Such journeys were not, of course, in those days devoid of danger, especially from sickness brought on, or developed in the course of the travels. Erasmus, in his _Colloquy on Rash Vows_, speaks of losing three in a company. “One dying on the way commissioned us to salute Peter (in Rome) and James (at Compostella) in his name. Another we lost at Rome, and he desired that we should greet his wife and children for him. The third we left behind at Florence, his recovery entirely despaired of, and I imagine he is now in heaven.” That this account of the mortality among pilgrims is not exaggerated is shown in the diary of Sir Richard Torkington, Rector of Mulbarton, in Norfolk. In 1517 he made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and records on “the 25th of August, that was Saynt Bertolmew’s day, deceased Robert Crosse of London, and was buried in the churchyard of Salyus (in the island of Cyprus); and the 27th day of August deceased Sir Thomas Tappe, a priest of the West country, and was cast over the board; as were many more whose souls God assoyl; and then there remained in the ship four English priests more.”[391]
If Englishmen went abroad to the celebrated shrines, foreigners in turn found their way to the no less renowned places of pilgrimage in England. Pilgrims’ inns and places of rest were scattered over the great roads leading to Glastonbury, Walsingham, and Canterbury, and other “holy spots” in this island, and at times these places were thronged with those who came to pay their devotion. At one time we are told that more than a hundred thousand pilgrims were together in the city of Canterbury to celebrate one of the Jubilee celebrations of the martyr St. Thomas; whilst the road to Walsingham was so much frequented, that in the common mind the very “milk way” had been set by Providence in the heaven to point the path to Our Lady’s shrine.
With the very question of pilgrimages, Sir Thomas More actually deals in the first portion of his _Dyalogue_, and it would be difficult to find any authority who should carry greater weight. He first deals with the outcry raised by the followers of Luther against the riches which had been lavished upon the churches, and in particular upon the shrines containing the relics of saints.