Pilgrimage

Abstract

Abstract The chapter tells the long story of pilgrimage to the Holy Land—as practised in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—starting with Abraham, moving through the pages of the Old and New Testaments, through the Byzantine and early Islamic periods, and then through the era of the Crusades to the rediscovery of pilgrimage in the nineteenth century. The major focus in the post-biblical period is upon the practice and theology of pilgrimage within the Christian church—highlighting how, after a predominantly negative view towards such practice in the first three centuries ce, pilgrimage came into its own in the Constantinian period. Once the Holy Land came under Muslim rule, the impulse towards pilgrimage took a softer form; but this was powerfully re-awakened by the Crusaders and again in the nineteenth century as archaeologists, Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox—as well as Western political powers—all found themselves lured to the Holy Land for a variety of potentially conflicting reasons. Pilgrimage has thus been a vital part of the Holy Land’s unique history, causing it to be a much-trodden as well as a much-contested one. Yet despite all the differences of belief and practice—both amongst Christians and between them and Jewish or Muslim pilgrims—there has been much that united them: a real attachment to the Land, a highlighting of the particular historical reasons for their own particular attachment, and a common emphasis on the importance within religious faith of setting out on a journey.