ABSTRACT
The tradition of pilgrimage, journeying to holy destinations (ad loca sancta) out of devotion to God, was an inheritance from the Abrahamic traditions of Judaism that Christianity shared with Islam.1 Though the Apostles journeyed in order to witness to the faith, the depiction of them in the New Testament as turning from the world to follow Jesus offered rich precedents for the medieval image of the Christian pilgrim. The most conventional type of holy destination to which pilgrimage was undertaken between 1050 and 1500 was the shrines of saints. Wherever the relics or effects of the Apostles, martyrs and confessors who followed Jesus Christ through their exemplary lives of holiness lay, they acted as conduits of holy energy attracting devotees and supplicants.
