Sacred Journeys to the Mont Saint-Michel 1520 to 1750

bs_bs_banner Journal of Religious History Vol. ••, No. ••, •• 2016 doi: 10.1111/1467-9809.12385 ELIZABETH TINGLE Long-Distance Pilgrimage and the Counter Reformation in France: Sacred Journeys to the Mont Saint-Michel 1520 to 1750 In the Counter Reformation, a great upsurge in pilgrimage activity occurred across Europe. Much of this pilgrimage was to local shrines, often newly created. Another destination was Rome. Less well known is the post-Reformation refashioning of ancient, long-distance pilgrimages. This article examines the origins and nature of such revived pilgrimage, using the example of the Mont Saint-Michel in northern France. In the Catholic Reformation, the traditional, distant centres of pilgrimage contributed to the devotional culture of individuals and groups who wanted to go beyond the local, to experience a challenge as part of their spiritual and social growth. At the Mont, revival of the shrine came from the universality of the cult of St Michael, his role in the struggle against heresy, and veneration tied increasingly to that of Christ through the Eucharist. While pilgrims continued to travel in search of, or in thanksgiving for, healing and other graces, there was also greater emphasis on spiritual healing and intimacy with God. Also, for many young men, they proved themselves and their Catholicity by undertaking this heroic journey. Through the pilgrimage to the Mont, reformed Catholicism spread many of its ideas and values around the cities and communities of northern France. Introduction I thought the age of pilgrimages had been at an end in all European nations, and that devotion contented itself with venerating its saints at home – but will you believe it, when I assure you, the number of pilgrims who come annually to pay their vows to Saint Michael at this Mount, are between 8 and 10,000? They are mostly peasants and men of mean occupations; but even among the noblesse there are … those who are induced to make this journey from principles of piety.1 1. W. Wraxall, A Tour through the Western, Southern and Interior Provinces of France in a Series of Letters (Dublin, 1786), 32. Elizabeth Tingle is Professor of Early Modern European History, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK. 1 © 2016 Religious History Association 2 JOURNAL OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY When the Englishman William Wraxall visited the Mont Saint-Michel in Normandy in the 1770s, its status as a popular pilgrimage site was apparent even if visitors were fewer than at the beginning of the century. He was witness to the final phase of a great upsurge in Counter-Reformation pilgrimage activity that occurred across Europe after 1600. Much of this pilgrimage was to local and provincial shrines, often newly created.2 Another great destination was Rome, particularly during its jubilee years. Much less well known is the post-Reformation survival and refashioning of ancient, long-distance pilgrimages in Western Europe such as Santiago de Compostela and Rocamadour. This article will examine the origins and nature of such revived pilgrimage, using the example of the Mont Saint-Michel, and the role played by “heroic journeys” in reformed Catholicism in France. Pilgrimage was one of the defining features of medieval Christianity, demonstrated by historians such as Diana Webb, Jean Chelini, and André Vauchez among many others.3 But the practice declined across Europe in the first half of the sixteenth century, a result of criticism by evangelical reformers, abolition by Protestant regimes, and because of wars and instabi- lity in many regions. Yet from the 1570s onwards, pilgrimage revived, slowly at first then more rapidly after 1600. The period between 1650 and 1750 was, perhaps, the apogee of pre-modern movements. This was a result of the Council of Trent’sconfirmation of the validity of saints’ cults and relics in 1563; the great Roman jubilee of 1575 and the readoption of traditional devotional activities by an increasingly confident and militant Catholic Church eager to revive the faith and to thwart Protestantism.4 However, it was not simply a matter of the revival of old practices; many of its “medieval” features changed in the Catholic Reformation. Firstly, as Robert Sauzet, Eric Nelson, and others show, there was an apparent decline in long-distance pilgrimage and instead, a greater localisation of shrines and religious life in general, based on the parish or neighbouring sites.5 Secondly, there was growing stress on interior pilgrimage, as a spiritual rather than a physical activity, illustrated by Wes Williams’ study of travel 2. French examples include: Reine au Mont Auxois. Le culte et le pèlerinage de sainte Reine des origines à nos jours, ed. P. Boutry and D. Julia (Paris: Cerf, 1997); B. Maës, Le Roi, la Vierge et la nation. Pèlerinages et identité nationale en France entre la guerre de Cent Ans et la Révolution (Paris: Publisud, 2002); P. Martin, Les chemins du sacré, paroisses, processions, pèlerinages en Lorraine du XVIe au XIXe siècle (Metz: Serpenoise, 1995); G. Provost, La fête et le sacré. Pardons et pèlerinages en Bretagne au XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles (Paris: Cerf, 1998). 3. D. Webb, Pilgrims and Pilgrimage in the Medieval West (London: I. B. Tauris, 1999); Les Chemins de Dieu. Histoire des pèlerinages chrétiens des origines à nos jours, ed. J. Chelini and H. Branthomme (Paris: Hachette, 1982); Lieux sacrés, lieux de culte, sanctuaires. Approches terminologiques, méthodologiques, historiques et monographiques, ed. A. Vauchez (Rome: Ecole Française de Rome, 2000). 4. See Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, ed. N. Tanner 2 vols. (London and Washington: Sheed & Ward and Georgetown University Press, 1990), 2: 796–97. 5. R. Sauzet, Les visites pastorales dans le diocèse de Chartres pendant la première moitié du XVIIe siècle (Rome: Instituto per le ricerche di storia sociale e di storia religiosa, 1975), 249–50, 260; E. Nelson, “The Parish in its Landscape: Pilgrimage Processions in the Archdeaconry of Blois, 1500–1700,” French History 24 (2010): 318–40. © 2016 Religious History Association PILGRIMAGE TO THE MONT SAINT-MICHEL 3 narratives.6 Thirdly, as Trevor Johnson’s work on Bavaria and Joe Bergin’s on France have illustrated, an increasing role was played at shrines by the new religious orders and reformed mendicants, as a part of their missionary agenda, while dedications to universal saints — principally Mary — expanded at the expense of older cults.7 Finally, a decrease in individual pilgrimage and a rise in collective journeys, parishes, or confraternities travelling together, has been observed, for example by Christophe Duhamel for southern Germany and George Provost for Brittany.8 In sum, historians have found a greater localisation and collectivisation of religious life and devotional activity, under closer control of the clergy. Movements to the great medieval shrines were assumed to have diminished. Yet despite emphasis on the localisation of religious experience, it is clear that long-distance pilgrimage to the classic sites revived in the Counter Reformation. Rome re-emerged as the most important destination following investments in its urban and spiritual fabric by Popes Gregory XIII, Sixtus V, and their successors. Records of the pilgrim hostel of the Santissima Trinità dei Pellegrini show that maximum visitors arrived during Jubilees held between 1575 and 1650.9 Rome’s satellite Loreto also benefited from this resurgence. Recent work on shrines in France, Germany, and Spain has also revealed the importance of longer-distance journeys to individuals’ devotional experiences.10 For example, in his study of the pilgrims passing through eighteenth-century Nuremberg, Duhamel estimates that perhaps one in 300 inhabitants of the region undertook long-distance journeys.11 Whilst not commonplace, such voyages were far from exceptional. This study of the Mont Saint-Michel examines the motives of post-Reformation pilgrimage and assesses its role in the economy of salvation of “ordinary” Catholics. The central question of investigation for this article is therefore how ancient, distant religious shrines reinvented themselves in the early modern period to attract pilgrims: how did they make themselves relevant to the changing priorities of post-Tridentine Catholicism and assist in its 6. W. Williams, Pilgrimage and Narrative in the French Renaissance: The Undiscovered Coun- try (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998). 7. T. Johnson, Magistrates, Madonnas and Miracles: The Counter Reformation in the Upper Pa- latinate (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2009), 273–75, 290–91; J. Bergin, Church, Society and Religious Change in France 1580–1720 (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 2009), 251. 8. C. Duhamelle, “Les pèlerins de passage à l’hospice zum Heiligen Kreuz de Nuremberg au XVIIIe siècle,” in Rendre ses vœux: les identités pèlerines dans l’Europe modern (XVIe-XVIIIe siècles), ed. P. Boutry, P.-A. Favre, and D. Julia (Paris: EHESS, 2000), 39–56; G. Provost, “Dévo- tion de groupe et piété personnelle dans les pèlerinages bretons de la Réforme catholique,” Revue de l’histoire des religions 217 (2000): 475. 9. D. Julia, “Gagner son jubilé à l’époque moderne: mesure des foules et récits de pèlerins,” Roma moderna e contemporanea 5 (1997): 311–54. 10. To cite a few examples, Pèlerins et pèlerinages dans l’Europe moderne, ed. P. Boutry and D. Julia (Rome: Ecole Française de Rome, 2000); P. M. Soergel, Wondrous in His Saints: Counter- Reformation and Propaganda in Bavaria (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993); M. R. Forster, Catholic

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