Canterbury and Pilgrimage in Medieval England

The pilgrimage to Canterbury was one of the most important pilgrimages of medieval Europe, and it was a defining feature of the religious and cultural life of medieval England. The destination of the pilgrimage was the shrine of Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral, where the archbishop of Canterbury had been murdered in 1170. The shrine was one of the most popular and most prestigious in Christendom, and it attracted pilgrims from across England, the British Isles, and the Continent. The pilgrimage is immortalized in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, one of the masterpieces of medieval English literature, and it remains a major subject of historical and literary inquiry.

The standard English-language treatment of the Canterbury pilgrimage is Robert Of Canterbury, “The Miracles of Thomas Becket” (c. 1173), with the modern edition in A. J. Duggan, The Resting Place of Becket (1995). Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (c. 1387–1400) is the most famous literary treatment and the basis of most modern popular knowledge.

The Murder of Thomas Becket

The story of the Canterbury pilgrimage begins with the murder of Thomas Becket in 1170. Becket was the Archbishop of Canterbury, the highest ecclesiastical official in England, and he had served as chancellor to King Henry II before his elevation to the archbishopric in 1162. The relationship between Becket and Henry was strained from the beginning of his tenure as archbishop, and the dispute between them came to focus on the rights of the Church against the claims of the crown. Becket defended the privileges of the Church, especially the right of the Church courts to try clerics accused of crimes, and he resisted the royal encroachment on ecclesiastical authority.

The dispute escalated in the late 1160s, and Becket fled to France in 1164, where he remained in exile for six years. Becket returned to England in 1170, and his return coincided with the coronation of Prince Henry (the son of King Henry II) by the Archbishop of York, an act that Becket regarded as a violation of the rights of the Archbishop of Canterbury. The coronation provoked Henry II, who reportedly exclaimed in anger: “What miserable ingrates and cowards have I nourished in my house, that not one of them will avenge me of these insults!” Four of Henry’s knights interpreted the remark as a command, and they traveled to Canterbury and murdered Becket in the cathedral on December 29, 1170.

The Cult of Thomas Becket

The murder of Becket provoked a wave of popular devotion, and the cult of Thomas Becket spread rapidly throughout England and Europe. The miracles attributed to Becket were reported in great number in the years following the murder, and the church of Canterbury became a major destination of pilgrims seeking healing and forgiveness. Henry II was forced to do public penance at the shrine of Becket in 1174, and the penance reinforced the prestige of the shrine and the devotion of the pilgrims.

Becket was canonized by Pope Alexander III in 1173, and the canonization reinforced the prestige of the shrine and the devotion of the pilgrims. The shrine of Becket was rebuilt in 1170s in a grand style, with gold and silver ornaments, precious stones, and elaborate enamels. The shrine was a major work of medieval art, and it attracted pilgrims from across Europe for centuries. The shrine was destroyed by order of King Henry VIII in 1538, but the miracles attributed to Becket and the pilgrims who visited the shrine are well documented in medieval sources.

The Pilgrimage Routes

The pilgrimage to Canterbury was made by pilgrims from across England and the Continent, and the pilgrimage routes were well developed by the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The main route from London to Canterbury was approximately 80 miles, and it passed through the towns of Southwark, Rochester, and Sittingbourne on its way to the cathedral. The route was well served by inns, hospitals, and churches that catered to the needs of the pilgrims, and the pilgrims themselves contributed to the economic prosperity of the towns along the route.

The pilgrimage to Canterbury was a collective enterprise as well as an individual one. The pilgrims typically traveled in groups — family groups, neighborhood groups, guild groups — and they shared the costs and the risks of the journey. The pilgrimage was a rite of transition for the individual pilgrim, a way of marking the passage from one state of life to another, and it was a major social event for the community. The pilgrimage was also a major economic event for the towns along the route, and the pilgrimage trade was a significant source of revenue for the merchants and craftsmen of the region.

The Miracles of Thomas Becket

The miracles attributed to Thomas Becket were recorded in great number in the years following the murder, and the miracles were a major source of the devotion of the pilgrims. The miracles were recorded by a series of clerics at Canterbury, and the miracle collections — the Miracula of Thomas Becket — are major works of medieval literature and major sources for the social and religious history of the period.

The miracles attributed to Becket included healings of the sick, cures of the blind and the lame, rescues of prisoners and captives, and punishments of sinners and sacrilegists. The miracles were typically performed at the shrine itself, but miracles were also reported at the sites associated with Becket in Canterbury and across England. The miracles were a major source of the prestige of the shrine and a major draw for the pilgrims, and they contributed to the wealth and the influence of the Archbishopric of Canterbury for centuries.

The Canterbury Tales

The Canterbury pilgrimage is immortalized in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, one of the masterpieces of medieval English literature. The Tales was composed in the late fourteenth century, and it describes a group of pilgrims traveling from London to Canterbury to visit the shrine of Thomas Becket. The pilgrims represent a wide variety of social classes and occupations — a knight, a miller, a wife of Bath, a priest, a monk, a friar, a merchant, a scholar, a lawyer, a physician, a plowman, a reeve, a summoner, a pardoner, and others — and they tell stories that reflect their characters and their experiences.

The Canterbury Tales is a major work of English literature for several reasons. It is one of the earliest major works of English literature to be written in the vernacular (rather than in French or Latin), and it contributed to the establishment of English as a literary language. It is also a major source for the social and cultural history of the late medieval period, and it provides a vivid picture of the diversity of medieval English society and the complexity of medieval English culture. The Tales is also a major literary achievement in its own right, and it remains a widely read and widely studied work of literature in the modern era.

The Decline of the Pilgrimage

The pilgrimage to Canterbury declined in the late medieval and early modern periods for several reasons. The Black Death of 1348 and its recurrences disrupted the pilgrimage traffic and reduced the population of England. The Hundred Years’ War with France (1337–1453) disrupted the trade routes and the travel of pilgrims between England and the Continent. The Lollard movement of the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries challenged the cult of the saints and the practice of pilgrimage, and it contributed to a decline of popular devotion in some quarters.

The pilgrimage to Canterbury was effectively ended by the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century. The Reformation in England, initiated by King Henry VIII in the 1530s, involved the dissolution of the monasteries, the suppression of the shrines, and the abolition of the pilgrimages. The shrine of Thomas Becket was destroyed by order of Henry VIII in 1538, and The pilgrimage to Canterbury effectively came to an end in the reign of Henry VIII. The cathedral of Canterbury survived the Reformation and remained a major church in England, but the pilgrimage to the shrine of Becket was never revived.

The Legacy of the Canterbury Pilgrimage

The legacy of the Canterbury pilgrimage is significant. The pilgrimage was a major feature of the religious and cultural life of medieval England, and it contributed to the economic prosperity of the towns along the route and to the prestige of the Archbishopric of Canterbury. The pilgrimage also produced a major work of English literature in the Canterbury Tales of Chaucer, and it contributed to the development of English as a literary language.

The Canterbury pilgrimage is also a major subject of historical and literary study. The miracle collections of Canterbury, the accounts of the pilgrims, and the literary works associated with the pilgrimage are major sources for the study of medieval religion and culture. The Canterbury Tales remains a widely read and widely studied work of literature in the modern era, and it continues to shape the literary imagination of English-speaking peoples around the world.

Sources

Principal sources used in this article:

André Vauchez, Saints, prophètes et visionnaires (Albin Michel, 1999).

Further reading:

Peter Brown, The Cult of the Saints (Chicago, 1981) — for the late-antique antecedent.

For a recent single-volume synthesis with full scholarly apparatus, see the relevant chapter of Barbara H. Rosenwein, A Short History of the Middle Ages (University of Toronto Press, 2014).