Christian pilgrimage developed early in the Middle Ages as the faithful traveled far and wide to visit the relics of Christ, His Apostles, the Blessed Virgin and the saints and martyrs.
Evidence for the long duration of pilgrimage in the Christian Church is clear from texts as early as Paula and Eustochium’s fourth-century letter from Jerusalem; and from church architecture. From as early as the fourth century three basilicas in Rome had incorporated ambulatories to accommodate the large numbers of pilgrims who circulated through them, performing rituals, taking part in rites and visiting relics. These ambulatories allowed them to pass behind the main altar, without disturbing the liturgy. (See McClendon, p. 23.)
The practice of pilgrimage soon spread from the burial sites of the primary figures in Christianity, to those martyred during the early persecutions to confessors, who confessed to being Christian, but were not martyred. The cult of saints, who were nominated locally during this early period, sprang up across Europe. The remains or relics of saints spread as well, across Spain and France, Italy, Asia Minor and the Holy Land. Relics moved from place to place, sometimes apparently of their own accord, like the body of St. James, or were surreptitiously or even at time forcibly removed in a theft labeled “furta sacra” (Geary, 1988). Cathedrals and churches acquired relics in an attempt to accumulate their great spiritual benefits, and also to attract pilgrims. At the same time monasteries offered pilgrims hospitality as they traveled from place to place visiting the remains of holy Christians, expecting that this pious activity would bring them closer to God and salvation.
The best known are the pilgrimages to the Holy Land, Rome and Santiago de Compostela, but we can quickly add such destinations as Mount Sinai, Canterbury, Vezelay, Rouen, Downpatrick, Walsingham, Monte Gargano, Constantinople or Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume. Furthermore, when plotting the various pilgrimage routes on a map of Europe and the Near East, it becomes clear that these routes interlocked with and extended one another across an entire cultural region beyond any natural, linguistic or even contingent political borders.
From this long tradition of medieval pilgrimage it is possible to establish a taxonomy for pilgrimage, to evaluate the Pilgrim’s Way to St. Patrick’s Purgatory against this objective standard and to establish its place in this framework.
The attached chart (in pdf format) presents fourteen elements that define the nature of the medieval Christian pilgrimage sites and routes. This “taxonomy” could be applied to any number of pilgrimage destinations, but I have restricted it here to a comparison of Lough Derg with Rome, Compostela and Jerusalem. From this comparison of key elements it is clear that the Way to St. Patrick’s Purgatory conforms to a recognizable standard that includes: the presence of a cult site with a principle cult figure and secondary cult figures, with a record of their relics and reliquaries; a route, with designated stations and even alternate routes; early records, a literary tradition, possibly a cultural memory and a history of emblems or tokens; and finally a liturgical role as a place of penance and indulgences, petitions and miracles, with specific rites and rituals.
