Fredericksburg Pilgrims: Winchester to Canterbury
Who We Are
We are four Catholic friends living in Fredericksburg, VA, parishioners at St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic Church. We got to know each other better when we started a book club and began reading Christian classics (and hosting dinners inspired by the books...but that's another story!).
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See below for fast facts and links to our pre-departure interviews (conducted on August 13, 2022).
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Lisa and Leslie
Frans and Harry
The Pilgrims' Way
The Path. The route from Winchester to Canterbury is generally known as "The Pilgrims' Way." But more precisely, the road from Winchester to Farnham is St. Swithun's Way, and the road from Farnham to Canterbury is the Pilgrims' Way proper.
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Archaeologists think that this route (and its extensions beyond the region) has existed since Neolithic times. During the Saxon era, the path was a major trading and traveling route leading to King Alfred's
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A note about maps: Several maps online may confuse or conflate St. Swithun's Way and the Pilgrims' Way with the "North Downs" route (a contemporary English hiking trail established in 1978). The most accurate maps can be found in Walking the Pilgrim's Way by Leigh Hatts (Cicerone, 2017) and from the British Pilgrimage Trust online. Here are a few links to useful online maps:
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The London branch of the Pilgrims' Way figures prominently as the setting of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. In this poem, a sundry group of pilgrims travel together to the shrine of Thomas Becket. To pass the time, they vie in a storytelling contest: whoever of them can tell the best story will receive a meal paid for by the others at the end of the pilgrimage. In the introduction, Chaucer describes the pilgrimage to Becket's shrine:
When in April the sweet showers fall
And pierce the drought of March to the root, and all
And veins are bathed in liquor of such power
As brings about the engendering of the flower,
When also Zephyrus with his sweet breath
Exhales an air in every grove and heath
Upon the tender shoots, and the young sun
His half-course in the sign of the Ram has run,
And the small fowl are making melody
That sleep away the night with open eye
(So nature pricks them and their heart engages)
Then people long to go on pilgrimages
And palmers long to seek the stranger strands
Of far-off saints, hallowed in sundry lands,
And specially, from every shire's end
In England, down to Canterbury they wend
To seek the holy blissful martyr, quick
To give his help to them when they were sick.
capitol of Wessex in modern-day Winchester. In the Middle Ages (after the martyrdom of St. Thomas Becket, discussed below), physical evidence suggests that pilgrims used the route to journey from Winchester to the tombal shrine of Becket in Canterbury cathedral. Pilgrim badges depicting Thomas Becket have been discovered along the road, indicating the popularity of his cult. Pilgrims pinned these lead alloy cast badbadges
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Map from Walking the Pilgrims' Way by Leigh Hatts (published by Cicerone), link here.
Churchyard Yew Tree along the path in Bentley, Hampshire
Badges depicting Becket's cranial reliquary
badges to their outer clothing after visiting the shrine, and they were not just souvenirs -- they constituted a spiritual reminder of closeness to the saint and a plea for protection along the road (pilgrims were often considered a protected class of travelers).
Certain geological features of this part of Southern England created a path well-suited for foot travelers. Two ranges of chalk and limestone hills and cliffs span the counties of Hampshire, Surrey, and Kent. Because of the chalk, the footpath at the base of the hills is relatively dry and thus good for walking. The hills traversing Farnham to the Cliffs of Dover are called the North Downs and can be seen in the map below as topographical shading around the route.
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accurate path
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shows location of some churches, hostels, restaurants, and other historic POIs
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sometimes interchanges the North Downs route and the Pilgrims' Way
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shows location of churches, accommodations, restaurants, and POIs
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lists churches where you can acquire the Pilgrim's Stamp
The Murder. On the 29th of December, 1170, the knights arrived at Canterbury. They set their weapons under a tree and hid their armor beneath their cloaks before entering the cathedral. After Becket refused to go with them to Winchester to account for his crimes, they retrieved their weapons from outside. Becket, meanwhile, went to the main hall to pray Vespers. The other monks joining him tried to bolt the doors for safety, but Becket prohibited them, saying, "It is not right to make a fortress out of a house of prayer."
The four knights rushed in with drawn swords, calling out, "Where is Thomas Becket, traitor to the King and country?" Becket replied, "I am no traitor, and I am ready to die." Edward Grim, an eyewitness of the attack, details the brutal murder:
The Saint
Thomas Becket (Thomas of Canterbury, Thomas à Becket) was born in 1119 AD in London to Gilbert and Matilda Becket, both of Norman descent.
Early Life and Rise to Prominence. After a traditional but basic education, he acquired a position in the household of Theobald of Bec, the Archbishop of Canterbury. He was appointed by Theobald as the Archdeacon of Canterbury (an administrative ecclesial role) in 1154 and by King Henry II as the Lord Chancellor of London (where he served as the king's spiritual advisor, the "keeper of the king's conscience") in 1155. Henry and Thomas were close friends, hunting and carousing together often.
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After Theobald's death in 1162, Becket was nominated as the new Archbishop of Canterbury and subsequently and swiftly ordained a priest and consecrated as an archbishop. He underwent a moral transformation as well, leaning into ascetic practices distinctly opposed to his more rebellious youth. To enable him to focus more
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on the Church, Becket resigned as Lord Chancellor, a move that embittered King Henry towards him, since Henry had hoped Becket would remain an administrator sympathetic to him in the royal government.
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Mounting Royal-Clerical Disagreements. Becket and Henry disagreed over the proper criminal jurisdiction of English clergyman -- when clergy committed a crime, should Rome have the final say, or should the King? This conflict came to a head in January of 1164, when King Henry assembled the high-ranking English clergy and convinced nearly all of them to sign the Constitutions of Clarendon, a document which laid out plans for less clerical independence in England.
Flight from and Return to England. But Becket would not sign the Constitutions. In October of 1164, he was charged and convicted on counts of contempt of royal authority and malfeasance in the office of the Chancellor. He fled to Europe, and as a fugitive he lived under the protection of King Louis VII of France, all the while hounded by edicts mandating his return to England. In turn, he threatened excommunication. Eventually, with the aid of Pope Alexander, a compromise was reached that allowed Becket to return safely to England.
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Final Straw. In June of 1170, Henry planned for his son and heir apparent to be crowned by the Archbishop of York, along with the Bishops of London and of Salisbury. This ceremony contradicted Canterbury's traditional privilege of coronation, and in November of the same year, Becket excommunicated all three clergymen. On hearing this news, Henry is supposed to have cried out, "Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?" Many variants of this line have been passed down in oral tradition. This expression of dismay was interpreted by Henry's followers as a command to kill Becket, and four knights--Reginald FitzUrse, Hugh de Morville, WIlliam de Tracy, and Richard le Breton--took it upon themselves to do so.
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The impious knight... suddenly set upon [Becket] and [shaved] off the summit of his crown which the sacred chrism consecrated to God... Then, with another blow received on the head, he remained firm. But with the third the stricken martyr bent his knees and elbows, offering himself as a living sacrifice, saying in a low voice, "For the name of Jesus and the protection of the church I am ready to embrace death." But the third knight inflicted a grave wound on the fallen one; with this blow... his crown, which was large, separated from his head so that the blood turned white from the brain yet no less did the brain turn red from the blood; it purpled the appearance of the church... The fifth – not a knight but a cleric who had entered with the knights...placed his foot on the neck of the holy priest and precious martyr and (it is horrible to say!) scattered the brains with the blood across the floor, exclaiming to the rest, "We can leave this place, knights, he will not get up again."
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Aftermath. The uproar against the murder of Becket was loud, constant, and expressed by all across England and Europe. Pope Alexander III excommunicated the four knights and sentenced them to a penitential crusade to the Holy Land for 14 years; none returned. King Henry was also grievously unhappy with the knights, and he formally prevented their sons from inheriting their birthrights (essentially bastardizing them). Becket was canonized in 1173, less than three years after his death, and his cult veritably exploded, with an overflow of miracle reports and pilgrims to his tomb in Canterbury Cathedral. Henry himself pilgrimaged from Southampton to Canterbury in 1174 in penitence for Becket's murder. At St. Dunstan's Church near Canterbury, he removed his shoes, donned sackcloth, and finished the pilgrimage barefoot. Arriving at the Cathedral, he publicly confessed his sins and received five blows with a rod from each of the bishops present, and then three blows each from the 80 monks at the Cathedral. He spent a night in vigil at Becket's tomb.
Pilgrimage fervor only increased after 1220, when Becket's bones were moved to a lavishly bejeweled shrine in the newly built Trinity Chapel. Sadly, in 1538 during the Dissolution of the Monasteries King Henry VIII ordered the destruction of Becket's shrine, carting away the precious stones and burning the saint's bones. Today, a candle marks the spot of the former shrine; alone in the middle of Trinity chapel, this flame palpably represents the great loss of the shrine.
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