Pilgrimage: The English Experience from Becket to Bunyan

[...]the circuit of the royal pilgrimage consolidated a kind of English civil religion, for "just as kings might approach the saints in tears and devotion, bearing special kingly gifts, so the king's subjects approached the king in a particular way, often on bended knee," sometimes ev...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inFides et historia Vol. 35; no. 2; p. 163
Main Author Johnson, Galen K
Format Book Review
LanguageEnglish
Published Terre Haute The Conference on Faith and History 01.07.2003
Subjects
Brown, Carole
Bunyan, John (1628-1688)
Bunyan, John (1628-88)
Bush, Michael
Christianity
English language
Essays
Hawthorne, Nathaniel (1804-1864)
Henry VIII, King of England (1491-1547)
History
Johnson, John
Pilgrimages
Shrines
Spirituality
Twain, Mark (Samuel Langhorne Clemens) (1835-1910)
United Kingdom > UK
England
Israel
Jerusalem Israel
Spain
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Summary:[...]the circuit of the royal pilgrimage consolidated a kind of English civil religion, for "just as kings might approach the saints in tears and devotion, bearing special kingly gifts, so the king's subjects approached the king in a particular way, often on bended knee," sometimes even to seek his healing touch, or scrofula (38). [...]while Becket's shrine did not receive many visitors from outside England, its sacrality became definitive of English Christianity itself until its obliteration by command of King Henry VIII in 1538. While the spokespersons for the new "Protestant" pilgrimage surely saw themselves as offering a sharp alternative to "Catholic" pilgrimage, taking as their biblical cue the migrant heroes of faith in Hebrews chapter 11, nonetheless many features of their spiritual landscape were still Roman.
ISSN:0884-5379