During the XIXth century, pilgrimages were already considered key issues for Europe.
PERICARD-MEA, Denise
docteur es-lettres
spécialiste de saint Jacques |
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fondation david parou saint-jacques |
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| 26 March 2010 |
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| MIDDLE AGE PILGRIMS AS SEEN IN 1836 |
Jean-Paul Ramond, a member of the David Parou Foundation, has brought to our attention to an article entitled ?The Middle Ages Pilgrims?; the article was published in 1836 in ?Le Magasin pittoresque?, p. 348-350 that he has discovered in his grandparents? cellar.
Keeping the proportions, this article is amazingly up-to-date, at a time when modern Europe is trying to trace back its common heritage, by following one of our ?European Cultural itineraries?, namely the one to Compostella.
The (anonymous) writer emphasizes pilgrimage as one of the means of bringing back together the divided nations. The year 1836 is the time of Louis-Philippe and his bourgeoisie. Since the Revolution, the Middle Ages have again become the centre of attention, with the noblemen trying to spend their leisure time searching through History for memories; meanwhile the supporters of the revolutionaries, common people like the historian Augustin Thierry, search there for the unknown people who have built the new world.
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This concept of reunifying the divided nations into a collected Europe had already been discussed before the fall of the Empire, in 1814, by the philosopher and economist Saint-Simon (1760-1825), in his ?The Reorganization of the European Society?. The idea was developed together with his secretary, who was later to become the great historian Augustin Thierry (1795-1856); one of its greatest merits was to inquire as to how all the nations conquered by Napoleon could one day live peacefully together.
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| NEW HORIZONS OF INTELLIGENCE |
The concept of a federation of Europe was later touched on by Edouard Charton (1807-1890), lawyer and follower of Saint-Simon and founder of the ?Magasin pittoresque? in 1833, which was published until 1938. The author of the article could actually have been Augustin Thierry himself. At the time, little was known about these Middle Ages that stirred everybody?s excitement, in a profoundly romantic manner. People still believed in the immobility of man living in autarky, being terrified by the idea of moving. It was only Faith that could set them in motion, as we can find out from this beautiful lyrical piece that offers a fascinating glimpse of millions of poor pilgrims crowding the roads: ?The civilising influence of pilgrimages is beyond doubt. At a time when there were still no commercial relations established between people, when slow and difficult journeys exposed travelers to all kinds of dangers such as robbery or war, the only stimulus powerful enough to make them overcome so many obstacles was burning faith that inspired all believers to go and implore divine grace and pity in sacred places? For centuries, solitary people, beggars most of them, half-naked, with no weapon except their walking stick, had done for the cause of the human kind no less than the Rome of Brutuses and Caesars and all its blood-spilling victories.?
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This vision of the Middle Ages is now completely obsolete, since the historians researching mentalities of the time have gradually brought images of people to surface who resemble us more closely. But the idea is still there, this idea that pilgrimage is an extraordinary vehicle for culture, for getting to know each other, a means of reconciling enemy nations, which proves that there is nothing better than meeting people in order to make mutual fears disappear: ?Imagine how much hate between various nations lost intensity as a consequence of the relationships that gradually became established and pursued by the passing by and temporary stay of people coming from different countries, together by a shared sympathy for the same belief! Imagine how many prejudices against customs, morals physiognomies or characters vanished with the help of these visits between Christians belonging to different nations! And above all imagine the amount of knowledge that was transmitted so much faster by all these mouths confessing to each other all the things that had made a strong impression on them and had opened their minds to new horizons of intelligence!.. For example, who could collect everything that pilgrimages carried from the Oriental civilizations along to Europe? They had left in order to find God, they would bring back art and science ? so much is it true that what one does for a grand idea is always something fecund!?
These are some aspects for the pilgrim to consider nowadays, when, delighted to have come back home and to remember all the acquaintances he has made on the way to Compostella, he quickly forgets all the diversity that has nourished him for so long, in order to find refuge behind the barrier of his garden, his town, his county and even his Region, but hopefully no further than that.
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