Art And Architecture Of Late Medieval Pilgrimage In Northern Europe And The British Isles Texts

In the Middle Ages, enormous numbers of people went on pilgrimage. The village of Wilsnack with a population of only 1,000 swelled when 100,000 pilgrims arrived every year. On one day in 1392, residents counted the incoming pilgrims at Munich by dropping peas into a bowl, with an ultimate total of 40,000. In 1492, Aachen welcomed 142,000 eager pilgrims into their city in a single day. Obviously pilgrimage was a significant medieval social event, which found favor among both the elite and the greater populace. We define pilgrimage as travel by to visit a holy site, over long or short distances. Even when the travel occurred in the mind alone—all modes were perceived as pilgrimage at one time or place or another, in the later Middle Ages.