Alternate/Augmented Saints and Pilgrimage

[cincpac overboard]

In medieval Europe the institution of pilgrimage was a big business. Towns along the pilgrimage route made money provisioning the pilgrims, while the actual holy site itself could become very wealthy on the donations of pilgrims. These donations would then be used to embellish the structures housing the holy relics, attracting even more pilgrims. For ATL purposes, chose a minor saint or someone who could have been sainted and speculate how it would have changed the fortunes of the city, duchy, or kingdom where the saint's cult was located had it become a major center of pilgrimage. Non-Christian saints can also be considered.

 

[Fabius Maximus]

In medieval Europe the institution of pilgrimage was a big business. Towns along the pilgrimage route made money provisioning the pilgrims, while the actual holy site itself could become very wealthy on the donations of pilgrims. These donations would then be used to embellish the structures housing the holy relics, attracting even more pilgrims. For ATL purposes, chose a minor saint or someone who could have been sainted and speculate how it would have changed the fortunes of the city, duchy, or kingdom where the saint's cult was located had it become a major center of pilgrimage. Non-Christian saints can also be considered.

The obvious candidates would be people who wrote influential spiritual works but were never canonised, like Thomas a Kempis or Julian of Norwich.

Henry VI was on the path to sainthood, until the English Reformation killed off interest in his cause among the English royal family. If England remains Catholic, Henry could well be canonised.

 

[Madhukar_Shah]

Henry VI also tried to get Alfred the Great canonised by the Catholic Church, which could have happened a lot earlier in a number of different ways. My favourite would be preventing the Norman conquest and having Alfred be seen as the primary royal saint of England, possibly with his burial place in Winchester being the nations spiritual/ political capital.

There’s also the potential for a lot of African saints shrines to become important pilgrimage destinations in a world where the reconquista continues into Africa.

I guess a question I have is what are the factors that make a saints shrine politically/ commercially important? What makes a tradition of pilgrimage form around a particular saint? Because plenty of people could have become sainted but didn’t, but there are tons of saints that languish in obscurity, never had any real pilgrimage tradition etc etc

Why did the shrine of Santiago de Compostela have this grand tradition and not say St Andrew of Patras?

Partly it’s gotta be that the places that host the saints relics themselves become politically important and then promote their saint- if Ravenna had become a political centre in the early Middle Ages instead of Venice, st Appolinaris would probably have a much stronger tradition of pilgrimage, because Ravenna would have more money to build bigger cathedrals etc