Art and Pilgrimage

Pilgrimage art is not a type of art but rather a context for the interactions between pilgrims, people involved in the devotional practice of pilgrimage, and the art and architecture they encountered. Many types of art contributed to the medieval pilgrimage experience, including the buildings in which saints’ relics were housed, the ornaments and furnishings of these churches, the reliquaries and shrines that held the relics, and the badges that pilgrims wore to identify themselves and to commemorate their journeys. Of course, pilgrims were not the only viewers of any of these works. The intersection of art and pilgrimage informs about both pilgrimage history and art history. It also provides a distinct category of viewer from whose perspective medieval art can be considered. The works listed in this article include studies of pilgrimage art, most of which were written since 1990, as well as studies of pilgrimage with strong implications for art and studies of art particularly relevant to pilgrimage. Further exploration of the topic beyond the works included here would include the vast literature on both medieval art and medieval pilgrimage, treated independently. Other directions include the many sources on individual sites and saints’ cults. The scope of this article is Christian pilgrimage in western Europe c. 1000–c. 1500. Pilgrimage of course has a longer history. Pilgrimage in the Byzantine Church, the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and the Crusades are consciously excluded from this listing as well. Of the many pilgrimage sites in western Europe, this survey deals with only the largest: Rome, Santiago de Compostela, and Canterbury, and the rather distinct practice of pilgrimage in medieval Ireland. Other sites are included here only when there are significant studies that focus on the artistic aspects of their pilgrimage cults.