Medieval Pilgrimage

Medieval Pilgrimage

His then was the situation encountered by Christianity when it began arriving in (what is often called) ‘pagan’ Europe during the 2nd through 8th centuries. Upwards of 3000 years had passed since megalithic times yet the influences of that era were still felt. Larger social centers had developed around many of the ancient megalithic settlement sites and the archaic stone rings, dolmens and earthen mounds continued to play a significant role in the religious life of the different pagan communities. While the pagan’s understandings of earth energies were perhaps diluted by thousands of years of cultural infusions, their mythologies and religious traditions were very often still associated with the megalithic sacred sites, and particular periods in different solar, lunar and astrological cycles (discovered during the megalithic era) were celebrated with festivities, maypole dancing and fertility goddess holy days.This continuing and powerful attraction which pagan people felt for their sacred places deeply disturbed the Christian authorities. This is evidenced by an edict of Aries in 452 AD:If any infidel either lighted torches, or worshipped trees, fountains, or stones, or neglected to destroy them, he should be found guilty of sacrilege. In the early centuries of the Christian era there was a wholesale destruction of pagan shrines at the sacred places. However, as the Christian church slowly recognized they could not catholicize the pre-existing cultures merely through the use of brute force, they developed the method of securing religious control of the people by placing churches and monastery foundations upon the pagan's sacred sites.
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