The Pilgrims’ Way: Shrines and Saints in Britain and Ireland

An enlightening history of pilgrimage, journeying into the past and following in the footsteps of travellers who traipsed across the length and breadth of Britain and Ireland. Thomas Chaucer and his Canterbury Tales has made the act of pilgrimage well-known to many people, but what was it like to be a pilgrim in the medieval world? How did they travel, what were the relics they prayed before, and why did they do it?

John Adair transports us back over five centuries; exploring the shrines, holy wells, monasteries and monks, inns, churches, and cathedrals that were available for penitential men and women to visit.

From Canterbury in the southeast to Iona in the north, The Pilgrims’ Way uncovers some of the most fascinating holy sites in Britain and Ireland. Although many of them were destroyed in the reign of Henry VIII and his successors, Adair highlights where we might still be able to find traces of saintly architecture and art. For those features that have long been destroyed Adair draws from a wide variety of sources including medieval accounts of saints’ lives, shrine-keepers’ books of miracles along with comments made by astute visitors such as Erasmus.

This popular, yet learned, book is delightful. Julia Bolton Holloway, Princeton University, Journal of the American Academy of Religion