[Illustration: _Thirteenth Century Pilgrims (the two Disciples at Emmaus)._]
The most usual foreign pilgrimages were to the Holy Land, the scene of our Lord's earthly life; to Rome, the centre of western Christianity; and to the shrine of St. James at Compostella.[171]
The number of pilgrims to these places must have been comparatively limited; for a man who had any regular business or profession could not well undertake so long an absence from home. The rich of no occupation could afford the leisure and the cost; and the poor who chose to abandon their lawful occupation could make these pilgrimages at the cost of others; for the pilgrim was sure of entertainment at every hospital, or monastery, or priory, probably at every parish priest's rectory and every gentleman's hall,[172] on his way; and there were not a few poor men and women who indulged a vagabond humour in a pilgrim's life. The poor pilgrim repaid his entertainer's hospitality by bringing the news of the countries[173] through which he had passed, and by amusing the household after supper with marvellous saintly legends, and traveller's tales. He raised a little money for his inevitable travelling expenses by retailing holy trifles and curiosities, such as were sold wholesale at all the shrines frequented by pilgrims, and which were usually supposed to have some saintly efficacy attached to them. Sometimes the pilgrim would take a bolder flight, and carry with him some fragment of a relic--a joint of a bone, or a pinch of dust, or a nail-paring, or a couple of hairs of the saint, or a rag of his clothing; and the people gladly paid the pilgrim for thus bringing to their doors some of the advantages of the holy shrines which he had visited. Thus Chaucer's Pardoner--"That strait was comen from the Court of Rome"--
"In his mail[174] he had a pilwebere,[175] Which as he saidé was oure Lady's veil; He said he had a gobbet of the sail Thatte St. Peter had whan that he went Upon the sea, till Jesu Christ him hent.[176] He had a cross of laton full of stones;[177] And in a glass he haddé piggés bones.[178] But with these relics whanné that he fond A poure parson dwelling upon lond, Upon a day he gat him more monie Than that the parson gat in monthes tweie. And thus with feined flattering and japes, He made the parson and the people his apes."