By DONAL ANTHONY FOLEY
Walsingham: Pilgrims and Pilgrimage, by Fr. Michael Rear (Gracewing, 398 pages, Paperback). Available at amazon.com.
Walsingham: Pilgrims and Pilgrimage is a lengthy, large format softcover book with numerous illustrations, a good number of them in color. The author, Fr. Michael Rear, has had a lifelong association with the shrine at Walsingham, and actually lived and worked there for twenty years, and so he is well qualified to write this work.
It is a comprehensive account of the origins, growth, decline, revival, and general significance of Walsingham as a shrine of our Lady. These themes are set against the overall historical background, including the conversion of England to Christianity, and events such as the Anglo-Saxon invasions, the growth of Christendom, and the Protestant Reformation.
The author examines the history of the Holy House at Walsingham, which is situated in Norfolk, just over a hundred miles to the north of London. This was built in 1061 by a local noblewoman, Richeldis de Favarches, and is celebrated in the Pynson Ballad, which was printed in about 1496.
This tells how Rychold (Richeldis), a widow who lived during the reign of St. Edward the Confessor, was shown a vision by our Lady of the house of the Annunciation in Nazareth and asked to build a replica in Walsingham, so that “all that seek me there shall find succor” and “where shall be had in a memorial the great joy of my salutation.”
The Ballad continues with an account of the building of the shrine, despite difficulties, and then speaks of the numerous pilgrims who visited it over the centuries. It finishes by comparing England to the “land of promise of Sion,” “the Holy Land,” and describes the country as “Our Lady’s Dowry,” or special portion.
This isn’t the only extant evidence about the origin of the Holy House of Walsingham, since it is also recorded in various early Walsingham Charters that the shrine was built by Richeldis.
Fr. Rear then traces the connections between Walsingham and the original Holy House in Nazareth, including details of the family history of our Lady, and how this shows that the location of the place of the Annunciation would have been known during the early Christian centuries, and later on when a Byzantine church was built on the site. The Holy House itself survived the late twelfth century Muslim conquest of the area, and according to tradition, was transported by angels first to Dalmatia and then finally to Loreto in Italy in the late thirteenth century, where it is venerated to this day.
It is interesting to note that the dimensions of the Walsingham Holy House and the one at Loreto are practically identical.
The author then goes into a great deal of historical detail in describing Marian devotion in the Medieval Church, and this helps us understand better the growth and development of the shrine at Walsingham, and also the idea that England was the Dowry of Mary.
The original carved statue of Our Lady of Walsingham was most probably placed in Richeldis’ chapel during the reign of Henry III (1216-1272), and it was at this point that the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham began to become more widely known, although the Augustinian Priory was founded before this, in 1153.
The image of Our Lady at Walsingham showed her seated on a throne, the Seat of Wisdom, as the crowned Virgin-Mother with the Christ Child on her knee.
The famous Wilton Diptych, a small painted portable altar piece, depicts King Richard II of England (reigned 1377-1399), kneeling before our Lady, the Christ Child and accompanying angels, and offering his kingdom as a dos or dowry to the Blessed Virgin, and thus entrusting it to her protection. This painting shows the power and extent of Marian devotion in the country at this time, which was expressed most graphically in the great Medieval pilgrimage movement.
Although most pilgrimages would have been to local shrines, Walsingham was one of the exceptions to this, and this movement of pilgrims was greatly encouraged by reports of cures and even of people being brought back to life at shrines like Walsingham, as we find recorded in the Pynson Ballad.
Walsingham was visited by the famous Humanist, Erasmus, in the early sixteenth century. He described it as the “most celebrated place throughout all England,” and there were frequent pilgrimages by royal visitors during the centuries up to the Reformation.
Indeed, we can get a better idea of the importance of Walsingham at this time from the fact that there were no less than 45 visits of monarchs to the shrine between the reigns of Henry III and Henry VIII. The latter is even said to have walked barefoot on the last stage of his pilgrimage from Barsham to the shrine, a distance of about two or three miles.
All that ended when Henry sought to divorce his wife, Catherine of Aragon. And when the king was excommunicated in 1533, the result was that he declared himself to be Supreme Head of the Church in England — and so bishops, religious, clergy, and others were required to subscribe to this on oath.
Thus an age of martyrdom and despoliation of the English Church began, which would see the dissolution of the monasteries and the destruction of Walsingham. Fr. Rear deals with this in detail and it is a sorry and woeful story enlightened only by the sublime bravery of those men and women prepared to endure martyrdom rather than abandon the ancient faith.
And so, Walsingham shrine and the priory were destroyed in July 1538, and many of the figures of our Lady from this and other shrines were taken to London and burned. However, as the author says, it is possible that a copy of the Walsingham statue may have been substituted for the original and that this may actually have survived and now be in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
All this was followed by the years of decline and neglect, and it was only with the passing of the Catholic Relief Act in 1791 that Catholics were able to begin to practice their faith in freedom again. Within Anglicanism, the Oxford movement of the early nineteenth century, led by St. John Henry Newman before he came into the Catholic Church, brought about a renewal of Marian devotion within the Anglican Church. This also led ultimately to a rebirth of devotion to Our Lady of Walsingham principally through the work of Fr. Alfred Hope Patten, who was responsible for building up the modern Anglican shrine in Walsingham.
Within Catholicism, in 1897, Fr. Philip Fletcher, an Anglican convert, founded the Guild of Our Lady of Ransom, and Charlotte Boyd, another convert, was the inspiration behind the ancient Slipper Chapel near Walsingham eventually becoming the official Catholic shrine at Walsingham. This was the place where medieval pilgrims had traditionally left their shoes for the final stage of their pilgrimage in their bare feet.
Fr. Rear deals with all these developments and more in recounting the recent history of Walsingham and it is certainly an inspiring story. Walsingham: Pilgrims and Pilgrimage is a well-researched book written in a fluent and engaging style. It contains a wealth of detail, and will no doubt prove a fascinating and rewarding read for anyone who is interested in medieval history and Marian devotion.
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(Donal Anthony Foley is the author of a number of books on Marian Apparitions, and maintains a related website at www.theotokos.org.uk. He has also written two time-travel/adventure books for young people, and the third in the series is due to be published next year — details can be seen at: http://glaston-chronicles.co.uk.)
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