Affin leur faire reparacions honorables cest assez de deux voiaiges : brevi note sul pellegrinaggio giudiziario dalla Fiandra verso la Terrasanta

Abstract

The “compulsory” pilgrimage or judicial pilgrimage is a revealing sign of a new culture which is beginning to assert itself with the success of a manufacturing and market economy, able to adapt itself to this new path categories and models belonging to the the High Middle Ages, to a world which during the 6th century attests to the adoption on the Continent of an essential component of medieval Irish and Anglo-Saxon communities, which is to say, the idea of penitence. In this way, with the aim of understanding more clearly the evolution of the compulsory pilgrimage, it might be useful to refer to the general aspects of judicial pilgrimage as an experiment and a form of personal growth. Special attention has been paid to the introduction of “compulsory” pilgrimages within the context to the County of Flanders in the cities such as Gand, Bruges, Antwerp and Brussels where it was used as a sanction imposed on citizens guilty of certain criminal acts. That these same citizens should keep the peace was an essential condition for the well-being and the development of the community at large, and thus pilgrimage came to be used as a kind of compensation for serious offences or crimes that went against the peace and the equilibrium of the community. When analysing these documents certain elements and characteristics particular to compulsory pilgrimage may be discerned, as well as the relation between crime and punishment which, nonetheless, has not been identified within the general context of social custom. Using valuable sources such as city statutes and sentences from magistrates’ courts it has been possible to examine some concrete cases where enforced pilgrimage to Jerusalem was applied as an amendment.