In the age we are considering, we hear of Henry VII, Henry VIII, and even Wolsey going as pilgrims to Our Lady of Walsingham in Norfolk; and Colet took Erasmus with him to Canterbury.  But the most renowned places of Christian pilgrimage were Rome, Santiago, and Jerusalem.  Thither journeyed pilgrims in great numbers from all parts of Europe; bishops and abbots and clergy, both regular and secular, noblemen of every degree, wealthy merchants, scholars from the universities, civil officials and courtiers, and occasionally even women.  Piety or superstition were doubtless the usual motives which led men to face the very considerable perils of the journey; but besides this there was probably in some cases the desire to see new scenes, and a love of adventure for its own sake.  Holiday travel was scarcely known in those days.  The discomforts were great, and there were still dangers of the ordinary kind, even in the most settled parts of Europe.  The beginning of a story in one of More’s English works shows how such travel was regarded—­as at least unwise, and perhaps extravagant:  ’Now was there a young gentleman which had married a merchant’s wife.  And having a little wanton money which him thought burned out the bottom of his purse, in the first year of his wedding he took his wife with him and went over the sea, for none other errand but to see Flanders and France, and ride out one summer in those countries.’  But in the company of pilgrims there was some security, and accordingly the adventurous availed themselves of such opportunities.  Thus Peter Falk, burgomaster of Freiburg in Switzerland, went on pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1515 and again in 1519; and had he not died on the second journey, he was projecting a visit to Portugal and Spain, perhaps to Compostella.  He was a keen, interested man.  A companion, who was a Cambridge scholar, describes him as taking an ape with him on board to make fun for his shipmates; wearing a gun hanging at his belt, being curious in novelties; carefully noting the names of places and the situations of towns, and using red ink to mark his guide-book.

The literature of pilgrimages is abundant, and consists primarily in narratives written by pilgrims themselves.  A few of these were printed by the writers in their own day; many have been published by antiquarians in isolated periodicals; and in the volumes of the Palestine Pilgrims’ Text Society there is a collection of translations.  Professor Roehricht of Innsbruck has made a wonderful bibliography of German pilgrims to the Holy Land, replete with information and references.  The narratives necessarily traverse the same ground, and repeat one another in many points; often reproducing from an early source exactly identical information of the guide-book order as to sites, routes, preparations, precautions, and so forth.