have spoken like that”.11 This specificity, strongly defended by the Church, indicates what the latter regarded as the terms of the battle: the new spirituality of the nineteenth century versus scientism. The nature of the site was also distinctive. The apparition took place on the outskirts of a typical small town of the time, with no lack of personalities: Zola described it as a pious little town. And yet . . . the place was predisposed towards this struggle between the two Frances, which in many cases originated during the Revolution. The seat of Tarbes, a constitutional diocese, was suppressed by the Concordat; it had then come under the authority of the diocese of Bayonne and had only been reconstituted in 1822. It was an area served to a large extent by the constitutional clergy and its bishop Molinier, who left many such priests in post. In Lourdes the parish priest Condat, who refused to retract his constitutional oath,

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remained in place until 1830. The atmosphere was one of division when the constitutionalist priest Carrère was installed in turn, and then, having been dismissed by the bishop, joined Abbé Chatel’s schism. After a year of interdict in Lourdes, Abbé Laurence, the future bishop of the apparitions, restored obedience as interim parish priest. Twenty years before the events in Lourdes, there could be no better illustration of the great religious divide in France. The apparitions of the Immaculate Conception fully restored the Roman allegiance of Lourdes, so dear to contemporary popes.

Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Chélini, Les pèlerinages. Dupront, “Pèlerinages”. Bouflet and Boutry, Un signe dans le ciel. Angelier and Langlois, La Salette. Laurentin, Lourdes. Dupront, “Pèlerinages”. Bloy, Celle qui pleure. Laurentin and Durand, Pontmain. Huysmans, Les foules de Lourdes. Boissarie – Zola. Zola, Les trois villes: Lourdes, 108. This chapter is intended as a synthesis. A very extensive bibliography has therefore been used. A mere selection of works is presented here so as not to overload the text.

Sources and bibliography12 Angelier, F., and C. Langlois, eds. La Salette: Apocalypse, pèlerinage et littérature (1856–1996). Grenoble: Éditions Jérôme Millon, 2000. Bloy, L. Celle qui pleure: (Notre Dame de la Salette). Paris: Societé du Mercure de France, 1908. Boissarie – Zola, Conference du Louxembourg. Paris: Maison de la Bonne Presse, 1895. Bouflet, J., and P. Boutry. Un signe dans le ciel: Les apparitions de la Vierge. Paris: B. Grasset, 1997. Chélini, J., ed. Les pèlerinages dans le monde à travers le temps et l’espace. Paris: Éditions A. et J. Picard, 2008. Dupront, A. “Pèlerinages et lieux sacrés”. In Encyclopædia Universalis, directed by C. Grégory. Vol. 12, 729–34. Paris: Encyclopædia Universalis France, 1972. Huysmans, J.-K. Les foules de Lourdes. Paris: P.V. Stock, 1906. Laurentin, R. Lourdes: Histoire authentique des apparitions. Paris: P. Lethielleux, 1961–1966. Laurentin, R., and A. Durand. Pontmain: Histoire authentique. Paris: Apostolat des Éditions, P. Lethielleux, 1970. Zola, E. Les trois villes: Lourdes. Paris: Bibliothèque-Charpentier, 1894.

7

Sacred archaeology in nineteenth-century England Isaac Sastre de Diego*

The Kent Archaeological Society held its first annual meeting in Canterbury in 1858, with the occasion accompanied by a visit to the abbey of Saint Augustine, who had brought Christianity to the British Isles over 1,200 years prior. The ruins had recently been subject to archaeological excavations, as criticism had been voiced on their state of preservation, and even desecration.1 A significant cultural movement took shape in England seeking to recover the country’s medieval past, particularly in terms of Gothic architecture, emerging at the end of the eighteenth century with the triumph of the Romantic movement2 and drawing international attention to John Ruskin within the world of academia. The taste for medieval ruins also encompassed the old tombs of great English historical characters, such as kings,3 bishops and abbots,4 prompting excavations for the exhumation of their remains, burial treasures and funeral monuments. The names of the earliest Christians in Roman Britain also came to light. In 1834, the chancel of the church of St Just-in-Penwith near Penzance was destroyed, with a granite gravestone appearing within a previous structure. One of the faces bore the inscription Selivs hic Jacet, perhaps referring to Sellyf, a leader of the community of Cornwall to have died in 325, while the other side featured a Christian monogram with the Rho. Among all of the historical tombs, however, one that particularly stands out is that of archbishop Thomas Becket in Canterbury, an early pilgrimage site in medieval England. The pilgrims who visited Becket’s remains in the Canterbury chapel acquired the typical ampullae of holy water, thus recalling an ancient ritual dating back to the earliest pilgrims of ancient Christianity visiting the sacred sites of the Holy Land and the first martyrs and holy men, such as Saint Menas in Egypt. Various ampullae belonging to these pilgrims appeared along the banks of the Thames as of the first half of the nineteenth century. Some were acquired by the British Museum, such as one dating back to the beginning of the eighth century that represented the scene of Becket’s martyrdom in relief, and which was added to the museum collections in 1921.5 Many of the pioneers of this incipient sacred archaeology emergent in the England of the Second Industrial Revolution had been educated in the

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country’s main universities, receiving a scrupulous religious education also encompassing history and art. Such an education was transformed into semi-professional hobbies cultivated by means of memberships in societies such as the Cambridge Candem Society. A member of one such society was the wealthy Alexander James B. Hope, educated at Cambridge and a lover of archaeology, who in 1843, at the tender age of 23, led excavations to the abbey of Saint Augustine in order to recover the original foundations of the monastery dating back to the sixth century AD, including the Anglo-Saxon church. For Hope, this was not only a question of uncovering the archaeological remains, but also harnessing them to revive the residents’ old monastic life, an intangible element more complex than mere contemplative delight, an evocative walk among the ruins of old, sacred places or mere historical interest, to which I will return later. The loyalty to medieval religiosity and the search for the authenticity of earlier times was one of the premises for the pioneers of sacred archaeology in circles such as that of the Candem Society, with this reflected in the parallel growth in pilgrimage culture, expanding even further in the following decades. Recently, Kathryn Barush6 has drawn attention to such a phenomenon, which arose within the search for authentic medieval environments, so suggestive to both artists and writers. For Barush, the force of the visual – so characteristic of Romantic artists – played a role in the rebirth of Christian spirituality, which was fundamentally Catholic. Within this environment, William Blake stands out as an example of a pilgrim artist to have returned to the original faith, an idea perfectly represented in his 1808 fresco “Sir Jeffrey Chaucer and the Nine and Twenty Pilgrims on their Journey to Canterbury”. Blake’s passionate interest in the mystic writers of the Spanish Baroque was no accident, among them Saint Teresa of Ávila and her “internal pilgrimage”, encompassing a metaphorical journey and introspective immersion of the soul that aimed to arrive at an authentic, intimate faith. Barush reflects on this alongside the movement to return to Catholic Britain, accompanied by a revival of the images of contemplation and devotion of medieval England. This situation is in no way related to the one to have dominated England (just like continental Europe) the previous century, in which the great archaeological discoveries focused on Roman Britain and ancient classical culture as a model to be imitated, also promoted by the Antiquarian Society of London. Findings of Roman ruins – such as the Stonesfield mosaic in 1712, the baths and the temple of Minerva in Bath in 1727 and the villa of Cotterstock in 1736 – reflected the main interests of scholars and antique dealers,7 while the scarce evidence of primitive Christianity was reduced to incidental findings of objects, noteworthy although without context. Such was the case of the Risley and Corbridge plates found in 1729 and 1735 respectively, perhaps more valued for the precious materials with which they were made (silver) than for their religious and functional significance, despite the interesting inscriptions8 and the ambiguous

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iconography – Christian and pagan – that both represent, and that locates them in a time so early and crucial to the triumph of the Church and the process of definitive Christianisation of the Roman aristocracy in the west of the Empire as was the second half of the fourth century AD.9 And yet, despite the pieces’ enormous historic value, which revealed something of the process by which Christianity was introduced to Roman Britain and the use of iconography that was still mixed in the earliest liturgical and sacred objects employed by these primitive Christian communities, scholars of the Antiquarian Society such as Stukeley came to question the British origins of these objects, suggesting that they had been brought from the continent to the British Isles during one of the historic episodes of the Middle Ages, such as the Hundred Years’ War.10 As has been demonstrated, the ideological and cultural environment of the nineteenth century was very different. The aforementioned Catholic Revival would have been related to the publication of the Catholic Emancipation Act in 1829, which facilitated the rehabilitation of images representing historically recognised religious events, traditions in which material objects, rosaries and other liturgical elements, especially relics, were restored to a prominent position in the personal means of experiencing religiosity and faith. These are sacred spaces and sacred objects, such as those exhibited in Canterbury. Container and content were reunited, thus transcending a mere scientific or analytical gaze, in the emergence of British sacred archaeology. Definitively speaking, we may say that such an environment gave rise to a new iconodulist mentality, a form of idolatry that allowed for a repositioning on the map of old monuments, chapels and other cult spaces, sacred spaces definitively converted into centres attracting old and new believers, as well as the curious, those searching for fantasies and legends and lovers of ruins. This new cultural dimension in which the sacred archaeology developed did not only affect the traces of primitive Christian architecture, but also the sacred objects they held, including old hagiographic legends, such as that of Joseph of Arimathea,11 which gained popularity in the nineteenth century, reviving the immaterial, spiritual significance it had lost for many centuries.12 In this sense both the allegorical and the real and the historical and the mythicised became intertwined in a revision of the traditional religious manifestations. The excavations of Saint Augustine not only attracted antiquity scholars; the archaeological site became a leading centre for pilgrimage thanks to its enduring sacred character, with the search for the remains of the primitive alter, the crypts and the founding relics one of the main aims of the archaeological excavations prolonged throughout the early decades of the twentieth century. New findings related to Thomas Becket also re-sparked interest in the figure. In 1876, Materials for the History of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury was published by J.C. Robertson. Twelve years later the bones and skull of an adult male were exhumated in a burial in Canterbury, believed to be Becket’s remains.13 The debate on their correspondence

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extended into most of the twentieth century, as the exact location of the tomb had been uncertain since the sixteenth century, when in 1538 Henry VIII ordered the destruction of England’s chapels. The discovery of the remains, at a relatively shallow depth, was close to the original location of Becket’s tomb. The history of sacred excavations, such as those carried out in the abbey of Saint Augustine in Canterbury, reveal the notable contribution of personal and private initiatives to the birth of Christian archaeology in England during the nineteenth century. This boost effectively represented a claim to wide social groups and contrasted with the contemporary movements to have developed in Mediterranean countries of Catholic tradition. In Spain and Italy, the first steps in the discipline were under the sphere of official State institutions. The Royal Academy of the History of Spain had backed excavations at the end of the eighteenth century to the late-antique Basilica de Cabeza de Griego in Segobriga14 and the publication of the monumental work España Sagrada, under the leadership of priest Enrique Flórez, which continued into the following century. For its part, the Pontificia Commissione di Archeologia Sacra in Rome persisted, in an academic and similarly hierarchical sense, with the antique tradition initiated by the popes of the Renaissance. It is no mere anecdote that one of the findings that spurred the creation of one of the first Christian museums in Rome and by the Pontificia Commissione in 1852 was the discovery of the tomb of the popes in 1840. Many of these places which were subject to exploration were already pilgrimage hubs, such as the catacombs of Rome or Santiago de Compostela, investigated from 1878 to 1879. Others were converted into new points of arrival for pilgrims as a result of the excavations undergone. The narrow link in many with the ecclesiastical hierarchy is noteworthy. This relationship might have influenced the critical gaze of the pilgrims and Anglo-Saxon scholars, who were mostly, although not exclusively, Protestant in culture,15 visiting the Paleo-Christian remains uncovered in the Mediterranean basin, which were largely found to be conditioned by a Catholic vision of history. In some ways, it was a period marked by the resurgence of religious differences in Europe, closely related to the dawn of the nationalist movements and the historical claims among countries of varying faiths. During the second half of the nineteenth century, however, the interest in Christian antiquities came to transcend the traditional denominational controversies, with the vision becoming increasingly scientific, as demonstrated by the excavation of the Church of Silchester in 1892. This exemplary investigation was carried out by Hope and the Society of Antiquaries and documented the remains of the altar and the possible baptistery of one of Christianity’s oldest religious buildings, dating back to the second third of the fourth century.16 Meanwhile, the spirituality accompanying the object of study also grew. It is no mere anecdote that British academics and religious leaders founded the Palestine Exploration Fund in 1865 and the Biblical Archaeology Society in 1870.17 A decade after the discovery of Silchester, James Charles Wall wrote

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his works dedicated to the earliest churches and sanctuaries of the English saints,18 including the recently discovered church, emphasising the finding of its altar, which was marked by a polychrome square mosaic of red, black and white tiles, and the early chronology of the church, which was linked to nothing less than the earliest Constantine basilicas in Rome. A member of the Royal Historical Society, the British historian also remarked upon another finding made at Silchester, in the form of a Roman stamp with a Constantine monogram. Wall’s work culminated in 1920 with his book dedicated to the earliest Christians in Roman Britain, in which primitive cults and their pilgrimages play a leading role. Wall compiled the traditions of all of the saints to have stepped on British soil: Saint Peter and Saint Paul, James, Philip, Aristobulus, Lucius and Saint Joseph of Arimathea, of course. He also discussed the persecutions of the earliest bishops in Roman Britain, and finally, the ancient pilgrims, who “identified themselves with the ideals of the Catholic Church”.19 Wall recalled how the Church fathers such as Saint Geronimo relied upon the presence of pilgrims from the islands in the Holy Land despite the distance and the many obstacles the undertaking involved, overcome thanks to the fervor and devotion instilled in the people thanks to their bishops’ attendance at the Church councils.20 However, also among these early pilgrimages between the islands were those to sites already identified as holy between Roman Britain and Scotland and Ireland, in a harmonious communion of faith that united the three territories21 and an example of the primitive religious union among the islands, perhaps expressed with another intention by the author. Among the examples of these pilgrims, Wall cited old stories of heroic travel embarked upon “for the love of souls”, such as that of Saint Cybi, who, along with 12 disciples, crossed the Irish Sea in a fragile boat, striking the rocks on the coast of Carnarvonshire, with Wall remarking that the remains of the shipwreck could still be visited on the island known by the name of Cyngar, who was Saint Cybi’s uncle. The relationship between the development of sacred archaeology and that experienced by the religious movements at least as of the mid-nineteenth century is well known. These movements viewed medieval archaeology as that which best represented Christianity, but were also able to reconcile scientific interests with the spiritual, as for example occurred in the restoration of a thirteenth-century bishop’s tomb in Chichester in 1846, when works encountered pilgrims’ staffs.22 It must be mentioned that it was within this context that souvenirs and devotional objects for pilgrims came back into fashion.

Conclusion At its origins, as early as the second third of the nineteenth century, Christian archaeology in Great Britain emerged as a discipline with a great semantic wealth. The search for the oldest traces of the first Christians in Roman Britain was not instigated only from a purely scientific or historical perspective,

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reinforced by the development of positivism. Nor did it arise solely under the Romantic influence, which it nonetheless fed upon. This early sacred archaeology was accompanied by a sincere intention to revive the primitive Christian life, with such a vocation also driving and revitalising pilgrim activity to sacred sites, the maximum expression of the true experience of Christian life. Pilgrimages were one of the most unique characteristics of the earliest Christians, an authentic expression of their beliefs to have materialised in the acquisition and use of a series of objects representing this experience of connection between the pilgrim and the sacred, with many of these objects accompanying their holders to their deaths, forming a fundamental part of their grave goods. This other intangible dimension has frequently been neglected by the modern scientific community, which has reduced the vision of the origins of the discipline to an era characterised almost exclusively by an interest in the findings of objects that enriched the funds of national museums and private collections; a long period that would have extended until World War I and have contrasted with the development of archaeology as a true science, supported by scientific methods and analysis allowing for the distinguishing of historical reality from myths and the material and social context from mere objectual interest.23 This is not the case, however, at least not for this type of archaeology. The analytical development of the humanities in the second half of the twentieth century ignored, or at least undervalued, the intangible character possessed by any kind of historical heritage, and which, in its way, was present in this earliest sacred archaeology. Nowadays, as national laws and the main international bodies such as UNESCO have begun to value the concept of intangible cultural heritage, particularly in the wake of the 2003 Paris Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage, this reveals the importance – particularly from an intangible point of view – of the recovery of the traces of Christianity initiated in the mid-nineteenth century, and that were closely linked to the beginnings of the Romantic movement, the consequent interest in medieval architecture and the so-called Gothic Revival. This helped consolidate the bases of another revival, this one of a spiritual character transcending the powerful visual image of the Romantic ruin traditionally associated with the recovery of medieval remains, and in which pilgrimages to primitive sacred sites of Anglo-Saxon Christianity played a prominent role. This intimate and profound concept accompanied another of a more ideological and public character, that of national identity, fostered by visits to the iconic sites of the English Middle Ages, serving as a cultural-historical tour of those considered to be the bases of the origin of the English nation to have persisted to the present day.

Notes * Subdirección General del Instituto del Patrimonio Cultural de España, Ministry of Culture and Sport; [email protected]. 1 Sparks, “The Recovery”, 325–7.

144 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

12

13 14 15 16 17

18 19 20

21 22

Isaac Sastre de Diego

See Gerrard, “The Medieval Revival” in this volume. Wall, The Tombs. Scalia, “The Grave”. Jeffs, “Pilgrim Souvenir”. Barush, “Concepts”. Particularly the three volumes of Horsley, Britannia Romana. The Risley plate featured the well-known inscription “Exsuperius episcopus ec(c)lesiae Bogiense dedit [symbol of the Chrismon]”. Frend, The Archaeology, 27. Ibid., 28. According to which, Joseph of Arimathea would have been the figure to introduce the authentic relic of the blood of Christ to the British Isles, which he had collected himself on Mount Calvary and which came to be kept in Glastonbury Abbey, founded after his long pilgrimage through Gaul to Britannia. Refuted by William Camden in his encyclopaedia Britannia, published in Latin in 1607. Although Camden was able to publish his monumental work on the ancient history of the British Isles far from the censorious eyes of the Catholic orthodoxy, and despite his use of a proto-scientific approach collecting all of the known evidence, in harmony with other great humanists of the continent (such as Ambrosio de Morales in Spain in the second half of the sixteenth century), the work lacks the critical spirit required for tackling the construction of the national identity, lending credibility to some legends such as that of the Britons’ Trojan descendance, or the existence of a pre-Christian monotheism taught by the Druids, which helped spur the islands’ Christianisation process. This idea stuck for most of the seventeenth century, and was also supported by Stukeley, who sustained in his Paleographica Sacra of 1763 that Abraham had been the first ever Druid. Butler, The Quest. Cornide, “Noticia”. According to Barush in Art and the Sacred, the Emancipation Act of 1829 sparked an interest in pilgrimages to European chapels and a desire to re-establish a tradition to have been lost in the British Isles; Barush, Art, 7. Fox and Hope, “Excavations”, 563–8. Speight, “A Gentlemanly Pastime”. In this light, William Frend’s opinion is interesting: “The era of Vatican I was not friendly to independence of mind and scholarly research. Only a few like Louis Duchesne were able to hold in tension loyalty to the Roman Catholic Church and scientific integrity. This outlook boded ill for the peace of Europe, with Prussia (and, for Lavigerie, England) representing ‘Protestantisms’ and France, with its unrequited claim to AlsaceLorraine, ‘Catholicism’. In the midst of these continental storms we turn with some relief to a more harmonious field of New Testament and Early Christian studies opened up by the work of W.M. Ramsay and his British and American colleagues in Asia Minor”. Frend, The Archaeology, 86. Wall, Shrines of British Saints. Wall, The First Christians, 71. “The difficulties of such long journeys in those days cannot now be imagined; but the fervour that carried the bishops afar to attend the councils of the Church, infused a spirit which surmounted all obstacles to the devotion of the people”. Ibid. Ibid., 72. “On the surface lay fragments of hazel wands, or branches, such, probably, as pilgrims were accustomed to cut by the way, and suspend around the shrine, in

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token of zealous devotion”. “Archaeological Intelligence”, 262. See Gerrard, “The Medieval Revival” in this volume. 23 Frend, The Archaeology, 388.

Sources and bibliography “Archaeological Intelligence”. The Archaeological Journal 3 (1846): 255–70. Barush, K. Art and the Sacred Journey in Britain, 1790–1850. Abingdon: Routledge, 2019. Barush, K. “Concepts of Pilgrimage and Image in Nineteenth-Century Britain”. In Art and the Sacred Journey in Britain, 1790–1850, edited by K. Barush, 2–8. Abingdon: Routledge, 2019. Butler, J. The Quest for Becket’s Bones: The Mystery of the Relics of St Thomas Becket of Canterbury. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995. Camden, G. Britannia, sive Florentisimorum regnorum Angliae, Scotiae, Hiberniae, et insularum adiacentium et ex intima antíquitate cronographica desscriptio. Londini: Impensis Georgii Bishop & Ioannes Norton, 1607. Cornide, J. “Noticia de las antigüedades de Cabeza del Griego, reconocidas de orden de la Real Academia de la Historia”. Memorias de la Real Academia de la Historia 3 (1799): 71–244. Fox, G.E., and W.H. St J. Hope. “Excavations on the Site of the Roman City of Silchester, Hants, in 1892”. Archaeologia: Or, Miscellaneous Tracts Relating to Antiquity 53, no. 2 (1893): 539–73. Frend, W.H.C. The Archaeology of Early Christianity: A History. London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1996. Horsley, J. Britannia Romana: Or, the Roman Antiquities of Britain. London: John Osbornand and Thomas Longman, 1732. Jeffs, A. “Pilgrim Souvenir: Ampulla of Thomas Becket”. British Art Studies 6 (2017). Accessed 9 September 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.17658/issn.2058-5462/ issue-06/ampulla. Scalia, C. “The Grave Scholarship of Antiquaries”. Literature Compass 2, no. 1 (2005): 1–13. Sparks, M. “The Recovery and Excavation of the St. Augustine’s Abbey Site, 1844–1947”. Archaeologia Cantiana 100 (1984): 325–44. Speight, S.J. “A Gentlemanly Pastime: Antiquarianism, Adult Education and the Clergy in England, c.1750–1960”. History of Education 40, no. 2 (2011): 143–55. Stukeley, W. Paleographia Sacra: Or Discourses on Sacred Subject. London, 1763. Wall, J.C. The First Christians of Britain. London: Talbot & Co., 1920. Wall, J.C. Shrines of British Saints. London: Methuen, 1905. Wall, J.C. The Tombs of the Kings of England. London: Sampson Law & Co., 1891.

8

The path to pilgrimage* Travel and devotion in the British press Milagrosa Romero Samper

In 1873, the Earl of Norfolk led the first national pilgrimage to Paray-leMonial in France. Although the expedition (organised by Cook’s) took advantage of new travel facilities, “convenience” and “modernity” were not always appreciated by a national press that criticised and even mocked pilgrimages. Furthermore, the onslaught of news items on pilgrimages that year (1,979 in the 28 newspapers consulted) not only confirms the importance of the press to the study of British anti-Catholicism,1 but also demonstrates that interest in the phenomenon – in the midst of the Catholic revival – may have had more complex roots.2

Renewed anti-Catholicism and a new religious sensibility Traditional British anti-Catholicism was sparked by the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829, and, more particularly, the restoration of the Catholic hierarchy in 1850. With other episodes (the “Roman question”,3 the declaration of papal infallibility and the Irish question), “Papal Aggression” prompted a breed of conspiratorial paranoia that neither Disraeli nor Gladstone were able to escape.4 Indeed, anti-Catholicism of a political nature may be added to another popular type, fed by the stereotypes spread by the Gothic novel5 and travel books (such as those of George Borrow and Richard Ford on Spain), by preachers such as Gavazzi and Achilli, and by the anti-Catholic organisations which had proliferated since 1830.6 All of this resulted in outbreaks of violence, endemic in Ireland, and spurred the Party Processions Act, in place until 1872 and which undoubtedly influenced the Protestant view of Catholic processions and pilgrimages. Other cultural factors also offset this negative vision, however, particularly among the educated classes. The travellers of the Grand Tour grew to appreciate sacred art, lamenting the destruction of heritage during the Reform and the French Revolution.7 The taste for antiquarian and the Gothic Revival had positively influenced travellers and artists travelling to Italy since the Holy Year of 1825, shifting their view on Catholicism. Literature on travel and shipwrecks, and more particularly the Romantic poets, also helped spread the ascetic concept of travel, in which hardship and danger were to

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be overcome in order to attain transcendence, just like in pilgrimages.8 Artists such as William Blake, the Ancients and the Pre-Raphaelites explored these ideas in their art, while the Victorian public – also familiar with John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress and the moral values incarnated by Pugin’s neoGothic architecture – eyed the figure of the pilgrim with curiosity.

The pilgrimage-mania: “the rivalry of shrines” The interest in the novelty of pilgrimages was not limited to the British Isles (with their history of reform and persecution). During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, enlightened, Jansenist Catholicism had attempted to reform “deviant” popular piety to varying degrees of success. It was only upon the closure of the revolutionary, war-time cycle in 1825 that Pope Leo XII proclaimed the first Holy Year since 1775, thus reviving pilgrimages. The sequence of apparitions of the Virgin Mary in Paris (1830), La Salette (1846) and Lourdes (1858) sparked a new pilgrimage phenomenon, although the historic sanctuaries did not cease to benefit. France took the lead, especially in the wake of the traumatic episodes of 1870, which reinforced among believers the sense of atonement and the need to retrace their Christian roots. British Catholics had to wait for their situation to be normalised before organising pilgrimages in and outside the British Isles. This opportunity also arrived in 1873, when the Young Men’s Catholic Association organised the first national pilgrimage to Canterbury. Paray was next, followed in the years to come by other sanctuaries in France, England and Scotland. The strong historical and political content of pilgrimages in the United Kingdom must be emphasised, as a reclamation of the country’s Catholic history in light of the exclusionary Protestant narrative. This entailed real demonstrations of force, such as in 1885 when 15,000 Catholics “invaded” Westminster Abbey in order to worship at the tomb of Edward the Confessor.9 The British press abounds with references to this new “devotional” trend, particularly as a result of the English pilgrimage of 1873 to Paray-le-Monial.10 For British Catholics, Paray was, with Lourdes and Rome, the vertex of a pilgrimage triangle formed at least until 1900,11 although it came to lose ground from 1880. Support from the Pope12 cannot fully account for the enormous popularity of these initiatives, especially those of a fledgling nature, throwing the more traditional ones into the shade. The British press referred to the phenomenon with a particularly apt term: “The rivalry of the shrines”. Formerly la Salette and Paray Le Monial were in favour, but now Lourdes is all the rage. A Spanish paper lately complained bitterly that France has almost the monopoly of miracles, and that Spaniards go to the shrine of Lourdes, whereas native saints – Saint James of Compostela, Our Lady of Atocha, and the Black Virgin of Pilar – amply sufficed during centuries for their fathers.13

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The “fever” for apparitions resulted in several hoaxes, such as in Ballesdorf, Alsace,14 or in London’s district of Holloway, in an urban and decidedly unromantic context.15 Such news sought to disqualify the apparitions and the miracles that, as with spiritualism, were presented as the result of industrial society’s “hunger” for supernatural phenomena, in which atheism had left people’s minds “empty, swept and garnished, ready for the occupation of other spirits worse than the first”.16 The strongest objection to modern pilgrimages was, however, directed at their lack of spiritual content, as opposed to traditional sanctuaries and their “pardons”. In August 1880 complaints were made of the first national pilgrimage to Lourdes organised by the Duke of Norfolk,17 spurning as it did the traditional destinations of Canterbury, Walsingham and Compostela. The criticism was aimed at the Gothic Revival and the political connotations of Paray, which was devoid of meaning to the English: “Nobody that we know of is oppressing the Duke of Norfolk, and certainly nobody in France”.18 Pilgrimages to Mecca, in which pious Muslims travelled with a bottle of water and a sack of dried peas, were, however, considered dignified, with such pilgrims facing all kinds of discomfort and danger in their aim to accomplish a purely spiritual target.19 Ancient pilgrimages were not exempt from criticism, although their element of adventure held a certain appeal. In 1892, Zola’s plan to visit Lourdes in order to document and “collect materials” for a future novel was announced, a new Chaucer.20 In short, to the most critical British journalists, the worst aspect of modern pilgrimages was not so much that they were based on superstitions, but that they very often concealed political rather than religious motives, as well as being undertaken with all comforts, thus lacking the very spirit of penitence that ought to be their hallmark.

1873, Paray-le-Monial Background to the religious question in France and controversy The defeat to Prussia, violence in the Paris Commune and the fall of Napoleon III, the parliamentary debate in France on the new regime, the country’s consecration to the Sacred Heart and the placing of the first stone of the basilica were all amply covered in the press. To this was added the Ultramontane, monarchist party’s organisation of a pilgrimage to Paray and the proposal to include the Sacred Heart in the French flag. The English expedition to Paray-le-Monial also took place within this context, only serving to heighten tensions. The expedition was announced on 31 July 1873 and set to embark on 2 September, leaving a month for organisation. The official aim was to mark the bicentenary of Saint Marguerite Alacoque, although, according to Cardinal Manning, Archbishop of Westminster, who supported this secular initiative, it was, in fact, an act affirming the Catholic faith, offering support

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for French and Belgian Catholics and prayers for the state of Europe.21 The British press came to highlight this political facet of the expedition, due to its link with other European Catholics and the Ultramontane Party. A consensus grew on accounting for the Catholic “revival” in France as a reaction to the revolutionary period, a reaction that was deemed wholly unnecessary in England. The Roman question was the first to occupy the pages of the British press. In early May 1873, “a new pilgrimage” was announced for the following month organised by Belgian Jesuits and clergy in order to plead for the restoration of the Pope’s temporal power.22 The debates on the future regime in the National Assembly did, however, displace the focus onto France. At the end of June, General Charette – to have marched around Paris two years prior with the white flag of the monarchists shouting “Vive le Roi!”23 – now led the Papal Zouaves, who aimed to place their banner in the sanctuary at Paray-le-Monial in order that France “should be regenerated when its divine heart was painted on our flag”.24 The following Sunday, 45 French deputies and some 6,000 to 8,000 people made their way to Paray.25 Welcomed with enthusiastic shouts of “Long live the Assembly!” and “Long live France!”, no trouble arose, despite the electric atmosphere.26 Such a gesture did indeed take place in the midst of debate on the religious question and on civil burials, held by Les Enfants de la Veuve, who wearing red tunics prevented family members of atheists from celebrating Christian rites.27 Charette was supported by the Catholic civil and religious authorities, who used their convening powers and organised discounts from rail companies, bringing together some 20,000 pilgrims, an unprecedented success that inspired the pilgrimages of the months to come. In order to dispel any doubts on the organisers’ political intentions, at a moment in which France’s political regime was under discussion, the London Daily News printed the hymn sung with fervour by the pilgrims: “Royal Henry! Sovereign dear, Return, we pray, to our relief: Deign to lend a fav’ring ear To Gallia in her hour of grief . . .”.28 The enthusiasm was to culminate in the erection of the future Sacré-Coeur in Montmartre, the former stronghold of the Communards. The correspondent of the Pall Mall Gazette did not seem to find the initiative strange, as faith had already conquered the Panthéon and La Madeleine in skeptical Paris.29 He also closely followed the parliamentary controversy between the anti-clerics and the Ultramontanes on France’s consecration to the Sacred Heart and the placement of the first stone on 15 August, the anniversary of the Jesuits’ founding in the same spot.30 The “religious question” and the restoration of the monarchy in France found a corollary in recently unified Italy with the “Roman question”.

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The defence of the rights of the “Pope-King” caused evident alarm in the new kingdom ruled by the Savoy: The journals have narrated the language of the pilgrims of Paray-leMonial, asking for the re-establishment of the Pope-King, and praying God to save Rome and France – which means, in plain language, to drive King Victor Emmanuel and his Governement from the new capital . . . Italy cannot put up with the provocations, insults and menaces which are addressed to her by fanatical pilgrims.31 The demonstrations of support for the Pope-King were not only, however, produced in the neighbouring country, but also in others experiencing similar unrest at the time, such as Spain, or those similarly agitated by the Catholic Revival, such as Scotland.32 We may therefore deduce that behind the prohibition on pilgrimages to Assisi for health reasons (due to the Cholera epidemic) may have been another concern.33 The English pilgrimage to Paray-le-Monial was not to be an exception in this context of generalised agitation, as may be perceived in the final verse of the hymn composed ad hoc by Lady Georgina Fullerton: “Let heart and voice join in the prayer That swells the breeze for Peter’s dome: ‘Oh, by thy Heart, Thy Sacred Heart, Jesus, save England, France and Rome’”.34 Although Spain is not mentioned in the hymn, it does appear in an incendiary article signed by a so-called Gracchus. In light of the Cantonal rebellion and the crisis among the Republican governments, this English revolutionary upheld that the brave Spanish people had expelled “the harlot Isabel”, in order to achieve authentic self-governance, free from aristocrats and conservatives, although to do so they had to divide the country into federal states, communes or cantons, “and shed oceans of blood”.35 The savagery of the language and the radicalism of the approaches helped feed fear among the loyalists and conservatives in general, as well as attracting sympathy for Paray from a public alarmed by the revolutionary uprisings. This seems to have been the case among the United Kingdom’s Catholics, for whom the horizon (in the wake of the regulatory measures of 1830 and 1850) did not seem so ominous. Echoes of the “Papal Aggression” resounded in the opinion of a commentator who, without sharing the ideas expressed by “Gracchus”, warned of the dangers of adopting the other end of the extreme to the Commune’s anarchist and sacrilegious tyranny. If the pilgrimages were a reaction to the revolution and a demonstration in favour of the monarchic cause, this meant that the latter was in the hands of a prince who had learnt nothing from the era’s spirit of progress and enlightenment, and who would once

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again subject France to the stranglehold of the Ultramontane influence and to superstition.36 The nature of the devotion to the Sacred Heart and the Catholic revival in France “Superstition” is the word generally used to describe the apparitions in Paray-le-Monial, La Salette or Lourdes, with several nuances. As for Paray, the standard practice is to speak of the origin of the devotion in a relatively neutral fashion, before inserting a contemptuous remark. The Sheffield Daily Telegraph, for example, published two articles on the same day that were long and oppositional in tone, with the first using hagiographic terms to describe the life of Saint Marguerite-Marie de Alacoque, and the second an ironic tone to discuss to the most suitable journalist for covering the pilgrimage, which seemed in itself “ridiculous”.37 Other journalists made derogatory comments on the saint’s physical and psychological state: “A mind prone to brooding in solitude, set in a body enervated by sickness and abused by self-persecution, admirably adapted her for seeing visions and dreaming dreams, and the tendency had begun to develop itself before she took the veil”,38 “This nun, who was probably insane, professed to have been visited by our Savior in bodily presence”,39 “cataleptic girl”40 or jokes such as those published by Punch.41 The opinion among Catholic journalists was naturally more favourable, focusing on the devotion itself and recognising the saint “to have been a sincere, if mistaken enthusiast, and who certainly has succeeded in initiating a religious movement”.42 If devotion in itself largely escaped criticism, this is undoubtedly because it was in harmony with the various religious revivals. Among the pilgrims was an important member of the High Church, undoubtedly a Ritualist, who, when challenged by a journalist responded: “Why should not an Anglican . . . proclaim before an infidel and skeptical world his love and devotion to the adorable Heart of the Saviour?”.43 The call to pilgrimage often reminded people of the popularity of the cult of the Sacred Heart, particularly in Ireland, although there was a lack of consensus over its spread in France, where the de-Christianisation process which took place in the wake of the Revolution had left its mark. An English woman residing in Burgundy commented that the local people were very familiar with the saint, but not the Sacred Heart, whom they referred to as “the other saint”. The motives for going to the sanctuary ranged from those held among peasants (God is angry and will ruin our harvests) to those more political and patriotic (pray for France, to get us into government). People also paid visits to please their masters, for pure leisure purposes or for fear of what the neighbours might think.44 There were also mixed opinions on the urban working classes. During the mid-August pilgrimage to Notre Dame de Liesse, the presence of only around 100 Parisian labourers demonstrated, for the correspondent of the

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London Evening Standard, that such manifestations were not as spontaneous and multitudinous as the Ultramontane Party and the General Pilgrimage Council had hoped for. Although the advertising brochures promised return travel, food and fresh air, far from the “odeurs de Paris”, the response was lukewarm. According to the same correspondent, pilgrimages to different sanctuaries coinciding with the Unionist monarchist operation had, on the other hand, overstretched the rail lines: 1,600 pilgrims left Reims for Notre Dame de Liesse, where they met 7,000 members of the Circles of Catholic Labourers, soldiers inspired by the eloquence of the Loyalist Count of Mun, along with the military bands accompanying the processions.45 Another news item claimed that the Labourers’ Circles, relaunched by Mun, would not be very successful despite the variety of recreational and educational pursuits they offered: “Adolescent adults in the prime of life are scarce at this plebeian club, which is in bad odour in the Paris workshops, where it goes by the name of nursery for mouchards and tartuffes”.46 For the Pall Mall Gazette, however, the de-Christianisation process was somewhat superficial: France was a superstitious country, and the revolution had merely established a new cult. The Republicans criticising the Sacred Heart forgot that 1793 had seen the imposition of the adoration of the heart of Marat across the whole of France. The bust of the “martyr” was placed on display in churches and carried in processions, accompanied by the authorities in the midst of patriotic chants.47 Such excesses were difficult to forget, as were the most recent displays from the Commune. For the Irish Catholic Freeman’s Journal, “Defeat, Disaster, Disgrace, Disruption, Humiliation, Ruin” was the legacy of Philippe Égalité, Diderot, Rousseau, and especially Voltaire, “the modern Lucifer”. The cost of the “gospel of Jean-Jacques” was disaster: “The wages of sin is death”; the French had thus learnt their lesson and now the churches and sanctuaries were overflowing.48 It was not so much that the pilgrimages led to converts (even the most critical denied such a capacity), but rather that they demonstrated a generalised conversion, a revival. The aims of English pilgrimages: an act of Catholic affirmation English Catholics felt this revival as something belonging to them, even in light of the wide diversity of political circumstances. According to just what terms did the organisers conceive of the British pilgrimage to Parayle-Monial, however? First was the devotional element: the diocese of Westminster had been consecrated to the Sacred Heart in July. The pilgrimage was however presented as a secular initiative, and more specifically, produced by a committee headed by the Duke of Norfolk, the Earl of Denbigh and Lord Walter Kerr as secretary. Cardinal Manning, archbishop of the diocese, wrote a letter approving the pilgrimage and outlining its main objectives: to serve as a demonstration of faith to a skeptical world and a representation of Catholic solidarity and the power of the prayer to

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incredulous “men of culture”, as well as to make amends for the attacks levelled at the Supreme Pontiff.49 The allusion to the “men of culture” refers to the Kulturkampf. Science was considered to be incompatible with religion and the criticism of the apparitions at Paray-le-Monial appear to be scattered with mentions of scientific advances,50 with abundant attacks levelled at aristocrats who, due to their “superior education”, should be free from such superstitions. “Over-cultivation” should not, however, be confused with that “true education whose distinctive note is that it inculcates unswerving loyalty to the reason, and a resolute subjection of the emotions to its sway”.51 The Times took this concept even further: superior education was no guarantee against fanaticism, but, unlike in France, in which Protestant reform had been quelled, the population’s general education “and the inculcation for three hundred years of a reasonable religion, have done their work in England and have rendered a popular recoil into superstition impossible”. Such lunacies were “rather the fancies of the over-cultivated than the beliefs of the ignorant”.52 It is no surprise that within such a climate, the official publication representing English Catholics, the Westminster Gazette, encouraged the faithful to join the pilgrimage: “Such a public act of faith will do more than anything we can write or say to prove to an unbelieving, if not mocking world, our Christian courage as well as our perfect identity in faith and devotion with the rest of the Catholic world”.53 Such solidarity would have political implications absent from Manning’s letter: the force of the “Catholic party” in Europe needed to be harnessed in order to increase the Catholic presence in the public English sphere and in directing imperial politics.54 The British pilgrimage caused such a stir in the continent that it converged with others in Paray from the Netherlands and Belgium, as well as with groups of English Catholics resident in Geneva, Russian converts and numerous other Dutch and Belgians.55 It is curious that the abundance of material published by the press does not mention England’s conversion to Catholicism as one of the pilgrimage’s objectives. Cardinal Manning does not mention this, nor does his successor Monsignor Vaughan, the Bishop of Salford, who accompanied the expedition and promoted the consecration of his diocese to the Sacred Heart on 21 September, upon return from Paray-le-Monial. In his pastoral letter, Vaughan outlined the acts marking the bicentenary of the apparitions as “a public act of faith and devotion in the face of a mocking and unbelieving world”.56 The words concluding the expedition’s official hymn were generic (“Jesus, save England, France and Rome”), and the only reference in the general press to Great Britain’s return to the Catholic fold is the description of the chapel in Paray-le-Monial, where 16 silver lamps burnt: “One of these is for Belgium, another for the conversion of England, a third for the eventual triumph of the Church”.57 Gifted by an anonymous donor, the lamp was valued at 100 guineas and kept alight thanks to donations.58

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The other occasion explicitly mentioning England’s conversion occurred in Paray on the final day of the pilgrimage on 5 September, during a meal attended by Capel, Archbishop of Paris, Mermillod, the Bishop of Lausanne and Geneva, Monsignor Patterson, Monsignor Vaughan and other clergymen. Mermillod, elected by Pope Pius IX to reestablish the Catholic hierarchy in Switzerland, had just been expelled and was residing at the time in France, meaning his intervention was highly applauded. His long discourse stated: “He looked forward to the time when England would be restored to Catholicism, and augured much from the present pilgrimage”. Capel expressed his satisfaction at the British public’s interest in the expedition.59 Hours prior to this, during his sermon for England’s consecration to the Sacred Heart, after evoking the eras of persecution and martyrdom, he had exhorted the attendants to join heart and soul in praying God to strengthen England against non-belief and indifference by pouring upon every home and individual a spirit of sorrow, of sacrifice, and of love . . . so that truth might be spread, and the England of our day, with its mighty power and progress, be as the England of the middle ages in union and obedience with the See of Peter.60 Vaughan then read the consecration act, which he concluded by praying for the Kingdom: “Domine salvam fac Reginam nostram, Victoriam”. A demonstration of fraternity Whether for spiritual or political ends, the idea of the pilgrimage implied a quota of hardships that seemed incompatible with the modern comforts offered by the Cook agency.61 As the organisers of the expedition were well aware of this and of the shower of criticism published on the subject, they highlighted the penitential aspect of the trip. In the farewell mass held in Westminster Cathedral, Manning urged the pilgrims not to behave like highly demanding and delicate tourists, “and if they had to endure anything let them be thankful that in the work they had undertaken there was really something to endure”.62 The warning was particularly directed at the aristocrats of the organising committee (Norfolk, his relative Lord Edmund Howard, Denbigh, Kerr, Sir Charles Clifford, Lady Lothian and other ladies), although several of them travelled second class in order to be more faithful to the pilgrimage spirit.63 In an effort to attract Irish pilgrims of all social classes, congregations and guilds, the Freeman’s Journal suggested fundraising.64 The inscription period closed on 15 August, with numbers of those to have signed up made public after three days.65 The inter-class character of the pilgrimage was ambiguous as the blend of classes could be interpreted in very different ways. Norfolk was the target of

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all the attacks, as has been seen, due to his sharing of the lower classes’ beliefs, despite his superior education. Worse still: when at a banquet which he gave in Sheffield in aid of the Archaeological Society the duke decried the materialist tendencies of modern times (and of the steelmakers), the local daily newspaper claimed that he had become too isolated and did not care enough about community life, committing “political suicide” with the pilgrimage.66 The aristocrats’ voluntary decision to travel second class as an exercise in humility may also have revealed elements of classism. As, if it hadn’t already been made clear, in his aforementioned farewell sermon, Manning himself exhorted pilgrims to be strictly kindly and charitable to all . . . where multitudes came together much self-denial, much mutual charity and forbearance were often required. Lastly, they must be humble, laying aside all pomp, and state, and dignity, and inequality of the world, and counting themselves happy if the fared with the least.67 We do not know what the humble pilgrims thought, although it is possible that they came to admire the aristocrats who sacrificed comfort in order to rub shoulders with them. The Archbishop of Westminster, however, who also belonged to the upper class, knew his public well and attempted to promote a spirit of fraternity and humility that, moreover, blended with the new Victorian Catholic spirituality, closer as it was to the piety of humble people and characterised by its sentimentalism and simplicity of expression.68 Pilgrims from Ireland provided further variation to the expedition’s social makeup. Thousands of Irish Catholics had been attacked on their way to the consecration of the national cathedral in Armagh, in an incident sparking “despair for the future of our country”69 and undoubtedly serving to reinforce solidarity among the other pilgrims during their trip to Paray. A modern pilgrimage: between tourism and penitence The penitential and atonement aspect fundamental to both the Catholic and Protestant Revivals was even present in the “virtual” pilgrimages, which were met with the same or stronger criticism as the “comfortable” trips organised by Cook. The British press published the indulgence decreed by Pope Pius IX for those “visiting” in ten days the main sanctuaries of the Holy Land, Italy, France and other countries (including Paray-le-Monial and Compostela). On the same subject, the Morning Post referred to an anecdote of a rather large bishop who walked in circles accompanied by his secretary around his bedroom until he calculated they had arrived in Jerusalem; when he suggested they return by foot, the secretary said that as the hot days of summer were on their way, it would be better to return by coach.70 Leaving such “imaginary” pilgrimages aside, just what kind of penitence awaited the pilgrims, apart from living in close proximity with other

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pilgrims and attacks from the enemies to the faith? First, the brevity of the trip and the rushed nature of the programme. Departure was on the 2nd of the month, the day after the sermon and the blessing given by Manning in Westminster Pro-Cathedral. The trip would take two entire days, first to Paris and then to Paray. The return journey was to begin the same day, Thursday the 4th, the day on which the pilgrimage culminated, repeating the inverse journey to arrive in London on Saturday morning or afternoon, as the case may be.71 Every single one of the correspondents mentioned how tiring the itinerary was, beginning with the crossing of the Channel on the Marseilles, where an altar was improvised in the stern in order to celebrate mass, although the majority of the pilgrims saw their worship interrupted by sickness.72 In Paris, the blessing in the Jesuits’ church was suspended due to fatigue and the delayed arrival.73 The lengthy 15-hour journey between Paris and Paray was particularly hard-going, repeated on the way back: Fifteen hours of railway travelling following on twenty hours of rail and steamboat already! . . . For my own part, when I recalled the pleasant anticipations . . . that in these days of progress a pilgrimage was a most enjoyable affair I could almost shudder at the experience of the reality.74 The priest pilgrims also spent two nights confessing and saying mass until the early hours of the morning. Another setback were the shows of hostility encountered while the group set sail in Newhaven, where the scapulars and emblems “sadly exercised the minds” of the population, although all of them took the disturbance in good humour.75 In Dieppe, an enthusiastic crowd waving white cloths greeted the arrival of the Marseilles, although in the station and in Paris jeers were also heard among the lines of “Ouvriers at work”. The signs of adhesion throughout the journey, however, and the exalted reception in Paray made up for all the heartache.76 The greatest mortification, after fatigue, was the scarcity and poor quality of the food on offer. In Dieppe, the pilgrims were given what constituted an excellent lunch from a penitential point of view: “small bowls of discoloured water with morsels of bread floating on its tasteless surface handed round as soup, and microscopic fragments of chicken, or . . . quarter-cooked mutton”. To those who had depicted the expedition as a series of luxurious buffets, the Catholic correspondent of the Morning Post complained of the poor organisation and lack of foresight: It might surely have been permissible to enjoy a tolerable night’s rest between multiplied fatigues . . . . To content yourself for half a day with a couple of apricots or a bunch of grapes, to be only too delighted to have the chance of devouring meat without bread, or bread without meat, these are refinements of pilgrimage which might be abandoned on future occasions.77

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Women particularly suffered, although they bore it with resignation, with the aristocrats on the committee going out of their way to attend to the pilgrims. In reality, in terms of inconvenience, there was not much for the modern pilgrimage to envy in the one undertaken by the Duke of Norfolk’s ancestor to Walsingham around 1471. Worship during the journey and in the sanctuary: a new ritual The journey was marked by an intensive programme of worship, reflected in the prayer booklet handed out to each pilgrim.78 The bishops (Vaughan, Capel, Patterson and Mermillod) and the some 200 priest pilgrims participated in a variety of acts, such as the masses on the morning of the departure from Warwick Street and other London churches. With the 20 carriages of the main convoy79 having left Victoria Station at 6:15 a.m., the Itinerarium was immediately recited, the litany of the Sacred Heart, along with seven Our Fathers and Hail Marys for the Pope, the persecuted bishops and the Church. Between London and Paris, the various mysteries of the rosary were prayed in order to promote the conversion of bad Catholics, England and sinners. On steamships Alexa and Marseilles, a mass was held under the Vatican pavilion and the expedition banner, and the hymn composed by Lady Georgiana Fullerton sung.80 It was only after Rouen that an hour of silence was held for the divine offices and the private worship. The acts in Paris were cancelled due to the delay and the pilgrims’ fatigue. Nothing was reported of prayers during the long train journey the following day, probably because the day’s culminating act was the arrival to Paray in the evening,81 and the enthusiastic welcome from the crowd in the station. The nocturnal candlelit procession saw the unrolling of banners and flags that so many comments had brought up in the previous months.82 This was a new ritual, designed to underline the presence of the different nations and bodies represented in each pilgrimage. The precedent was found in the French and Belgian expeditions, in which the banners held an important symbolic value, funded by donations.83 The Scottish pilgrims carried a blue velvet flag with a St. Andrew’s cross and the national flower, the thistle, embroidered in silver, as well as a burning heart in gold, with the words Cor Jesu, miserere Scotiae.84 The Lyon silk flag at the head of the expedition was carried by the Duke of Norfolk and had been designed by a young Catholic artist called Alexander Booker.85 These flags and the British flag accompanied the pilgrims during all of proceedings, until being placed as objects of worship in the sanctuary. The big day of the pilgrimage featured other demonstrations of religious fervour. The sending of letters was understood as a means of participating in the pilgrimage. During the mass presided over by Vaughan, the priests deposited thousands of personal requests at the altar from those faithful to the Heart of Jesus, burnt at the end of the ceremony.86 This was not the

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case for another document, signed by a high number of nuns and children, retained as a souvenir. After the mass a procession to the orchard of the apparitions took place where different hymns were sung. The pilgrims’ exaltation reached a peak at this point, as they ripped leaves from the trees as “sacred relics or mementoes”.87 In the evening, the ceremony consecrating England to the Sacred Heart was held, led by Capel and Mermillod. The pilgrims then found it in themselves to hold another torch-lit procession to the Sacred Heart chapel: “The banners were borne by the members of the English aristocracy amid enthusiastic cheering”.88 The enthusiasm was maintained until the return of the first pilgrims on the morning of the 6th (many were priests that had to attend their parishes the following day, which was Sunday). Sporting scapulars and rosaries around their necks, they were warmly received at Victoria Station. Some decided to visit other sanctuaries or sightsee in Paris or cities on the coast.89 In general, the British press greeted the return of the pilgrims in a manner quite different to that with which they had announced the pilgrimage only two months prior: it was the week’s main talking point, receiving an unprecedented amount of coverage. They also highlighted the success of the organisers, the Duke of Norfolk and Archbishop Manning, who had managed to mobilise some 1,000 people and had attracted attention from the entire country.90 Far from being a picnic, the journalists who accompanied the pilgrims testified to the penitence of the expedition,91 and even the most skeptical showed their respect: Sincere and honest convictions must always command respect, and I think it is impossible to doubt the reality of the religious revival which such manifestations indicate. That of to-day was not picturesque as a spectacle, but it was impressive, and even imposing, by the fervour of one idea . . . of prayer and atonement, the outward expression of which it was difficult to witness unmoved.92 The Roman question, French politics and the criticism of the solidarity with European Ultramontanes and the affirmation of the Catholic Party in Great Britain were all left behind, as were the jokes on the comforts of modern pilgrimages. Prejudice towards Catholic “superstitions” and the cult of the Sacred Heart were also forgotten. The pilgrimage to Paray-le-Monial was deemed a success because it fulfilled the expectations of the British public: penitence, fraternal spirit, true devotion, “intensity of feeling”93 and its quality as a spectacle. The Romanesque style of the sanctuary appealed to the chroniclers, educated during the Gothic Revival. Although criticism was still voiced, Manning and Vaughan could rest easy. A large section of the British public had taken an interest in the pilgrimage’s development, and it must have changed their perception thanks to the chronicles’ distancing from anti-Catholic stereotypes, progressively substituting the word

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“superstition” for “devotion”. After Paray-le-Monial came other national expeditions to Rome, Lourdes and Santiago de Compostela, and it was thus that the path to pilgrimage was paved.

Notes * This work has been undertaken within the framework of the research project of the Spanish Government entitled “Las peregrinaciones a Santiago de Compostela en la España de la segunda mitad del siglo XIX: entre tradición y modernidad en el contexto europeo”. MINEICO, Programa Estatal de Fomento de la Investigación Científica y Técnica de Excelencia, Subprograma Estatal de Generación de Conocimiento, 2015–2017, IP: Dr. Antón M. Pazos (CSIC), HAR2014–58753-P. 1 Paz, Popular, 32–3. 2 We analysed this complexity in terms of Santiago de Compostela in Romero, “Reinventio y tradición”. 3 Riall, “Anticattolicesimo”, 40–1. 4 Norman, Anti-Catholicism, 15, 21. 5 García, “La representación”, 396–403. 6 A complete analysis may be found in Paz, Popular. 7 Barush, Art, 59–61. 8 Thompson, The Suffering. Wordworth’s Christian sources transcend the secular vision of Abrams, Natural. 9 Haldane-Grenier, “Public”, 161–2. 10 The Osservatore Romano published a news item on a pilgrimage in China, for example: “Occasional Notes”, The Pall Mall Gazette, 19 August 1873. 11 “Paray-le-Monial: A Suggested Pilgrimage”. 12 The London Daily News, 23 August 1873. 13 “The Rivalry of Shrines”. 14 “Foreign Intelligence”, The Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette. These apparitions are undoubtedly related to the Franco-Prussian War: Klein, “The Virgin With the Sword”. 15 The London Evening Standard, 5 October 1880. 16 Ibid. 17 The duke in question was the 15th Duke of Norfolk, Henry Fitzalan-Howard (1847–1917), a Unionist politician who launched philanthropic initiatives in Sheffield and who actively participated in the Catholic Church’s causes. 18 The London Daily News, 16 August 1880. 19 Ibid. Reference is made to the recent shipwreck in the Red Sea and to the overcrowding and lack of hygiene on the ships crossing the Indian Ocean. 20 The Glasgow Herald. Perhaps, the journalist observed, he wanted to taste the miraculous waters with his scrofulous characters. 21 “A Roman Catholic Pilgrimage”. 22 “A New Pilgrimage”. 23 “France”. 24 “Letter from Paris”, The Pall Mall Gazette, 23 June 1873. 25 “Foreign Intelligence”, The Morning Post. Republished by The London Evening Standard on the same day. 26 “Summary”. 27 “Letter from Paris”, The Pall Mall Gazette, 23 June 1873. 28 “News from Paris”.

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29 “Letter from Paris”, The Pall Mall Gazette, 3 July 1873. The works meant excavations could be undertaken on the Roman temples and the remains of the Christian martyrs. This is also reflected in the opposition to the new temple voiced by the Republican Gambetta and his daily newspaper. 30 “Letter from Paris”, The Pall Mall Gazette, 8 July 1873. Chaplains joining the army also came under debate. 31 “Italy and France”. 32 Pombo, “Las peregrinaciones”; McCluskey, “Scots Pilgrimage”. 33 The London Daily News, 1 August 1873. The Huddersfield Chronicle (4 August 1873) revealed these concerns in citing an article from The Lancet on “Health and Pilgrimage”: the gendarmes would have no difficulty in removing the pilgrims who arrived by foot, but what would happen to the political pilgrims arriving by train? Italy would have to wait for education to purge the exalted devotees from the shade of a looming epidemic. 34 “The English Pilgrimage to Paray-le-Monial: On Board the ‘Marseilles’”. 35 “Clerical and Political Reaction”. 36 “Foreign”, The Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer. The same religion, another daily newspaper added, would resent the decline of a cause, that of the loyalists, destined for failure. “Our Paris Letter”. 37 “Pilgrims v. Reporters”. Among other subjects, this article ironically affirms that Catholic writers are normally good “humourists”, making them especially equipped to provide information on the subject. 38 “The Shrine of the Sacred Heart”. 39 “Origin of a Romish Pilgrimage”. Republished from “Occasional Notes”, The Pall Mall Gazette, 30 July 1873. 40 “The Duke of Norfolk”. 41 “Just the difference”: “Between the Soeur Marie, and oeuf, à-la-coque, / Excepting the name, there is nothing in common. / An oeuf-à-la-coque, were it addle, would shock; / but not so the head of the à-la-coque woman. / The more addle that is, the more pilgrims, I wis, / To Paray-le-Monial she’s likely to summon”. Republished in The Burnley Gazette, 30 August 1873. 42 “The English Pilgrimage to Paray-le-Monial: Paray-le-Monial”, The Morning Post, 4 September 1873. 43 Ibid. On the pilgrims’ return, the same newspaper admitted that “The mystery of the Divine Heart is one which, in its pure allegorical sense, would recommend itself to all”, despite criticising the apparitions in themselves and the circumstances of the pilgrimage. “The End of the Paray Pilgrimage”. 44 “Peasant Pilgrims”. 45 “A Pilgrimage”. 46 “The Fusionist”. 47 “Unfortunate was the man who did not uncover as the saint went past; the maire knew how to deal with him. Many people would strike their breasts, crying, ‘Mon Dieu, Marat, tu est mort pour nous!’ And the village schoolmasters taught their pupils to sign themselves, saying, ‘Marat, amen’”. “Letter from Paris”, The Pall Mall Gazette, 27 August 1873. The Republicans had reacted and “To combat the ‘contagion of pilgrimages’ the works of Voltaire and Pascal are being published in weekly numbers at one sous”. “Our Paris Letter”. 48 “The Religious Revival”. 49 Manning’s letter was signed on 2 July, and it was reproduced in “An English” and in “The French Pilgrims”. 50 “The British Association will soon be celebrating the advancement of science, and, meanwhile, on this side of the Channel, a newspaper is publishing reports of miracles”. “The Paray-le-Monial Pilgrimages”. 51 “Pilgrims With Return Tickets”.

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52 “The English Pilgrimage to Paray-le-Monial”. Originally published in The Times and republished in The Birmingham Daily Post, 12 August 1873; and The Star, 16 August 1873. In light of the contradiction between scientific advances and the proliferation of apparitions, another reporter wrote: “This Is the Age of Miracles”, The Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 12 August 1873. 53 Republished in “News of the Day”. The correspondent in Paris even saw the future construction of a national Benedictine monastery as a possibility. 54 Republished in “English Pilgrimage to Paray-le-Monial”. 55 “The Catholic Pilgrimage to Paray-le-Monial”; “Letter from Paris”, The Pall Mall Gazette, 27 August 1873. 56 “Bishop Vaughan”. Republished in, among others, The Edinburgh Evening News, and The Nottinghamshire Guardian. 57 “Pilgrimage”. 58 “The Pilgrimage to Paray-le-Monial”, The Sheffield Independent. 59 “The Pilgrimage to Paray-le-Monial”, The Birmingham Daily Post, that republishes the chronicle dated 5 September by The Daily Telegraph. 60 “The Consecration”. 61 The first and second class tickets cost £5.00 and £2.10. Prices from Ireland were higher: £7.19, £5.19 and £4.19 for third class (The Freeman’s Journal, 26 August 1873). “Everything, no doubt, will be done, in accordance with the modern practice in these matters, to make of the pilgrimage a pleasant and comfortable excursion for all concerned in it” (“A Roman Catholic Pilgrimage”). The Examiner suggested that Cook add to the advertisement: “Miracles and Manifestations Guaranteed for a Small Additional Charge” (30 August 1873). 62 “The Pilgrimage to Paray-le-Monial”, The Morning Post. 63 “The Catholic Pilgrimage to Paray-le-Monial”. 64 “A Catholic Pilgrimage”; “Pilgrimage from Great Britain”. 65 The Freeman’s Journal insisted on inter-classism: aristocrats, members of religious orders, bishops, 50 priests and modest people (18 August 1873); The Manchester Evening News reported 100 registered for the city (19 August 1873), while the The Pall Mall Gazette claimed there were 500: “Reuter’s Telegrams”. At the end of the expedition, total figures were given of 800, 1,000 and even 1,300, taking into account that some pilgrims, especially those from Ireland, were added to the main expedition in Paris. 66 “The English Pilgrimage”, The Sheffield Daily Telegraph. This family is a fine example of the process of division and evolution shaping the ultramontanism engendered among English Catholics, as the grandfather, the XIII Duke of Norfolk, of the older party generation used to keeping a lower profile, confronted his son the XIV Duke (father of the one we are concerned with) over the creation of the Catholic hierarchy, and finally conformed to the Church of England. Paz, Popular Anti-Catholicism, 84. 67 “The Pilgrimage to Paray-le-Monial”, The Morning Post, 2 September 1873. 68 The “holy simplicity” is also linked to the mass arrival of Irish Catholic immigrants: Heiman, Catholic, 137, 156–65. The Duke of Norfolk’s identification with the popular devotions would thus be seen as a virtue. 69 The Freeman’s Journal, 26 August 1873. The events referred to took place on 22 August, ten days before the pilgrimage to Paray-le-Monial. 70 “Italy”. 71 “Pilgrimage from Great Britain”. 72 “Many a fair penitent turned her contemplations and her countenance to leeward with a genuineness of mortification an infidel could not deny. Many a venerable priest was observed to retire from the circle of his friends with a precipitation that admitted of but one explanation”. The correspondent was Catholic. “The English Pilgrimage to Paray le Monial: On Board the ‘Marseilles’”.

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73 “Considering that we had been travelling since daybreak, that we did not reach Paris until a couple of hours before midnight, and that our special train was to leave the station of the Lyons Railway at seven o’clock in the morning . . . it may reasonably be suspected that the omission of the contemplated solemnities will not be counted as a particularly grievous act of backsliding”. “The English Pilgrimage to Paray-le-Monial: Paray-le-Monial”, The Morning Post, 6 September 1873. 74 Ibid. The correspondents of The London Daily News (“The English Pilgrimage to Paray-le-Monial”, 8 September 1873) and The London Evening Standard (“The Pilgrimage to Paray-le-Monial”, 8 September 1873) shared the same impressions. 75 “The English Pilgrimage to Paray-le-Monial”, The Morning Post, 5 September 1873. 76 At the station crowds saluted the pilgrims, who for their part responded with “Vive la France” and “Vive la France catholique”. After a short address by the parish priest, they made their way to the church, without stopping to rest. “The English Pilgrimage to Paray-le-Monial: Paray-le-Monial”, The Morning Post, 5 September 1873; 6 September 1873. 77 “The English Pilgrimage to Paray-le-Monial: Paray-le-Monial”, The Morning Post, 6 September 1873. 78 Manual. 79 With 200 people waving them off, the convoy carried some 500 travellers, with another 130 from the north of England and Ireland, as well as those from the train departing from Charing Cross. “The English Pilgrimage to Paray-leMonial”, The Morning Post, 3 September 1873. 80 “The English Pilgrimage to Paray-le-Monial”, The Morning Post, 5 September 1873. Lady Georgiana, a prominent Catholic at the time, is discussed in detail by Heimann, Catholic. 81 At 5 a.m. on the 4th, a train arrived carrying more pilgrims from Tarare, awaiting another one from Nevers during the day (“The English Pilgrimage to Parayle-Monial”, The Morning Post, 5 September 1873). 82 “It was a beautiful moonlight night, and the spire of the Town-hall and several houses were brilliantly illuminated”. Ibid. 83 In Belgium the initiative was headed by the Countess of Ursel. “Belgian Catholics”. 84 “The Pilgrimage to Paray-le-Monial”, The Dundee Courier. It was embroidered by the nuns of Saint Margaret in Edinburgh. 85 The Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 28 August 1873. The Sheffield Catholic Association also had a flag, “Margaret Mary Alacoque”. Sample of the revival that sacred art enjoyed in Great Britain is the “Gothic Corner” of the Great Exhibition of 1851: Hunt, Synopsis. 86 “An Incident”. Letters to the Virgin Mary were also left in La Salette. “Foreign”. 87 “An Incident”. 88 “The English Pilgrimage to Paray-le-Monial”, The Morning Post, 6 September 1873. 89 “Paray-le-Monial Pilgrimage: Arrival of the Pilgrims in London”. 90 Ibid., republishing articles from The Times and the The Saturday Review; The Birmingham Daily Post, 8 September 1873. 91 “The English Pilgrimage to Paray-le-Monial”, The London Daily News. 92 “The Pilgrimage to Paray-le-Monial”, The London Evening Standard. 93 “As the ‘Amen’ was again and again echoed through the church few were there . . . who did not show the intensity of the feeling with which this solemn act had moved them”. “The Consecration”.

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Sources and bibliography Abrams, M.H. Natural Supernaturalism: Tradition and Revolution in Romantic Literature. Norton Library 609. New York: N.W. Norton & Company, 1971. Barush, K.R. Art and the Sacred Journey in Britain, 1790–1850. Routledge Studies in Pilgrimage, Religious Travel, and Tourism 7. London: Routledge, 2016. “Belgian Catholics”. The Bristol Mercury, 10 May 1873. “Bishop Vaughan on Dissenters and the New Pilgrimage”. The Edinburgh Evening News, 26 August 1873. “Bishop Vaughan on Dissenters and the New Pilgrimage”. The Nottinghamshire Guardian, 29 August 1873. “Bishop Vaughan on Dissenters and the New Pilgrimage”. The Pall Mall Gazette, 25 August 1873. “A Catholic Pilgrimage”. The Freeman’s Journal, 1 August 1873. “The Catholic Pilgrimage to Paray-le-Monial”. The Freeman’s Journal, 18 August 1873. “Clerical and Political Reaction”. The Reynolds Newspaper, 31 August 1873. “The Consecration of England to the Sacred Heart”. The Pall Mall Gazette, 8 September 1873. “The Duke of Norfolk and the Modern Pilgrimage”. The Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 9 August 1873. “The End of the Paray Pilgrimage”. The Morning Post, 8 September 1873. “The English Pilgrimage”. The Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 19 August 1873. “The English Pilgrimage to Paray-le-Monial”. The Birmingham Daily Post, 12 August 1873. “English Pilgrimage to Paray-le-Monial”. The Carlow Post, 16 August 1873 “The English Pilgrimage to Paray-le-Monial”. The London Daily News, 8 September 1873. “The English Pilgrimage to Paray-le-Monial”. The Morning Post, 3 September 1873. “The English Pilgrimage to Paray-le-Monial”. The Morning Post, 5 September 1873. “The English Pilgrimage to Paray le Monial”. The Morning Post, 6 September 1873. “The English Pilgrimage to Paray-le-Monial”. The Star, 16 August 1873. “The English Pilgrimage to Paray-le-Monial. On Board the Marseilles”. The Morning Post, 5 September 1873. “The English Pilgrimage to Paray-le-Monial. Paray-le-Monial”. The Morning Post, 4 September 1873. “The English Pilgrimage to Paray-le-Monial. Paray-le-Monial”. The Morning Post, 5 September 1873. “The English Pilgrimage to Paray-le-Monial. Paray-le-Monial”. The Morning Post, 6 September 1873. “An English Roman Catholic Pilgrimage”. The Pall Mall Gazette, 31 July 1873. The Examiner, 30 August 1873. “Foreign”. The Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, 29 August 1873. “Foreign Intelligence”. The Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette, 28 August 1873. “Foreign Intelligence”. The London Evening Standard, 13 June 1873. “Foreign Intelligence”. The Morning Post, 13 June 1873. “France”. The London Evening Standard, 2 May 1873. The Freeman’s Journal, 18 August 1873. The Freeman’s Journal, 26 August 1873.

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“The French Pilgrims”. The Freeman’s Journal, 20 August 1873. “The Fusionist Scheme and the French Pilgrimages”. The London Daily News, 21 August 1873. García Iborra, J. “La representación cultural del Sur en la novela gótica inglesa (1764–1820): otredad política y religiosa”. PhD diss., Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, 2007. The Glasgow Herald, 1 September 1892. Haldane-Grenier, K. “Public Acts of Faith and Devotion”. In Perplext in Faith: Essays on Victorian Beliefs and Doubts, edited by A. Clapp-Itnyre, and J. Melnyck, 149–67. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015. “Health and Pilgrimage”. The Huddersfield Chronicle, 4 August 1873. Heimann, M. Catholic Devotion in Victorian England. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995. Hunt, R. Synopsis of the contents of the Great Exhibition of 1851. London: Spicer Brothers and W. Clowes & Sons, 1851. “An incident of the Paray Pilgrimage”. The Edinburgh Evening News, 8 September 1873. “Italy”. The Morning Post, 1 September 1873. “Italy and France”. The Staffordshire Sentinel, 22 July 1873. “Just the difference”. The Burnley Gazette, 30 August 1873. Klein, D. “The Virgin with the sword: Marian apparitions, religion and national identity in Alsace in the 1870s”. French History 21, no. 4 (2007): 411–30. “Letter from Paris”. The Pall Mall Gazette, 23 June 1873. “Letter from Paris”. The Pall Mall Gazette, 3 July 1873. “Letter from Paris”. The Pall Mall Gazette, 8 July 1873. “Letter from Paris”. The Pall Mall Gazette, 27 August 1873. The London Daily News, 1 August 1873. The London Daily News, 23 August 1873. The London Daily News, 16 August 1880. The London Evening Standard, 13 June 1873. The London Evening Standard, 5 October 1880. The Manchester Evening News, 19 August 1873. Manual of Prayers for the use of the Pilgrims to Paray-le-Monial, September 2, 1873. London: Burns and Oates, 1873. McCluskey, R. “Scots Pilgrimage to Rome (1877-1903): Educational Fieldwork for Victorians and Edwardians?”. The Innes Review 57, no. 2 (2006): 182–205. “A New Pilgrimage”. The Dundee Courier, 9 May 1873. “News from Paris”. The London Daily News, 24 June 1873. “News of the Day”. The Birmingham Daily Post, 11 August 1873. Norman, E.R. Anti-Catholicism in Victorian England. Historical Problems: Studies and Documents 1. London: Allen and Unwin, 1968. “Occasional Notes”. The Pall Mall Gazette, 30 July 1873. “Occasional Notes”. The Pall Mall Gazette, 19 August 1873. “Origin of a Romish Pilgrimage”. The Edinburgh Evening News, 31 July 1873. “Our Paris Letter”. The Liverpool Mail, 16 August 1873. “Paray-le Monial. A suggested pilgrimage”. The Freeman’s Journal, 5 February 1900. “Paray-le-Monial Pilgrimage. Arrival of the Pilgrims in London”. The Western Daily Press, 8 September 1873. “The Paray-le-Monial Pilgrimages”. The Edinburgh Evening News, 12 August 1873.

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Paz, D.G. Popular Anti-Catholicism in Mid-Victorian England. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992. “Peasant Pilgrims”. The Pall Mall Gazette, 10 July 1873. “Pilgrimage”. The Huddersfield Chronicle, 22 August 1873. “A Pilgrimage”. The London Evening Standard, 19 August 1873. “Pilgrimage from Great Britain to Paray-le-Monial in Honour of the Sacred Heart”. The Freeman’s Journal, 22 August 1873. “The Pilgrimage to Paray-Le-Monial”. The Birmingham Daily Post, 8 September 1873. “The Pilgrimage to Paray-le-Monial”. The Dundee Courier, 28 August 1873. “The Pilgrimage to Paray-le-Monial”. The London Evening Standard, 8 September 1873. “The Pilgrimage to Paray-le-Monial”. The Morning Post, 2 September 1873. “The Pilgrimage to Paray-le-Monial”. The Sheffield Independent, 26 August 1873. “Pilgrims v. Reporters”. The Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 30 August 1873. “Pilgrims with Return Tickets”. The Pall Mall Gazette, 14 August 1873. Pombo, A. “Las peregrinaciones españolas a Roma a finales del siglo XIX y las peregrinaciones jacobeas”. In La renovación de las peregrinaciones a Santiago de Compostela en el siglo XIX: entre tradición y modernidad, edited by A.M. Pazos, 123–54. Santiago de Compostela: Editorial CSIC, 2017. “The Religious Revival in France”. The Freeman’s Journal, 26 August 1876. “Reuter’s Telegrams”. The Pall Mall Gazette, 21 August 1873. Riall, L. “Anticattolicesimo e rinascita cattolica: la Gran Bretagna, l’Irlanda e gli Stati Pontifici, 1850-1860”. In La Romagna nel Risorgimento. Politica, società e cultura al tempo dell’Unità, edited by R. Balzani, and A. Varni, 5–44. Roma: Laterza, 2012. “The Rivalry of Shrines”. The London Daily News, 26 August 1873. “A Roman Catholic Pilgrimage”. The Pall Mall Gazette, 31 July 1873. Romero Samper, M. “Reinventio y tradición jacobea en la prensa británica”. In La renovación de las peregrinaciones a Santiago de Compostela en el siglo XIX: entre tradición y modernidad, edited by A.M. Pazos, 87–122. Monografías de Cuadernos de Estudios Gallegos 16. Santiago de Compostela: Editorial CSIC, 2017. The Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 12 August 1873. The Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 28 August 1873. “The Shrine of the Sacred Heart”. The London Daily News, 30 August 1873. “Summary of this Morning’s News”. The Pall Mall Gazette, 1 July 1873. Thompson, C. The Suffering Traveller and the Romantic Imagination. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.

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Pilgrimages, modernity and ultramontanism in Germany Olaf Blaschke

The phenomenon of pilgrimages in Germany can be approached in three stages. Firstly, it must be situated in the context of scholarly debates on Catholicism in the nineteenth century; secondly, a system of fourteen varieties of pilgrimage in all can be identified; and finally, the two prominent examples of Trier (1844) and Marpingen (1876) should find a place in this framework.

Pilgrimages in the nineteenth century: scholarly debates and context Pilgrimages in Germany have been considered in four major scholarly contexts: (a) in the 1970s, the social history of religion explored the social and political function of pilgrimages; (b) in the 1980s, discussion of the modernity of Catholicism was taken up again, pilgrimages being only a minor element of this question; (c) parallel to this, the structures of Catholic selfexclusion, including patterns of self-representation such as pilgrimages, were analysed; and finally (d) the debate about ultramontanism, of which centralised pilgrimages were a part, was enriched with new perspectives, including transnational dimensions. a) The social history of religion saw pilgrimages as a calculated strategy of the clergy. Sociologists and social historians sought to determine the means by which the Church authorities managed the piety of the faithful; these, of course, included pilgrimages. In the language of the 1970s, it was a matter of how to legitimise ecclesiastical power and manipulate the Catholic flock in the nineteenth century. The important contributions of Wolfgang Schieder in 1974 and Michael N. Ebertz in 1979 emphasised the “targeted calculation” of clerics directed at social mechanisms which dramatised the extraordinary.1 b) The second important context of analysis, concerning the modernity or anti-modernity of Catholicism, was established in the late 1980s. While some historians, such as Hans-Ulrich Wehler in 1987, emphasised the hostility of Catholicism towards the modern era, others initiated a lively discussion of the ambivalence between modernity and

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antimodernity.2 The most prominent for this question were Thomas Nipperdey in 1988, Wilfried Loth in 1990 and Urs Altermatt in 1989 for Switzerland.3 They agreed that Catholics were very protective against modern challenges and distrusted modern times, just as Gregory XVI had condemned contemporary liberalism and religious indifferentism in his encyclical Mirari Vos in 1832. Ultramontane Catholicism was anti-modern through and through, but at the same time it used modern means to achieve its anti-modern aims. Pilgrimages were seen as one manifestation and one marginal contribution of this attitude, though also as ambivalent, because although on the one hand they revitalised traditional and pre-modern practices, on the other they served, in the hands of the hierarchy, as a modern instrument fulfilling anti-modern purposes. Pilgrimages were important for those who could afford to take part in them and for the merchants in the places the pilgrims visited. Much more important than organised pilgrimages, and involving many more people for many more years, were general assemblies, from 1848 in Germany, political parties and exclusive associations for Catholics, Catholic newspapers and bookshops and missionary crusades, not forgetting the standardisation of Marian devotions. Pilgrimages requiring a long journey were usually an activity people did once in a lifetime, whereas participation in Catholic associations could happen on a weekly basis, and consumption of Catholic newspapers could even be daily. The minor relevance of pilgrimage – though of huge importance for sites like Santiago de Compostela or Lourdes – has to be seen in relation to the general picture and to other sorts of commitment of and influence on Catholics.4 Taken together, these strategies did not seem to be suitable for integrating Catholics into civil Protestant and secular society. On the contrary, they were aimed at separating them from the majority, especially in countries like Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland where Catholics constituted a minority and thus tended to establish a parallel society, a milieu of their own. Catholic parties, Catholic trade unions and Catholic forms of piety – including organised pilgrimages – served as tools to protect believers from the impositions of modernity. They had the effect of producing social disintegration, and in the end they even led Catholics to construct a milieu for themselves (in Switzerland the term sub-society is used, while in Austria the word is camp and in the Netherlands it is pillar and pillarisation, a phenomenon also observed in Belgium, where the house of the nation rested on three pillars: Catholics, Socialists and liberal bourgeoisie). This phase of antimodern social disintegration lasted from the 1850s to the 1960s, when the pillars began to collapse and the milieus rapidly eroded. The debate about the fatal political effects of milieus in Germany, unable to find a compromise in the Weimar Republic, started with a now classic article by Rainer M. Lepsius in 1966.5

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d) These debates about priests manipulating the masses, modernity and milieu-related patterns of inclusion and exclusion were always closely linked to the ongoing debate about the nature of ultramontanism. From the 1860s, in France and German countries this term came to describe those Catholics who were oriented towards Rome beyond the Alps (ultra montes) and were loyal to the Pope.6 The idea of papal authority and infallibility began to take shape with the book by Bartolomeo Alberto Cappellari, Il trionfo della Santa Sede e della Chiesa contro gli assalti dei novatori, published in 1799, attacking Febronians and Jansenists who called the role of the pope into question, though Cappellari, a priest and a member of the Camaldolese monastery in Venice at the time, did not use the term ultramontanism.7 Another milestone in this development was the book by the Savoyard diplomat and philosopher Joseph de Maistre, a fierce opponent of the French Revolution and the Enlightenment, which appeared in 1819 under the simple title Du Pape. Challenging the Gallican idea of ecclesiastical independence and anticlericalism and defending the supremacy of the pope after the severe crisis of the Napoleonic era, the book soon became a bestseller and was translated into several languages.8 As soon as Cappellari was elected pope in 1831, taking the name Gregory XVI, his book from 1799 was reissued in several languages.9 In fact, as pope he promoted anti-liberalism and ultramontanism, paving the way for the most prominent ultramontane pope, his successor Pius IX (1846–1878). Ultramontanism was initially a negative term, used by those who opposed authoritarian developments, but from the mid-nineteenth century it was also proudly employed by Catholics to emphasise their allegiance to Rome, especially in relation to the Risorgimento, the Italian movement to unite the nation and take over the Papal States, succeeding in 1861 and making Rome the capital of Italy in 1871. At the same time, ultramontanism reached its culminating point when in 1870 the first Vatican Council dogmatised the infallibility of the pope. In Italy, already beyond the Alps, the Central European term ultramontanism was not used; instead, as in Spain, the expression normally employed was integralismo cattolico, though across the Atlantic, in Canada and the United States, ultramontanism remained as popular a usage as in France, Belgium, Germany and the Habsburg Empire. The term integralismo (fundamentalism) indicates in itself that there were more dimensions involved than merely strengthening the orientation towards the pope. Besides, the hierarchical aspect of ultramontanism included an ideological component (against the dominance of the modern state and of liberalism), a strong culture of homogenised piety (the Heart of Jesus cult, pilgrimages) and finally an organisational dimension (tightening the structures of the Church and its mechanisms of control; Catholic associations and media).10

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From its very beginnings, ultramontanism was contested. Liberals identified all Catholics with sweeping stereotypes, insinuating that their capital was Rome instead of Berlin or Paris and that they were trying to lead society back into the Middle Ages. Scholarly controversies find their starting point in the book by Hans Buchheim, who in 1963 claimed that ultramontanism was the pioneer of Christian democracy. In 1991, Christoph Weber prominently rejected the ultramontane potential for democracy and even argued that ultramontanism was nothing more than fundamentalism. Recent debates have tended to adopt a transnational perspective and to address the question of whether ultramontanism came from the periphery or was a clever strategy originating in Rome – and whether this vertical perspective should be complemented by a transnational approach, taking account of the circulation of ideas across borders.11 The focus of interest here is on pursuing the debates about religious cultures which, as far as German contexts are concerned, started in the 1960s and developed in the late 1980s and 1990s, and on discussing ultramontanism from comparative and transnational perspectives. For this purpose it is useful to present the two most prominent cases of mass pilgrimages in Germany: the eminent example of the Holy Robe in Trier in 1844 and the case of Marpingen, some 50 kilometres south-east of Trier, in 1876. Both have been very well analysed by specialists interested in pilgrimages. This is not to say that there were no other locations: on the contrary, there were thousands in Germany and other European countries. Most historians focus on the highlights: Jerusalem, Rome, Fátima, Lourdes and Santiago de Compostela. And indeed, Trier seems – according to some maps – to be close to participating in the same league as the peregrinationes maiores (Rome, Jerusalem and Santiago de Compostela).12

Systematic approach Although the actual number of pilgrimage sites remains unclear, it is still possible to approach the subject in a systematic way. Based on the criterion of the content of sanctuaries, three categories are often distinguished: Mary, the Holy Cross and others. For our purpose, a different systematic approach seems more appropriate, because we are interested in determining what was modern about pilgrimages in the nineteenth century. If, accordingly, we try to classify forms of nineteenth-century pilgrimages, we might ultimately distinguish 14 different varieties, and then see whether and where our examples fit in. We can distinguish individual, group and mass pilgrimages. None of this was new or genuinely modern. Mass pilgrimages already occurred in medieval times.13 The first pilgrimage to the Holy Robe in Trier, in 1512, attracted 110,000 pilgrims in 23 days. For those times – given the low population of Europe and the complicated circumstances for long-distance travel – the numbers are

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Figure 9.1 Typology of pilgrimages. Source: Olaf Blaschke.

enormous. The participants had to be able to afford such a long journey. In the nineteenth century, not only bishops, priests and aristocrats could join an extensive pilgrimage. Mass pilgrimages were becoming a phenomenon of the lower classes.14 Furthermore, we should distinguish unorganised pilgrimages from those meticulously organised by the Church. In the case of group and mass pilgrimages, many – families, for example – continued to participate independently. As we shall see later, even mass pilgrimages could consist of uncontrolled numbers of people not subject to Church leadership or clerical direction. The organisation of pilgrimages was sometimes centrally managed by the heads of a diocese; in other cases, it was decentralised, at the parish church level. So far we have seven varieties: (1) individual pilgrimages, (2) unorganised group pilgrimages, (3) decentralised and (4) centralised organised group pilgrimages, (5) unorganised mass pilgrimages and (6) decentralised and (7) centralised organised mass pilgrimages. Since each of these seven varieties could be and can be regarded either as pre-modern, archaic, traditional practices or as new, modern ways of articulating piety, and since we do in fact find both traditional and modern forms of individual and group pilgrimages,

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in the end we have 14 (7 x 2) varieties of pilgrimages, as can easily be seen at the bottom of the graph. Some individuals, for example, arrived at the site on foot in the traditional way people have been doing for hundreds of years; others combined a comfortable journey by train with the pleasures of modern tourism. Given that there were always mixtures of modern and pre-modern elements, we should even add a further seven varieties, but the scheme seeks to draw ideal distinctions. Each of these varieties is evident in the nineteenth century and can be distinguished by the way in which people accomplished their journey. Did individuals or groups travel in the traditional manner, on foot or by horse-drawn coach, or did they use modern means of transport such as steamships or trains, buses or cars? It could be said that these distinctions hardly matter. If people use telephones or trains they are not modern per se. On the other hand, some Catholic contemporaries criticised such practices on the grounds that they violated the traditional character of pilgrimage journeys. Trains were controversial, even though the Church promoted them. The cloister in Einsiedeln (Canton of Schwyz) could be reached directly by train in the 1870s. Anticlerical voices in Einsiedeln complained that it was unfair to reduce fares only for pilgrims, which was perceived as being against the law.15 Modern means of transport opened the way to much wider participation. But the mass pilgrimages of the nineteenth century are not a result of modern transport alone, as we shall see in the example of Trier in 1844.16 The Trier pilgrimage was modern because the flow of pilgrims was perfectly organised from top to bottom, all without railways, and in the first half, not the second half, of the nineteenth century. In contrast, Marpingen, in the last quarter of the century, was more of a bottom-up phenomenon, fairly chaotic and hard for clerics to control. But it still was a manifestation of ultramontane traits and hopes.

Two examples of pilgrimages in Germany There are many prominent pilgrimage sites in Germany, such as Aachen and its cathedral; Altötting, as the centre for Marian devotion; Cologne, with the shrine of the Three Kings; the Abbey of Prüm, which has hosted Christ’s sandals since the year 752; Fulda, with the body of St Boniface; Trier, with the Apostle St Matthias and the Holy Robe; and famous Marian shrines such as Kevelaer, Werl and Telgte, to name just a few. The diocese of Trier alone has 93 pilgrimage sites within its borders.17 None of these places was so vividly brought into focus as the city of Trier in 1844 and the village of Marpingen in 1876. Both events offer the chance to illustrate the patterns of pilgrimages in the nineteenth century and allow us to draw conclusions about questions concerning pilgrimages in the context of the social history of religion, the modernity and milieu structures of Catholicism and the nature of ultramontanism.

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Trier 1844 Trier, located on the river Mosel, close to the border with Luxembourg, had no railway station in 1844. To reach it, people had to travel either by steamship – if they could afford it – from the city of Koblenz, where the Mosel meets the Rhine, or by carriage, or, as most of them did, on foot.18 The first trains in Germany ran from Nuremberg to Fürth in 1835. Trier was connected to the railway heading south towards Saarbrücken only in 1860, to Luxembourg in 1861 and to Cologne in 1875, with the line to Koblenz under construction at the time. Coming to Trier for the first two mass pilgrimages in 1810 and 1844 was as difficult as it had been for the preceding 2,000 years, while for the third mass pilgrimage, in 1891, the city could be reached by train.19 The Holy Robe in Trier is, along with the Turin shroud, one of the most important relics of Christianity. It represents the tunic Jesus Christ was wearing on his last day (John 19:23–24), and the legend from the twelfth century says it was brought from Palestine around the year 327 or 328 by Helena, the mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great. It was exhibited publicly for the first time in 1512, and most recently, to commemorate this, in 2012, 500 years later. In 1810, the Robe was shown for the first time in 155 years. This occasion marked its return to Trier after having been hidden in Bamberg and Augsburg to protect it from the French revolutionary troops. The pilgrimage, well organised by Bishop Charles Mannay (1802–1816), attracted about 100,000 believers and demonstrated the Church’s capacity to reorganise after the serious damage to its power and prestige in the secularisation. The real sensation occurred in 1844. It turned out to be the biggest mass event ever held in pre-revolutionary Germany. Every day, thousands of pilgrims passed through the cathedral to see the Holy Robe. Under the prevailing conditions of restoration and censorship, it was not easy to bring together a crowd of any size. The other, more famous, mass event of the period was the Hambach Festival in 1832, when about 30,000 people in the Palatinate demonstrated partly for more freedom and a united Germany and partly for a united Europe against the ruling aristocracy. In the light of this oppositional event, it was important for any large gathering to avoid creating a similar impression. Nevertheless, a dozen years later, the mass meeting in Trier was allowed by the authorities and managed to mobilise more than 20 times as many participants as the Hambach Festival. Contemporary statistics counted over one million people in only seven weeks, while careful estimates made in the 1970s put the figure at about half a million, because some people might have returned to the cathedral and been counted twice,20 though it was strictly forbidden to do so, and the priests led their parishioners straight out of the cathedral to another church and then home. Recent studies estimate more than 500,000 pilgrims, so a total of 700,000 seems quite plausible.21 Whereas about 100,000 people were mobilised in 1810, with a daily average of more than 10,530, in 1844 the daily average

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amounted to 14,000. This represents a daily flood of pious people nearly equivalent to the entire population of the city of Trier, which had 15,064 inhabitants (25,000 including the incorporated outskirts and villages). Bishop Wilhelm Arnoldi (1842–1864) planned the event meticulously, aided by the organisational talent of his vicar general Johann Georg Müller and with the intellectual support of Jakob Marx, Professor of Theology at Trier.22 Their blueprint was the pilgrimage of 1810. In both cases the pilgrimages were choreographed from above. Previously, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, pilgrimages had been organised primarily by religious confraternities, not by the Church itself. This changed dramatically in the early nineteenth century, and the events of 1810 and 1844 paved the way for the Church hierarchy to have a concerted influence on the masses, which they had hardly enjoyed before.23 In the preparatory phase, Arnoldi used a newspaper in Luxembourg to campaign for the pilgrimage, because the Prussian censorship was quite restrictive. Arnoldi was even involved, in the background, in founding this Luxemburger Zeitung in July 1844.24 Each mass pilgrimage was accompanied by written and iconographic propaganda from both sides: the Church and its opponents.25

Figure 9.2 August Gustav Lasinsky, Wallfahrt zum Heiligen Rock im Jahr 1844 (1847). Source: Stadtmuseum Simeonstift Trier.

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The image painted in 1847 by August Gustav Lasinsky shows pilgrims reaching Trier, but what it does not reveal is that nearly 60 percent of pilgrims in the nineteenth century were women.26 The feminisation of piety has been widely discussed in the literature. In this picture, however, the ratio between male and female is 50:50.27 How did Arnoldi channel the masses to Trier? Everything was exactly planned; the project was a logistical masterpiece. First, Catholics from Trier, parish by parish, were allowed to see the relic when the exhibition started on 18 August 1844. Then the parishes in each deanery of the diocese were allowed to come on two different days, widely separated from each other. They had to register in advance and receive some sort of ticket. They arrived, always led by a priest, at certain meeting points in Trier, and had to walk to the cathedral by a prescribed route, past the Robe and straight out of the cathedral, and then leave the city and return home.28 The exhibition ended on 6 October 1844. Pilgrimages were widely banned in the Enlightenment Age and restricted again in the 1820s and 1830s. The enlightened absolutist state saw pilgrimages as a waste of time, and in the restoration after 1815 the dukes of the states were suspicious of crowds. Even bishops raised in the enlightened times were afraid of euphoric pietists getting out of control. Arnoldi’s predecessor, Bishop Joseph Hommer (1824–1836), tried to prevent Catholics from engaging in uncontrolled pilgrimages (“wilde Pilgerei”). The Archbishop of Cologne, August Graf von Spiegel, warned his flock in a pastoral letter in 1826 against neglecting their work duties. He forbade pilgrimages lasting several days.29 The bishop of Münster also prohibited pilgrimages in 1826. Moral and economic arguments from the eighteenth century were supplemented in the early nineteenth century by anti-revolutionary political arguments. The result was that the Rhine area actually experienced a decrease in pilgrimages between 1826 and 1835.30 When Bishop Arnoldi initiated the 1844 pilgrimage, he was completely reversing the policy of his predecessors and counterparts. He was conscious of the needs of believers but wanted to take the situation in hand. Arnoldi discussed the revitalisation of the Trier pilgrimage personally with Klemens Wenzel Lothar von Metternich in 1842 and had to ask the president of the Prussian Rhine Province for permission.31 From his ultramontane position and in the context of states trying to bring Catholics under their tutelage, Arnoldi wanted to demonstrate the autonomy of the Church, which had no intention of rebelling against the State but wished to cooperate with it on equal terms. Of course, from the beginning liberals mocked the superstition of stupid Catholics going on a pilgrimage and worshipping an old undergarment. To them the whole spectacle was mere folklore, even a step back into medieval times. The historian Heinrich von Sybel amused himself with the Holy Robe in Trier and the other 20 Holy Robes – in Galatia, Safed and Jerusalem, Argenteuil, the Lateran Palace, Bremen and Loccum, Santiago, Oviedo,

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Figure 9.3 Der Heilige Rock zu Trier (1844). Source: Bildarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz, image no. 30028996.

Westminster and Mainz, Ghent, Flines, Corbie and Tournus, Cologne, Frankfurt, Friuli and Thiers, Constantinople, Georgia and Moscow.32 In a caricature from 1844, Rome is the spider in the ultramontane web thrown over Europe. According to this view it was all about profit, extracted from naive and uneducated poor people who were blind marionettes in the hands of the priests. Was the mass pilgrimage of 1844 a manifestation of the growing piety of the people, an indicator of the religious renaissance of the first half of the nineteenth century? Or can it be regarded as an act of opposition to the Prussian police state, as Joseph Görres interpreted it as early as 1845?33 Or was it, on the contrary, rather a sign of the alliance between altar and throne in times of monarchical restoration? This was the contentious debate which arose in the 1970s between Wolfgang Schieder and Rudolf Lill. Schieder, a social historian at the University of Trier, did not want to view the event in the traditional line of interpretation as an expression of religious custom, old or renewed. The mass event, he argued, was not spontaneous but thoroughly

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organised according to certain interests of the Church hierarchy; rather than an instrument of internal ecclesiastical renewal, it was a calculated political demonstration by the Church, representing itself as a bulwark against revolution. It was a staging of the revolutionary slogan liberté, égalité, fraternité, but with a counter-revolutionary message. Liberté for the Church confronted with the State, fraternité among the priests and pilgrims, and égalité, suggesting a prevailing class harmony among the people united before the Holy Robe. The fact is that not all the classes were there. The unity, which Görres tried to point out in 1845, was incomplete. The pilgrims were mostly poor, stemming from the lower classes, more women than men, accompanied by some bishops, plenty of priests and some noble women and men; the educated bourgeoisie was largely missing. The ultramontane unity was only simulated. Schieder emphasises that the notion of égalité was mere propaganda. The 1844 pilgrimage ultimately deepened the ultramontane connection between Catholics, priests and bishops on a very hierarchical level.34 Rudolf Lill, who was Professor of History at Cologne at the time, reacted severely. He accused Schieder of having made many mistakes and of being no real expert.35 Schieder, he claimed, had concentrated on “peripheral aspects” of the pilgrimages, ignoring the religious and emotional dimension of the issue, an image which already had been fostered in Enlightenment times. Bishops did not manipulate pilgrimages, Lill insisted; on the contrary, they were, for several reasons, bound to suppress pilgrimages in the years before 1844. This indicates that a demand for pilgrimages actually existed and the bishops were aware of the emotional need of the faithful. This was the “primary motivation” of the pilgrims: their religious inclination. Thus, growing ultramontanism and awakening devotion were more important than socio-historical facts.36 Nowadays, scholars see both sides, the manipulative and the religious, the social and the pious. But in the 1970s the social approach was still too new for many historians.37 The next pilgrimage in 1891 under Bishop Felix Korum (1881–1921) was a political demonstration against trade unions and socialism. As in 1844, we find pictorial manifestations of both interpretations, affirmative and critical: the pious side of the 1891 pilgrimage is revealed in a souvenir plate, while the topos of ecclesiastical materialism and people’s stupidity is evident in the anticlerical caricature of the journal Kladderadatsch (Figure 9.4).38 This pilgrimage after the end of the Kulturkampf (culture struggle or culture war) and the repeal of the anti-Socialist laws in 1890 was a signal for Catholic workers to stay loyal to the Church instead of joining the Socialist Party. So each pilgrimage had its core function besides the purely religious one. In 1891, again, they used the organisational concept of the previous pilgrimage of 1844, with a scheme for each parish and directions on how to enter and leave Trier. People could now come by train. No wonder the numbers grew from 700,000 to 1.9 million.39 The graph in Figure 9.5 shows the total number of visitors (indicated on the left) and the daily average (on the right). The all-time record of visitors

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Figure 9.4 Caricature about columns of pilgrims, hoping for salvation, heading towards Trier in 1891, lured by clerics awaiting rich oblation. Source: Jüttner and Brandt, “Auf nach Trier!” (1891).

was achieved in July 1933. From then on, the attractiveness of this sort of event declined. Each pilgrimage had a slightly different content depending on its particular historical context. The number of visitors depended only partly on the transport possibilities at the time. The decline in the number of visitors in 1959 is therefore all the more conspicuous, since it was so

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Figure 9.5 Pilgrims to the Holy Robe in Trier, 1810–2012. Source: Olaf Blaschke.

much easier to reach Trier than it was in 1844, including by private car, but despite this the numbers continued to fall. Even the length of this 1959 pilgrimage – it stayed open for a record period of two months – did not help. Once again, pilgrimages are not a result of modern means of transport. Finally, in 2012, the number of people who made their way to Trier was less than a third of what it had been in 1959. In parallel with the enormous rise in total numbers of visitors between 1810 and 1933, the average daily number of visitors increased, from over 10,000 in 1810 to about 43,000 in the first months of Adolf Hitler’s regime. Then it fell after the Second World War. In 2012, only 18,000 people arrived per day. The average-per-day curve is important because the events comprised different lengths of time and it would be misleading to compare the 19 days of 1810 with the 44 of 1844 or the 64 of 1959. Nevertheless, the shape of both curves – total and daily – is a parabola, and the curve covers the space from approximately the beginning up to the end of the second confessional era and the age of Marian devotion.40 The next example is clearly located in this Marian context. Marpingen 1876 In the mid-1870s, Marpingen was a village of 1,600 inhabitants, located close to the French border, about 25 kilometres north of Saarbücken and twice as far from Trier – the see of its diocese – to the north-west. The definitive book about Marpingen was written in 1993 by David Blackbourn. Everything we ever wanted to know about the place can be

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found there, but 25 years ago historians did not explicitly ask transnational questions.41 What happened at dawn on 3 July 1876 in the forest east of Marpingen? Three girls thought they had seen a woman in white. After returning to the village, they told others of their experience. Their conversations with women encouraged them to believe it was the Virgin Mary. From then on, Mary appeared to them frequently and miraculous cures occurred. Within days, Catholics from neighbouring locations were informed and pilgrims from the Saarland region and places much further away visited Marpingen. Some spoke of 20,000 people in the first week, exceeding the numbers of Lourdes in 1876. They came with their sick people in carts, hoping for grace and a cure. It took a few days before the authorities became aware that it was time to react. Ten days after the first apparition, armed infantry entered the village, expelling the pilgrims by force. But Mary and the pilgrims were unstoppable. The parish priest, Jakob Neureuter, was under great stress because he remained sceptical about the authenticity of the apparitions. They needed to be approved by the authorities, but there was no bishop in the diocese in those years because of the Kulturkampf. Catholic and liberal newspapers all over Germany reported the events from different angles. The parish priest and several villagers were arrested and put on trial for fraud and breaching the public peace, while the three girls who started it all were subjected to intense interrogations. Nevertheless, the events extended into the year 1877. July and August of that year saw between 600 and 1,200 believers daily taking communion in the parish church. Finally, the apparitions stopped on 3 September 1877. Marpingen tried to become the “German Lourdes”, Lourdes having been the blueprint for Marian apparitions since 1858.42 The reference to Lourdes is a transnational aspect of the story. Because the French events were a very prominent topic in the media during these years, especially since the first organised German pilgrimage to Lourdes in 1875, France offered the role model for later events. Marpingen was deeply immersed in Marian adoration, and the girls were familiar with the transnational text Lourdes had presented. People did not need to have been in Lourdes personally to be aware of it, but of course there were border-crossing movements. National pilgrimages to Lourdes, often with special trains, were organised from Belgium in 1873, from Poland, Italy, and Germany in 1875, from Spain and Ireland in 1876. When a statue in honour of the Virgin was consecrated in Lourdes, 100,000 Catholics, including 35 bishops and 5,000 priests, were present. This event took place on 3 July 1876 – the very day when three girls in the Härtel forest, 894 km from Lourdes as the crow flies, saw a white figure during the early evening. The second transnational aspect is that Marpingen happened at the peak of Marian apparitions in Europe (Figure 9.6), which were not local endemic phenomena but a European trend. A first wave started in the wake of the

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Figure 9.6 Marian apparitions in Europe, 1803–1917. Source: Olaf Blaschke.

French Revolution, especially in the Vendée, followed by a series of weeping statues in Italy. There was a second wave during the pre-revolutionary period before 1848, but the strongest wave occurred during the Italian and German unification wars in the decade between 1866 and 1877. Mary appeared in times of crisis – just as she did later on in the Cold War.43 The third transnational dimension, ultramontanism, went hand in hand with the standardisation of orthodoxy and orthodox practices. Ultramontanism was clearly a global movement, in which the interests of Roman centralisation met the need for orientation among believers.44 The following three aspects are interesting in the case of Mary appearing in the Marpingen village in 1876. While Trier in 1844 fits very well into the scheme, representing the strictly organised mass pilgrimage type, Marpingen is the opposite. It belongs to several types of individual, unorganised group pilgrimages. The events were never approved by Church authorities, thus the conflux of pilgrims never operated in a centralised way. Individuals and families came, mostly unorganised, and if organised, then never centrally. Marpingen contradicts any teleological idea that the degree of organisation was increasing during the nineteenth century. The second interesting observation is that it displayed even more ultramontane traits than the Trier pilgrimage in 1844. While Trier exhibited the special relic of the Holy Robe, an object nobody else could seriously claim

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to have, Catholics in Marpingen – a village in the same diocese – shared what Catholics around the world were sharing: Mother Mary. She had gained new prominence since the dogma of 1854, followed by the apparitions at Lourdes in 1858. Marpingen was more ultramontane by virtue of this content, but also the fact that the pilgrims had already inherited ultramontane values. They came on their own initiative and did not need to wait for a bishop to centrally orchestrate a mass mobilisation. In any case, there was no bishop in Trier between 1876 and 1881. Other characteristics of the events in Marpingen underline the ultramontane traits. As in Trier 32 years before, those involved were mainly women and poor, uneducated people. Marpingen’s farmers were poor “goat peasants”, and the pilgrims flooding into the village represented a low social image. Again, the bourgeoisie was missing, though there were some prominent aristocrats, such as the mother of the king of Bavaria. The third aspect relates to the transnational dimension of Marpingen. Globalisation gathered speed from the 1840s. The events in Trier in 1844 were reported in the newspapers in France, Belgium and even Ireland.45 But only a few pilgrims from other countries could join the pilgrimage, most of them from Luxembourg. Marpingen was different. It manifested many transnational traits and allowed people even from Spain and Mexico to come to this tiny village in the Saar region.

Conclusion Pilgrimages as such were by no means modern. Parts of what made them modern in the nineteenth century, such as mass transportation, were not essential characteristics or motivating factors. What added a modern aspect to them was centralised ecclesiastical organisation, as had already occurred in 1810 and most saliently in 1844 in Trier. But mass pilgrimages continued without being centrally organised. Marpingen in 1876 is such an example of a “wild” mass pilgrimage. The apparitions were never approved by the Church and the events were never centrally organised, but the attraction still lured thousands to this remote village. What we might call the modern means of anti-modernity in pilgrimages is not the pilgrimage and not the masses, but rather the disciplined organisation and control of the masses. The comparison between an early event of 1844 and those in the 1870s and 1890s shows that ultramontanism changed its character. After generations, it was deeply rooted in the hearts of even the remotest Catholics in the remotest villages in Saarland. Early ultramontanism in 1844 still tried to establish harmony between State and Church, while ultramontanism in the second half of the nineteenth century was increasingly involved in conflicts with the State during the Kulturkampf. Pilgrims participated in each of these phases.

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Notes 1 Schieder, “Kirche”; Ebertz, “Die Organisierung”; Speth, Katholische Aufklärung, Volksfrömmigkeit, 13–32; Speth, Katholische Aufklärung und Ultramontanismus; Korff, “Formierung”; Korff, “Zwischen”. 2 Wehler, Vom Feudalismus; Wehler, Von der Reformära. 3 Nipperdey, Religion; Loth, “Der Katholizismus”; Altermatt, Katholizismus, 236. 4 Di Stefano and Ramón, Marian Devotions. 5 Lepsius, “Parteiensystem”; AKKZG, “Katholiken”; Blaschke and Kuhlemann, Religion; Loth, “Milieus”. 6 Raab, “Zur Geschichte”; Schatz, “Ultramontanismus”. 7 Cappellari, Il trionfo. 8 Maistre, Du Pape; Maistre, Vom Pabst; cf. the interpretation of Deville, “Sovereignty”; Armenteros and Lebrun, Joseph de Maistre; Ramón, “Le triomphe”; Gough, Paris; Blaschke, “Der Aufstieg”. 9 Cappellari, Triumph; Cappellari, Triomphe. 10 Raab, “Zur Geschichte”; Conzemius, “Rom”; Conzemius, “Ultramontanismus”; Fleckenstein and Schmiedl, Ultramontanismus. 11 Buchheim, Ultramontanismus, 9, 108; Weber, “Ultramontanismus”; Viaene, Belgium; Blaschke and Ramón, Weltreligion; cf. Fleckenstein and Schmiedl, Ultramontanismus. 12 Map in Ginter and Tauber, “Reisen”. 13 In the year 1064, between 7,000 and 12,000 believers followed Archbishop Siegfried of Mainz and other bishops on their pilgrimage to Jerusalem. “Heinrich IV”. 14 Laufner, “Logistische”, 458. 15 “Die kirchlichen Wallfahrten – der Staat und die Eisenbahnen”. Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 18 August 1873, cit. from Kälin, Schauplatz, 44, 105. See Altermatt, Katholizismus, 255. 16 About the tendencies: Herbers, “Unterwegs”. 17 “Wallfahrtsorte”. 18 Schneider, “Wallfahrt”, 240; Schneider, “Die Hl.-Rock-Wallfahrten”; Laufner, “Logistische”, 468. 19 Persch, “Die Hl.-Rock-Wallfahrten”, 724. 20 Schieder, “Kirche”, 421–2; Lill, “Die Länder”; Schneider, “Wallfahrt”. 21 Schneider, “Wallfahrt”, 268–9, methodologically holds the counting of one million pilgrims plausible, though some went twice into the Cathedral, and comes to the conclusion that there were “clearly more than 500,000”. 22 About Müller: Laufner, “Logistische”, 469. 23 Schieder, “Kirche”, 432. 24 Ibid., 438; Schneider, “Wallfahrt”, 256; Schneider, “Presse”. 25 Patiss, Die Wallfahrten; Schneider, “Presse”. 26 August Gustav Lasinsky, Wallfahrt zum Heiligen Rock im Jahr 1844 (1847), Stadtmuseum Simeonstift Trier, Inventarnummer III, 67; Speth, Katholische Aufklärung und Ultramontanismus, 244–5. 27 Schneider, “Feminisierung der Religion im 19”; Schneider, “Feminisierung und (Re-) Maskulinisierung”; Blaschke, “The Unrecognised Piety”; Busch, “Die Feminisierung”. 28 Schieder, “Kirche”, 444; Laufner, “Logistische”. 29 Schieder, “Kirche”, 435; Speth, Katholische Aufklärung, Volksfrömmigkeit; cf. Priesching, Maria von Mörl. 30 Schneider, “Wallfahrt”, 245; Speth, Katholische Aufklärung und Ultramontanismus, 99. 31 Schieder, “Kirche”, 441.

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32 Gildemeister and Sybel, Der Heilige Rock. For the confessional context of conflict: Schmid, “Die Wallfahrt”. For anticlericalism in Europe, cf.: Borutta, Antikatholizismus; Dittrich, Antiklerikalismus; Kaiser, “Clericalism”. 33 Görres, Die Wallfahrt; cf. Vanden, A German Life, 337–9; Schneider, “Wallfahrt”, 468. 34 Schieder, “Kirche”, 425. 35 Lill, “Kirche”, 572, n. 31, where Lill contrasts Schieder with experts of the field (Fachkreise). 36 Ibid., 568, 572. 37 Schneider, “Wallfahrt”; Holzem, “Religiöse Orientierung”; Holzem, Kirchenreform. 38 Memoryplate for the pilgrimage to the Holy Robe in Trier in 1891 by Villeroy Boch. Jüttner and Brandt, “Auf nach Trier!”. 39 Laufner, “Logistische”, 472–4. 40 Cf. Blaschke, Konfessionen; Blaschke, “Le XIXe siècle”; Schulze, “Das 19. Jahrhundert”. 41 The following is based on Blackbourn, Marpingen; Blackbourn, Wenn ihr sie wieder seht. A more sophisticated version of my argument appeared as Blaschke, “Marpingen”. 42 Cf. Kotulla, “Lourdes”. 43 Numbers: Schneider, “Marienerscheinungen”, 91, based on: Hierzenberger and Nedomansky, Erscheinungen (probably not complete). 44 This aspect is about to be analysed in the project “Der Ultramontanismus als transnationales und transatlantisches Phänomen 1819–1914” within the framework of the Exzellenzcluster “Religion und Politik” on the Westfälische-WilhelmsUniversität WWU Münster. Cf. already: Viaene, “Nineteenth-Century”; Viaene, “International History”. For a transnational approach cf: Schulze, Grenzüberschreitende; Koschorke, Etappen der Globalisierung. 45 Schneider, “Presse”, 281.

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Part III

Eastern Europe

10 Pilgrimages in times of trial The pilgrimage movement and sanctuaries in Polish lands in the second half of the nineteenth century Jan Perszon Poland is conspicuously absent from nineteenth-century maps of Europe. The country’s uprisings ended in bitter tragedy, while the Church was controlled by the partitioning powers and appeared to be utterly defeated. The Polish people, however, did prevail, retaining their Catholic faith and gathering at dozens of Passion shrines and Marian sanctuaries. I will start this lecture by outlining the anti-Church policies adopted by the partitioners (Russia, Austria and Prussia), and then proceed to discuss the pilgrimage movements associated with selected sanctuaries. Considering the different socio-political backgrounds of religious life in each of the partitions, I will discuss the following sanctuaries in turn: Kalwaria Zebrzydowska in the Austrian Partition, Łąki Bratiańskie in the Prussian Partition and Jasna Góra (Poland’s most important sanctuary) in the lands ruled by Tsarist Russia. In the summary, I will attempt to portray the unique characteristics of the Polish pilgrimage movement, that is, the sources of the unification of religion (Catholicism) and the struggle for independence. It is not by chance that Poland’s bids for independence in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were always accompanied by religious revival.

The partitioners’ anti-Church policies The development of sanctuaries and the pilgrimage movement in general were inhibited by the three consecutive partitions of Poland in 1772, 1793 and 1795 perpetrated by Russia, Prussia and Austria. Within a quarter of a century, the largest state in eighteenth-century Europe in terms of territory (covering an area of 733,000 square kilometres and home to a population of 12 million) had ceased to exist. Russia annexed 62 percent of the territory (462,000 square kilometres) and 5.5 million people, including 2.1 million Roman Catholics and 1.6 million Greek Catholics. Austria annexed 129,000 square kilometres and 4 million people, including 2.8 million Roman Catholics and 1.7 million Greek Catholics. Prussia annexed 150,000 square kilometres and 2.6 million Polish Catholics.1 The partitioners’ policies, especially in Russia and Prussia, were aimed at rapidly

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depriving Poles of their national identity. Realising that the Catholic Church was the only institution which integrated Polish society across the new borders, the partitioners strived to subordinate it fully to the state. In all three partitions, church property was secularised and religious orders were dissolved. Furthermore, Russia and Prussia intensified their efforts to disband monasteries as part of the repressions that came in the wake of the 1831 and 1863 uprisings. Following the period of the Napoleonic Wars and the brief existence of the Duchy of Warsaw, any hope of regaining independence was crushed. It was at the Congress of Vienna in 1815 that the disputed territories were finally divided. In Russia, the Kingdom of Poland was established: a satellite state fully controlled by the Tsarist Empire and connected with it by personal union.2 The Russian Partition The Tsarist authorities used repression to “reintegrate” the Greek Catholic (Uniate) Church with the Russian Orthodox Church, with the former eventually abolished in the Russian Partition in 1875. Several hundred churches in the “annexed” territories were closed down and handed over to the Orthodox Church, while bishops were forbidden from maintaining contacts with Rome. In 1818, the 29 largest male monasteries and six female monasteries were dissolved. After the fall of the 1831 uprising, all bishoprics, chapters and orders had their property appropriated. As a consequence of the dissolutions in 1831–1843, 214 monasteries (66 percent) ceased to exist, together with their associated facilities: schools, hospitals and print shops. Repressions against the Church after the January Uprising (1863) were even more severe: 132 monasteries were dissolved, bishops were deported to Russia and the few monasteries that survived were condemned to “extinction”. Pilgrimages were also forbidden, which meant that only the Sanctuary of the Holy Trinity in Prostyń (in the Podlasie region) was growing, and pilgrimages to the Jasna Góra Monastery increased in popularity in the Russian Partition.3 The growth of the Polish element in the Russian Partition was driven by a high birth rate. During the period of national captivity, the population of the Kingdom of Poland was 3.3 million in 1815, 5.78 million in 1869 and 11.37 million (including 8,644,150 Catholics) in 1906.4 Austria The policy of the “arch-Catholic” Viennese court (Maria Theresa in 1740–1780 and her son Joseph II in 1780–1790), later described as “Josephinism”, was not to eradicate Polish national identity or the Church; instead, its goal was to gain total control of religious life and worship. Even after the Concordat of 1855, the Empire reserved the right to nominate bishops. The later religious and cultural revival of the Polish people and the Church was possible thanks to “Galician autonomy” (1886).

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New foundations for the Church were forbidden and the number of holidays was reduced as early as 1773. Furthermore, public use of the “Queen of Poland” invocation was outlawed in 1775; the invocation was replaced with “Queen of Galicia and Lodomeria”. Parish missions and processions were prohibited and valuable votive offerings kept at sanctuaries were confiscated. In 1783, religious brotherhoods were also abolished (the exception being charitable brotherhoods). In 1782, the authorities began dissolving all contemplative monasteries (which were considered “socially useless”), later extending this course of action to “active” monasteries. Between 1782 and 1795, 136 male monasteries (64 percent) and 22 female monasteries (65 percent) were dissolved in Galicia. The Empire’s anti-Church policy was only softened with the signing of the Concordat, later followed by Galician autonomy. The end of the nineteenth century is generally considered a “blessed time” for religious and national life.5 Prussia Prussia’s anti-Church attitude directly affected the Polish population. As early as 1764, the Prussian government forbade “cross-border” pilgrimages in Silesia, especially those to the Jasna Góra Monastery. As part of the Germanisation and Protestantisation of the state, Catholic churches were appropriated and handed over to Evangelicals, while bishops were required to swear allegiance to the king of Prussia and speak the German language. The Prussian authorities also intended to destroy the primatial see in Gniezno as a symbol of Polish national identity. The first monasteries were dissolved in Silesia and in the lands annexed from Poland as part of the war reparations to France (1806–1807). In 1810–1811, virtually all monasteries in Silesia were disbanded, including Góra św. Anny (St Anne’s Mountain), which was known as the “bastion of Polishness”.6 Subsequent dissolutions (in 1815–1841) were extended to monastic orders in Pomerania, Warmia and the Grand Duchy of Posen, including the Reformati monastery in Pakość (Kalwaria Pakoska). The situation of the Church in the Prussian Partition further deteriorated after 1831. In 1833, the King of Prussia dissolved the remaining monastic orders in order to fully subordinate the Church to the state and to further the Germanisation of the Polish population. In May 1839, the Primate of Poland Marcin Dunin was imprisoned in Kołobrzeg. The next wave of persecution against the Church came with the Maigesetze, or “May Laws”. The law of 31 May 1875 abolished all monasteries in Prussia with the exception of those pursuing charitable purposes (such as hospitals and asylums, etc.). When Bernhard von Bülow became the Chancellor of the German Empire in 1900, it was ordered that religion only be taught in schools in German. This met with active resistance from Polish parents and children, culminating in the 1901 school strike.7 Germanisation and anti-Church efforts resulted in an ever-strengthening bond between laity and clergy, increasing

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religiousness among the Poles. The “surviving” sanctuaries (Poznań and Góra św. Anny) and calvaries (Kcynia, Pakość and Wejherowo) also played an important role in maintaining Catholic faith and national identity. Despite the secularisation of intellectual circles, popular piety was thriving, incorporating processions, pilgrimages, public ceremonies and church fairs. This type of piety did, however, require inspiration from people of the Church. The clergy fulfilled this function through popular missions, May devotions, Rosary devotions, Lamentations (celebrated during Lent) and Stations of the Cross. The role of the parish as a focal point of spiritual, social, cultural and thus patriotic life intensified. Meanwhile, the partitioners (especially Russia and Prussia) adopted policies which were hostile towards the Catholic Church and towards Polish national identity. This involved total control over the Church (including the appointment of clerical positions and the education of priests) as well as the dissolution of monasteries, which had served as centres of religious and patriotic culture. Germanisation and Russification were also furthered through the secularisation of Church property. Confiscated land was granted to government dignitaries, generals and officials; it was also used to settle colonists in an effort to definitively eliminate the Polish element. Paradoxically, the persecution of the Church contributed to the awakening of national identity among the bourgeoisie and peasants. This led to a clear distinction between “one of us” – a Polish Catholic – and “one of them” – a Russian (Orthodox) or a Prussian (German Protestant). In addition, the issue of regaining lost independence was gradually becoming part of the popular piety manifested at the largest sanctuaries, the most important one being Jasna Góra. The mid-nineteenth century also saw the development of patriotic religiousness, reinforced by the Romantic messianism of the national bards (A. Mickiewicz, J. Słowacki).8

Dynamics of the pilgrimage movement Despite persecution, the nineteenth century witnessed a period of gradual growth in pilgrim activity (especially in the second half). The dynamics of these changes may be demonstrated by the three selected sanctuaries: Kalwaria Zebrzydowska, Łąki Bratiańskie and Jasna Góra. While the second of the three finally succumbed to Prussian oppression, they all share a common feature: the synthesis of faith and patriotism. Galicia: Kalwaria Zebrzydowska In the Austrian Partition, the most important sanctuary was the Passion and Marian sanctuary in Kalwaria Zebrzydowska. Since its establishment at the very beginning of the seventeenth century (in 1600) by Mikołaj Zebrzydowski, the calvary had been run by the Order of Friars Minor (Franciscans),

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known as “Bernardines” in Poland. The construction of the large complex comprising chapels, churches and the monastery took several decades to complete. The pilgrimage movement began as early as 1606 when some 6,000 people attended the festival of the Finding and Exaltation of the Holy Cross. The influx of pilgrims (especially on Marian holidays) increased after the miraculous image of the Virgin Mary was placed in the main church (1658). The coronation of the image (on 15 August 1887) attracted approximately 200,000 pilgrims, with approximately 300,000 faithful attending the 50th anniversary of the event (1937). The calvary (and the Bernardines who established a strong religious and theological centre there) impacted the entire region. Pastoral work in Kalwaria Zebrzydowska was unique in that it involved “servicing” the sanctuary and the ever-growing pilgrimage movement. Even back in 1608, when the first “calvary path devotion” (nabożeństwo dróżkowe) was held, the sanctuary was a place of transregional (international) importance, and in 1614, two large companies of pilgrims arrived from Slovakia and Cieszyn Silesia. The “calvary path devotions”, or mystery plays, attracted large crowds of people. Originally, the Stations of the Cross were “enacted” in the manner known from Jerusalem. This included the Way of the Capture and the Way of the Cross. The service would begin on Maundy Thursday evening with the Washing of the Feet, followed by a mystery play enacted by “Disciples”, “Christ” and other characters of the Passion. The subsequent scenes (including sermons) took place at the Chapel of St Raphael and at sites representing the Cenacle, Gethsemane, the Arrest, Kidron, the Eastern Gate and Annas. After midnight, the pilgrims came to Caiaphas’ House, before the procession with Jesus descended into the Pit while the remaining attendees sang Miserere. At twilight on Good Friday, the crowd moved on: after a sermon at Caiaphas’ House, the procession marched to Pilate, then to Herod, then back to Pilate. There, Pilate sentenced Jesus and the attendees proceeded to the Chapel of the Taking of the Cross (with Jesus dressed in a blue robe and a crown of thorns), where the cross was placed on Jesus’s back. The procession then marched on to the sites representing the First Fall, Heart of Mary, Simon of Cyrene, St Veronica, Second Fall, Crying Women, Third Fall and the Stripping of Garments, with a sermon delivered at each station. At noon, the procession reached the Church of the Crucifixion, where the Nailing to the Cross, Crucifixion and the Taking Down from the Cross were enacted. A Mass was celebrated at the end, and after the liturgy, the Holy Sacrament was carried to the Church of Christ’s Tomb, where the monastery’s militia stood guard. The last sermon was delivered there, and the indulgence was granted.9 Similar observances were associated with the worship of the Virgin Mary. The “Paths” (Dróżki), a processional Marian service involving a number of “stations”, consisted of three “motifs”: the Way of Sorrow, the Burial and the Triumph of Mary. Seven shrines were devoted to each station, with the service conducted in a manner similar to the Stations of the Cross. Due to

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an enormous influx of the faithful, the Burial and the Triumph of Mary were separated in the mid-eighteenth century. The former was moved to 13 August, and the latter was held on Assumption Day. The Triumph was a procession from the Church of the Tomb to the main church during which a crowned statue of Mary decorated with flowers was carried on a procession float.10 The Bernardines only began recording statistics on the pilgrims after the coronation of the miraculous image of the Virgin Mary (1887). However, there is a mention that the Passion play of 1730 was witnessed by 20,000 to 30,000 pilgrims. In the second half of the nineteenth century, due to the difficulties in reaching Częstochowa, Kalwaria Zebrzydowska became the central sanctuary for all three partitions. Religious celebrations were also mass manifestations of national identity. More than 120,000 people, including 120 priests from various countries, took part in the Assumption Day festival of 1856, with the coronation of the miraculous image of the Virgin Mary (August 1887) attended by approximately 230,000 faithful as well as 243 diocesan priests and friars. The pilgrims came not only from Galicia, but also from the Kingdom of Poland, Hungary, Moravia, Austrian and Prussian Silesia, the Grand Duchy of Posen and Lithuania. Holy Week celebrations and August festivals were also supranational in character. Around 500,000 faithful came to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the founding of the calvary (1902), and the 50th anniversary of the coronation of the Virgin Mary (1937) attracted 300,000 people, including pilgrims from Slovakia. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, Kalwaria Zebrzydowska was considered one of the main pilgrimage destinations (Grosse Wallfahrtorte) in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the number of pilgrims came to rival that of Lourdes or Jasna Góra. Annual attendance was 300,000 to 350,000 people, increasing to over 400,000 people in the years of “extraordinary” celebrations.11 Railways expedited the growth of the pilgrimage movement with new lines from Kraków (1884) and from Kalwaria Zebrzydowska to Bielsk (1888) allowing regular group trips from Kraków to be organised during Holy Week. While most pilgrims made their journey to the sanctuary on foot, nearly all of them returned home by train. The pilgrims travelled in organised companies and were greeted at their destination by Bernardine friars. There, they made their confessions, attended various services and stayed overnight. The pilgrimages were typically organised by laymen known as “guides”. The guides would look after their respective groups, lead prayers and read meditations along the way; after reaching the calvary, they would intone songs and read deliberations at the “stations” (shrines). The “office” of a guide/cantor often passed from father to son. In fact, John Paul II’s great-grandfather and grandfather used to lead groups of pilgrims for many years.12 Kalwaria Zebrzydowska became a model and a stimulus for the creation of other calvaries in the Commonwealth, including Pakość on the River Noteć (1629), Wejherowo (1647) and various sites in Lithuania. The unique “calvary path devotions” and the enormous influx

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of the faithful made Kalwaria Zebrzydowska a central site of Passion worship in partitioned Poland, becoming a model for dozens of other sanctuaries and a strong foundation for Polish national identity and its synthesis with Catholicism. Prussia: Łąki Bratiańskie The fate of Pomerania’s most famous nineteenth-century sanctuary, the Sanctuary of Our Lady of the Meadows, exemplifies the Church’s situation and the pilgrimage movement in the Prussian Partition at the time. The Franciscan monastery (established in 1623) became a centre of re-Catholicisation for the people of the region and spurred the development of the sanctuary. The miracles that took place there, as recorded by the Franciscans, attracted thousands of pilgrims who made numerous votive offerings in return for the graces they received. The sanctuary’s reputation increased with the ceremonial coronation of the statues of Jesus and Mary (2–4 June 1752). On 30 October 1810, the king of Prussia issued an edict to dissolve monasteries and confiscate their property. However, it was only over a dozen years later that the edict was fully put into effect. The monastic order in Bratian was the only one to survive the repressions for several decades. As the Prussian authorities aimed to gradually “extinguish” the monastery and sanctuary through further persecution, the Brotherhood of Our Mother of the Meadows became active in Gniew, organising pilgrimages and defending the Franciscans against the Prussian government.13 The monastery was finally liquidated as a result of the May Laws introduced by the Prussian parliament in 1873, squarely aimed at the Catholic Church, and Poles in particular. The last Franciscans were forced to leave on 27 September 1875, and the monastery was closed down. Pilgrims came to Łąki Bratiańskie from the surrounding area and from three other major directions: the left bank of the Vistula (mainly Kashubia and Kociewie), the Ducal Prussia (Warmia) and the Congress Poland (mainly Kurpie). In 1867, a number of organised companies of pilgrims arrived at the sanctuary: five groups from Warmia (including one group of Germans) and three groups from the Congress Poland (Kurpie). One of the largest groups, consisting of pilgrims from Pomerania, came from Gniew. According to the memoirs of Reverend Stanisław Kujot from 1872, the group was around 3,000 strong before entering the sanctuary. The exact progress and route of the Gniew pilgrimage are known thanks to the accounts of Reverend Andrzej Block, who made his way to Łąki Bratiańskie in 1869 as the curate of Gniew. The priest recounted that despite its size, the group marched in an atmosphere of concentration and strict penance, maintaining perfect order at all times. Around 1,500 people passed through areas inhabited by Protestants. Each company was led by a priest who maintained discipline, led the morning and evening prayers and delivered pious exhortations at every stop (“station”). In Prabuty, as the group joined pilgrim

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companies coming from Warmia, the priest gave one “sermon” in German. The pilgrims were surprised by the faith of the Protestants, who handed them money and asked for prayers. The festival lasted for ten days. According to accounts from 1869, 20 to 30 priests heard the pilgrims’ confessions from 4:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. every day, and approximately 16,000 faithful took Communion during the entire festival. Six sermons were delivered every day: three in Polish and three in German. During the octave of the feast, 20,000 to 30,000 people would visit the sanctuary. Considering the location of the shrine and the lack of railway links, these numbers are impressive. By way of comparison, the nearby town of Nowe Miasto had a population of just 2,000 in 1871.14 The dissolution of the monastery by the Reich government in 1875 (with five fathers and seven brothers living there at the time) and the fire that destroyed the church and monastery in May 1882 put an end to the glorious history of the sanctuary in Łąki Bratiańskie. By the mid-nineteenth century, it was arguably the largest sanctuary in the West Prussia region (which encompassed the Diocese of Chełmno, Warmia and Masuria). Due to the absence of specific data, one can assume that everyone embarked on the journey to Łąki and back on foot or by horse-drawn carriages. The awareness that by persecuting the Catholic Church, the Prussian invader was also a dangerous enemy of the Polish nation, united compatriots from two different partitions: Prussian and Russian. Furthermore, pilgrimages allowed the (now largely German-speaking) people of Warmia to foster their Polish identity and national bonds. Above all, however, they served as an external manifestation of the “Polish faith” and gave people the strength to persevere. The Russian Partition: Jasna Góra Founded in the fourteenth century (1382), the Jasna Góra sanctuary became a true “spiritual capital for the Poles” during the period of national captivity. After 1818, it was part of the Russian Kingdom of Poland, which eventually lost its autonomy in the wake of the 1863 uprising. The partitioner enacted draconian laws which prohibited clergymen from leaving their posts (places of residence) without permission. The lamentable state of pastoral work in parishes resulted, to an extent, from the high birth rate, but the main reason was the rapid spread of industrial towns. Realising the significance of the Jasna Góra Monastery, the authorities made it their goal to eliminate it. In the period leading up to the 1863 uprising, the number of pilgrimages to the Black Madonna shrine rose dramatically, with patriotic manifestations taking place at the sanctuary. In response, the authorities “punished” the order with severe sanctions. Constant surveillance of the monastery, searches, trials and deportations deep into Russia lasted until 1905. During that time, the authorities interfered with all aspects of the

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Pauline Fathers’ lives, punishing priests who heard confessions without permission. Specific routes were also designated for groups of pilgrims in order that they would not turn into manifestations of national identity. Furthermore, the authorities demanded that announcements be communicated to churchgoers in Russian, and made efforts to turn Jasna Góra into a Russian Orthodox religious centre.15 The number of pilgrims peaked in several periods associated with church festivals. The central celebration was the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (8 September, with octave). On that day in 1717, the miraculous image was coronated with tiaras from Pope Clement XI. Anniversaries of the foundation of the Jasna Góra Monastery were also celebrated on this date (in 1682, 1782 and 1882), and so was the 100th anniversary of the coronation (1817). The second festival was held on the day of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (15 August). Until the end of the nineteenth century, the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Pentecost attracted the greatest attendance as these dates were convenient for farmers, coinciding with a period free from field work. The monastery treasury holds hundreds of votive offerings made by pilgrims. In addition, the pilgrims purchased devotional items manufactured by hundreds of craftsmen. As in other sanctuaries, a number of brotherhoods played an important role at the Jasna Góra Monastery in the nineteenth century: the Brotherhood of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Jasna Góra, the Brotherhood of the Finding of the Holy Cross, the Brotherhood of the Holy Rosary, the Brotherhood of the Scapular of the Blessed Virgin Mary and, since 1880, the Brotherhood of the Most Sacred and Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Brotherhood of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Registers of group pilgrimages from the second half of the nineteenth century are incomplete due to the fact that the Pauline Fathers concealed the true scale of the pilgrimage movement (and the offerings made by the pilgrims) from the Russians. An estimated 25 percent of the groups entered the sanctuary with their own priests and bands without registering. Pilgrimages to the Jasna Góra Monastery were an important social phenomenon. In 1870, the number of pilgrims (arriving in groups) from the Kingdom of Poland alone reached 103,220, which translates to 2.6 percent of all Poles living there. Records from 1910 show a figure of 707,242 people, which constitutes as much as 7.5 percent of the Kingdom’s total population. This indicates a significant growth in the pilgrimage movement. Territorially, the movement was both nationwide (transgressing the borders of the partitions) and international (with pilgrims arriving from outside the borders of the former Commonwealth of Poland); a total of 1897 place names were identified. In 1865–1913, the number of pilgrims’ places of origin increased by 161.7 percent, the number of groups of pilgrims grew by 166.2 percent, and the number of attendees rose by an impressive 398.2 percent.16 During the 1870s, the attendance figure for the Exaltation of the Holy Cross festival was around 200,000.

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As regards the territorial reach of the pilgrimage movement, companies of pilgrims came predominantly from the Kingdom of Poland (almost 90 percent), with Silesia ranking second, followed by Galicia, Cieszyn Silesia and the Grand Duchy of Posen; few groups from other lands of the Commonwealth visited the sanctuary. For centuries, Jasna Góra had also been a destination for foreign pilgrims from Moravia and Hungary, and this continued in the nineteenth century. The number of visitors to Jasna Góra was especially high in “extraordinary” years. For example, the consecration of the rebuilt tower on 15 August 1906 was attended by 300,000 people. In many places, pilgrim activity was stimulated by Marian brotherhoods, with eminent priests often becoming the spiritus movens of the pilgrimages. At the same time, the presence of priests at the sanctuary depended on the discretion of the occupying authorities. As a result, over two-thirds of the pilgrim groups travelled without an ordained leader. Records from 1901–1914 show that a total of 1,196 lay guides regularly led pilgrim companies to the Jasna Góra Monastery.17 Another stimulus for the development of the pilgrimage movement came from railways: first the Warsaw-Vienna Railway (1846), and then other routes. In fact, organisers often booked special “church festival trains” (also called “excursion trains”). According to the statistics for 1882, 400,000 people arrived on foot and 50,000 arrived by train to take part in the festival on 8 September. While train connections to Silesia, Russia and Prussia facilitated the journeys (with an increasing number of pilgrims returning home by train), pilgrimages were still predominantly made on foot in the early twentieth century.18 Due to the distance involved, the pilgrims were adults mainly aged 20 to 40, with nearly 80 percent of them women. In 1864–1914, although over 54 percent of the pilgrims came from cities, their pilgrim activity was rooted in rural traditions. An interesting phenomenon was the pilgrimage movement to have emerged among working-class men, such as coal miners from Będzin, Dąbrowa Górnicza and Zawiercie. A majority of the pilgrims (especially those from further away) were moderately wealthy, while members of the landowning gentry or industrialists did not participate. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, hundreds of volunteer firemen (and professional firemen from coal mines) as well as members of farmers’ cooperative associations also took part in the pilgrimages.19 A testimony to the importance of the sanctuary in Częstochowa, it was a common conviction in parishes and families of the Kingdom of Poland that every member of the congregation should go on a pilgrimage to Jasna Góra at least once in his or her life. The majority of the groups (in terms of the number of pilgrims) were companies of up to 300 people. This made it easier to make arrangements for the journey (i.e. provisions, accommodation, orderly progress) and facilitated integration within the groups.

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Characteristics of the Polish pilgrimage movement in the second half of the nineteenth century: defence of faith = defence of Polish identity 1

2

The Partitions of Poland are key to an understanding of the religious and social life and attitudes of Poles in the nineteenth century (and also today). Poland disappeared from maps of Europe for 123 years (1795–1918). While this event had disastrous consequences for the Polish national identity, it also gradually became a catalyst for the patriotic movement that strived to regain the long-awaited liberty and independent Motherland. In all three partitions, the Church lost its political importance; it was cut off from the Holy See and subjected to strict state control. Dissolutions not only destroyed hundreds of institutions critical to cultural identity and the quality of spiritual life (such as monasteries, schools, hospitals and publishing houses), but also made the clergy fully dependent on secular authority. From the very beginning, two of the partitioning states – Orthodox Russia and Protestant Prussia – were perceived by Poles as alien and hostile. Restrictions against the Church were perceived as anti-Polish, which became particularly apparent in the Russian Partition, where Catholicism was associated with being Polish in its strictest sense (“a Catholic” was synonymous to “a Pole” and vice versa). To this day, Roman Catholicism is known in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine as the “Polish faith”. The failed uprisings in the Kingdom of Poland (in 1830 and 1863) and the much smaller uprising in the Prussian Partition (1848) revealed a strong relationship between the national cause (independence) and Catholicism. While the Spring of Nations had a minor impact on the Polish lands, it gave rise (at least in the Prussian Partition) to a religious revival accompanied by various forms of social self-organisation centred around Catholic parishes. In the Austrian Partition, the Jesuits played a vital role until 1855 (through popular missions). By the early 1860s, large-scale patriotic manifestations in the Kingdom of Poland were part of worship, and aspirations for independence were expressed during masses celebrated for the Motherland. Groups of pilgrims travelling hundreds of kilometres carried religious and national emblems. In fact, the Russian government blamed the “fanaticisation” of society on priests and women rather than on revolutionaries. The clergy widely supported the 1863–1864 uprising, and therefore became the target of draconian repressions (including the deportation of the Archbishop of Warsaw Zygmunt Feliński). The “union of the nation and the altar” formed at that time continues to bear fruit to this day. The growing national awareness (heightened by the partitioners’ repressions) and the “moral revolution” among the bourgeoisie (correlated with the popular piety rooted in the rural areas) crystallised into

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Jan Perszon a unique form of patriotic “spirituality”, its external manifestation being the thriving pilgrimage movement in many sanctuaries, especially the Marian ones.20 Religious life centred around various sanctuaries was a major factor contributing to the growth of national awareness. Although the pilgrimage movement established itself in the Commonwealth during the period of the so-called Catholic reform (Baroque), it continued to develop in many places in the second half of the nineteenth century, despite repressions from the occupying powers. The sanctuaries described (Łąki Bratiańskie in the Prussian Partition, Kalwaria Zebrzydowska in the Austrian Partition and Jasna Góra in the Russian Partition) demonstrate the great diversity of the political contexts in which Poles had to live in the nineteenth century. The fate of the Łąki Bratiańskie sanctuary represents a triumph by the administrative powers of Prussia, which brought this centre of Marian worship to closure during a period of rapid growth. Although the measures which led to its downfall were administrative and legal in nature, it was common knowledge that the “Polish issue” was actually at stake, as the sanctuary primarily gathered Polish people, who were increasingly well-organised and aware of their Pomeranian/Polish cultural identity. The fate of Kalwaria Zebrzydowska was vastly different. There, despite Josephinist restrictions and regulations, the Bernardines were able to not only maintain their pre-partition “holdings”, but also to enlarge them. In the second half of the nineteenth century, the calvary became a centre of religious life for hundreds of thousands of people from Galicia, Upper Silesia and the lands lying further to the south (Slovakia, Hungary). The dominance of the Polish language and the sheer scale of the pastoral work conducted there made Kalwaria Zebrzydowska a major spiritual centre for the Polish people deprived of their sovereign state, second only to Częstochowa. In the second half of the nineteenth century, Jasna Góra grew into a true spiritual capital of the oppressed Poles. As a result of the intensive pilgrimage movement, the Black Madonna (already known as the “Queen of the Polish Crown”) became a symbol of the “indomitable people”. Such an analysis of the factors that influenced the growing importance of the Czestochowa sanctuary only partially explains its impact. The steady river of pilgrims – hundreds of thousands every year – was not mobilised by the Jasna Góra Pauline Fathers, as they were subjected to constant surveillance and police control throughout the nineteenth century and often prevented from pursuing normal pastoral work. The magnitude of the Jasna Góra pilgrimage movement cannot be explained by the involvement of the clergy in the so-called Congress Poland, either, as the martial law which remained in effect for several decades and the prohibition on movement between parishes precluded most priests and bishops from taking part in pilgrimages. In

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addition, the Church had no means (such as pastoral letters) to communicate with the faithful. Taking into account the weakness of parish ministry in the Russian Partition and the ruthless Russification of public life, one can only assume that there existed a national sensus fidei of a kind which led people of different estates to make the journey to Jasna Góra. This must account for the almost fivefold growth in the number of pilgrims visiting Jasna Góra (from 46,000 to 200,000). It once again becomes evident that the years of intensifying national liberation movements (1860–1863, 1904–1905) also witnessed a revival in religious life. In the period of national captivity, pilgrimages to sanctuaries devoted to the Virgin Mary and Christ became one of the few manifestations of the Poles’ sense of community “above the divisions”. The Partitions of Poland deprived Poles and other citizens of the First Commonwealth of their own state institutions, administration, selfgovernment bodies, property and, above all, freedom. Despite restrictions, the Church acted as a “substitute” institution, a promoter and guardian of identity of “that which constitutes Poland”.

Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Skarbek, “Kościół katolicki”, 454–9. Kumor, Ustrój, 16–67. Skarbek, “Kościół katolicki”, 481–99; Gach, Struktury, 97; Kumor, Ustrój, 200. Kumor, Ustrój, 212–13. Mróz, “Geneza”, 169–70. Górecki, Pielgrzymowanie, 38–9. Zieliński, “Kulturkampf”; Mróz, “Geneza”, 164. Skarbek, “Kościół katolicki”, 482–501. Wyczawski, Kalwaria Zebrzydowska, 65–102. Ibid., 236–56. Jackowski, “Kalwaria Zebrzydowska”, 65–6. Wyczawski, Kalwaria Zebrzydowska, 211–22. Korecki, Sanktuarium Maryjne, 37–41, 55–70. Ibid., 111–14. Jabłoński, Jasna Góra, 21–35. Ibid., 147–52. Ibid., 159–63. Ibid., 160. Ibid., 223–6. Jabłońska-Deptułowa, “W dobie Wiosny Ludów”, 240–2.

Sources and bibliography Gach, P.P. Struktury i działalność duszpasterska zakonów męskich na ziemiach dawnej Rzeczypospolitej i Śląska w latach 1773–1914. Lublin: Redakcja Wydawnictw KUL, 1999. Górecki, J. Pielgrzymowanie Górnoślązaków na Górę św: Anny w latach 1859–1914: studium teologicznopastoralne. Studia i Materiały Wydziału Teologicznego

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Uniwersytetu Śląskiego w Katowicach 7. Katowice: Księgarnia Świętego Jacka, 2002. Jabłońska-Deptułowa, E. “W dobie Wiosny Ludów i Powstania Styczniowego”. In Chrześcijaństwo w Polsce: zarys przemian 966–1945, edited by J. Kłoczowski, 219–42. Biblioteka Historii Społeczno-Religijnej Instytutu Geografii Historycznej Kościoła w Polsce 1. Lublin: Wydawnictwo Towarzystwa Naukowego Katolickiego Uniwersytetu Lubelskiego, 1980. Jabłoński, S.Z. Jasna Góra: ośrodek kultu maryjnego (1864–1914). Lublin: Redakcja Wydawnictw KUL, 1984. Jackowski, A. “Kalwaria Zebrzydowska w sieci ośrodków pielgrzymkowych w Polsce i w Europie”. In Tradycje, współczesność i przyszłość pielgrzymek w Kalwarii Zebrzydowskiej, edited by A. Jackowski, 65–75. Peregrinus Cracoviensis, 1425–1922, z. 2/1995. Kraków: Instytut Geografii i Gospodarki Przestrzennej, Uniwersytet Jagielloński, 1995. Korecki, A. Sanktuarium Maryjne w Łąkach Bratiańskich. Biblioteczka Nowomiejska 7. Pelplin: Wydawnictwo Diecezji Pelplińskiej “Bernardinum”, 2002. Kumor, B. Ustrój i organizacja Kościoła polskiego w okresie niewoli narodowej (1772–1918). Kraków: Polskie Towarzystwo Teologiczne, 1980. Mróz, F. “Geneza i typologia sanktuariów Pańskich w Polsce”. Ph.D. diss., Uniwersytet Jagielloński, 2005. Skarbek, J. “Kościół katolicki na ziemiach polskich pod zaborami 1773–1848”. In Historia Kościoła, edited by L.J. Rogier, G. de Bertier de Sauvigny, and J. Hajjar, translated by T. Szafrański. Vol. 4: 1715–1848, 454–501. Warsaw: Instytut Wydawniczy “Pax”, 1987. Wyczawski, H.E. Kalwaria Zebrzydowska: historia klasztoru Bernardynów i kalwaryjskich dróżek. Kalwaria Zebrzydowska: Wydawnictwo OO, Bernardynów “Calvarianum”, 1987. Zieliński, Z. “Kulturkampf”. In Encyklopedia katolicka, edited by A. Bednarek. Vol. 10: Krzyszkowski – Lozay, cols. 205–7. Lublin: Towarzystwo Naukowe Katolickiego Uniwersytetu Lubelskiego, 2004.

11 Orthodox faith on the move in late Imperial Russia Christine D. Worobec

Introduction By the eve of World War I, mass pilgrimages to holy shrines both near and far had come to showcase the vibrancy of modern Orthodoxy in Imperial Russia. Each year millions of individuals of all classes descended upon monastic institutions, traversing the 50 European provinces of the empire and Siberia in order to venerate their favourite saints and miracle-working icons. It is little wonder that these sites beckoned pilgrims, imbued as they were with the life experiences of individual saints – where they had walked and prayed, where their ongoing intercessions with God occurred and where their posthumous powers were expressed through miraculous cures. The constant repetition of prayers and remembrance services passed down through the generations and even centuries only added to the appeal. In their attempt to replicate paradise on Earth, these establishments and their natural environs in believers’ minds were closer to heaven – and therefore more accessible to divine grace and the possibility of miracles – than their parish churches. Unlike contemporaneous Catholic Europe, apparitions of Mary were not central to modern Orthodox pilgrimage.1 Pilgrims generally travelled spontaneously and in small groups to both local and regional monastic shrines. In the wake of the 1905 Revolution, larger organised groups of parishioners, students and members of church-affiliated temperance societies increasingly set off for particular holy sites with the material support of local philanthropists as well as the blessing and occasional funding from the Holy Synod, the governing body of the Russian Orthodox Church. Clergy-led pilgrimages were designed to infuse the journeys with coordinated prayers, hymns and services. They were also intended to regulate pilgrims’ behaviour and thoughts in a battle against superstitions, on the one hand, and the influences of secularism and the competing religious market of sectarians, Old Belief and evangelical Christians, on the other. Ecclesiastics thought that group pilgrimages would instil believers with a patriotic zeal derived from the communal sharing of sacred prayers, liturgical practices and sermons, as well as the religious histories of the sites and the lives of the saints to be

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visited. Such coordination of religious piety grew out of the model created by the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society (IPPO), set up in 1882 to facilitate the passage of Russian Orthodox pilgrimages to holiest Jerusalem by way of Constantinople. Through their movements – whether spontaneous or not – religious pilgrims and their prayers charted a sacred landscape across secular spaces. This modernisation of pilgrimage in late Imperial Russia had been facilitated by a number of developments in the second half of the nineteenth century, beginning with the greater freedom of movement spurred by the emancipation of peasants from serfdom in 1861 and the dramatic growth of steamship and railway traffic, which culminated in the completion of most of the Trans-Siberian railroad in the mid-1890s, and the explosion in the religious press. Religious and socio-economic changes within monasteries that involved expanding services to the laity, the need for these institutions to be self-sustaining, the celebration of anniversaries of the founding of medieval religious institutions and the development of new saints’ cults also fostered the tremendous growth in pilgrimages. Before these changes may be explored in greater detail, however, pilgrimages in the immediate pre-emancipation period need to be briefly outlined.

Pilgrimages prior to 1861 Although peasants under serfdom did not enjoy freedom of movement, they were far more mobile than the draconian laws that Peter I (reigned 1682–1725) instituted in the early eighteenth century and subsequent rulers renewed suggested. Noble and crown estates in the non-black earth areas depended upon their serfs being able to engage in seasonal migrant trades and commercial activities that produced revenues for quitrent and taxation. State peasants, who were not assigned to individual owners but had similar taxation and conscription responsibilities as their serf counterparts, were also involved in proto-industrial pursuits.2 As of 1719, the law required that all itinerant peasants have internal passports or at least written documentation from their owners that allowed them to leave their home villages. If apprehended by government officials, the undocumented were treated as idle vagrants, put in irons and returned to their residences. Recidivists were exiled to Siberia. Anyone caught begging and receiving alms – which according to traditional practices pilgrims were expected to do in the name of Christ – also came under the category of vagrant. The repeated promulgation of decrees against vagrancy in the long eighteenth century indicated a peasantry that did not always obey the law and a state that did not have enough officials to enforce the law. Pilgrims figured among both the documented and undocumented. The problem of passportless peasants believed to be shirking their economic or military responsibilities worsened to the extent that by 1822, vagrants, including pilgrims, were exiled to Siberia upon first arrest.3

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In the summer of 1840, officials in the Ministry of Internal Affairs expressed unease over the number of vagrants assumed to be posing as pilgrims among the approximately 100,000 worshippers flooding into the city of Kyiv to venerate over 120 uncorrupted and full-bodied saints’ relics in the catacombs of the famous Monastery of the Caves, the first monastic institution established in Kyivan Rus’ in the mid-eleventh century. As in 1764, they came from not only adjacent Little Russian (Ukrainian) areas, but also Polish and Great Russian provinces. Mass arrests in Kyiv province in 1842 yielded close to 2,800 vagrants, the highest number of any other province, who the authorities perceived as a potential threat to Kyiv’s social resources. Among these vagrant-pilgrims and their counterparts in other years figured scores of individuals who had already or later adopted religious vocations as hermits, monks and nuns, or became holy fools.4 The combination of all the saints’ ongoing intercessory prayers on behalf of mankind as well as the prayers of countless other holy people who had visited the Monastery of the Caves over the centuries constituted for believers a concentration of unprecedented sacred power within the Russian Empire. Pilgrims understood their salvation to be intimately tied to a pilgrimage to this monastic institution. In some instances, they were willing to defy the state to seek out God’s blessings and to view any punishments as part of their ascetic struggle on behalf of their deep faith. In addition to the Monastery of the Caves, two other monastic institutions within the empire stood out as significant pilgrimage destinations prior to 1861: the Holy Trinity-St Sergius Monastery and the Solovetskii Monastery, popularly known as Solovki. The former, located in Sergiev Posad around 75 kilometres northeast of Moscow, was founded in the fourteenth century in a secluded forest by the monastery’s namesake. It served as a model for the building of other monastic institutions within the new Muscovite state. Having received the counsel of St Sergius to oppose the Mongol overlords militarily in the successful Battle at Kulikovo Field (1380), the Riurikid Muscovite princes became patrons of his monastery, a tradition that their successors, including the Romanov dynasty – first elected in 1613 – upheld. In 1859, an astounding 230,000 pilgrims visited the monastery, mainly travelling by foot, although carriages and wagons were sighted along the roads. By contrast, Solovki – established in the first half of the fifteenth century on the shores of the White Sea – only attracted 6,000 pilgrims in the early 1860s. However, given the arduous journey over choppy and often stormy waters and the short pilgrimage season between late May and late August – when the sea was free of ice – the trip was not for the faint-hearted. In fact, believers considered a pilgrimage to Solovki to be a spiritual feat. By the end of the nineteenth century, the number of religious itinerants to Solovki would increase fourfold.5 According to Scott Kenworthy, such a dramatic surge in the number of pilgrims by the turn of the twentieth century may also have occurred at Trinity-Sergius. Poor pilgrims, who depended upon Trinity-Sergius monks

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to provide them with three days of free food, numbered around 400,000 in 1885 alone and at least 600,000 in 1900. Kenworthy concludes that a million pilgrims per year may have visited the monastery in the early years of the new century.6 Unfortunately, monastic institutions did not keep records of those who came through their gates, but only what expenditures they incurred in providing for pilgrims and the donations they received from the latter. An impressive number of pilgrims had also visited the Caves Monastery by the turn of the twentieth century, when they were estimated to total well over a quarter million, and almost half a million in 1908.7 By the eve of emancipation, Imperial Russia thus had three major pilgrimage sites in addition to regional shines that would grow exponentially by the end of the century. At least two of these institutions had already welcomed massive numbers of pilgrims. According to government reports, the Monastery of the Caves enjoyed a reputation as a national shrine, while the numbers visiting Trinity-Sergius strongly suggest that it too was attracting pilgrims from outside the Moscow region. Factors connected to modernisation would increase these monastic institutions’ visibility and promote the creation of new ones.

Forces of modernisation Emancipation and canonisation of Tikhon of Zadonsk in 1861 The 1861 abolition of serfdom ushered in a period of greater mobility for peasants. Migration to the cities among men increased dramatically, as did migration of families to the eastern frontiers and eventually Siberia. As peasants sought greater economic opportunities and virgin land, they often ignored government restrictions on mobility. In response the state made internal passports easier to obtain and more affordable, although women required not only their communities’ permission to travel beyond 32 kilometres but also that of their husbands. No longer were unauthorised migrants and pilgrims dispatched to Siberia unless they had committed crimes against the state. The August 1861 canonisation of Tikhon of Zadonsk (1724–1783), former bishop of Voronezh, symbolised the dawn of this new age of freedom and modernity. Tikhon’s grave had attracted pilgrims in the pre-emancipation period in response to word that posthumous miracles occurred there. Tomb guardians at the Zadonsk monastery began keeping a register of miracles in 1820. As preparations for the canonisation ceremony and translation of the relics began in early 1861, invitations to the laity were extended in Orthodox pulpits across the empire to embark on pilgrimages to Zadonsk to venerate the uncorrupted relics of the people’s saint. More than 300,000 pilgrims from across Russia, mainly peasants, participated in the three-day event. Most made the journey on foot and made a point of venerating St Mitrofan’s relics in the city of Voronezh as well, either to or on their way back from the ceremonies. Zadonsk rapidly became a national shrine.8

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Steamships and railroads In addition to greater freedom of mobility after 1861, pilgrims also benefited from first steamship and then rail travel, although popular opinion saved admiration for individuals who insisted on travelling entire distances by foot and had made a vow to do so. Not only did these trekkers brave all sorts of weather and physical conditions, but they also were able to visit far more pilgrimage sites on their way to and from their final destinations. They slept under the open sky in barns and small wooden shelters meant for pilgrims and migrants. English visitor Stephen Graham was struck by the fact that all the roads he traversed in Russia in 1914 had “many thousands of pious Russians . . . on their way to the monasteries and holy places”. “The Russians”, he remarked “are always en route for some place where they may find out something about God”.9 Modern transportation nevertheless saved scores of pilgrims considerable time. An 1867 trip from Kazan to Solovki, a distance of over 18,000 kilometres, took a pilgrim of some means, which may therefore have involved some carriage travel, two and a half months. By contrast in 1900, rail and steamships conveyed pilgrims across more than 9,000 kilometres from Western Siberia to Solovki in just five weeks, after having made a few stops at holy shrines along the route. Even with railroads, significant walking was necessary for peasants who could not afford carriages or horses if the rail station was located some distance from a monastery. For example, the Arzamas station, which opened in 1902 to convey pilgrims to the Sarov Monastery in Nizhnii Novgorod for the 1903 canonisation of the humble monk Serafim of Sarov (1754–1853) was located a good 64 kilometres from the shrine.10 A 62-year-old indigent priest from Tobolsk diocese found himself in the unenviable position of having to make his way on foot to St Petersburg in 1899 before he was able to board a train to Odessa and then a steamship to Constantinople and the Holy Land. The 150 roubles for the rail portions of the trip had been donated by another priest to the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society (IPPO), which subsidised pilgrims’ journeys.11 Reduced rates, subsidies and sometimes free travel on steamships and railroads encouraged pilgrims to take these new conveyances. In this regard government measures facilitating pilgrimages to the Holy Land as well as Mount Athos led the way. By 1856, the not-insignificant fee of 250 roubles for foreign passports had been lifted, and the following year, a new law reduced the cost of passports for Orthodox pilgrims to the Holy Land and Muslim pilgrims to Mecca to 50 kopecks.12 Following this move to encourage Russian Orthodox pilgrimages to Jerusalem, the foundation of the Russian Company of Steam Navigation and Trade in 1856 under the aegis of Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich Romanov launched steamship travel to Russia’s growing mission in the Holy Land. By the early 1880s, the newly created IPPO, also under Romanov leadership, was in negotiations with the same company and other Russian railway companies to come up

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with a reduced and uniform price for third-class passengers – the majority of whom were peasants – to Jerusalem, regardless of the location of their residence. It continued to negotiate cheaper fares with new railway companies, although distance became a factor in determining those fares as railways had expanded considerably, even to Siberia, by the mid-1890s. Beginning in 1883, the IPPO issued pilgrims booklets of coupons for rail and ship transport. In 1893, such a booklet cost a pilgrim from a central province 33 roubles and one from St Petersburg a substantial 150 roubles. Without an IPPO coupon booklet, a pilgrim had to pay 24 roubles for the journey from Odessa to Jaffa alone. Although the IPPO aggressively advertised its services in various publications, only some 50 percent of the substantial numbers of religious travellers actually purchased the coupons.13 By 1898, an estimated 4,000 Russian pilgrims were observed in Jerusalem at Easter time, while six years later, the total number of Russian pilgrims reached 11,000.14 Almost all of the rail traffic went through Odessa, from which ships sailed to the Holy Land and Mount Athos through Constantinople. Boats also departed from Taganrog on the Azov Sea and from the Black Sea ports of Novorossiisk and Batumi. In Odessa, all pilgrims were met by monks from Mount Athos’s Russian Panteleimon Monastery, who directed them to nearby accommodations that the monastery owned and operated. There the travellers could recover from the journey, obtain free basic meals and attend church services throughout the day and evening. The monks also acted as middlemen, helping pilgrims to register with the police as well as acquire foreign passports; the necessary documentation from the Turkish consulate, rusks and other provisions for the journey; religious brochures, guidebooks and souvenirs; and anything else they might require. Some of the monks not only escorted the pilgrims to the boats, but also accompanied them aboard ship. The journey on a steamship to the Holy Land by way of Constantinople took 10 to 14 days, depending upon the weather. Although the ships were modern conveniences, they were not always in the best condition. With the exception of the first- and second-class sections, pilgrims were packed in like sardines. Any number of literate travellers commented on the unhygienic conditions and the problems of aging boats. Boats that could comfortably accommodate 100 passengers were instead crammed with 450 to 1,000. A passenger noted in the early twentieth century that third-class accommodations on the upper deck were little better than those provided for the animals.15 Father Trapitsyn from Viatka diocese expressed his unease when he and a companion visited the ship Odessa in summer 1894 in the port of the same name prior to the sailing date. There they found an old steamship showing signs of damage and its crew filling holes in the deck with pitch. Sure enough, the boat’s motor failed one night on the open sea between Beirut and Jaffa. Fortunately, a French steamship was able to pick up the stranded passengers and return them to Beirut, where they subsequently boarded another impressive French steamship.16 By placing pilgrims in the

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hands of monks at the places of disembarkation and on the ships themselves, the IPPO nevertheless guaranteed a smoother trip for Orthodox pilgrims. It also isolated these religious travellers not only from the profane and sometimes dangerous life in Odessa, but also from pilgrims of other confessions and religions in Constantinople and the Holy Land, where Orthodox pilgrims were once again housed in Orthodox compounds. A similar model was followed by monastic institutions dependent upon water travel for access to their remote sites. Here the Solovetskii Monastery led the way, having acquired its first steamboat in 1861 and two other boats in 1881 and 1887. Monks operated the boats in all capacities, ensuring the regular saying of prayers and services and care for pilgrims’ sacramental needs. Each of the boats’ mastheads was distinguished by a gilded Russian cross. Otherwise the ships had no amenities other than a samovar for firstand second-class passengers and boiled water for the rest.17 When an Archangel newspaper reporter complained about the lack of food services for the 17-hour trip from Archangel – where the monastery ran a guesthouse for pilgrims – to the Solovki archipelago, the monastery’s archimandrite questioned the reporter’s sincerity as a pilgrim, suggesting that he and others like him were false pilgrims uninterested in the veneration of the monastic institution’s blessed saints. The archimandrite further boasted that it was well known that the saints of Solovki ensured that genuine pilgrims arrived safely and that ecclesiastical hierarchs never experienced bad weather on the journey across the White Sea.18 Other educated observers tended to be critical of Solovki’s boat services. A medical doctor traveling in 1885 observed that the monastery’s boats ran irregularly, with pilgrims sometimes having to wait ten days for a boat’s arrival, only then to find themselves crammed together in stuffy, dark quarters or out on the freezing deck at the mercy of the elements. Sea-sickness was, of course, ubiquitous.19 S.D. Protopopov, another educated pilgrim, noted the superiority of the private Murmansk company’s steamships, even though a steamship from Archangel to Solovki ran only once a week and its fares were higher than those for Solovki’s boats, which – unbeknownst to Protopopov – occasionally provided free passage for indigent pilgrims. Protopopov also described the monastery’s archimandrite as fancying himself to be an engineer with a penchant for ignoring expert advice. In contrast, this same pilgrim praised the Valaam Monastery’s more advanced facilities and its clean, sleek steamship Ol’ga which traversed Lake Ladoga.20 Valaam’s steamships often towed two to three large non-motorised vessels to transport as many pilgrims as possible around the islands. Following the traditions of Orthodox hermitages in Syria, Palestine and Egypt, however, women were not permitted on the island where the St John the Forerunner Skete was located, and only once a year were they allowed in the All Saints Skete on its feast day nine weeks after Easter, when a procession of the cross came here from the main monastery. Commercial steamships carrying

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pilgrims to Valaam regularly arrived from St Petersburg on Saturdays and departed on Mondays.21 At the height of the summer pilgrimage season, commercial steamships likewise towed non-motorised vessels to accommodate not only the crush of pilgrims to and from Solovki, but also to provide navigational assistance when water levels on rivers were low and boats risked running aground. In the late nineteenth century, English traveller Reverend Alexander Boddy described the commercial paddle-steamer Filip Bulyshov as towing a massive ark full of pilgrims on its 1,600-kilometre journey from the White Sea to Moscow along the Dvina River and its southern tributary. This boat supplemented the steamship’s regular accommodations for travellers. Some of the “ark” pilgrims earned money by “bringing wood aboard the steamer for its engines”, while others enjoyed free passage in exchange for helping to “navigate the boat along rapids” by jumping off, running alongside the boat and pushing it when it ran aground.22 Boats owned and operated by the Solovetskii and Valaam monasteries and by private companies were able to dramatically increase the number of pilgrims that came annually to venerate these monasteries’ saints. Commercial boats plied the vast Volga River as well, making it possible for pilgrims to travel as far away as Kazan. It should be noted that even the commercial boats could be easily converted into what Robert Greene calls “makeshift house[s] of worship” as priests regularly travelled on these boats and conducted services.23 Pilgrims themselves often spontaneously began to sing hymns and prayers. After the 1905 Revolution, the Holy Synod and diocesan officials began to encourage controlled group pilgrimages of entire parishes, school groups of all ages and temperance societies to instil patriotism and to combat secular influences as well as those of sectarianism, Old Belief, evangelical Protestantism and even atheism. No statistics about how many such groups were organised in a given year exist. Nevertheless, their numbers must have been considerable given the fact that in the school year 1910–1911, students from 133 church schools in Moscow diocese alone visited local monasteries, monastic institutions in Moscow and Trinity-Sergius Monastery. That number fell to 117 in 1911–1912 and 91 in 1912–1913.24 Subsidies from the Holy Synod, provincial zemstvo organisations as well as local entrepreneurs and industrialists resulted in substantially discounted and sometimes free steamship and railway tickets. In 1916, a pilgrimage of 500 parishioners from Kyiv journeyed to the ancient city of Chernihiv and the reliquary of St Feodosii aboard a steamship which the accompanying priests festooned with religious banners and standards and to which it affixed a huge cross. It was not unusual for clergy to bless the trains that transported pilgrims to holy sites near and far and for railroads to provide extra free wagons at times of major religious celebrations, including the translations of relics, canonisation ceremonies and anniversaries.25

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Explosion in religious publications It was not only modern transport but also an explosion in religious print literature, over which the Russian Orthodox Church enjoyed a monopoly – until a relaxation in censorship occurred after the 1905 Revolution – that also stimulated a boom in pilgrimages within and without the empire in the late Imperial period. Guidebooks to various holy shrines, histories of individual monastic institutions, individual saints’ vitae or collections thereof and provincial religious calendars proliferated. An 1885 synodal publication of the lives of SS Cyril and Methodius, who brought Christianity to the Slavs, enjoyed a print run of 371,000.26 By 1911, over 400,000 copies of the vita of St Tikhon of Zadonsk had been distributed.27 Journals and newspapers designed for the clergy and laity featured detailed descriptions of monastic institutions, stories about pilgrimages to those institutions as well as churches, and miracle tales that chronicled cures of illnesses at holy shrines and before miracle-working icons. The importance of conservative diocesan weekly newspapers, which began publication in the 1860s, cannot be underestimated. While these papers’ official sections listed church business and decrees, the unofficial sections welcomed reports from the clergy on all aspects of popular piety, including pilgrimages and obituaries for exemplary devout members of the laity and clergy. Given the significant size of the clerical estate – ranging from sacristans to ordained married clergy among the white clergy and novices to ordained clergy and schemamonks among the black clergy – and the likelihood that the white clergy married within its ranks, the reception for the diocesan newspapers was substantial. Some of their content could easily be shared with the laity in paraliturgical discussions that became regular features of parish life from the 1870s onward. By the turn of the twentieth century, clerical writers competed with one another in boasting about the size of the crowds of pilgrims that attended special services to honour a particular saint or miracle-working icon. Russkii palomnik, a mass illustrated weekly magazine designed for both actual and armchair pilgrims, began its publication run in 1885 in the capable hands of the famous editor and commercial publisher P.P. Soikin. He assumed ownership of the magazine 11 years later. By the turn of the century, enticing photographs had quickly come to replace sketches of holy sites and figures. Beginning in 1879, the Trinity-Sergius Monastery introduced almost weekly pamphlets called Troitskie listi – numbering between 40 and 50 issues annually – that promoted religious and moral enlightenment for the general laity and became a model for other publications. Trinity-Sergius monks distributed the leaflets for free to the hundreds of thousands of pilgrims who came to the monastery per annum and mailed them all over the empire for a kopeck each. By 1897, over 76 million copies of these pamphlets had appeared. That figure, including related booklets, had risen to over 114 million by 1904.28 Edifying pamphlets and booklets for

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pilgrims interested in Mount Athos and Jerusalem were soon prepared and published by the press of the Russian Panteleimon Monastery on Mount Athos. So popular were religious leaflets that the illustrated religious journal Voskresnyi den’, which was targeted at an educated audience, began a year after its founding date of 1887 to publish weekly leaflets with a print run of several million in order to reach a wider audience.29 Although literacy rates remained low in Imperial Russia in comparison with Western and some Eastern European countries, substantial progress had been made by the end of the nineteenth century to sustain popular literature. By 1913, 54 percent of urban and rural males and 26 percent of females over the age of nine were literate. However, these numbers masked significant differences between more literate younger generations under the age of 40 and older generations who had little or no schooling.30 The profusion of reading rooms and lending libraries in secular and religious institutions served a growing reading public extremely well. Tea rooms and taverns also played their part in disseminating the knowledge from newspapers and journals that could be read aloud in these social settings. It was common for peasants and urban workers to paper the icon corners in their residences with cut-outs of icons and other depictions of saints from the religious press as well as the postcards of monastic shrines that monastic institutions printed in vast quantities. Significant changes within monasteries As changes in mobility and the growth of a mass religious press encouraged pilgrimages in post-emancipation Imperial Russia, significant changes within monastic institutions also stimulated pilgrimage traffic. A number of these alterations were in response to Catherine II’s 1764 secularisation of monastic lands, closure of some monasteries and severe limitations on the number of monks and nuns allowed in the surviving religious institutions. The latter turned inward and re-examined their spiritual functions. One consequence of such a reappraisal was a revival in some institutions of contemplative hesychasm, a mystical movement based on monological prayer, such as the Jesus Prayer and Prayer of the Heart, and its fundamental component of spiritual eldership. In the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Athonite monk Gregory Palamas (1296–1359) had been a leading exponent of the hesychast movement. It enjoyed a Slavic revival beginning in the late eighteenth century with the dissemination of Paisii Velichkovskii’s (1722–1794) translation of the Philokalia, a collection of mystical and ascetic texts, from Greek into Church Slavonic. Velichkovskii’s Neamţ Monastery in neighbouring Moldavia attracted significant numbers of Russian disciples, some of whom returned to Russia to spread hesychasm. Spiritual guidance involved an informal ministry in which an elder who possessed “extraordinary spiritual insight” taught novices and monks by way of total obedience and humility to pray to God incessantly throughout the day with the heart

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and mind – even during physical labours – through the repetition of a contemplative monological prayer. The famous Jesus Prayer calls upon the Lord and begs for mercy. Serafim of Sarov and Zakharii of Verkhov (1766–1833), both of whom became saints, were early exemplars of the neo-hesychast revival in Russia, as were the elders at the Optina Hermitage in Kaluga province beginning in the 1820s. These spiritual advisers were also instrumental in either forming communal communities of religious women themselves or serving as mentors for religious women who would form such communities on their own. These communities later became recognised by the Holy Synod as women’s monasteries.31 Disciples of the early spiritual advisers subsequently fanned out to over a hundred institutions, including the Caves Monastery, Valaam, Trinity-Sergius and the Glinskaia Hermitage in Kyiv diocese.32 As word spread of the elders’ spiritual prowess, members of the laity began to seek out their advice on various matters in their lives either in person or through correspondence. Soon pilgrims of all classes were travelling to spiritual elders not only for guidance but also confessional purposes. For historical reasons dating back to the early Byzantine Church and a growing emphasis on a layperson’s unworthiness for frequent communion,33 confession and the partaking of the Holy Mysteries or Eucharist after confession in Orthodox Russia tended to take place only once a year – usually during specified periods in Great Lent. Particularly devout believers might do so two or four times a year during the major fasts in the Orthodox calendar. In fact, Peter I had made confession and communion obligatory among the Orthodox population as a way of cracking down on the Old Believer movement, which had rejected not only the mid-seventeenth century church reforms which had introduced corrections in several rites, but also the sacraments given by clergy who subscribed to the reforms. In order to prepare for confession, Orthodox believers had to spend several days fasting, attending church services in the mornings and evenings, visiting the bathhouse, and then confessing to a priest in a side chapel in view of other penitents waiting to be confessed. After confession, penitents fasted until the Divine Liturgy on the following day, where they received communion.34 In the second half of the nineteenth century, pilgrims increasingly sought out monastic institutions to fulfil their sacramental obligations as journeys to these locations and the locations themselves provided the ideal settings for believers to concentrate their attention on their sins and contrition. In fact, during the 40-day fast of Great Lent and the 14-day fast in preparation for the mid-August feast of the Dormition of the Mother of God in 1903, confessors in all of the churches within the Trinity-Sergius Monastery heard between 1,500 and 2,000 confessions per day.35 It is little wonder that some pilgrims preferred to save their confessions for individual spiritual elders. The elders often met male penitents in their private quarters or penitents of both genders in more public reception rooms. After hearing their

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confessions, they gave believers their personal blessings, documentation that the confession had taken place as well as a religious brochure, book, small cross or icon that served as a lasting memory of the occasion.36 Furthermore, they dispensed advice on all sorts of questions pilgrims brought them, whether it involved a desire to take up a religious life, spiritual guidance concerning an illness or family conflict or the choice of a marital partner or success in life – advice that pilgrims incidentally also sought from individual saints when they venerated them.37 In addition to fostering a neo-hesychast revival, Catherine’s secularisation of monastic lands placed pressure on those monasteries that remained open to become solvent economic enterprises. Given the fact that one of their functions was to commemorate the souls of the dead, they could depend upon the laity for donations and bequeaths in cash, religious objects and land. Fees were set for varying lengths of commemoration, including eternal prayers. Monks, nuns, novices and hired labourers had to work the land not only for their own needs but also for those of increasing numbers of pilgrims, the building of hostels and refectories for visitors, the provisioning of medical care for pilgrims and the growing social services they instituted in the post-emancipation period such as schools, almshouses and orphanages mainly for the clerical estate. By the end of the nineteenth century, for example, the Valaam Monastery had become known for its many specialised artisanal workshops that manufactured and sold a range of products, including icons, candles, barrels, furniture, copper-plated items, ceramic pots, gloves, iron works and clocks.38 In 1903, the 633 sisters of the Serafimo-Ponetaevskii Women’s Monastery in Nizhnii Novgorod operated a hospital, an almshouse for needy elderly women, an orphanage for girls of the clerical estate, a church school, a school and workshop of icon-painting and a pilgrims’ hostel. Besides growing grain and keeping sheep and cows, they managed a dairy, cheese-making facility, apiary, vegetable garden, orangery, brick factory, lumber mill, flour mill, blacksmithery, water tower and distillery. The institution attracted pilgrims due to its relationship to its founding father, St Serafim of Sarov, the preservation of some items that had belonged to him and its relatively close proximity to the Sarov monastery.39 These two examples were indicative of changes in other monastic institutions, which were partly in response to growing numbers of pilgrims. As pilgrims inundated local, regional and national monasteries in the late Imperial period, these institutions had a responsibility to cater to their needs. In his study of Trinity-Sergius Monastery, Scott Kenworthy points out that “pilgrimage was to the monastery’s benefit – contributing more than anything else to its glory and prosperity”.40 Reflecting upon the functions of monasteries, a sacristan in 1912 commented that a monastery without accommodations for pilgrims “would lose its purpose of satisfying the religious-moral needs of the Orthodox people”.41 He was referring to the new Sergius Monastery near the town of Riazhsk in Riazan province that had not yet lived up to this expectation. In many instances, it would appear

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that monasteries could not keep up with demands for accommodations, especially when major religious celebrations attracted throngs of pilgrims. In the late nineteenth century, the Russian Orthodox Church and monastic institutions had begun to celebrate major religious jubilees to emphasise the significance of Orthodoxy in Russian history, particularly in the development of its empire and autocracy. These celebrations began in 1883 with the 500th anniversary of the Tikhvin icon of the Mother of God as well as the centenary of the death of St Tikhon of Zadonsk. The 1888 commemoration of the 900th anniversary of the Christianisation of Kyivan Rus’ in the city of Kyiv was soon followed by the 500th-anniversary celebration of the death of St Sergius at the Trinity-Sergius Monastery in 1892 and the tercentenary of the lifting of the Polish-Lithuanian siege of Trinity-Sergius in 1910, among other events connected to the Time of Troubles.42 The tercentenary of the founding of the Romanov Dynasty in 1913 involved the royal family’s pilgrimages to monasteries in central Russia which dated back to the Muscovite period and which had been patronised by the Romanovs. On top of these celebrations, the canonisations of six holy men and the recanonisation of Anna of Kashin during the reign of Nicholas II (1896–1917) – in contrast to only four canonisations in the previous two centuries – increased pilgrimage traffic on regional levels and in the case of St Serafim of Sarov both regionally and nationally. Believers perceived a canonisation ceremony involving the translation of relics to be occasions when a saint’s power was heightened. The lists of miracle stories published by popular religious magazines and pamphlets to coincide with canonisations convinced individuals suffering from various afflictions that they needed to take advantage of the opening of saints’ relics to seek out new cures. All such anniversaries and celebrations required housing and food for pilgrims, almost round-the-clock memorial services, extra confessional services, security measures and so on. Although monastic institutions built more and more pilgrim hostels and the towns surrounding them also provided housing, it was still not unusual in this modern period for pilgrims from among the peasantry to have to find shelter under the open skies. Small medieval churches were also not equipped to handle thousands, much less hundreds of thousands of worshippers. The presence of the royal family complicated matters. Thus, at the canonisation ceremonies for Serafim of Sarov in summer 1903 tickets of admission were reserved only for members of the upper classes and church officials. Consequently, thousands of pilgrims and parish priests huddled in the courtyard around the main cathedral, desperately hoping to hear sounds of the solemn liturgical services that might drift their way. A further tens of thousands found themselves removed from the sacred events. Even though Nicholas II and his immediate family were not present at the 1911 canonisation ceremonies for Bishop Ioasaf of Belgorod and Oboiansk (1705–1745), the attending police in Belgorod decided to issue tickets as a way of controlling the crowds.43 Pilgrims were not allowed to wander

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around the city or enter the monastery freely at that time. The monastery did, however, organise services for pilgrims in village squares and in front of the tents and temporary barracks provided to them.44 On the first anniversary of the canonisation, the priest Porfirii Amfiteatrov contrasted the meagre clothing of the mainly peasant worshippers who participated in the all-night vigil in the cathedral with the elegant dress and full-dress uniforms of the previous year’s worshippers, suggesting that the poorer pilgrims were more loyal devotees of the saint than their wealthier counterparts.45 In a different context, this time regarding a major celebration at one of the richest monasteries in northern Pskov diocese in 1911, which he diplomatically did not name, a clerical observer was distressed by the fact that the institution had not even provided temporary barracks for the several thousands of pilgrims who had to brave the cold overnight.46 As pilgrims made more demands on monastic institutions, there were a few ambitious attempts to build massive structures to house them. In 1908, the charismatic right-wing monk Iliodor (Sergei Mikhailovich Trufanov, 1880– 1952), who had attracted a following with his fiery and theatrical speeches, was determined to build the largest monastic complex at the Holy Spirit monastery in Tsaritsyn – later known as Volgograd. He modelled the complex on the Pochaev Monastery in Western Ukraine (which had previously been a Uniate institution) and depended upon the labours and donations of his pilgrim followers. He succeeded in building a cathedral dedicated to the memory of Alexander Nevsky, which could house up to 7,000 pilgrims, and a hostelry that accommodated 3,000 pilgrims. Iliodor also hoped to lead the largest-ever Russian Orthodox pilgrimage, which failed to materialise due to disciplinary actions the state and Holy Synod took against him in response to a series of scandals he had precipitated and his denunciation of Grigorii Rasputin.47 A more successful project involved the 1913 opening of a new church in the Nikolaev monastery in Verkhotur’e in the Urals region to accommodate some 8,000 to 10,000 pilgrims who wished to venerate the uncorrupted relics of St Simeon of Merkushino. The translation of the relics from the old to new church within the monastery the following year was celebrated by a procession of the cross involving an initial 5,000 pilgrims from the city of Ekaterinburg to Verkhotur’e, a distance of just under 380 kilometres, according to the adjusted route. Scores of pilgrims joined the procession along the way, while others greeted the procession at its end point.48

Conclusion Without a doubt, late Imperial Russia witnessed a golden age of Orthodox pilgrimages. Greater freedom of movement, modern transport systems, a vibrant religious press and modernising monastic institutions combined to facilitate both spontaneous as well as more controlled pilgrimages to holy sites that housed saints’ relics. More and more pilgrims were able to venerate regional as well as national saints and even journey abroad to the Holy Land to walk in Christ’s footsteps. As one historian has noted, it was as if a nation was

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“in constant procession” to sacred places across the empire’s vast landscape.49 Although some aspects of this modernisation were uneven and monastic institutions could not always keep up with demand, on the eve of World War I, the future appeared bright for the further development of Orthodox pilgrimage traffic. Given the victory of an atheistic regime in the October 1917 Revolution, that future did not come about. Nevertheless, the tenacity with which believers attempted to save their saints’ relics from destruction and ridicule and the willingness on the part of the laity to participate in pilgrimages that were frowned upon by the regime during the early Soviet period speak volumes on the importance that believers continued to attach to their holy shrines.

Notes 1 Rock, “Following”, 248. 2 Approximately a quarter of peasants in the Central Industrial Region sought authorisation for temporary migration annually. They were overwhelmingly male. Gorshkov, “Serfs on the Move”, 632, 637. 3 Worobec, “The Long Road”, 10. 4 Ibid., 10–11. 5 Kenworthy, The Heart, 186; Robson, “Transforming”, 49. 6 Kenworthy, The Heart, 186. 7 Sementovskii, Kiev, 21; and Dimitrii, “Znachenie monastyrei”, 117. 8 Mitrofan was canonised in 1832. Chulos, Converging Worlds, 67–73. 9 Graham, The Way of Martha, 53–4. 10 Greene, “Bodies in Motion”, 252, 257. 11 Tsys’ and Tsys’, “Palomnichestvo”, 79. 12 Kane, Russian Hajj, 55–61. 13 For more information on the IPPO and control of the pilgrimage trade to Mount Athos and the Holy Land, see Chrissidis, “The Athonization”; and Blinova, “Russkie palomniki”. 14 Büssow, Hamidian Palestine, 440, n. 13. 15 Blinova, “Russkie palomniki”. 16 Trapitsyn, “Iz vpechatlenii palomnika”, 422–3. 17 Pravoslavnyia russkiia, 24. 18 Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts (RGADA), f. 1183, op. 1, d. 144 (1911), ll. 22, 23. 19 Fedorov, ‘Solovki’, 66–7. 20 Protopopov, Iz poezdki, 8, 40, 49. 21 Valaamskii monastyr’, 262, 268. 22 Boddy, With Russian Pilgrims, 174–6, 183, 187, 249. 23 Greene, “Bodies in Motion”, 255. 24 Italinskii, “Otchet . . . 1910–1911”, 56; and Italinskii, “Otchet . . . 1912–1913”, 601. 25 Greene, “Bodies in Motion”, 252–4. In 1911, the Holy Synod provided 15 Zhitomir Seminary students and their adult chaperones with 500 roubles to travel over 1,000 kilometres northeast to the Trinity-Sergius Monastery. See RGADA, f. 1204, op. 1, d. 17807 (1911), l. 306. A detailed description of a pilgrimage by a temperance society from St. Petersburg to the Valaam Monastery may be found in Palomnichestvo Sampsonovskikh. 26 Brooks, When Russia, 307. 27 Chulos, Converging Worlds, 155, n. 20. 28 Kenworthy, The Heart, 192, 194; Brooks, When Russia, 308.

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Troitskii, “Voskresnyi den’”. Mironov and Eklof, A Social History, 176–7. Paert, “Letters”, 58–9. Lupinin, “The Tradition”, 329. Pop, “Orthodox Revivals”, 229, 233. Kizenko, “Written Confessions”, 152–3. RGADA, f. 1204, op. 1, d. 16341 (1903), l. 5 ob. Kovalevskii, “Kievo-Pecherskii”, 303. Paert, Spiritual Elders, 149–50. “Valaamskii monastyr’: Ocherk”. Bukova, Zhenskie obiteli prepodobnogo, 491–3, 496. Kenworthy, The Heart, 220. Lebedev, “Sergievskii muzhskoi”, 1099. There were 17 major religious celebrations during the reign of Alexander III (1881–1896) alone. See Wortman, Scenarios of Power, 242–3. Freeze, “Subversive Piety”, 327. Polianskii, “Otchet o sostoianii i deiatel’nosti”, 270. Amfiteatrov, “Pervaia godovshchina”, 858. “O bogomol’tsakh”. Iliodor eventually renounced his faith and was defrocked. L., Pravda, 179, 181, and Dixon, “The ‘Mad Monk’ Iliodor”. “Vesti o palomnikakh”, 475, and “Sobranie v pokoiakh”, 564. Chulos, Converging Worlds, 113.

Sources and bibliography Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv drevnykh aktov (RGADA), Moscow, fonds 1183 and 1204.

*** Amfiteatrov, P. “Pervaia godovshchina otkrytiia sv. moshchei Sviatitelia i Chudotvortsa Ioasafa, Episkopa Belgorodskago”. Kurskiia eparkhial’nyia vedomosti 31, 15 October 1912, unofficial section, 856–60. Blinova, L.N. “Russkie palomniki v Odesse na puti k sviatym mestam”. Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society (IPPO). Accessed 30 July 2018. www.ippo.ru/ historyippo/article/russkie-palomniki-v-odesse-na-puti-k-svyatym-mesta-201648. Boddy, A.A. With Russian Pilgrims: Being an Account of a Sojourn in the White Sea Monastery and a Journey by the Old Trade Route from the Arctic Sea to Moscow. London: Wells Gardner, Darton, 1892. Brooks, J. When Russia Learned to Read: Literacy and Popular Literature, 1861–1917. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985. Bukova, O.V. Zhenskie obiteli prepodobnogo Serafima Sarovskogo: Istoriia desiati nizhegorodskikh zhenskikh monastyrei. Nizhnii Novgorod: Knigi, 2003. Büssow, J. Hamidian Palestine: Politics and Society in the District of Jerusalem, 1872–1908. The Ottoman Empire and its Heritage 46. Leiden: Brill, 2011. Chrissidis, N. “The Athonization of Pious Travel: Shielded Shrines, Shady Deals and Pilgrimage Logistics in Late Nineteenth-Century Odessa”. Modern Greek Studies Yearbook 28–29 (2012–2013): 169–91. Chulos, C.J. Converging Worlds: Religion and Community in Peasant Russia, 1861–1917. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2003.

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Dimitrii, archimandrite. “Znachenie monastyrei dlia pravoslavno-russkago naroda (Rech’ smotritelia Kievo-Sofiiskago dukhovnago uchilitsa arkhimandrit Dimitriia v torzhestvennom sobranii po sluchaiu 800-letiia Kievo-Mikhailovskago Zlatoverkhago monastyria)”. In V pamiat’ 800-letiia Kievo-Mikhailovskago Zlatoverkhago monastyria: 11 iiunia 1908 g.-11 iiulia 1908 g., 109–32. Kyiv: Tip. Kievo-Pecherskoi Uspenskoi Lavry, 1909. Dixon, S. “The ‘Mad Monk’ Iliodor in Tsaritsyn”. Slavonic and East European Review 88, no. 1–2 (2010): 377–415. Fedorov, P.F. “Solovki”. In Zapiski Imperatorskago russkago geograficheskago obshchestva po otdeleniiu etnografii. Vol. 19.1, 66–7. Kronstadt: Tip. Kronshtadtskii vestnik, 1889. Freeze, G.L. “Subversive Piety: Religion and the Political Crisis in Late Imperial Russia”. Journal of Modern History 68, no. 2 (1996): 308–50. Gorshkov, B.B. “Serfs on the Move: Peasant Seasonal Migration in Pre-Reform Russia, 1800–61”. Kritika 1, no. 4 (2000): 627–56. Graham, S. The Way of Martha and the Way of Mary. London: Macmillan, 1915. Greene, R.H. “Bodies in Motion: Steam-Powered Pilgrimages in Late Imperial Russia”. Russian History 39, no. 1–2 (2012): 247–68. Italinskii, A. “Otchet o sostoianii tserkovnykh shkol Moskovskoi eparkhii v 1910–1911 uchebnom godu (Okonchanie)”. Moskovskiia tserkovnyia vedomosti 9, 25 February 1912, official section, 53–6. Italinskii, A. “Otchet o sostoianii tserkovnykh shkol Moskovskoi eparkhii v 1912–1913 uchebnom godu (Okonchanie)”. Moskovskiia tserkovnyia vedomosti 47, 30 November 1913, official section, 600–2. Kane, E. Russian Hajj: Empire and the Pilgrimage to Mecca. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2015. Kenworthy, S.M. The Heart of Russia: Trinity-Sergius, Monasticism, and Society After 1825. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. Kizenko, N. “Written Confessions to Father John of Kronstadt, 1898–1908”. In Orthodox Christianity in Imperial Russia: A Source Book on Lived Religion, edited by H.J. Coleman, 152–71. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2014. Kovalevskii, A.F. “Kievo-Pecherskii dukhovnik Ieroskhimonakh Antonii”. In Zhizneopisannia otechestvennykh podvizhnikov blagochestiia 18 i 19 vekov, edited by Nikodim [A.M. Kononov, bishop]. Vol. 10: Oktiabr, 293–316. Moscow: Afonskii Russkii Panteleimonov monastyr, 1909. L., I. Pravda ob ieromonakhe Iliodore. Moscow: L.I. Ragozina, 1911. Lebedev, M. “Sergievskii muzhskoi obshchezhitel’nyi monastyr’ bliz g. Riazhska”. Riazanskiia eparkhial’nyia vedomosti 23, 1 December 1913, unofficial section, 1094–100. Lupinin, N. “The Tradition of Elders (‘Startsy’) in Nineteenth-Century Russia”. In The Tapestry of Russian Christianity: Studies in History and Culture, edited by N. Lupinin, D. Ostrowski, and J.B. Spock, 327–52. Ohio Slavic Papers 10 – Eastern Christian Studies 2. Columbus: Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures and the Resource Center for Medieval Slavic Studies, Ohio State University, 2016. Mironov, B.N., and B. Eklof. A Social History of Imperial Russia, 1700–1917. Vol. 1. Boulder: Westview, 2000. “O bogomol’tsakh v monastyriakh”. Riazanskiia eparkhial’nyia vedomosti 12, 15 June 1912, unofficial section, 536–7.

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Paert, I. “Letters to and from Russian Orthodox Spiritual Elders (‘Startsy’)”. In Orthodox Christianity in Imperial Russia: A Source Book on Lived Religion, edited by H.J. Coleman, 58–71. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2014. Paert, I. Spiritual Elders: Charisma and Tradition in Russian Orthodoxy. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2010. Palomnichestvo Sampsonovskikh trezvennikov v Valaamskuiu obitel’. St Petersburg: Sampsonovskago Khristianskago Bratstva, 1910. Polianskii, V. “Otchet o sostoianii i deiatel’nosti Kurskago Znamensko-Bogorodichnago Missionersko-prosvetitel’nago Bratstva za 1911 god (Prodolzhenie)”. Kurskiia eparkhial’nyia vedomosti 16, 1 May 1912, official section, 263–73. Pop, S. “Orthodox Revivals: Prayer, Charisma, and Liturgical Religion”. In Praying With the Senses: Contemporary Orthodox Practice, edited by S. Luehrmann, 216–41. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2018. Pravoslavnyia russkiia obiteli: Polnoe illiustrirovannoe opisanie vsekh pravoslavnykh russkikh monastyrei v Rossiiskoi Imperii i na Afone. St Petersburg: Voskresenie, 1994. Protopopov, S.D. Iz poezdki v Solovetskii monastyr. Moscow: Tovarishchestvo tip. A.I. Mamontova, 1903. Robson, R.R. “Transforming Solovki: Pilgrim Narratives, Modernization, and Late Imperial Monastic Life”. In Sacred Stories: Religion and Spirituality in Modern Russia, edited by M.D. Steinberg, and H.J. Coleman, 44–60. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007. Rock, S. “Following in Mary’s Footsteps: Marian Apparitions and Pilgrimage in Contemporary Russia”. In Framing Mary: The Mother of God in Modern, Revolutionary, and Post-Soviet Russian Culture, edited by A. Singleton Adams, and V. Shevzov, 246–69. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University, 2018. Sementovskii, N.M. Kiev, ego sviatyni, drevnosti, dostopamiatnosti i svedeniia, neobkhodimyia dlia ego pochitatelei i puteshestvennikov. Kyiv: N. Ia. Ogloblin, 1900. “Sobranie v pokoiakh Ego Preosviashchenstva”. Ekaterinburgskiia eparkhial’nyia vedomosti 25, 22 June 1914, unofficial section, 564–6. Trapitsyn, A. “Iz vpechatlenii palomnika o sv. zemliu”. Viatskiia eparkhal’nyia vedomosti 11, 1 June 1895, unofficial section, 420–3. Troitskii, A. “Voskresnyi den’”. In Pravoslavnoe entsiklopediia: Russkaia pravoslavnaia tserkov’, edited by Aleksii II, patriarch. Vol. 9, 461. Moscow: Tserkovnonauchnyi tsentr “Pravoslavnaia entsiklopediia”, 2005. Tsys’, V., and O. Tsys’. “Palomnichestvo zhitelei Zapadnoi Sibiri v Palestinu v kontse XIX-nachale XX v.”. Vestnik PSTGU II: Istoriia, Istoriia Russkoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi 61, no. 6 (2014): 73–90. Valaamskii monastyr’ i ego podvizhniki. St Petersburg: Tip. N.A. Lebadeva, 1889. “Valaamskii monastyr’: Ocherk”. Niva: Illustrirovannyi zhurnal literatury, politiki i sovremennoi zhizni 30, no. 39 (1899): 737–43. “Vesti o palomnikakh”. Ekaterinburgskiia eparkhial’nyia vedomosti 21, 16 May 1914, unofficial section, 474–5. Worobec, C.D. “The Long Road to Kiev: Nineteenth-Century Orthodox Pilgrimages”. Modern Greek Studies Yearbook 30–31 (2014–2015): 1–22. Wortman, R.S. Scenarios of Power: Myth and Ceremony in Russian Monarchy. Vol. 2: From Alexander II to the Abdication of Nicholas II. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000.

12 Pilgrimage and the becoming of Athonite monasticism René Gothóni

Introduction Mount Athos is a well-known multinational and pan-Orthodox pilgrimage centre, while the development of Athonite monasticism is closely connected to pilgrimage as most of the monks originally arrived as pilgrims. Although many of them were refugees, exiles and men on the run, the majority first came in search of a spiritual father and spiritual guidance. In order to understand the distinctiveness of Athos as a pilgrimage centre, it is therefore essential to know something of its history.

How Mount Athos became multinational and pan-Orthodox The process was as follows: the founding of many of the ruling monasteries on Athos coincided with the spread of Orthodox Christianity to the north-west following the fall of Palestine and Sinai into Arab hands, which prompted the hermits and monks to flee westward. Some of them came by ship to Athos – a relatively isolated area at the beginning of the ninth century – and were among the first to colonise the practically inaccessible steep mountain slopes at the tip of the peninsula. It would appear that the multinationalism on Athos really was due to St Athanasios the Athonite’s ecumenical attitude.1 Apart from the Slavs, the Albanians, Amalfitans and Georgians also found their way to Athos. The missionary work undertaken by the Slavs was successful in Bulgaria, Serbia and Russia in the ninth century.2 The Bulgarian and Serbian rulers as well as Russian pilgrims were among the first to visit some of the ruling monasteries on Athos.3 Impressed with what they saw, they soon converted to Orthodox Christianity and eventually forced the entire top echelon in their respective countries to follow their example. In brief terms, this is how these three countries were Christianised and later obtained their respective Patriarchates.4 Monk Isaiya’s Tale of the Holy Mountain of Athos (1489) provides us with a contemporary account of living conditions on Athos after the fall

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of Constantinople 1453. At the request of the Metropolitan of All Russia, he recited his observations to the metropolitan’s secretary, Moscow having declared itself the Third Rome when Constantinople came under Ottoman rule. The ecclesiastical authorities in Moscow began to map out the conditions on Athos to shape an accurate picture of the current situation. According to Isaiya, there were 2,246 monks in the 20 ruling monasteries in 1489, and from six to ten in each of the 1,000 dependencies, giving a total of some 8,000 monks (Table 12.1).5 As the Russian pilgrims naturally frequented the monasteries of their own nationality, where they could speak their mother tongue and eat their own food, the records for the Russian and Serbian monasteries, and especially those for St Panteleimon, Chilandar, Great Lavra and Vatopedi are more detailed than for the other monasteries. The question mark after “Greek” beside the monasteries of Konstamonitou, Xenophontos, Karakalou, Xeropotamou, Pantokrator and Stavronikita is also indicative of the multinational nature of the Athonite monasteries. It seems that monk Isaiya was unsure whether they were Greek or not, probably due to the high number of monks of different nationalities. The Serbian influence was particularly predominant in the fifteenth century. Table 12.1 The ruling monasteries in order of precedence, date of foundation and national origins of the monks in 1489 and today Monastery in order of precedence

Date of foundation

Great Lavra Vatopedi Iviron Chilandar Dionysiou Koutloumousiou Pantokrator Xeropotamou Zographou Dochiariou Karakalou Philotheou Simonopetra St Paul’s Stavronikita Xenophontos Gregoriou Esphigmenou St Panteleimon Konstamonitou

963 972–980 ca. 980 1198 1370–1374 988; 1250 1350–1400 10th century 10th century 10th century 1071 922–1078 1365–1368 10th century 10th century; 1540 1083 14th century 10th century 13th century 10th century

Source: Gothoni, Tales, 14, 28, 38.

National origin in 1489

and today

Greek Greek Iberian Serbian Serbian Moldavian Greek? Greek? Wallachian Serbian Greek? Albanian Bulgarian Serbian Greek? Greek? Serbian Greek Russian Greek?

Greek Greek Greek Serbian Greek Greek Greek Greek Bulgarian Greek Greek Greek Greek Greek Greek Greek Greek Greek Russian Greek

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The troubled centuries before the fall of the Byzantine Empire were characterised by persistent power struggles and wars. The Byzantines waged war against the Venetians and Genoese ships in the Mediterranean – with the Serbian and Bulgarian rulers intruding from the North – and, of course, against their archenemies the Turks. Athos provided a haven for refugees in these dire circumstances, especially for exiled and banished bishops and patriarchs, abdicated rulers and other dignitaries, but also for pilgrims and soldiers on the run.6 On a diplomatic level, the Athonites obtained permission to visit the court of Sultan Orhan (d. 1362) in the mid-fourteenth century, managing to persuade him to offer his protection to what was already known as the Holy Mountain and to respect its position as a self-governed monastic republic. This well-timed recognition of the Sultan’s power proved successful and of lasting value during the Tourkokratia when the Athonites appealed to the Ottoman rulers’ sense of justice and their obligation to continue the traditions established by their grand predecessors.7 Following the disintegration of the leading monasteries in Constantinople and the transformation of the Patriarchate to an administrative centre, Athos and its untroubled way of life soon became a recognised spiritual retreat in the Orthodox world and its spreading network of monasteries in the north and north-west. This isolated barren mountain, the towers of its self-sufficient, impregnable fortress-like monasteries enclosing the church in the middle of the courtyard and protecting its inhabitants from the attacks of pirates and other intruders, became a haven par excellence for refuges in Late Medieval times. After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, Athos was the last outpost of Byzantium, a position it has, in many respects, maintained until today.8 From a geographical perspective, this outline of how Athonite monasticism became multinational and pan-Orthodox clearly illustrates the spread of Orthodox monasticism and networks of monasteries in the eastern parts of Europe as an Orthodox “corridor” from Egypt in the south to the northern parts of Finland, a “corridor” between Western Europe and Central Asia. The geographical location and the mountainous landscape of Athos made it an ideal resort and a place of both refuge and spiritual revitalisation in times of power struggles and theft.9 The multinational and pan-Orthodox character of Athonite monasticism as a pilgrimage centre only strengthened during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Hesychasm Athos was not only a place of refuge, of otium cum dignitate, as it were, but was also and above all the Garden of the Mother of God devoted to spiritual struggle. The Athonite monks’ renowned spirituality attracted newcomers, exiles, refugees and pilgrims. It was on Athos that the so-called hesychast controversy first arose, and it was also there that the crisis was eventually settled, after the holding of four Church Councils.

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The process was as follows: St Gregory Palamas (d. 1359), who had donned the habit on Athos in 1316, soon became involved in a theological dispute about a method of prayer that, at the moment of stillness, hesychia, gave those dedicated to prayer an awareness of the uncreated divine light. Palamas strongly defended the small group of monks known as hesychasts who argued that through ceaseless prayer – the recitation of “Lord, Jesus Christ, have mercy upon me, a sinner” – it was possible to bridge the divine and the human, the spiritual and the physical or corporeal, and become imbued with a sense of divine “energy”, of divine uncreated light. Intellectually, Palamas was firmly rooted in the monastic tradition of the past, while also being a creative theologian. Having meticulously reread what the desert fathers had said about inner tranquillity and the seeking of inner and outer stillness, he found that hesychasm as a spiritual tradition dated back to the very beginning of the monastic movement. He also noticed that St John Climacus used the word hesychia in the seventh century to indicate a state of inner silence and vigilance, particularly associated with the name of Jesus and the repetition of short prayers. This practice was revitalised under the influence of St Symeon the New Theologian in the eleventh century, and later around 1300 by St George of Sinai, who travelled around the empire and spread the hesychast tradition throughout the Orthodox world.10 A learned monk by the name of Barlaam of Calabria fiercely challenged the claims of the hesychasts in the mid-fourteenth century, believing it impossible to know or experience God in this world. He considered the claim that a method of prayer and a state of ecstasy would allow one to experience visions of uncreated light shockingly materialistic.11 Palamas took a mediating view in his explanation of the experience of uncreated light in the controversy that followed. He argued that a distinction must be made between God’s “energies” and “essence”, and that humans could experience the “energies” but not the “essence”.12 This explanation was eventually accepted at the two councils held in Thessaloniki in 1347 and 1351. The stir created by the half-century-long theological dispute put Athos at the very centre of the Orthodox world. Bishop Kallistos has argued that “those who emphasized the inner, spiritual values of the Greek Christian inheritance” gave the oppressed Greek Church the strength to survive the dark centuries of Tourkokratia. In hindsight, it seems evident that it was the hesychasts that provided the inspiration for the compilation of the great anthology of spiritual texts known as Philokalia, first published in Venice in 1782, and hence the spiritual food for the revival that has taken place in the two last centuries and persists to this day.13 Palamas knew many of the contemporary hermits personally, and he had received first-hand guidance from some of them. Although there are no documents confirming that he also knew St Maximos Kafsokalyvian, one of the most prominent of the ascetics of his time, he must have been familiar with his ideas and practices, given that he was famous for his miracles and prophesies. It seems that Maximos was as well known in his time as our late Elder Paisios (d. 1994).14

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All four accounts of the life of St Maximos state that he was transfigured by supernatural light more than once. The biographers describe the light in Palamite terms as “non-material” and “divine”. Although its nature is not discussed, the description is consistent with Palamas’ conception of the light as “the uncreated energies of God, the divine glory that God reflected at his Transfiguration on Mount Tabor”.15 Palamas consistently emphasised that his distinction was based on the living and shared experience of the hesychast Athonites, a claim the four accounts of St Maximos substantiate. Palamas argues: “Is it not evident that there is but one and the same divine light: that which the apostles saw on Tabor, which purified souls behold even now, and which is the reality of the eternal blessings to come?”.16 The significance of Palamas’ argument has proved to be lasting in that the generation of monks following Maximos’ thinking represent a true witness to the ongoing tradition of living, experiential theology that nowadays, as in the fourteenth century, constitutes the Athonites’ inner reality. This tradition has thus far survived the fall of Constantinople, the challenges of Ottoman rule and the turbulent years of Greece’s later history.17

An unexpected Renaissance During the final centuries of Byzantium (1261–1453), and despite the gradual disintegration and inevitable dissolution of the Empire ending with the fall of Constantinople, many of the ruling monasteries experienced their greatest Renaissance to date due to donations and gifts from the Serbian rulers. The process was as follows: the Serbs had already conquered large areas in Macedonia during the reign of the Grand Župan Stefan Nemanja (1170–1196), confiscating Athonite properties in the area and withdrawing the monasteries’ privileges. The Athonites had no option but to submit to the powerful conqueror in order to secure their self-governed status. By immediately entering into an alliance with the Serbian ruler, they managed to maintain their privileges and properties, a policy that also worked later on with the Ottomans.18 Tsar Stefan Dušan’s sympathies with the Athonites were based partly on the well-established practice of the dynasty and partly on his personal aim to build a Byzantino-Serbian Empire. His plan, it seems, was to replace the Greek basileus. To be successful in this aim he required the support of both the Greek nobility and the Greek clergy in the conquered areas. An Athonite delegation headed by the Protos took part in the official proclamation and coronation of the Serbian Tsar in 1346. This was a significant event in the history of both medieval Serbia and Athos, as Dušan promulgated chrysobulls for the ruling monasteries, confirming their acquired privileges, granting new ones and re-establishing the self-governed status and autonomy of Athos. These became models for all later chrysobulls and agreements the Athonites managed to make during the Tourkokratia and in later years, and even with the EU.

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A year later in 1347, the new Tsar made a pilgrimage to Athos along with Empress Jelena and their son Uroš. The purpose was both to cement his friendship with the Athonites and to visit the Holy Mountain where his ancestor Stefan I Nemanja, the celebrated St Symeon of Serbia, had spent his final years. It has been suggested that the main reason for Dušan’s prolonged visit to Athos was to seek refuge from the Black Death that was ravaging the Balkans at that time.19 This would also explain why he travelled with his family, and why the old rule of avaton, denying women entrance to the Holy Mountain, was not implemented and the Empress Jelena was admitted.20 During Dušan’s reign, many of the ruling monasteries managed to procure for themselves a considerable number of landed holdings in the Balkans. The relationship between the Serbs and the Athonites became so close that a Serbian monk named Antony was elected Protos in 1348.21 This more than anything else is evidence of the significance of the alliance between the two parties, an alliance that had its origin in two pilgrimages to Athos: first by Stefan I Nemanja’s son, who was tonsured a monk at the monastery of Vatopedi and given the name Savvas, and second, three years later, by Stefan himself, who abdicated and became a monk, joining his son on Athos in 1189 under the name of Symeon.22 The Athonites were major landowners of vast estates both inside and outside the peninsula, and therefore made what could be considered business trips as they entered into negotiations on the purchase or donation of property and the ownership of land. Documents from the monastery of Chilandar, for instance, disclose how widely its hegoumenos, Gervasios, travelled in the 1320s to purchase land or conduct other financial affairs. He was in Kaisaropolis in February 1320, in Thessaloniki in November 1322, in Serres in September 1323 and in Thessaloniki again in September 1324 and January 1326. Two months later, he was in Serres, and then revisited Thessaloniki in January 1327 and July 1328.23 Women played a significant role in transactions regarding acts of sale and donation. Most of the acts of sale were uncomplicated. A widow (with or without children), or a woman and her husband, or sometimes two sisters, would sell a field, an orchard, a vineyard or cottage to wealthy Athonite monasteries such as Chilandar, Iviron and Lavra. The payment was usually in cash, but a certain Irene Panagiotou and her daughter Maria were given a cow and calf in exchange for a field.24 In some cases, the donor charged the Athonites only half the price of the property agreed upon and the other half was to be regarded as a donation in exchange for either a “fellowship” (adelphaton) or commemoration.25

Ottoman rule The final century of Byzantium gave the Athonites a solid economic basis upon which to survive the following five centuries of Ottoman rule. As Abbot Paisy of Chilandar writes in his Tale of the Holy Mountain of Athos, there were 4,000 monks registered in the sultan’s record, “but if all the Serbs

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were included, the total number was about 6,000”. It is noteworthy that Serbian monks were still dominant in the sixteenth century and the decrease in numbers mainly concerned other nationalities. Before Ottoman rule, all monasteries followed a cenobitic system, which meant that the monks lived a common life in obedience to an abbot, worshipped and ate their meals together as well as contributed any wealth and skills they may have had to the common purse. Under the idiorrhythmic system, on the other hand, the monks were allowed to follow their own way of life, and were not bound by the vow of poverty and obedience to the abbot. In many respects, they lived independently, in separate apartments with their own worldly goods and servants. They neither ate together nor contributed to the common purse, and were individually responsible for making ends meet.26 The advantage of the idiorrhythmic way of monastic life was that the individual monks were personally responsible for their holdings and what they yielded. They were therefore more inclined to increase production to make ends meet than those in cenobitic monasteries. Given the fixed annual rate of taxation, all excess produce remained at the respective monastery in fairly good conditions despite the economic pressure. In this sense, the monastery also benefitted from this “worldly” system.27 John Covel states in his Athos Notes (1677) that at any one time around one-third of the monk population, which then numbered some 6,000, was abroad engaged in missionary work or seeking financial and political support against Ottoman pressure. The difficult economic conditions also affected the abbot’s position. This was especially the case in Lavra and Iviron, where it became the norm to appoint a monk abbot following a successful return from missionary and fundraising work. He would remain in office only for a year, however, after which the next recent successful returnee, in accordance with the new tradition, took up the position. Only if the returning monk had failed in his mission did the abbot continue in office. Given this short tenure and the disgrace attached to failure, monks engaged in missionary and fundraising work did their utmost to succeed.28 Travellers’ tales from the early nineteenth century onwards reflect a decline in monastic life attributable not only to the reduced numbers of monks and poor economic circumstances, but also to a lack of appreciation for the invaluable literary treasures in the monastic libraries. This became a shocking reality for Robert Curzon (d. 1873), Athelstan Riley (d. 1945) and Frederick William Hasluck (d. 1920) in particular: all three went in search of lost classics, manuscripts and rare books, only to encounter neglected libraries in poor conditions in nearly all the ruling monasteries. Curzon’s description of the condition of the library in the monastery of Pantokrator demonstrates the negligence at its worst. By the dim light which streamed through the opening of an iron door in the wall of the ruined tower, I saw above a hundred ancient manuscripts

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René Gothóni lying among the rubbish which had fallen from the upper floor, which was ruinous, and had in great part given way. Some of these manuscripts seemed quite entire – fine large folios; but the monks said they were unapproachable, for that floor also on which they lay was unsafe, . . . I advanced cautiously along the boards, keeping close to the wall, whilst every now and then a dull cracking noise warned me of my danger, . . . At last, when I dared go no farther, I made them bring me a long stick, with which I fished up two or three fine manuscripts, . . . . When I . . . examined them more at my ease, [I] found that the rain had washed the outer leaves quite clean: the pages were stuck tight together into a solid mass, and when I attempted to open them, they broke short off in square bits like a biscuit. Neglect and damp and exposure had destroyed them completely.29

Curzon appears to have counted the Greek manuscripts accurately but, as he confesses, he was not able to examine the Bulgarian, Serbian, Russian, Iberian or Georgian books and manuscripts because he was unversed in those languages. His aim was to purchase as many of them as possible. Western travellers have often been accused of rifling the libraries of the Near East. This was certainly sometimes the case. However, it is not entirely unjustified to claim that by purchasing manuscripts, travellers managed to save many of those that otherwise would probably have been destroyed and lost forever. A tragicomic event in the monastery of Karakalou is an illustrative case in point. Curzon wrote: As I had found it impossible to purchase any manuscripts at St. Lavra, I feared that the same would be the case in other monasteries; however, I made bold to ask for a single leaf as a thing of some value. “Certainly!” said the Hegoumenos: “what do you want it for?” My servant suggested that, perhaps, it might be useful to cover some jam pots or vases of preserves which I had at home. “Oh!” said the Hegoumenos, “take some more”; and, without more ado, he seized upon an unfortunate thick quarto manuscript of the Acts and Epistles, and drawing out a knife cut out an inch thickness of leaves at the end before I could stop him. It proved to be the Apocalypse, which concluded the volume, but which is rarely found in early Greek manuscripts of the Acts: it was of the eleventh century, . . .”.30 There seems to have been a revival of Athonite monasticism in the late 1830s as most of the ruling monasteries were busy repairing their buildings. The monks tried to raise money in every possible way – selling manuscripts to “silly” travellers, of which Curzon was one. They also sold hazelnuts to Constantinople. Vatopedi, for example, also frequently accommodated up to 500 guests, servants and tenants of the abbey who

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came on stated days to pay their rent and receive the benediction of the hegoumenos.31 According to Athelstan Riley’s account, the idiorrhythmic way of life was common in many monasteries in the mid-nineteenth century, initially mainly for economic reasons: They follow the idiorrhythmic rule, although they have several times endeavoured to change it to the cenobitic, but failed owing to their poverty. We were much surprised at hearing that the idiorrhythmic system was the more economical of the two . . . . in this case each inmate cultivated his own little garden, and . . . when they worked for themselves individually they accomplished more than when they laboured for the common weal.32 All the ruling monasteries on the western side of the peninsula were cenobitic with the exception of Dochiariou, whereas on the eastern side all except Esphigmenou were idiorrhythmic. One reason for this difference could have been that the monasteries on the western side had farmland (metóchion) on the other two peninsulas – Cassandra and Sithonia – and on the mainland – as they have today. The sea was less treacherous to the west and therefore it was much easier for the monasteries on that side to raise the extra funds and support needed to pay the sultan’s continuous stream of new poll taxes. Moreover, the monasteries lost their farmland in Moldavia and Wallachia in 1865 when Alexander Curzon became the ruler of the united state (Romania) and confiscated all monastic land and properties. This particularly affected the monasteries on the eastern side, which had a lot of land in the area. Riley’s account is especially revealing regarding changes in the monk population. St Panteleimon considerably surpassed the three largest monasteries, Vatopedi, Iviron and Lavra. Carlyle and Hunt counted 15 monks in St Panteleimon in 1801, whereas Curzon gave a figure of 130 in 1837. Fifty years later in 1883, Riley recorded 1,600 Russian monks on Athos, with half of them living in St Panteleimon. When the servants were included, the Russian population amounted to about 2,000 – in other words, nearly half the entire monastic population. The increase in Russians on Athos was explosive.33 According to Riley, Russico, as St Panteleimon was then known, presented itself as a “go-ahead colony”. The inhabitants pride themselves, he records, upon being the subject of a first-class European Power and despise the Greek civilization as a relic of Oriental barbarism. The whole place is more like a small town than a monastery . . . for all around it and down to the water’s edge there are workshops, and storehouses, and dwelling houses; and still the monks are building more, so that the great monastery is increasing in extent year by year.34

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Upon realising that Russico was mainly a government affair supported by government money, Riley asked himself, “what interests other than religion can Russia have at Mount Athos?” From his discussions with the Russian monks, he came to the conclusion that Athos was of primary importance to Russia in terms of extending her territory to the Mediterranean. Its acquisition would provide her with a practically unconquerable fortress in the midst of European Turkey, from which the conquering of Thessaloniki (then known as Salonica), a town second only to Constantinople in political importance, could be ensured by cutting off its transport routes to Turkey.35 Throughout these decades, there was also a steady increase in the numbers of Russian pilgrims to the extent that there were more Russians than Greeks in 1883. According to Riley, the Russian pilgrims heading to Constantinople were particularly attracted to a certain spiritual monk (pneumatikos) at St Panteleimon, who had the reputation of being a prophet directly inspired by God. The monk in question was undoubtedly the Elder Silouan (d. 1938), who became famous later through the writings of his disciple Father Sophrony (d. 1994) and was canonised in 1988. St Silouan was one of the first monks to sow the seed of renewal through Father Sophrony and other Athonites in the twentieth century.36 The Russian monks received generous support from the tsar and the Russian government – due to the many retired officers from the Russian army who were still in the prime of life and had first-hand contacts in the government. Thus, it was the Greek monasteries that struggled to pay their taxes. Consequently, the monasteries on the eastern side also had to shift to an idiorrhythmic way of life in order to make ends meet. Frederick William Husluck (d. 1920) considered the year 1430 – when Salonica fell to the Turks – as a turning point in the history of Athonite monasticism. At least two major changes in monastic conditions have their roots in that fall, namely the sultan’s continuously increasing assessments and the idiorrhythmic way of monastic life. He attributes the rise of the idiorrhythmic system to the growth of wealth and renunciation among wealthy laymen, rather than to the imposed Turkish taxation system. He argues: It [the idiorrhythmic system] is obviously less economical, and a return to the coenobiac system is frequently one of the first steps taken to revive a decayed monastery . . . . Most of the abuses are traceable to the same relaxation in discipline which later brought about the idiorrhythmic system.37 The travellers’ accounts reveal an equally positive overview of the Slavs on Athos. It was during the reign of Stephan Dušan and the following centuries that many of the ruling monasteries were “Serbianised”: Serbians founded Simonopetra; St Paul’s was Serbianised and made independent of Xeropotamou; while Chilandar, Gregoriou, Dionysiou and Dochiariou were all Serbianised. Of these, St Paul’s and Xenophontos, both of which were still Slav

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monasteries in the seventeenth century, became Hellenised with the rise of the Phanariotes during the eighteenth century. The process of conversion then followed a pattern: rich Greeks bought up all the debt-ridden monasteries. This is how Russico, or St Panteleimon, also became a dependency of a phanariote family in the early nineteenth century. The nine years of Turkish occupation on Athos (1821–1829) once again changed the nationalities at the monasteries. Most of the ruling monasteries were impoverished. Although St Panteleimon was ruined, the Russians managed to buy it, recolonising it in 1839. Twenty years later, they successfully paid off all of its outstanding debts, and in 1869 were granted the privilege of using Russian in the services on alternate days. An explosive Russianisation of Athos began. The tactic was to first purchase a “monastic cottage” (kellion), then to enlarge it and exceed the lawful number of inmates on one pretext or another, before eventually presenting a petition with strong diplomatic and pecuniary backing for the conversion of the kellion to a cenobitic skete (koinobiake skete), which although still a dependency was allowed to house more monks than its ruling monastery. This is how the Russians acquired the Skete of St Andrew. The Russian population in 1902 had already come to total some 3,496, whereas the Greek population numbered only 3,276. Given the 286 Romanians, 307 Bulgarians, 16 Serbs – a dramatic drop since the fifteenth century – and 51 Georgians, there were around 800 more Slavs than Greeks; the total Athos population then was 7,432. The second half of the nineteenth century was certainly an era of Russianisation on Athos, not merely due to the expansion of the Russian population in the Kellia, but also due to Elder Ieromen and Archimandrite Makary’s (Sushkin) dynamic leadership of St Panteleimon.38 Fortunes changed once again with the revolution in Russia: recruitment ceased altogether and the Russian population declined rapidly. The total population in 1912 was calculated at 7,754, falling to 6,345 in 1913 and 2,878 in 1943. The main reasons for the decline were the natural mortality of the Russians and the expulsion of 1,000 rebel Name-Glorifiers in 1913.39 The unstable political situation in the Balkans at the end of the nineteenth century eventually led to a massive attack on the Ottoman forces in Europe and to their withdrawal from Macedonia. Athos was finally liberated without struggle on 15 November 1912 when the Turkish Aga vacated his office in Karyes, bringing to an end nearly five centuries – 488 years to be exact – of Ottoman rule.40 In hindsight, one realises that over the centuries the Athonite monasteries were founded, enlarged and rebuilt many times by benefactors and wealthy pilgrims from the various Slav countries: only Pantokrator, Stavronikita, Philotheou, Lavra and Dionysiou were of Greek origin. It is worth pointing out that Greek benefactors have also revived Athonite monasticism in times of severe economic and political crisis. The network of benefactors of the ruling monasteries has been and still is wide, covering Greece, all the Balkan countries as well as Russia, and nowadays the EU.41

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Famous elders on the Holy Mountain The revitalisation of Athonite monasticism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was closely connected with pilgrimages and travellers from the Balkans and Russia in particular. Revival, it seems, started in the caves, huts and hermitages on the mountain slopes down at the southern tip of the peninsula, the so-called desert of Athos. A number of gifted spiritual monks took up residence there, where many had lived for centuries, in the middle decades of the twentieth century. Groups of disciples began to gather around them, with these spiritual fathers beginning to attract pilgrims. Although many of the ruling monasteries were near to closing due to a lack of novices, places such as New Skete were flourishing: creative effort regenerated spiritual life there, as has been the case on Athos throughout its history. I have already mentioned the spiritual revival of St Symeon the New Theologian in the eleventh century, St George of Sinai around 1300 and St Gregory Palamas in the mid-fourteenth century: all three spread the hesychastic tradition and created important links in the chain of spiritual struggle from the past to the future. Athonite monasticism began to flourish in St Panteleimon and its dependencies from the mid-nineteenth until the beginning of the twentieth century despite the Ottoman presence on the peninsula. It was from Athos that the great revival in the Russian Church spread at the end of the eighteenth century. As is so often the case, dissatisfaction provided a fresh impetus, resulting in a revival that has lasted for centuries. Paisy Velichkovsky (d. 1794), a young student at the theological academy of Kiev who was frustrated by the secular tone of the teaching, left as a pilgrim and become a monk on Athos in order to pursue his spiritual calling. He learned about the hesychast tradition and about St Nikodimos of the Holy Mountain, “the Hagiorite” (d. 1809). With the help of St Makarios, Metropolitan of Corinth, he compiled the anthology of spiritual writings called the Philokalia (1782). This became a gigantic work in five volumes, containing sayings of the desert fathers from the fourth to the fifteenth centuries, dealing principally with the theory and practice of the Jesus Prayer. This anthology has proved to be one of the most influential publications in the Orthodox world. It is still widely read not only by monks and pilgrims, but also by many laypeople.42 With great enthusiasm and energy, Paisy produced a Slavonic translation of the Philokalia, which was published in Moscow in 1793, a mere decade later than the Greek original. He especially emphasised the importance of practising continual prayer – the Jesus Prayer – and the need for obedience to an elder or starets, as they were called in Russia. Never to return to Russia, he went to Romania in 1763, where he was appointed abbot of the monastery of Niamets, which soon became a great spiritual centre with over 500 brethren who gathered around him for advice on spiritual development and assisted him with the work of translating the Greek Fathers into Slavonic.

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The first well-known starets of nineteenth-century Russia was St Seraphim of Sarov (1759–1833). After 16 years in the monastery of Sarov he lived in seclusion for 19 years, first in a simple hut and then later in a monastic cell. In 1815, he felt ready for the office of eldership and opened his doors to pilgrims and visitors who came for help in both worldly and spiritual matters. He is regarded as a characteristically Russian saint, healing the sick, giving advice and answering visitors’ questions even before they were asked, sensing what was bothering them and what they needed.43 It seems that St Seraphim had no teacher in his spiritual struggle and left no successor. After his death, several monks in the hermitage of Optino attempted to follow his example, especially the elders Leonid (Kavelin; d. 1841), Makary (d. 1860) and Amvrosy (d. 1891). They all belonged to the school of Paisy, and all were devoted to the Jesus Prayer. The hermits of Optino influenced a number of Russian writers, notably Gogol, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. Their works inspired numerous readers and laypeople to embrace the spiritual atmosphere of the renowned elders. The Zeitgeist of that time is well captured in the anonymous book The Way of a Pilgrim, about an ordinary Russian peasant who tramped from place to place in the countryside continuously practising the Jesus Prayer. This work is significant as a document of that time in that the story tells the tale of a peasant carrying a copy of the (presumably) Slavonic translation of Philokalia in his rucksack, which at the end of the nineteenth century was translated into Russian by St Theophan the Recluse (d. 1894). St John of Kronstadt (d. 1908) was also immensely influential during these years. It is evident from his autobiography My Life in Christ that he, too, possessed the gifts of healing and insight into the spiritual struggle.44 It is no exaggeration to say that there was a strong and widespread spiritual sentiment in Russia from the mid-nineteenth century onwards, and an eagerness to travel to famous monasteries such as Valamo on Lake Ladoga, and also as far as Jerusalem, Constantinople and Athos. This pilgrimage movement became more organised after 1882, when the recently founded Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society made the arrangements.45 In hindsight, the revival of the Russian monastery of St Panteleimon was not at all surprising. There was a spiritual readiness in Russia from the midnineteenth century onwards, as reflected in the rapid rise in the number of monks in St Panteleimon. As in Russia, pilgrims were attracted to renowned elders, specifically St Silouan (1866–1938). He arrived in St Panteleimon in 1892, with many people coming to him for advice years later. His disciple and Archimandrite Sophrony (1896–1991) helped to build his reputation, not only among Russians but also among the other monks and pilgrims on Athos. St Panteleimon became a monastic town and the Skete of St Andrew in Karyes a huge monastery in merely half a century.46 Apart from being familiar with the blossoming religiosity of the wandering pilgrims in Russia, Silouan also learned about the spiritual struggle from Father Anatol, who had been a monk and acted as confessor at

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St Panteleimon for over 45 years. Regarding the correct way to pray, Father Anatol advised Silouan: “When you pray, keep your mind quiet, free from any imagining, any irrelevant thought. Enclose your mind in the words of your prayer”.47 It was thus that Silouan encountered the hesychast tradition that he was to cherish for the rest of his life. Having been fortunate enough to live near Silouan, Sophrony was able to make notes on his teachings, which he then collected in his work The Monk of Mount Athos. He also learned the practice of the Jesus prayer at first hand, and followed the hesychast tradition in a cell overlooking the sea and overhung by a sheer cliff near the ruling monastery of St Paul’s, where he lived during the World War II. Later he was renowned for having founded the monastery of St John the Baptist at Tolleshunt Knights in Essex, England, a monastery that is the most dynamic centre of Orthodox spirituality in modern Great Britain.48 The revival also began elsewhere on Athos after World War II. A particularly dynamic brotherhood gathered around the renowned desert father Elder Joseph the Hesychast, also known as the Cave Dweller, during the 1950s. Like Staretz Silouan, in his spiritual struggle he emphasised inner prayer, the cultivation of inner recollection, stillness (hesychia) and the Prayer of the Heart. Throughout his life he followed St Paul’s injunction, “Praying without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17). In emphasising inner prayer and stillness, Elder Joseph anticipated the rule that was to be adopted in the contemporary revival on Athos.49 Metropolitan Kallistos has characterised the revival as Philokalic and Palamite. It was partly inspired by Philokalia in that the Prayer of the Heart and the invocation of the name of Jesus are at the very centre of the spiritual struggle. Palamas in turn, who successfully defended this hesychastic practice, became a special mentor for later Athonites who took up these practices as a rule for their spiritual life.50 After living many years in conditions of extreme privation at St Basil’s, Elder Joseph settled at New Skete where he found fame as a teacher and spiritual father. His teaching was based on the cultivation of inner stillness (hesychia) and the Prayer of the Heart, which is the direction all leaders of the current Athonite revival have followed. Although he died in 1959, no fewer than six Athonite monasteries have been revived by his spiritual children, who include Father Ephraim, later the abbot of Philotheou, Father Charalambas, abbot of Dionysiou and Elder Joseph of Vatopedi, who was one of the leading lights and remains its principal spiritual father.51 Father Vasileios Gontikakis was living as a hermit in a cell attached to Vatopedi in 1960s, when Stavronikita had been abandoned. The civil governor invited him to become its abbot in 1968, and upon acceptance, he revived the deserted monastery together with his disciples. He then moved to Iviron, also reviving the monastery, which, like Stavronikita readopted the cenobitic way of life. The 1970s saw the revival of two other monasteries: Philotheou through Father Ephraim from New Skete, and Simonopetra through Father Aimilianos,

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who moved to Athos from Meteora with his disciples and was somewhat inspired by the late St Silouan. This revival trend has continued and persists in most of the ruling monasteries. Following in the footsteps of Father George Kapsanis, who became abbot of Gregoriou, most of the abbots started to write books to the extent that there is now a flourishing Athonite literature on the most charismatic and inventive fathers of the last century. This historical outline shows how, during the five centuries of Ottoman rule, the hesychastic tradition was linked to charismatic fathers and pilgrims in periods of decline, crisis and change. These fathers and pilgrims economically and spiritually revitalised Athonite monasticism, inspiring a tradition that has continued from the ancient past up to the present time, and remains a work in progress.

Some notions of the concept of “pilgrimage” in the Athonite context The English word “pilgrim” comes from the Latin word peregrinus, which principally refers to one who is walking in an alien land; from peregre “abroad”, from perger “being abroad”, from per “through” and agr-, ager “land”, “field”. Originally, peregrinus meant a foreigner who lived outside the territory of Rome, ager Romanus, travelling to sacred places or shrines to fulfil a religious duty, to pray, and to receive blessings or some other religious benefits.52 On the contrary, the Greek word for “pilgrimage”, proskynima (literally “veneration”) and “pilgrim”, proskynitis, come from the verb proskynó, meaning “I kneel and worship”. It clearly has an entirely different connotation. Greek Orthodoxes and Orthodoxes all over the world go to shrines for the purpose of veneration. It is not the walking, but the veneration that is the essential part of the pilgrimage in Greece, and especially on Athos: to kiss the icons, to venerate the relics, to discuss personal matters with a spiritual father or confessor monk, to make confessions and above all to take Holy Communion. It is true that in Russia, especially in the nineteenth century, Russian Orthodoxes had to make long journeys to their monasteries by foot, as documented by the book The Way of a Pilgrim. They also travelled as far as Constantinople and Jerusalem. However, travelling and walking were merely a necessity due to the long distances, not the essence of their pilgrimage. Greeks have never had much interest in travelling to Jerusalem. In 1900, for example, there were 6,000 Russian pilgrims in Jerusalem, but only 13 Greek pilgrims.53 The theological connotations of the concepts of peregrinus and of proskynitis are entirely different. The notion of peregrinus mirrors the practice of identifying onself with Christ, re-enacting His Passion and thererby purifying onself, imitation Christi, as conceived of in the New Testament in accordance with Roman Catholic theology. The concept of proskynitis, on the other hand, is closely connected with the Old Testament and the

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reliving of the Fall, the recitation of Kyrie eleison (“Lord, Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner”) being the manifest sign of the renewed relationship between the Lord and His humble servant. It was only when I understood this fundamental difference that Kalo proskynima started to mean more than the word “pilgrimage” means in the Roman Catholic sense. In wishing pilgrims on Athos Kalo proskynima, the officials in the Pilgrims’ Bureau are in fact saying, “Have a nice act of worship”; in other words, “May your participation in the Holy Communion be blessed”, an expression that the Athonites have used on Athos for centuries. In order to realise what a pilgrimage on the Holy Mountain is really all about, one needs to understand the connotations of the concepts proskynima and proskynitis. It is a bit of a challenge, because the word “pilgrimage” is in the study of religions used both as a word describing an act of worship and as a conceptual category for the universal phenomenon of travelling to holy places. The word “pilgrimage” is naturally immediately conceived of in terms of travelling, which in the Greek context is misleading as to the authenticity of the phenomenon on the Holy Mountain of Athos.

Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

Gothóni, “Russian Pilgrimage”, 48. Ostrogorsky, History, 199; Dvornik, The Photian Schism, 432. It seems that Putin is the only Russian ruler to have ever visited Athos. Gothóni, “Mount Athos”, 58–9. Gothóni, “Russian Pilgrimage”, 49–50. Gothóni, “Mount Athos”, 59. Ibid., 60. Ibid. For a detailed geographical outline of the Orthodox “corridor”, see Ibid., 61. Climacus, The Ladder, 272; Speake, Mount Athos, 86–8. Gothóni, “Experiences”, 262–3. Speake, Mount Athos, 89; Ware, The Power, 25–6. Speake, Mount Athos, 88–9; Gothóni, “Mount Athos”, 62. On the spirituality of Elder Paisios, see Spiritual Counsels. Speake, Mount Athos, 92–3. Meyendorff, A Study, 151; Speake, Mount Athos, 92. Ware, “St Maximos”, 430. A previous version of this and the following paragraphs may be found in Gothóni, “Mount Athos”, 65–8. Živojinović, “De nouveau”. On the rule of avaton, see Konidaris, The Mount Athos. On the democratic government of Athos, see Gothóni, Paradise, 20–1. Speake, Mount Athos, 67. Korablev, Actes de Chilandar, no. 53, 84, 93, 99, 106–7, 112 and 117. Cf. Talbot, “Women”, 73. Lemerle, Guillou, Svoronos, and Papachryssanthou, Actes de Lavra, no. 88, 10–11. Cf. Talbot, “Women”, 74. Talbot, “Women”, 74–7. Gothóni, Tales, 35. Ibid., 37.

Pilgrimage and Athonite monasticism 28 29 31 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53

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Ibid., 53–5. Ibid., 101. Ibid., 104. Ibid., 105. Ibid., 108. Ibid., 109. Ibid. Ibid., 109–10. Ibid., 111–12. Ibid., 117. Ibid., 118–20. See also Fennell, “St Panteleimon Monastery”, 117–19; and Sophrony, The Monk, 18. Gothóni, “Russian Pilgrimage”, 74–5; Gothóni, Tales, 119. Speake, Mount Athos, 157. Gothóni, Tales, 121. Gothóni, “Russian Pilgrimage”, 56–8; Ware, The Orthodox Church (1964), 110; Ware, The Inner Unity, 41–61. Ware, The Orthodox Church (1993), 118. Ibid., 1993, 121–2. Fennell, The Russians, 163. Sophrony, The Monk, 8–19. Ibid., 25. Speake, Mount Athos, 174. Elder Joseph, Elder Joseph the Hesychast, 19–20. Speake, Mount Athos, 176. Ibid. A previous version of this and the following paragraphs is in Gothóni, Words Matter. Stavrou, Russian Interests, 156.

Sources and bibliography Climacus, J. The Ladder of Divine Ascent, translated by C. Luibheid, and N. Russell. New York: Paulist Press, 1982. Dvornik, F. The Photian Schism: History and Legend. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1948. Elder, Joseph of Vatopaidi. Elder Joseph the Hesychast: Struggles – Experiences – Teachings, translated by E. Theokritoff. Mount Athos: The Great and Holy Monastery of Vatopaidi, 1999. Elder, Paisios of Mount Athos. Spiritual Counsel. Vol. 1: With Pain and Love for Contemporary Man, edited and translated by P. Chamberas. Souroti: Holy Monastery “Evangelist John the Theologian”, 2007. Fennell, N. The Russians on Athos. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2001. Fennell, N. “St Panteleimon Monastery and Its Sixth Abbot”. In Mount Athos and Russia, 1016–2016, edited by N. Fennell, and G. Speake, 117–39. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2018. Gothóni, R. “Experiences and Interpretations of the Uncreated Light”. In The Quest for Authenticity and Human Dignity: A Festschrift in honour of Professor George Grima on His 70th Birthday, edited by E. Agius, and H. Scerri, 257–69. Melita Theologica Supplementary Series 6. Malta: Faculty of Theology, University of Malta, 2015.

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Gothóni, R. “Mount Athos During the Last Centuries of Byzantium”. In Interaction and Isolation in Late Byzantine Culture: Papers Read at a Colloquium Held at the Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul, 1–5 December 1999, edited by J.O. Rosenqvist, 57–69. Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul, Transactions 13. Stockholm: Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul, 2004. Gothóni, R. Paradise Within Reach: Monasticism and Pilgrimage on Mt Athos. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 1993. Gothóni, R. “Russian Pilgrimage to Mount Athos in the Light of Pilgrims’ Tales”. In Mount Athos and Russia, 1016–2016, edited by N. Fennell, and G. Speake, 45–78. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2018. Gothóni, R. Tales and Truth: Pilgrimage on Mount Athos Past and Present. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 1994. Gothóni, R. Words Matter: Hermeneutics in the Study of Religions. Religions and Discourse 52. Bern: Peter Lang, 2011. Konidaris, I.M. The Mount Athos Avaton. Athens: Ant. N. Sakkoulas Publishers, 2003. Korablev, B., ed. Actes de Chilandar II. Actes slaves. Actes de l’Athos 5. Amsterdam: A. M. Hakkert, 1975. Lemerle, P., A. Guillou, N. Svoronos, and D. Papachryssanthou, eds. Actes de Lavra. Vol. 2: De 1204 à 1328. Archives de l’Athos 8. Paris: Éditions P. Lethielleux, 1977. Meyendorff, J. A Study of Gregory Palamas, translated by G. Lawrence. London: The Faith Press; Crestwood: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1998. Ostrogorsky, G. History of the Byzantine State, translated by J. Hussey. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1968. Sophrony, archimandrite. The Monk of Mount Athos: Staretz Silouan, 1866–1938, translated by R. Edmonds. London: Mowbrays, 1973. Speake, G. Mount Athos: Renewal in Paradise. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002. Stavrou, T.G. Russian Interests in Palestine, 1882–1914: A Study of Religious and Educational Enterprise. Thessaloniki: Institute for Balkan Studies, 1963. Talbot, A.-M. “Women and Mount Athos”. In Mount Athos and Byzantine Monasticism: Papers from the Twenty-eighth Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, Birmingham, March 1994, edited by A. Bryer, and M. Cunningham, 67–79. Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies 4. Aldershot: Variorum, 1996. Ware, T., bishop Kallistos. The Inner Unity of the Philokalia and Its Influence in East and West. Athens: Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation, 2004. Ware, T., bishop Kallistos. The Orthodox Church. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1964. Ware, T., bishop Kallistos. The Orthodox Church. London: Penguin Books, 1993. Ware, T., bishop Kallistos. The Power of the Name: The Jesus Prayer in Orthodox Spirituality. Oxford: SLG Press, 2000. Ware, T., bishop Kallistos. “St Maximos of Kapsokalyvia and Fourteenth-Century Athonite Hesychasm”. In Kathēgētria: Essays Presented to Joan Hussey for Her 80th Birthday, edited by J. Chrysostomides, 409–30. Camberley: Porphyrogenitus, 1988. Živojinović, M. “De nouveau sur le séjour de l’empereur Dušan à l’Athos”. Zbornik Radova Vizantološkog Instituta 21 (1982): 119–26.

13 Pilgrimage to the miraculous Church of the Annunciation, Tinos, Greece Jill Dubisch

The Church of the Madonna of the Annunciation (Evangelistria)1 on the island of Tinos, with its miracle-working icon of the Annunciation (Evangelismos), was the first national shrine of modern Greece and remains a prominent focus of pilgrimage and patriotic sentiment and ceremony to the present day. Its construction began in the 1820s and was completed eight years later, by which time it had already become a symbol and focus of Greek nationalism – a role it continued to play in the early days of the Greek nation state and throughout the successive expansion of Greece in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, continuing into the contemporary era.

History It is difficult, if not impossible, to segregate fact from legend in accounts of the church’s founding. First of all, its beginnings are associated with visions and miracles whose authenticity – although an integral part of the church’s claims to power and authority – cannot be verified. Second, the dates to which these visions are attributed involve a coincidence of national and religious events that has played a role in the shrine’s religious and political importance, but which may or may not be historically accurate. What is clear, however, is that the Church of the Evangelistria was nationally significant from the early days of its founding, that this founding coincided with the beginnings of the contemporary Greek nation state and that from this period onward it has attracted pilgrims both from within the new state of Greece and from areas with Greek Orthodox populations outside this state’s boundaries.

The Island of Tinos The island of Tinos is one of the Cyclades, a group of islands so named in classical times because they formed a circle (kiklos) around the sacred island of Delos. Tinos also had its own temples during this period, one dedicated to Poseidon at the present-day site of the settlement of Koinia and another in what is now the island’s main town and port, the latter most likely dedicated

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to Dionysius (probably on the site of the present-day church).2 Independent for many centuries, Tinos first came under the rule of the Athenians in 664 BC before failing under a succession of rulers until 146 BC, when it came under Roman rule. Even in its early days, the island apparently enjoyed some reputation as a pilgrimage site, with pilgrims making their way there to visit the temple of Poseidon. Although it is not clear when Christianity arrived in Tinos, it may have been in the early fifth century AD, or even earlier. Tradition holds that St John, after his exile on Patmos, came to Naxos to preach and that Christianity spread to the other islands from there. The Empress Helena supposedly visited nearby Paros in the fourth century upon her return from Jerusalem and her son Constantine built the Church of 100 Doors (Ekatontapyliani) there in fulfilment of a vow she made, suggesting that Christianity had already been established in the islands by that time. At some point after Christianity came to Tinos, a church dedicated to John Prodromos (John the Baptist) and to the Virgin Mary (the Panayia, as she is called in Greek) was built on the site upon which the temple of Dionysios (or Poseidon) had stood, although the date of its construction is unknown. This church supposedly housed an icon of the Annunciation that was attributed to the apostle Luke (known as an icon painter as well as a physician). Icons of the Madonna attributed to Luke are said to have been painted from life; hence such an icon would tie the church to the very beginnings of Christianity. The Byzantine period was probably a difficult one for the islands. They appear to have been subject to constant raids by Turks and other raiders, and to famine, plague and the capture of their inhabitants by pirates. It may have been during this time that the church housing the icon was destroyed, perhaps by fire, burying the icon in the ruins. Or the icon may have been deliberately buried during the Iconoclast periods (Tinos seems to have served as a place of exile for iconodules during this time). In 1083, the Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos established an independent metropolitan of the Cyclades, with the islands a major source of sailors for his fleet. Tinos fell under Venetian rule following the Fourth Crusade (1202–1204). Although among the Cyclades only the island of Andros was part of the partition of the Byzantine Empire that was given to the Venetians, bands of soldiers and adventurers also seized other islands. In 1207, brothers Andrea and Geremia Ghisi seized Tinos, Mykonos and the by-then uninhabited island of Delos. Although inclined to respect local customs, the Venetians did bring colonists, who probably would have married into local Cycladic families, and, crucially for Tinos’ later history, also brought Latin clergy and a Latin Catholic bishop, who took over the Orthodox Cathedral of St Nikolaos and the properties of the Orthodox see.3 Between conversion and immigration, the Cyclades acquired a large Catholic population, with Tinos being one of the most Catholic (estimates of their percentages vary, with some as high as 50–60 percent of the population).

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Despite persistent problems with pirates, Tinos and the rest of the Cyclades probably enjoyed a certain amount of prosperity and protection during the Venetian period. The island’s capital was moved from the port town to the rocky peak of Exobourgo, the highest point of the island, where a fortress was built, with the Venetian town below its walls (the ruins are still there, although no village or town exists on the peak anymore.) As the Venetian Empire declined, however, and raids by pirates of various nationalities became more common, Tinos suffered the loss of its populations to raiders and from exploitation by Venetian rulers for their own profit. With the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453, the situation on the Cyclades deteriorated even further. During the struggles between the Venetians and the Ottomans over the following 200 years, the islands generally were exposed to raids by the Ottoman navy and Turkish privateers. As the islands fell one by one into Turkish hands, Tinos held out and became a place of shelter for Orthodox refugees fleeing the Turkish-held islands and thus serving as an Orthodox refuge in an increasingly Ottoman sea. Tinos was the last of the Cycladic islands to fall under Ottoman rule. In 1715, a Turkish fleet appeared off the island and landed a force of 12,000. The Venetian rector apparently surrendered the island without a fight (islanders today claim that he was bribed with gold) The garrison commander and all those who wished to depart were allowed to leave, while the leading 200 Venetian families were exiled to North Africa. Tinos seems to have enjoyed a period of peace and relative prosperity under the relatively light Ottoman rule, with travellers to the island during the period describing the inhabitants as happy and affluent and the island as fertile and productive. Despite this, Tinos was one of the areas to join the 1821 uprising against the Ottomans which led to the establishment of an independent Greek state. This brief history4 highlights several important factors that lay the groundwork for understanding the next period in Tinos’ history and the significance of events to come. First, we see that Tinos has a long history as a holy place, from its early years in the orbit of the sacred island of Delos, to its role in housing a holy icon, itself attributed to Luke and the beginnings of Christianity, to its role as an outpost of Orthodox Christianity poised between the Catholic west and the steady advance of Islam in the east. Similarly, as the last of the Cyclades to fall into Muslim hands (and, supposedly, then only by treachery), it may be seen to stand for Greek resistance in a centuries-old struggle against enemy forces, especially those of the nonChristian world. And last, all of this plants the island both political and spiritual roots that date back to the very earliest days of Greek history.

The finding of the miraculous icon Although the Greek War of Independence (1821–1832) did not affect Tinos as far as military action is concerned, Tinos’ inhabitants sent letters of

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support, money, ships and men to aid in the struggle. A number of refugees from the islands of Chios and Psara, fleeing massacres by the Turks during this period of struggle, also came to Tinos. The Catholics of the Cyclades, however, fearful of what their own status might be under a new, and presumably Orthodox Greek state, remained neutral, continuing to send taxes and declare their loyalty to the Ottoman Porte. Along with the rest of the Cyclades, Tinos was included in the political boundaries of the first state of Greece (also encompassing Attica and the Peloponnesus, but none of the rest of what is now comprises the presentday state of Greece). Despite its material support, Tinos’ most important contribution to independence was a spiritual one, for it was there that a miraculous icon was found shortly after the beginning of the struggle. The official and popular story behind the discovery of a miraculous icon of the Annunciation locates it at the beginning of the Greek War of Independence in 1823. The discovery is attributed to a dream or vision experienced by a nun in an Orthodox monastery in the mountains above the island’s main town, in which the Panayia appeared to the nun and told her that her (i.e. the Panayia’s) icon had been buried in a field just outside the town and that church officials should be informed in order for the icon to be uncovered. After some hesitation on the nun’s part and several unsuccessful attempts to locate the icon by the townspeople, it was finally unearthed. This account of the icon’s discovery follows a very common pattern of stories connected to icons in Greece: a vision or dream of the saint or icon demanding its discovery, the finding of the icon and the building of a church to house where it was discovered. According to some accounts, the icon began performing miracles immediately after its discovery. The icon itself is a depiction of the Annunciation, in which Gabriel appears to Mary to announce that she is to bear the Christ Child. Although the original icon is not visible today, as it is housed in an elaborate frame and covered with offerings of jewellery and other ornamentations, it is said to have been charred on the back as a result of the fire that supposedly destroyed the Byzantine church of St John the Baptist that once housed it.5 It was also broken in two by the shovel of the workman who uncovered it. It is said that miraculously neither the image of the Madonna nor of Gabriel was damaged. After the icon’s discovery, plans were made for the construction of a church to house it. Another miracle is associated with the finding of the icon is that of the Life-Giving Well (Zoodhohos Piyi). This well or spring in the ruins of the former church, which had long been dry, began to flow, it is said, after the local workers uncovered it. It is now part of the lower level of the present church, which in addition to providing holy water for pilgrims, serves as a baptismal area. The symbolism of the icon’s discovery and of a holy spring that once again begins to flow is obvious when we view it against the background of contemporaneous events. It also makes it difficult to sort history from

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legend. Moreover, it is also unclear to what extent the significance attributed to the icon’s discovery was proclaimed from the beginning, or whether it was attributed retrospectively, after the establishment of the first Greek state. In any case, the symbolism of resurrection and rebirth is clearly evident in these accounts. The announcement of Christ’s coming parallels the coming of a new Greek nation, the finding of the icon where a church had once stood in Byzantine times and the decision to build a new church on the site may also be seen as the rebirth of the glory that was once Orthodox Byzantium. The flowing of the spring that had hitherto been dry echoes the idea of rebirth or renewal as well. In addition, the beginning of the Greek War of Independence is conventionally dated to 25 March, the Day of the Annunciation, thus aligning the political beginnings of Greece with the beginning of Christianity. Although this dating may or may not be accurate historically speaking, symbolically it aligns the political with the spiritual, also lending divine significance to the Greek struggle. As nowadays, 25 March is celebrated as Greek Independence Day; the icon itself, whether from the time of its discovery or retrospectively, is therefore coupled with the beginnings of modern Greece. Accounts of the icon’s discovery state that it immediately began performing miracles, including stopping a plague – probably cholera – that had fallen upon the local inhabitants when they initially abandoned their search for the icon (a sign of the Panayia’s displeasure at the failure to carry out her command to unearth it). The discovery and the miracles, it is said, gave heart to those struggling for Greek independence and gave them reason to hope for a successful outcome to the struggle. Again, the claim of the icon’s immediate renown is hard to verify, as historical accounts of the War of Independence do not seem to mention the icon’s discovery, and certainly do not see it as a significant event. However, this does not mean that the discovery was unknown outside the island, nor that it was not regarded as symbolically important at the time, only that claims of miraculous events with political significance are not part of modern historiography.6 Pilgrimage to Tinos does seem to have been well underway after independence according to church accounts, and some of the heroes of the war such as Kolokotronis, Kanaris, and Miaoulis went there during the 1830s to make their proskinima (devotions). Foreign visitors to the Church of the Evangelistria may be somewhat surprised by the physical appearance of the church that was built to house the icon. Instead of the more familiar Byzantine appearance of an Orthodox church, with a high rounded vault and blue domes, this church has an almost Italianate appearance. The architect who designed the church was brought from Smyrna, a cosmopolitan city in Asia Minor with a large Greek population. It has been suggested that the choice of architect and design represented the orientation of the new state of Greece toward the west, away from the Byzantine and oriental past. As this was the first shrine of the new state, this may have been intended in its design, signifying a rebirth of Greek

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Orthodox Christianity but looking for the future in the West, rather than the East.

Catholics and the shrine The politics of the process by which the church at Tinos became a national shrine of the first state of Greece can probably never be known for certain, but one factor that may very well have entered into this process was the large Catholic population of the Cyclades, whose loyalty to the new Orthodox state may have been uncertain. By promoting a major Orthodox shrine in this heavily Catholic area, authorities in effect declared the Orthodoxy of Tinos, and of the Cyclades generally, as part of the new Greek state.7 That the shrine and its icon were deliberately devised is certainly the view taken by British traveller James Theodore Bent, who visited the Cyclades in the early 1880s. By that time, the pilgrimage to the Church of the Evangelistria had been well established and was a notable, if not the notable, feature of the island. Despite enjoying the celebrations, Bent took a rather cynical view of the origins of the shrine, noting that the establishment of a miracleworking Madonna in the centre of Hellas was a well-conceived plan.8 Today, as island Catholics as well as Orthodox visit the shrine for proskinima, it has become a common place of spiritual practice for both (although Catholics have their own churches as well). Both Catholic and Orthodox clergy (which may include the bishop from the neighbouring island of Syros) also take part in the processions on the major holy days, when the icon is taken from the church and carried in procession through the streets of the town. When asked about their participation, Catholics often say “God is one”, or “The Panayia is one”. There are some similar examples from the nineteenth century, although it is difficult to gauge the extent to which these represented popular sentiment and to which such accounts were put forth as part of the church’s attempt to bolster the legitimacy of the claims for the icon’s power.

The icon and Greek identity An important consideration after independence was establishing a Greek national identity, an identity that was by no means clear-cut or unproblematic in those early days. What did it mean to be Greek? Was it language? (But many of those considered Greek did not speak Greek.) Was it religion? (But as we have seen, the Cyclades had a large Catholic population.) Was it the inheritance of a classical world, tying contemporary Greeks to their cultural ancestors? (But what did the average Greek of the new state know of such an inheritance?) Although Western political and military support for Greece in its struggle for independence was based on strategic considerations, many western Europeans were drawn to such support because to them Greece represented

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the classical world regarded as the foundation of Western civilisation. This was one side of Greek identity. But while educated Greeks could draw upon this identity, it was not one that was particularly relevant to ordinary Greeks, or even part of their consciousness of themselves. In this context of forging a national identity, the Greek Orthodox religion became one side of the national coin. It proclaimed a contrast with the Muslim Ottoman world, a unity within the new state (not to mention an irredentist claim to other geographical areas as the Greek state expanded over the next century) and the basis upon which that unity was founded (i.e. Greek Orthodoxy as the dominant religion). Many educated Greeks, however, saw Hellenism rather than Orthodoxy as the basis for a modern Greek nation, and felt that nationalism would eventually replace religion for the Greek population as the foundation for a sense of Greek identity. But, as Charles Frazee put it, what they misjudged was the their Greek countrymen’s ability to absorb both Hellenism and Orthodoxy, and in fact to identify them.9 This identification is clearly embodied in Tinos’ Church of the Evangelistria.10 The assertion of Greek Orthodoxy through the establishment of a pilgrimage shrine with a miracle-working icon may have been part of asserting religion as a unifying identity. The fact that this establishment took place in an area with a large Catholic population and that the message conveyed was seen as one of divine (Orthodox) support for Greek independence may have played a part, deliberately planned or not, in addressing this question of identity. Certainly, the numbers of Orthodox pilgrims from outside the boundaries of the new state in the early nineteenth century would suggest that religion and Greekness were interconnected from the shrine’s inception. Moreover, pilgrimage to Tinos may have played a role not only in symbolising a unified Greek identity and nation for those within the new state, but also inspiring Greeks outside its boundaries as well. James Theodore Bent, commenting on the diversity of pilgrims to Tinos, pointed out that dissatisfied Cretans, oppressed Greeks from Asia Minor, here meet the sons of new Hellas on free Hellenic soil, and in this island are sown yearly seeds of revolt against Turkish rule, which the pilgrims take home and spread on fertile ground.11

Pilgrimage to Tinos In the multi-layered nature of pilgrimages and pilgrimage shrines, the reasons for pilgrimage range from the intimately personal to the political and collective, with individual pilgrimage motivated by several of these levels simultaneously. In analysing pilgrimage to the Church of the Evangelistria, one can distinguish the political motivations and symbolism involved in its promotion from the motivations of the ordinary pilgrims who flock there. While these may be intertwined, for the most part personal concerns rather than patriotic sentiments serve as the impetus for pilgrimage for most of those who journey to Tinos today and for those who made their way there

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in the past. The miracle-working nature of the icon housed in the church is the common basis for most of all pilgrimages to Tinos. If asked why people make pilgrimages to the church, the usual reply is because the icon is miracle-working (thavmatourgos). These miracle-working qualities appear to have been established and publicised from early in the church’s history. Whatever the political motivations and national agendas involved in the establishment of the Church of the Evangelistria as a pilgrimage shrine, as anthropologists Victor and Edith Turner point out, ultimately pilgrims vote with their feet.12 And while a celebration of Greek independence would have been part of the experience for early pilgrims, so would the personal desire for succour and the occurrence of miracles, as well as the wish to give thanks for prayers answered and to fulfil vows. Some of the most publicised of these miracles contribute to the symbolic import of the church as Greece’s first shrine, as they bolster not only its claims of spiritual power but also, by extension, the claims of the new state of Greece itself. These miracles often become physically part of the church, as they may receive testimony in the form of votive offerings (tagmata) displayed in the church. One often cited account is that of a British ship anchored in the harbour while the church was under construction. At this time, financial difficulties threatened the church’s completion. A violent storm came up and the ship was torn loose from its mooring and in danger of breaking up on the rocky shore. The British vice-consul, who was aboard the ship, could see the church under construction on the hill above the town and prayed fervently to the Madonna for rescue. Miraculously, the storm abated and the ship was saved. In gratitude, the story goes, the consul donated enough money to allow for the completion of the church. Another miracle story demonstrates that the miracles of the Panayia are not confined to Christians. A Muslim official with an incurable disease came to the church and prayed to the Panayia for help, it is said, and was cured of his affliction. In gratitude, he donated a marble fountain, which stands by the entrance to the church to this day. Another miracle demonstrates the power of the shrine is not limited by physical distance. A Greek who had emigrated to America fell blind after an illness and prayed to the Panayia at Tinos for a cure. When he opened his eyes, his sight was miraculously restored and the first thing he saw was an orange tree. In gratitude he donated an elaborate silver orange tree to the church, which is still displayed just inside the church door. Other accounts tell of Catholics who were cured by the icon’s miraculous powers. Given the close association between the church and its icon, on the one hand, and the Greek nation on the other, we can see the obvious symbolism in these accounts. The power and legitimacy of Greece itself is supported by Western powers, acknowledged even by Muslims and Catholics, and reaches out to all Greeks, including those in the diaspora. In addition to these often cited and written miracles, one can read the history of pilgrimage to Tinos in the votive offerings (tamata) left by

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grateful pilgrims at the shrine (these can represent either prayers answered or requests made). At one point, the offerings were hung from the large columns in the centre of the church, a visual testimony to the power of the icon. At some point (perhaps around the mid-1900s) these were removed, but some of the large offerings, whose stories are often recited orally and in church literature, remain on display, visible at various points around the church and hanging from the ceiling, and the more recent smaller tamata may be placed on the icons themselves. Because Tinos is an island, and because sailing is an occupation (along with fishing) undertaken by many of its inhabitants, the Evangelistria of Tinos is an important protectress of sailors, and a number of these votive offerings are representations of ships. Both the continuity of concern and change through time can be seen in these votive offerings. The older ones are of sailing ships, while the later ones are representations of motorised vessels. The miracles of the Panayia Evangelistria are by no means confined to sailing, however, as she can be appealed to for relief from many difficulties, from illness, to protection for property, to conceiving and protecting children, to blessing upon a marriage. These are enduring concerns that have probably motivated pilgrims since pilgrimage to the shrine began, along with more recent concerns such as drug addiction and other contemporary difficulties facing pilgrims and their families. This raises two important points. One is that the icon and the Panayia herself are conflated in the minds of many pilgrims, and they are often spoken of interchangeably. “I am going to the Panayia”, a pilgrim may say, meaning both the icon and the saintly presence that is said to reside there, a saintly presence that may leave her icon when need arises, as she is claimed to have done during World War I, when she went north to the front to support the Greek troops. The church has a clear pan-Orthodox dimension as well. After its founding, it became a magnet for Greeks living outside the new state. Pilgrimage to the shrine exposed these Greeks not only to the spiritual power of the icon but also to a country in which Greeks lived as free citizens. Later, with the Russian Revolution and the rise of communism, Greece became the most important European centre of Eastern Orthodoxy (although whether this impacted pilgrimage to the church is unclear). More recently, when I was doing fieldwork at the shrine, boats from Cyprus would stop there regularly, bringing Greek Cypriots on pilgrimage. And after the break up of the Soviet Union, Russian and other Eastern Orthodox pilgrims, free now to travel and to practise their religion, began coming to Greece to visit holy places in a country in which the Orthodox faith has flourished during the times it was suppressed in their own countries. I have no information at this point about how many of these visitors, if any, have been to Tinos, but I have seen Russian Orthodox tourists at churches elsewhere in Greece, and it would be surprising if at least some had not sought out the famous shrine at Tinos as well.

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In addition to the accounts of the church’s founding and its miracles, several historical events have re-enforced the connection between the shrine and Greek nationalism since its original founding. The most significant of these was the 1940 sinking of the Elli by an Italian submarine as the battleship was anchored in the harbour for the celebrations of 15 August (this occurred before any official declaration of war). A memorial to the Elli containing items from the torpedoed ship is now located beneath the main church building, and a wreath is laid in the water at the site of the sinking every year upon the 15 August celebrations. Under the military junta (1967–1974), 15 August was declared the Day of Military Strength, adding another layer to the nationalistic associations of the shrine and reinforcing the military presence at the 15 August celebrations. This brings up an interesting point. Normally the major celebration at a Greek church is the day associated with its principal icon, which in the case of the shrine would be 25 March, the day of the Annunciation. But one of the major changes in pilgrimage to Tinos has been the shift away from 25 March to 15 August (the day of the Dormition) as the major pilgrimage event. It is unclear exactly when this shift occurred, but it had definitely been established by the 1960s when I first went to Tinos for anthropological fieldwork. Several things may account for this. Since visitors to Tinos must arrive by boat, this can create travel difficulties in March, when the weather can be stormy. Another factor may be the increase in importance of 15 August as a major Greek holiday, marking the beginning of the summer holiday season across Greece. Whatever the reasons, 15 August is now the major holy day associated with Tinos, and the day in which there is heavy representation by religious authorities, a strong military presence and regular attendance by politicians (although 25 March remains important). While pilgrimage can occur year-round, these days are considered to be particularly powerful ones for visiting the church.

Conclusion The history and the power of the Church of the Evangelistria as a pilgrimage shrine are intimately connected to the history of modern Greece. Its founding and its subsequent popularity signal not only the establishment of the Greek nation state, but also the fact that such an establishment was not simply a birth but a rebirth, for it ties both the church and Greece to the classical and Byzantine past and reflects as well the many trials and tribulations Greeks have undergone through the centuries before Greece was reborn as an independent nation. Like many pilgrimage sites, the church is multi-layered. From its spiritual base in classical times through the Byzantine era to the present, its miraculous icon surviving under ruins until it calls out for resurrection, a resurrection that coincides with and gives divine sanction to the (re)birth of the Greek nation, its protection for that nation and its people and for other Greeks outside the nation’s boundaries – all of

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these layers create a complex spiritual history. But it has layers contemporaneously as well, the shrine and its rituals combining the proclamations of the institutionalised church, patriotic sentiments of the Greek state, and the piety, hopes and visions of ordinary pilgrims.

Notes 1 Also referred to as the Church of the Megalohari. 2 Or a temple dedicated to Poseidon may have been on this site. Sources differ on this. 3 The Church of St Nikolaos is still today the main Catholic church on Tinos. 4 For a more detailed account of the island’s history, see Dubisch, In a Different Place, 120–33. 5 As mentioned previously, exactly when this destruction took place is unclear, possibly during the twelfth century during a Saracen raid. 6 See Dubich, In a Differente Place, 134–55. 7 The Greek constitution written in 1822 proclaimed the Eastern Orthodox Church of Christ the official religion of the new Greek state, but also proclaimed tolerance for other religions and their rituals. See Frazee, “The Greek”, 321. 8 Bent, Aegean Islands, 233. 9 Frazee, “Church and State”. 10 On the topic of Greekness and the two Greek identities, see Herzfeld, Ours Once More. 11 Bent, Aegean Islands, 232. 12 Turner and Turner, Image.

Sources and bibliography Bent, J.T. Aegean Islands: The Cyclades, or Life Among the Insular Greeks. Chicago: Argonaut Publishers, 1965. Dubisch, J. In a Different Place: Pilgrimage, Gender and Politics at Greek Island Shrine. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995. Frazee, C. “Church and State in Greece”. In Greece in Transition: Essays in the History of Modern Greece, 1821–1974, edited by J.T.A. Koumoulides, and D. Visvizi-Dontas, 128–53. London: Zeno, 1977. Frazee, C. “The Greek Catholic Islanders and the Revolution of 1821”. East European Quarterly 13, no. 3 (1979): 315–26. Herzfeld, M. Ours Once More: Folklore, Ideology, and the Making of Modern Greece. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1982. Turner, V.W., and E.L.B. Turner. Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture: Anthropological Perspectives. Lectures on the History of Religions, new series 11. New York: Columbia University Press, 1978.

Lessons from a golden age Piety, publicity and mobility in nineteenth-century European pilgrimage Simon Coleman The idea of a Golden Age is one that we might approach with mixed feelings. While it conveys the sense of an apogee, a time of maximum creativity and productivity, such an age is often recollected from the point of view of a later period of relative degeneration and disillusionment. Such is not the case, however, for this collection of essays. One of the reasons for our current interest in the efflorescence of pilgrimage practices in Europe in the nineteenth century is surely that the study of sacralised forms of travel is undergoing a new era of interdisciplinary expansion. In this intellectual context, an important contribution of the current, historically oriented volume is that it asks questions at the level of a continent as well as in relation to a particular time: What characterised European pilgrimage as a whole during the 1800s, and how did such pilgrimage display significant common features as well as variations? In what senses can we say that these features contributed to a Golden Age? Our present authors have tended not to address Islam or Judaism in their responses to these questions, but they have highlighted diverse manifestations of Christianity, asking how Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant Christianities competed with and complemented each other in relation to a complex religio-political landscape of European pilgrimage. They also implicitly pursue a further question: namely how pilgrimage engaged with the forces of both secularisation and religious revival that characterised the era. What is the actual evidence to suggest that a Golden Age really did exist, however? Contributors provide a number of lines of evidence: increased interest in (re-)locating and restoring sites, larger numbers of people attending shrines, greater amounts of publicity granted to the activities of pilgrims. For instance, Olaf Blaschke’s account of trends in Germany refers to the phenomenon of “mass pilgrimages”, whether emerging from systematic forms of organisation from the top (Trier) or more chaotic, bottom-up developments such as those at Marpingen – all occurring in a national context for pilgrimage that, over the course of the century, contained Protestant opposition, liberal mockery, revocation of the anti-Socialist laws and a Kulturkampf involving chronic tensions between the Roman Catholic Church and the imperial government.

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It also seems significant that the landscape of pilgrimage was extended within and beyond Europe during the period: not only were long-forgotten sites such as the Roman catacombs opened in the mid-nineteenth century but, as Ruth Kark and Christine D. Worobec demonstate in their respective chapters, Palestine itself became a more significant destination for pilgrim-travellers coming from such varied contexts as Britain, the United States and Russia. In addition, the century proved an important era for the Marianisation of the continent, which contributed to a post-Enlightenment re-enchantment (and re-Catholicisation) of urban as well as rural spaces, ranging in France from the newly established sites of Lourdes or La Salette to the re-legitimised but neglected Marian sanctuaries described by Marc Agostino. Pilgrimage had undergone numerous revivals in Europe before, not only during the various phases of the Middle Ages but also as part of the Counter-Reformation’s theological, military and material resurgence against the threat of Protestantism. However, this book shows how the nineteenthcentury reemergence of pilgrimage and pilgrimage-related practices involved a number of features particularly characteristic of the time. Most notably, access to travel was widened and eased in a number of significant ways. Stephen L. Dyson refers to the rise of an educated middle class – a much broader band of society than had been able to go on the older versions of the Grand Tour – who not only gained access to religious sites but also contributed to the rise of “bourgeoisie tourism”, funded through expansions in commerce and industry. Participants included more women than ever before, attracted by better amenities and encouraged by changing attitudes in some parts of the continent, which no longer perceived leisured travel to be the province of young males. Perhaps the iconic symbol and facilitator of the new industrialisation and professionalisation of travel was Thomas Cook, who introduced important innovations in terms of routes, modes of transportation and even travellers’ cheques. It is important to remember that a sense of Christian mission lay behind Cook’s commercial zeal, and that his brand of feverishly active piety was Baptist rather than Catholic or Orthodox, even if his efforts were ultimately directed at those of all religious persuasions. If his mixing of asceticism and leisure, sacred travel and secular touring, were to become important tropes in the development of pilgrimage studies in the latter half of the twentieth century, these elements were already being combined in creative ways a century earlier. Cook brought together different orientations and motivations in his promotion of geopiety, and we can see other fascinating juxtapositions in very different parts of the European Christian landscape – particularly in relation to questions over the nature of historical and religious evidence. An important dimension of a number of the chapters in this volume is provided by reflections on the increasingly professionalised practices of archaeology, epitomised by Christopher Gerrard’s careful tracing of the interplay between ecclesiological and archaeological interests in Britain, Isaac Sastre de Diego’s discussion of the “incipient sacred archaeology emergent in the

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England of the Second Industrial Revolution” or – crossing into Roman Catholic realms – Massimiliano Ghilardi’s analysis of the Roman Catacombs as both spiritual “cradle” and material “archive” for the Church, as revealed by the emergence of a modern approach to Christian excavations that attempted to avoid extreme forms of confessionalisation. It is intriguing to consider such developments in the light of a common stereotype of the nineteenth century: that the growing historicisation of the Bible led to damaging challenges to its authority as factually accurate text. While new forms of textual scepticism were undoubtedly significant, we might also see novel forms of archaeology as – at times – providing material reinforcements for faith in the facticity of a Christian landscape diffused from Palestine to Europe and beyond, which could now be visited en masse by newly mobile populations. Antón M. Pazos addresses these issues directly in his analysis of the ambiguities over the inventio – or reinventio – of the remains of the Apostle St James in Santiago Cathedral, as papal approval became interwoven with evidence from other witnesses in the establishment of authenticity, ranging from archaeologists and historians to doctors and chemists. Thus the Catholic Church in particular seems to have been faced by twin opportunities (and occasionally challenges) in the consolidation of their position, as science and ecclesiology might be sutured together in the legitimation of a site or a relic. Elsewhere in Europe, both the Marianisation and the materialisation of sites of faith, bolstered by miraculous visions and painstaking research respectively, were often made to co-exist. Both methods had the capacity to provide important revelations for a Church seeking to justify its existence in the face of secularism or simple apathy, even if they were not always easy to reconcile with each other. A further satisfying feature of this book is the way chapters provide a nuanced and multi-layered set of clues as to the reasons for the efflorescence of pilgrimage practices in the nineteenth century. These practices provided a spectacular means to challenge secular forces, to be sure, but were also bolstered by improvements in travel technologies (most notably the railway) as well as by the publicity provided by increasingly widespread and varied means of communication, ranging from the observations of novelists (Dickens, Zola) to the burgeoning press, growth in significance and reliability of travel books and academic works that reflected shifts from antiquarianism to more accountable forms of scholarship. For instance, Milagrosa Romero Samper’s discussion of coverage of travel and devotion in the British press talks not only of the rivalry of shrines but also of the lively public interest aroused by such (potentially) competing publications as the Pall Mall Gazette and the Westminster Gazette. Nor can religio-political dimensions be ignored, with shrines at times promoting ultramontane forms of affiliation, but also often being appropriated – as in the cases of the Polish struggle for independence (Jan Perszon) or the emergence of Greek nationalism (Jill Dubisch) – to bolster patriotic assertions of the alliance between religious and territorial identity. On the other hand, both René Gothóni

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and Christine D. Worobec show how Russian Orthodoxy also sought legitimation in sites beyond the nation state, incorporating claims over Mount Athos and even the Holy Land itself. There are other areas of study that this book can only hint at, given that it is impossible to cover everything. I wonder, for instance, whether the professionalisation, industrialisation and – in some cases – nationalisation of some sites may have had a powerful effect in developing larger pilgrimage shrines, but rendering smaller sites less relevant, or at least visible. In this sense, the lustre of the Golden Age has the capacity to highlight some forms of pilgrimage, but not others. There is also the question – partly alluded to by Christopher Gerrard – of how the development of pilgrimage bolstered much wider impulses toward the reinvention of tradition that were common in the industrialising but also post-Romantic, nostalgic, cultural and intellectual landscape of Europe – a context that also saw the rich development of ethnological and folklore studies. Finally, I wonder about the extent to which, in Britain especially but also elsewhere, pilgrimage and the aesthetic of the Gothic provided a powerful spatial and aesthetic response to the self-consciously “plain”, often anti-Catholic impulses of low-church evangelicalism – a conflict over theology and semiotic ideology that we still see played out in pilgrimage sites such as Walsingham in the present day. Indeed, the Golden Age of pilgrimage of the nineteenth century may have important parallels and lessons for scholars and practitioners in the contemporary period, as we gain a glimpse into earlier versions of globalisation, publicity, sacralisation of mobility and reconstruction of material cultures of devotion.

Index

Note: page numbers bold indicate a table on the corresponding page Academie Française 87–8 Alfred’s Castle 15 Ali Pasha, Muhammed 71 Altermatt, Urs 167 Andersen, Hans Christian 51 Antiquarian Society 139–40 Archaeological Association 29 Archaeological Institute 29, 34 archaeology 8, 10, 14, 90, 254; biblical excavations, 75; “Christian” 35; medieval 34; private collections 34; relics 35; see also excavations Arnoldi, Wilhelm, bishop 173 Arnott, Walker, presbyterian missionary 75 Ars: pilgrimage 125, 132; see also Vianney, Jean-Marie Augustan writers 20 Austria 71, 74, 167, 191–2, 196; antiCatholic policies 192–3

Boddy, Alexander 212 Boulogne, Basilic of Our Lady 122–3 bourgeois tourism 88, 91–4, 253; and photography 93–4; and relics 93; Roman catacombs 93; women travellers 93; see also Grand Tour Britain see England British Museum 34 Britton, John 26 Brown, Ford Madox 22 Buckingham, James Silk 68 Buckler, John 26 Bulgaria 223, 225, 230 Bülow, Bernhard von 193–4 Bunyan, John 147 Burkardt, Arthur John 65 Burke, Edmund 20 Burns, Robert 20 Byron, George Gordon 22 Byzantium 11, 225, 227–8, 242, 245

Barlaam of Calabria, monk 226 Barlocci, Gaetano 55 Barry, Charles 28 Barush, Kathryn 139 Becket, Thomas see St Thomas Becket Beckford, William 20 Beecher, Henry Ward: tour to Palestine 70 Bent, James Theodore 246–7 Bentham, James 17 Bernardines (Polish Franciscans) 194–6, 202 Bevignani, Augusto 56 Blackbourn, David 178 Blake, William 20, 139, 147 Block, Andrzej 197 Bloy, Léon 130–1, 135

Cambridge Camden Society 27–8, 139 Camino de Santiago 105, 110 Cappellari, Bartolomeo Alberto see Gregory XVI Carter, John 17–18 castles 22, 25, 29–30, 31, 32; faux castles 88 catacombs see Roman catacombs Catholic Emancipation Act (1829) 140, 146 Catholic pilgrimages 3, 5–7, 9–10, 12, 125, 152–4; Camino de Santiago 105, 110; Canterbury 147; English pilgrimage to Paray-le-Monial 148–51; Gallicans 128, 131, 168; and the Grand Tour 92–3; English pilgrimages to Palestine 70;

Index inter-classism 154–5, 161n65; Jansenism 147, 168; Marian apparitions 125–30; reinventio of St James 101–4; and Spanish Catholicism 104; Stations of the Cross 195–8; ultramontanism 3–4, 124–5, 128, 131, 150–1, 166–9, 180–1; Valkenburg catacombs 55–6; veneration of Mary 123–4, 127; women travellers 7–8, 157, 174, 176, 181, 200, 201; see also Cook, Thomas; Jasna Gora; Kalwaria Zebrzydowska; La Salette; Łąki Bratiańskie; Lourdes; Marian aparitions; Marpingen; Roman catacombs; Santiago de Compostela; Trier; Virgin Mary Catholic Revival 35, 88, 93, 140, 146, 150–1 Cavacepi, Giovanni 86 Caves, Monastery of the 207–8, 215 cenobitism 229, 231, 233, 236 Chaplin, Thomas 76 Chateaubriand, François-René de 90, 123 Chepstow Castle 24 “Christian architecture” 27–9 Church Building Act (1818) 26 Clark, Frank C. 72 classicism 83–4, 86–8, 92–3, 95–6 “Claude glasses” 24–5 Clement XI, pope 199 Cohen, Erik 66, 68 Cole, Thomas 22, 92 Commission for Sacred Archaeology of Rome, 35, 53 Communism 82–4, 96, 219, 249 Compostela see Santiago de Compostela Coney, John 26 Constable, John 22 Cook, John Mason 69, 76 Cook, Thomas 5, 9–10, 66–8, 70–1, 77, 89, 107, 155, 253; “Biblical Educational and General Tours” 71–3; “biblical excavations” 75; circular notes, 67; Eastern Tours 68–70; philanthropic work in Palestine 75–6; “Temperance Tours” 67 Copley, John Singleton 89 Corbridge plates 139–40 Cornelius, pope 53–4 Cotman, John Sell 26 Covel, John, 229

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Crowland Abbey 18 Cuinet, Vidal 72 Cullen, Alderman 68 cultural pilgrimages 9, 82–4, 86–8, 94–6; see also Grand Tour Curzon, Robert 229–30 Custodian of Sacred Relics and Cemeteries of Rome 46–9 Cuypers, Petrus Josephus Hubertus 56 daguerrotypes 93–4 Damasus I, pope 54 De Rossi, Giovanni Battista 35, 52–6 Dickens, Charles, 51 Diepen, Jan 55, 56 Dugdale, William 16 Dumas, Alexandre 22 Durham Cathedral 17, 32–3 Dušan, Stefan 227–8, 232 Dyer, John 20 Ebertz, Michael 166 Eliade, Mircea 66 England 10, 14, 137, 253; abbeys 22; Alfred’s Castle 15; antiCatholicism 146; Augustan writers 20; Canterbury pilgrimage 147; Catholic Revival 35, 88, 93, 140, 150; Chepstow Castle 24; church architecture 26–9; Church of Silchester 141–2; excavations 30, 140–1; Gothic architecture 16–17; Gothic nations: migrations 16; Gothic Revival 25–9; Great Exhibition 67; “horror-Romantics” 22; monuments 30, 32; Netley Abbey 22; Party Processions Act 146; picturesque movement 14, 22–5; pilgrimages 152–4; to Paray-le-Monial, 148–51, 157–9; Romanticism 30; sacred archaeology 138–9, 143; tours 23–5; York Cathedral 22; see also Holy Land; Grand Tour; Romanticism Evangelistria, Church: 241–3; and Catholicism 246; discovery of the miraculous icon 243–6; and Greek identity 246–7; history 241; LifeGiving Well 244–5; and miracles 248–50; pilgrimages 247–50 excavations 8, 20, 22, 30, 34–5, 56, 90, 101; “biblical” 75; at the catacombs, 47; sacred 141; of St Augustine 140–1; of Santiago de Compostela,

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101–2, 105–7; of Silchester 141–2; at Wortherser Cathedral 34; see also Roman catacombs Fernández-Guerra, Aureliano 106 Fita, Fidel 106 Flórez, Enrique, 141 Fountains Abbey 18, 32 Fourvière, Basilic of Our Lady 124 Fowler, William 29 France 22, 121, 125, 146; Ars pilgrimage 125, 132–3; Basilic of the Sacred Heart 132; Black Madonnas, 124, 198; cult of the Sacred Heart 151; Curé of Ars 126; rediscovered of miraculous images, 124; local pilgrimages 122–3; Lourdes 2, 4, 7–8, 10, 101, 103, 108–9, 126–31, 133–7, 147–8, 179; “National” pilgrimage to 134; Marian apparitions 125–6; Mont Saint-Michel pilgrimage 122–4; Notre-Dame-des-Victoires 125, 128; Our Lady of Boulogne 123; Our Lady of La Salette 126–31, 133, 135, 147; Our Lady of Le Puy pilgrimage 124; Our Lady of Pontmain 132; Our Lady of Talence pilgrimage 124; Paray-le-Monial 153–4; St Martin of Tours 124; Verdelais pilgrimage 124; see also La Salette; Lourdes; Paray-leMonial; Vianney, Jean-Marie Freeman, Edward 27 French Revolution 18, 30, 87, 122–3, 128, 133, 146, 168, 172, 180 Friedrich, Caspar David 26 Gallicanism 129, 131, 168 Gautier, Hippolyte 55 geopiety 65–6, 77 Germaine Necker, Anne Louise see Staël, Madame de Germany 10, 166; Hambach Festival 172–3; Kulturkampf 176, 179, 181; Marpingen 166, 169, 171, 178–9, 181; modernity of Catholicism 166– 7; Trier 169, 171–8; ultramontanism 168–9, 171, 174–6; see also Marpingen; Trier Gibbon, Edward 84–5 Gibbs, James 15 Gilpin, William 23, 24 Gladstone, William E. 68 Gloucester Cross 17

Gnoli, Giuseppe 55 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von 35, 50–1, 82, 85, 87, 91, 96 Gontikakis, Vasileios 236 Görres, Joseph 175 Gothic architecture 15, 17, 20, 25–7, 29–30 Gothic Revival 8, 14, 18, 25–9, 30, 32, 143, 146; church architecture 26–7; French 29–30 Gough, Richard 16–18, 27 Graham, Stephen 209 Grand Tour 3–4, 6, 9, 23, 66, 83–4, 89–90, 96, 146, 253; accomodations 89; archaeological sites 90; “bear leader” 84; camera lucida 85; cicerone 84; and classical art 86; excavations 90; guidebooks 90, 113n56; guides 90; landscape paintings, 92; museums 90; Naples 86; photographs 93–4; Protestant Cemetery of Rome, 84, 87, 90–1; ruins 92–3; “scientific” restoration 86; sculptures, 93; standards for participation 84; and the “tourist memory” industry 85; United States of America 83, 88–9; women travellers 89, 93 Gray, Thomas 20 Greco-Roman architecture 86, 88 Greece 11–12, 86–7; Church of the Evangelistria 241, 246–7; Hellenism 247; Life-Giving Well 244–5; Tinos 241–50; War of Independence 245; see also Evangelistria; Orthodox pilgrimages Greene, Robert 212 Greenwell, William 27 Gregory XVI, pope 53, 167–8 Grose, Francis 17 guidebooks 22, 24, 30, 62, 67, 70, 83, 90, 107, 197, 113n56, 210, 213 Hagen, Lambertus 55 Hambach Festival 172–3 Handy, Robert T. 70 Harris, James 17 Hasluck, Frederick William 229, 232 Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 90 Hellenism 247 Henry II, king of England 17 hesychasm movement 214–6, 225–7, 234, 236–7

Index Hoare, Richard Colt 23 Holy Land 109, 138, 142, 155, 209; Cook’s tours of 69–75; Eastern Tours 68–9; geopiety 65–6, 77 Holy Trinity-St Sergius Monastery 207–8, 212–3, 215–17 Hommer, Joseph 174 Hope, Alexander 28, 139 Hosmer, Harriet 91 Howard, Alexander 154 Howard, Edmund 70 Hugo, Victor 22 Hull, Edward 75–6 Huysmans, Joris-Karl 127, 135–6 Hyacinthus, martyr 53 Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society 3, 206, 209–11 Imperial Russia see Russia Industrial Revolution 65, 88, 138 Isaiya, monk 223–4 Israel 66; see also Holy Land; Palestine Izard, Ralph 89 Jaffa 72–5; Tabeetha Mission School 75 James, Henry 90–1 Jansenism 122, 147, 168 Jasna Góra 191–4, 196, 198–200, 202 Jerusalem 9, 66, 68–9, 70, 72, 74, 76, 121, 155, 206, 210, 237; see also Holy Land; Palestine Joseph, Abdullah 70 Josephinism 192–3 Kafsokalyvian, Maximos 226–7 Kalwaria Zebrzydowska 191, 194–7, 202 Kanzler, Rodolfo 56 Keats, John 87, 91 Kent, William 14 Kenworthy, Scott 207–8, 216 Knight, Richard Payne 23 Korum, Felix 176 Kujot, Stanislaw 197 Kulturkampf 176, 179, 181 La Salette, Sanctuary of Our Lady 126–31, 133, 135, 147 Labouré, Catherine 125 Lacroix, Paul, 48 Lafond, Edmond, 52 Łąki Bratiańskie 191, 197–8, 202

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Landscape Movement 14; see also picturesque movement Langley, Batty 16 Lasinsky, August Gustav 173–4 Lasserre, Henri, 134 Le Puy, Sanctuary of Our Lady: pilgrimage 122, 124 Lechmere, Edmund 76 Leo XIII, Pope 4–5, 56, 101–2, 104, 106, 109, 111n9, 113n50 Lepsius, Rainer 167 Lill, Rudolf 175–6 López Ferreiro, Antonio, canon 102–107 Lorrain, Claude 92 Loth, Wilfred 167 Loudon, John 26 Lourdes, Sanctuary of Our Lady 2, 4, 7–8, 10, 101, 103, 108–9, 126–31, 133–7, 147–8, 179; accessibility 129; “German Lourdes”, 179; latin, 2; miracles 134–5; “National” pilgrimage 134 Lyttelton, George, 17 Macaulay, Thomas 15 Maistre, Joseph de 168 Manceron, Claude 122 Marchi, Giuseppe 52–4 Marian apparitions 10, 125–37, 147–8, 151; hoaxes 148; La Salette 126–31, 133, 135; Lourdes 127–31, 133–7, 148, 179; Marpingen 5, 179–80; Paray-le-Monial 148–51, 153; Pontmain 132; see also Catholic pilgrimages; Lourdes; La Salette; Virgin Mary Mariani, Gregorio 55 Marpingen 5, 10, 169, 171, 178–81; transnational aspects 179–80; and ultramontanism 180–1 Martín de Herrera, José María, cardinal 104 Marucchi, Orazio 56 Marx, Jacob 173 Marx, Karl 83 mass pilgrimages 7, 9, 157, 169–70, 212, 205, 218, 252; organisation 217; tickets 217; Trier 172–8; see also Catholic pilgrimages, Lourdes, Marpingen; Mount Athos; Orthodox pilgrimages; Palestine; Trier mass tourism 65–8

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Meaux Abbey 17 Medlik, S. 65 Melrose Abbey 22 Mérode, Xavier de 53–4 Metternich, Klemens Wenzel Lothar von 174 Midland Counties Railway Company 67 Milner, John 27, 35 miracles 104, 129, 130–1, 133, 135–6, 148, 197, 205, 208, 226, 244–5, 248–50; see also Marian apparitions modernisation: and Cook 66; in Palestine, 66, 77; and religious publications 213–4; in Russia 206, 208–18; steam technology 6, 11, 66–7, 69–71, 209–12; Trans-Siberian Railroad 206; see also railways; steamships modernity 4, 146; of Catholicism 166–7; of the nineteenth century 6; transport 171; see also railways; steamships monasteries 14–15, 125–6, 205, 216–17, 224; celebrations 217–18; cenobitism 229; Jasna Góra 198– 200; Karakalou 230; Renaissance period 227–8; Russian 214–18, 223– 4; Serbian 224; Solovki 207, 211; Valaam 212, 216; see also Catholic pilgrimage; Mount Athos; Ortodox pilgrimages Monck, Charles 23 Mont Saint-Michel, Sanctuary, 122–4 Moore, Noel Temple 76 Morris, William 28 Mount Athos, monasteries 11, 210, 214, 227–8; Athonite monasticism 11, 227–8, cenobitism 229, 231; hesychasm 225–7, 234, 237; libraries 230; multinational and pan-Orthodox character 223–5; New Skete 234, 236; Ottoman rule 228–33; and “pilgrimage” 237–8; Russian population 231–2, 233; Russico 231–2; Serbian monks 232– 3; St Panteleimon Monastery 235; starets 234–7; Turkish occupation 233; women’s role in 228 Müller, Johann Georg 173 Musée des Monuments Français 18 museums 18, 20, 34, 82, 84, 88–91, 93, 138, 141, 143, Mussolini, Benito, cult of Romanità 95–6

Naples 86 Napoleonic Wars 5, 88, 107–8 Neil, James, missionary 70–1 Netherlands, Valkenburg catacombs 55, 56 Netley Abbey 22 Nevsky, Alexander 218 New Skete 234, 236 Newman, John Henry 93 Nipperdey, Thomas 167 Northcote, James Spencer 35 Norton, Charles Eliot 94 Notre-Dame-des-Victoires, Basilic 125, 128 Orthodox pilgrimages 3, 5–7, 9–12, 205, 215–6, 218–19; Church of the Evangelistria 241–3; commemorations 217–8; hesychasm 225–7; monasteries 216–17; organization 216–18; Russian royal family 217; women 208, 211, 216; see also Evangelistria; Mount Athos; Russia Oxford movement 27 Palamas, Gregory 214, 226–7 Palestine 3, 9, 66–8, 70–1, 77, 223; Cook’s philanthropic work in 75–6; Cook’s tours of 69, 70–4; see also Holy Land Palestine Exploration Fund 75 Palladianism 15 Panayia 242, 244–6, 248–9 Paray-le-Monial, Basilic of the Sacred Heart 132, 147–51, 153–4 Pardo Bazán, Emilia 4 Paris Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage (2003) 143 Payá, Miguel, cardinal, 9, 101–2, 105–6, 108 peregrinus 237–38 Phillipps, Thomas 32 Philocalus, Furius Dionysius 54 Philosophical Institution 27 picturesque movement 14, 22–3, 25 piety 3, 7, 65, 74, 77, 124, 128, 132, 147, 155, 166, 174–5, 194, 206 pilgrimage(s) 1–3, 5, 7, 105, 121, 125, 143, 147, 253, 255; and Athonite monasticism 237–8; Camino de Santiago 105, 110; cultural 82–3; democratising force of 6–7; English 146–59; and frontiers, 1–2;

Index guidebooks 113n56; guides 196; and hardship 8, 154–7; to the Holy Land 66; individual 170–1, 180–1; interclassism 154–5, 161n65; internal 139; mass 169–70; modern 155–7; and modernity 4–6; organisational system 5–6; organised 170; and “pardons” 148; “rivalry of the shrines” 147–8; to the Roman catacombs 46, 49, 54–5; secular 82–3; and statues 124; and tourism 6; typology, 5–6, 179; unaproved, 5, 180; women travellers 7–8, 157; working class 7; see also Catholic pilgrimages; France; Germany; Holy Land; Lourdes; mass pilgrimages; Mont Saint-Michel; Orthodox pilgrimages; Paray-le-Monial; piety; Poland; Roman catacombs; Russia Piranesi, Giovanni 82, 85, 94 Pius IX, pope 35, 53–4, 155, 168 Poland 191; Austria’s anti-Church policies 192–3; Bernardines 194–6; characteristics of the Pilgrimage movement 201–3; Jasna Góra 198– 200, 202–3; Kalwaria Zebrzydowska 194–7; Łąki Bratiańskie 197–8; national liberation movements 201– 3; partitioners’ anti-Church policies 191–2, 201; ‘Paths’ (Drózki) 195–6; pilgrimage movement 195, 199–200; popular piety in 194; Prussia’s antiChurch policies 193–4; Russian Partition 192; sanctuaries 191, 202; Warsaw-Vienna Railway 200 Pontmain, Sanctuary of Our Lady: pilgrimage, 132, 135 Ponzetti, Giacinto 46–8 Pope, Alexander 20 Poussin, Nicholas 92 Powers, Hiram, 91–2 Price, Uvedale 15, 23 proskyneo 237–8 proskynima 237–8 Prussia: anti-Catholic policies 193–4; Łąki Bratiańskie 197–8 Pugin, Augustus Welby 25–8, 35, 147 railways 1, 4, 10, 67, 76, 95, 109, 129, 171, 196, 209–12; Arzamas station 209; and cloks 1; Grenoble-La Mure 129; to Lourdes 134, 179; Odessa 210–11; to Paray-le-Monial 157; Polish 196, 200; Russian 7, 209–12; Trans-Siberian Railroad 206; Tier

261

172, 176; Warsaw-Vienna Railway 200 Reichensperger, August 27 relics 8, 35, 52–3, 105, 121; and bourgeois tourism 93; extracting from Roman catacombs 46; objects of “special meaning” 82; reinventio of St James 101–8; of Thomas Becket 138, 149; see also Roman catacombs Renan, Ernest 132 Rickman, Thomas, 26 Riley, Athelstan 229, 231–2 Risley plates 139–40 Roman catacombs 49–51, 93; “Christian archaeology” 35; Crypt of the Popes 54; Eastern Cella Trichora 53; extracting martyrs 46–9; extracting relics 46–9; fossores 46–8, 52–4; friars as guides 51–2; identifying burial sites 47; Keeper of the Sacred Cemeteries 53; loculus 47–8, 53–4; “tourist memory” industry 85 Romanesque architecture 16 Romanov, Russian dynasty 207, 217 Romanov, Konstantin Nikolaevich, grand duke 209 Romanticism 8, 14, 20, 22, 30, 90, 92, 143 Rome 4–5, 7–9, 49, 82–91, 94, 101, 105, 109, 121–3, 132; Academie Française 87, 91; Anglo-American painters 91–2; classicism 86; Mostra Augustea 96; Prix de Rome, 94; protestant cementery, 90–1; and the cult of Romanità 95–6; see also Roman catacombs Rosa, Salvator 23 Rudge, Edward 32 ruins 15, 20, 22, 24, 92–3; cicerone 84; Giovanni Piranesi 82, 85, 94; see also picturesque movement Ruskin, John 27, 138 Russia 7, 191–2, 205–219; antiCatholic policies 192; canonisation of Tikhon of Zadonsk 208; changes within monasteries 214–18; emancipation of serfs 7, 208; Holy Trinity-St Sergius Monastery 207, 208, 215, 217; January Uprising 192; Lenin’s Tomb 83; literacy rates 214; mass pilgrimages 212, 217–18; monasteries 216–18; Monastery of the Caves 207–8, 215; neo-hesychast revival 214–16; pilgrimages 206–8;

262

Index

religious publications 213–14; Romanov Dynasty 207, 209, 217; Russian Orthodox Church, Holy Synod 205, 212, 215; serfdom 206; Solovki 207, 211; steamships and railroads 209–12; Trans-Siberian Railroad 206; Valaam Monastery 212, 216; see also Ortodox pilgrimges Sacré-Coeur, see Sacred Heart Sacred Heart, Basilic 132, 148–9; see also Paray-le-Monial Sacred Heart, cult 148–9 151–4 Santiago de Compostela 4, 9, 34–5, 101–10, 121–3, 141, 159, 167, 254; Bull Deus Omnipotens 102, 104, 106, 108, 111n9, 113n56; guidebooks 107, 110, 113n56; Jubilee Years 102, 108–110; reinventio 101–10 Schieder, Wolfgang 166, 175 Scott, George Gilbert 27 Scott, Walter 22 secular pilgrimages 82–5; and the “tourist memory” industry 85 secular values 9 Sellyf (Selivs) 138 Serbia 223–5, 227, 230, 232 Settele, Filippo 55 Seymour, Michael Hobart 51 Shelley, Percy Bysshe 91 Smith, Roach 34 Society for Promoting Women’s Education in the East 75 Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings 18 Society of Antiquaries 17–8 Society of St. Vincent de Paul 70 Solovki 207, 211 Sophrony, archimandrite 232, 235–6 Spain 35, 103–4, 106–8, 141, 146, 150, 168, 179, 181; see also Santiago de Compostela Spiegel, August Graf von 174 St Augustine, Abbey: excavations 28, 138–41, St Cybi 142 St Jean-Marie Vianney see Vianney, Jean-Marie St Martin of Tours: discovery of the tomb 124; St Panteleimon Monastery 235

St Seraphim of Sarov 235 St Seurin 122 St Silouan 235–6 St Teresa of Ávila 139 St Thérèse of Lisieux 133 St Thomas Becket, archbishop 17; pilgrimages 138; remains 140–1 Staël, Madame de 49–50 steamships 6, 109, 171–2, 206, 209–12; Alexa 157; Marseilles 157; Odessa 210–11; Ol’ga 211, Quaker City, 70 Stefano, Michele 55 James I, king of England 15–16 Stukeley, William 18, 140 superstition 15, 122–3, 148, 151, 153, 158–9 Swift, Jonathan 20 Sybel, Heinrich von 174 Tabernacles, Feast of: Christian participation 66 Talence, pilgrimage 124 Temple Church, London 29 Thompson, James 20 Thorvaldsen, Dane 91 Tickell, John 17 Tinos, Island 241–3; Church of the Annunciation, see also Evangelistria Tintern Abbey 17, 23–4 Tischbein, Johann Heinrich Wilhelm, 87 travel agencies 74, 89 Trier 169, 173–6; accessibility 172; annual number of visitors 177, 178 Trufanov, Sergei Mikhailovich 218 Tuan, Yi-Fu 65 Turner, Joseph 22, 23 Twain, Mark 66, 70 ultramontanism 3–4, 124–5, 128, 131, 150–1, 166–69, 171, 180–1 United States of America 67, 83, 168, 253; Civil War 94; Cook 67; and the Grand Tour 83, 88–9; landscape painters 92; pilgrimages to Rome 93, 96; trip to Palestine 70 unorganised pilgrimages: typology 170, 180 Valaam, Monastery 212, 216 Valkenburg catacombs 55–6; see also Roman catacombs Velichkovsky, Paisy 214, 226, 234–5

Index Verdelais pilgrimage 124 Vergilian Society 95–6 Verstegen, Richard, 16 Vianney, Jean-Marie, Curé d’Ars 125– 6, 130, 132; pilgrimages 125, 132 Viollet-le-Duc, Eugène-Emmanuel 25, 29–30 Virgin Mary, Panayia 242, 244–6, 248–9; ‘Paths’ (Drózki) 195–6; veneration 123–4, 127; “weeping Virgin”: La Salette 126, 130–1; others 180; see also Catholic pilgrimages; Evangelistria; La Salette; Le Puy; Lourdes; Marian apparitions; Ortodox pilgrimages Vogel, Lester I. 66, 70 Walbran, John 32 Wall, James Charles 141–2 Walpole, Horace 16–17, 20, 22, 202 Walpole, Robert 15 Waltham Cross 18 Way of St James see Camino de Santiago

263

Weber, Christoph 169 Wehler, Hans-Ulrich 166 Westminster Abbey 16, 29, 82, 147 Walsingham, Basilic 4 Wharton, Thomas 17 Willis, Robert 26 Wilpert, Josef 56 Wiltshire Archaeological Society 32 Winckelmann, Johann 87, 96 Wiseman, Nicholas 35 women travellers 7–8, 174, 176, 179, 181, 201, 208, 211, 215, 228, 253 Wordswoth, William 22, 23 working class pilgrimages 7 World War II 96 Wright, John K. 65 Wyatt, James 17–18, 27, 35 York Cathedral 22 Young Men’s Catholic Association 147 Zebrzydowski, Mikolaj 194 Zola, Emile 129, 135–6, 148

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