Ritual, Gender and Power Strategies: Male Pilgrimage to Saint Patrick's Purgatory

Abstract

The ritual at Saint Patrick's Purgatory offers insights into two aspects of medieval Christian pilgrimage which warrant further attention in pilgrimage scholarship: gender and power relations. My examination of texts related to the pilgrimage site reveals the institution of exclusive and arduous rituals in the 12th century which excluded all but a select group of men. The discovery of an exclusive male pilgrimage site raises the question of whether or not pilgrimage centers reflected and reinforced social strata rather than minimized them as Victor Turner suggests. An inquiry into the power strategies at work behind the ritualization of Saint Patrick's Purgatory reveals the stake the Cistercian order had in simultaneously popularizing and carefully restricting access to the center.