The Winds of Change
For reasons of Celtic landholding patterns, the monasteries tended to be on liminal land, and frequently, therefore, on islands that were appallingly vulnerable to attack by sea. By the eighth century, the Celtic notion of pilgrimage was troubled by the repeated Viking invasions of the Celtic lands, but this may only have added to the heroic quality of pilgrimage?
Irish pilgrims and scholars mostly withdrew to the safer territories within the former Roman empire, more or less controlled by the Christian Franks, while a few continued to seek out uninhabited places – we know from Dicuil that there were Irish monks on Iceland in his time.[1]
Attitudes towards Celtic pilgrimage and pilgrim were changing both at home and on the continent, and by the ninth century the days of wandering clergy, Celt or otherwise, were ending with the introduction by the papacy of a reformed diocesan system. This, coupled with the increasing influence of Benedictine monasticism that insisted on stability, resulted in the phasing out of the traditional ideal of Celtic pilgrimage. Although the Irish Celts continued to journey to Gaul, particularly to the tomb of St Martin at Tours, their movements were increasingly restricted as the Benedictine Rule suppressed the gyrovagi, or wandering monks, and the diocesan system curtailed the activities of any bishop with Irish orders.
This resulted in a countercurrent in Celtic pilgrimage with a realisation that being physically present on a pilgrimage site may no longer guarantee spiritual benefits, as the following verse in the Life of St. Declan translated from the Irish states:
'To go to Rome, much labour, little profit: the King whom thou sleekest here, unless thou bring him with thee, thou findest him not. Much folly, much frenzy, much loss of sense, much madness (is it), since going to death is certain, to be under the displeasure of Mary’s Son.'[2]
The Irish pilgrim adapted to the new continental situation. The old-style religious, ascetic conception of pilgrimage finds its clearest historic expression during this period in the ninth century ‘Hermit Song’ that begins:
'All alone in my little cell, without a single human being along with me: such pilgrimage would be dear to my heart before going to meet death'.
With the final verses stating:
'I should love to have Christ son of God visiting me, my Creator, my King, and that my mind should resort to Him in the kingdom in which He dwells. Let the place which shelters me amid monastic enclosures be a delightful hermit’s plot hallowed by religious stones, with me alone therein'.[3]
Hughes proposes that 'the motive of pilgrimage overseas had always been the complete abandonment of earthly ties in pursuit of heaven, and when this ascetic ideal became difficult to realise abroad, men turned to a life of religion at home, a life free from the preoccupations with income, jurisdiction and battle which a big Irish monastery had by this time often acquired. It is the anchorites who are, in fact, the spiritual heirs of the seventh-century pilgrims... in the realm of fantasy their place was taken by the navigators'.[4]
Hughes further suggests that 'a sense of fluidity returns to Irish pilgrimage during the Middle Ages, and as the anchorite movement diminished towards the end of the eleventh century, longer pilgrim journeys revived, not the traditional wandering ‘away’, but the contemporary journey ‘to’ a famous shrine at home, or abroad'.[5]
The medieval local pilgrimage developed into an almost symbolic or acting-out pilgrimage. The Irish pilgrimage to Station Island on Lough Dearg was a journey that physically was not a venture into the unknown but within tight bounds physically and temporally, and unlikely to spring any surprises, but it was most certainly the venue or vehicle for a mental journey that may take you a long way.
In Scotland, the annual royal pilgrimage of James IV around the kingdom during his reign (1488-1513) was not only a personal, pious, penitential and spiritual exercise made at the various pilgrimage sites of the great Scottish saints, but also recognition that his example and witness to the Faith was an important means of evangelising his subjects. An important economic by-product of his pilgrimages was the welcome increase of tax revenues from the shrines of St. Ninian at Whithorn, St. Margaret at Dunfermline, St. Paladius at Fordoun, and St. Duthac at Tain.
It was clear that in the middle ages, there were economic as well as spiritual benefits to medieval pilgrimage to sites in Britain, Europe and the Holy Land, but there was also danger from wars and brigands on the journey. The traditional journeying Celtic monk had disappeared, and by the 12th century, new breeds of Hospitaller and knight monastics endeavoured to make pilgrimage more comfortable and safe, but in so doing, they abandoned the traditional monastic rule and were distrusted thereafter, even by the papacy.
[1] The Literary Gazette & Journal No. 1302, (London: 1842),
[2] W. Stokes & J. Strachan (eds), Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus. A Collection of Old-Irish Glosses, Scholia Prose and Verse (Oxford: University Press, 1975 reprint), p.296.
[3] G. Murphy, Early Irish Lyrics, (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1998), pp.19-23.
[4] Hughes, Church and Society, Ch.XIV, p.148.
[5] Hughes, Church and Society, Ch.XIV, p.150.
Irish pilgrims and scholars mostly withdrew to the safer territories within the former Roman empire, more or less controlled by the Christian Franks, while a few continued to seek out uninhabited places – we know from Dicuil that there were Irish monks on Iceland in his time.[1]
Attitudes towards Celtic pilgrimage and pilgrim were changing both at home and on the continent, and by the ninth century the days of wandering clergy, Celt or otherwise, were ending with the introduction by the papacy of a reformed diocesan system. This, coupled with the increasing influence of Benedictine monasticism that insisted on stability, resulted in the phasing out of the traditional ideal of Celtic pilgrimage. Although the Irish Celts continued to journey to Gaul, particularly to the tomb of St Martin at Tours, their movements were increasingly restricted as the Benedictine Rule suppressed the gyrovagi, or wandering monks, and the diocesan system curtailed the activities of any bishop with Irish orders.
This resulted in a countercurrent in Celtic pilgrimage with a realisation that being physically present on a pilgrimage site may no longer guarantee spiritual benefits, as the following verse in the Life of St. Declan translated from the Irish states:
'To go to Rome, much labour, little profit: the King whom thou sleekest here, unless thou bring him with thee, thou findest him not. Much folly, much frenzy, much loss of sense, much madness (is it), since going to death is certain, to be under the displeasure of Mary’s Son.'[2]
The Irish pilgrim adapted to the new continental situation. The old-style religious, ascetic conception of pilgrimage finds its clearest historic expression during this period in the ninth century ‘Hermit Song’ that begins:
'All alone in my little cell, without a single human being along with me: such pilgrimage would be dear to my heart before going to meet death'.
With the final verses stating:
'I should love to have Christ son of God visiting me, my Creator, my King, and that my mind should resort to Him in the kingdom in which He dwells. Let the place which shelters me amid monastic enclosures be a delightful hermit’s plot hallowed by religious stones, with me alone therein'.[3]
Hughes proposes that 'the motive of pilgrimage overseas had always been the complete abandonment of earthly ties in pursuit of heaven, and when this ascetic ideal became difficult to realise abroad, men turned to a life of religion at home, a life free from the preoccupations with income, jurisdiction and battle which a big Irish monastery had by this time often acquired. It is the anchorites who are, in fact, the spiritual heirs of the seventh-century pilgrims... in the realm of fantasy their place was taken by the navigators'.[4]
Hughes further suggests that 'a sense of fluidity returns to Irish pilgrimage during the Middle Ages, and as the anchorite movement diminished towards the end of the eleventh century, longer pilgrim journeys revived, not the traditional wandering ‘away’, but the contemporary journey ‘to’ a famous shrine at home, or abroad'.[5]
The medieval local pilgrimage developed into an almost symbolic or acting-out pilgrimage. The Irish pilgrimage to Station Island on Lough Dearg was a journey that physically was not a venture into the unknown but within tight bounds physically and temporally, and unlikely to spring any surprises, but it was most certainly the venue or vehicle for a mental journey that may take you a long way.
In Scotland, the annual royal pilgrimage of James IV around the kingdom during his reign (1488-1513) was not only a personal, pious, penitential and spiritual exercise made at the various pilgrimage sites of the great Scottish saints, but also recognition that his example and witness to the Faith was an important means of evangelising his subjects. An important economic by-product of his pilgrimages was the welcome increase of tax revenues from the shrines of St. Ninian at Whithorn, St. Margaret at Dunfermline, St. Paladius at Fordoun, and St. Duthac at Tain.
It was clear that in the middle ages, there were economic as well as spiritual benefits to medieval pilgrimage to sites in Britain, Europe and the Holy Land, but there was also danger from wars and brigands on the journey. The traditional journeying Celtic monk had disappeared, and by the 12th century, new breeds of Hospitaller and knight monastics endeavoured to make pilgrimage more comfortable and safe, but in so doing, they abandoned the traditional monastic rule and were distrusted thereafter, even by the papacy.
[1] The Literary Gazette & Journal No. 1302, (London: 1842),
[2] W. Stokes & J. Strachan (eds), Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus. A Collection of Old-Irish Glosses, Scholia Prose and Verse (Oxford: University Press, 1975 reprint), p.296.
[3] G. Murphy, Early Irish Lyrics, (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1998), pp.19-23.
[4] Hughes, Church and Society, Ch.XIV, p.148.
[5] Hughes, Church and Society, Ch.XIV, p.150.