ABSTRACT
Simon Coleman and John Elsner argue that the multiplicity of sacred sites at modern Walsingham – and here they include not just the official Anglican shrine and all the various elements within its precincts, but also the Roman Catholic Slipper Chapel and the nearby Orthodox church – allows pilgrims to act as bricoleurs.1 What this means, as they go on to explain, is that pilgrims can pick and choose from among the various experiences available at Walsingham in order to fashion a final pilgrimage experience that is very much “individualized” (their term). And in discussing the diversity characteristic of the pilgrimage experience at modern Walsingham, the authors approvingly cite a priest who characterizes this diversity as “splendidly medieval.”2 But is it splendidly medieval? That is, was in fact the medieval experience of pilgrimage at Walsingham also characterized by diversity? Possibly.
