ABSTRACT
The chapter gives a general historical overview of Christian pilgrimages, in this case Catholic, which starts in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and continues up to the present day. Drawing on classic pilgrimage authors offers a structured synthesis of the evolution of pilgrimages over the last few centuries from different angles.
The chapter allows us to see, at a glance, the stages of a phenomenon that is always alive but in constant change and, at the same time, offers interesting clues for tackling current issues, that is, to build that new agenda that several authors suggest is necessary to redirect the multitude of works about pilgrimages, somewhat disjointed or erroneous, that are appearing, in increasing numbers, in the twenty-first century.
The chapter is structured in four main parts: the reorientation of Catholic pilgrimages between 1454 and 1531, the rhythms, the new critical currents of modernity and liberalism and the centuries of Marian apparitions. There are sections highlighting the change from land to sea pilgrimage in the sixteenth century, pilgrimage as a spiritual path in the Jesuits, the transplantation of Mediterranean pilgrimage models to Hispanic America, the development between pilgrimage and penance, the influence of the disentailments of the nineteenth century on pilgrimage routes or the dialectic between short and long pilgrimages.
