a, St. Bertrand among
the Pyrenees, or Einsiedeln above the Lake of Lucerne, where in 1487
died Nicholas the Hermit, reputed to have lived for twenty years
without food. And we may make a special category for sacred houses;
the Bait-ullah or Qaabah at Mecca, the house of the Virgin at Loretto,
St. Columba's at Glencolumbkill, and the house in which St. Francis
died, in dei Angeli at Assisi.

In many cases there is definite evidence to show that pilgrimage sites
remain sacred even when religions change. Mecca was a resort of
pilgrims in the first century B.C., 700 years before Muhammad. The
Central-Asian shrines visited by Buddhist pilgrims from China on their
way to India, Fa-hsien in the fifth and Hsuan-tsang in the seventh
century, are now appropriated to Islam. The so-called foot-mark on
Adam's Peak in Ceylon has been attributed by Brahmans to Siva, by
Buddhists to Sakyamuni, by Gnostics to Ieu, by Muhammadans to Adam,
and by the Portuguese Christians to either St. Thomas or the eunuch of
Candace, queen of Ethiopia.[34]

[34] J.E. Tennent's _Ceylon_ (1860), ii. 133, quoted in Yule's
_Marco Polo_, ed. H. Cordier, 1903, ii. 321.

In the age we are considering, we hear of Henry VII, Henry VIII, and
even Wolsey going as pilgrims to Our Lady of Walsingham in Norfolk;
and Colet took Erasmus with him to Canterbury. But the most renowned
places of Christian pilgrimage were Rome, Santiago, and Jerusalem.
Thither journeyed pilgrims in great numbers from all parts of Europe;
bishops and abbots and clergy, both regular and secular, noblemen of
every degree, wealthy merchants, scholars from the universities, civil
officials and courtiers, and occasionally even women. Piety or
superstition were doubtless the usual motives which led men to face
the very considerable perils of the journey; but besides this there
was probably in some cases the desire to see new scenes, and a love of
adventure for its own sake. Holiday travel was scarcely known in those
days. The discomforts were great, and there were still dangers of the
ordinary kind, even in the most settled parts of Europe. The beginning
of a story in one of More's English works shows how such travel was
regarded--as at least unwise, and perhaps extravagant: 'Now was there
a young gentleman which had married a merchant's wife. And having a
little wanton money which him thought burned out the bottom of his
purse, in the first year of his wedding he took his wife w