Ep 8 Going On A Pilgrimage With Jim Hindle
Have you ever considered going on a Pilgrimage? Have you ever wondered why someone would walk such a long distance on purpose? Our guest today, Jim Hindle has written a book, ‘The Shrine Way: an English Pilgrimage’ about his own journey, his own pilgrimage. His pilgrimage was one of healing and reflections of his own […]
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00:00:22:27 – 00:00:46:26
Speaker 1
And welcome back, Sources. This is fabric of folklore. And I am your host. Vanessa, why wrote Vanessa why Rogers so knowledge of other cultures helps us to become better people. We understand each other better. We become more empathetic, and in turn we become kinder. So one of the reasons I think my own podcast is so awesome is I can call my own podcast.
00:00:46:26 – 00:01:15:07
Speaker 1
Awesome is because I think that learning about each other just makes us better human. So you can pat yourself on the back for becoming a better human. For listening to this show today. And I’m super excited about our guest today. His name is Jim Hindle and he is a fascinating musician and writer. His background, he has a background in archeology, interpretation and environmental campaigning and has written a book about history and the environment.
00:01:15:09 – 00:01:56:20
Speaker 1
He has written about history and environmental environment extensively. His newest book, which is a funder campaign at Indiegogo, this Shrine Way, looks at themes of faith and pilgrimage and examines issues about what pilgrimage can mean and helped to achieve. And so it’s part memoir and walks through the path he took in his book that follow the pilgrim to the shrine of Thomas Becket, but also was once formed a highway to and from the coast to the sacred center of these isles.
00:01:56:28 – 00:01:59:00
Speaker 1
Is that right? That I can correct.
00:01:59:17 – 00:02:00:27
Speaker 2
Yeah, that’s right. That’s right.
00:02:00:28 – 00:02:26:25
Speaker 1
All right, great. And and pilgrimages are a tradition of lots of different cultures. So I would like if you could just kind of walk us through what a pilgrimage is, because in my experience, I don’t have a whole lot of experience with pilgrimages, except for I know that it’s very important to the Muslim faith to make a pilgrimage to Mecca.
00:02:26:25 – 00:02:49:21
Speaker 1
And I know that a lot of churches will take pilgrimages the holy lands, Christian churches will take pilgrimages to the Holy Land, to Jerusalem to walk the path of Jesus. But other than that, that’s as far as my knowledge goes, of pilgrimages. So if you could kind of give us a definition.
00:02:49:23 – 00:03:14:20
Speaker 2
Yeah, well, I mean, a lot has been said and written about pilgrimage. They obviously go back a long way that clearly pretty Christian as well as to do with more modern faiths. Essentially, a pilgrimage is a walk with intent. It can be as simple as that. So you choose to do a walk and then you can set some kind of intent, what you’d like to achieve, what you might like to reflect upon.
00:03:15:02 – 00:03:44:11
Speaker 2
That’s one definition. Another definition that’s quite simple is that a pilgrimage is a it’s a walk done with intent. It’s a walk away from home, but brings spiritual rewards. So it can be as simple as that. There’s a great there’s a huge body of lore about pre-Christian pilgrimage. I you know, very little on any really writing about my my own experience and the things that become important to me.
00:03:45:12 – 00:03:53:01
Speaker 2
So I’ve always been a keen, long distance walker and at some point that became grafted on to a more formalized pilgrimage process.
00:03:53:17 – 00:04:13:01
Speaker 1
So like I have a friend who did a trek from along the Pacific coastline of the United States. And so would that be considered a pilgrimage of sorts, since you didn’t? I know. I don’t know that he doesn’t necessarily had a definite destination.
00:04:13:15 – 00:04:38:17
Speaker 2
Yeah, it depends how formal you want to make it. Really. I mean, like I say, it’s really only walk can be a pilgrimage if you choose to make it so. So in doing so, you’re making that intent. You may happen to walk to a sacred sites Soviet Mecca or Jerusalem or Rome or Santiago. There’s always places we can walk to, but essentially as well, you can make any place sacred by choosing to make an important place to to finish your pilgrimage.
00:04:39:10 – 00:04:42:12
Speaker 2
So they can be as simple as that. So that’s the beauty of it for me.
00:04:42:19 – 00:04:47:14
Speaker 1
Mm hmm. What are some of the more famous ones at the pilgrimage?
00:04:48:07 – 00:05:03:18
Speaker 2
Sure. Well, in Europe, in the Christian tradition, I mean, obviously. So Europe, Jerusalem, Santiago was obviously quite massive. Santiago de Compostela on the north coast of Spain, Galicia. So about for a reason.
00:05:05:22 – 00:05:42:01
Speaker 2
So you have the shrine of Saint James. That’s quite an involved story in itself. But you had you have a lot of people going by from all over Europe. So that’s a continual pilgrimage. People generally follow the Camino Francaise, which is a route along north coast of Spain. So that that is and has been remains very popular. That actually came into its prominence in medieval times because at times the route to Jerusalem could be so hazardous, not just to the Holy Land itself, but throughout Europe with various kind of intermittent strikes going on.
00:05:42:29 – 00:06:06:27
Speaker 2
So it became safer to walk to Santiago. So that was a reason, but became as prominent as it did. Obviously, Rome, I’m writing about the Pilgrims way, which finishes in Canterbury. So Thomas Becket had a shrine that was said to be the second most popular in Christian Europe at one point. So those are some of the things.
00:06:08:13 – 00:06:09:26
Speaker 1
So Santiago, the first one.
00:06:11:03 – 00:06:45:18
Speaker 2
That’s I mean, that’s probably secondary to on to to Jerusalem and potentially Rome, I’m not sure. The actual first first most important pilgrimage in Europe was at that point, I’m presuming Rome. So so there are all these places. Obviously, we’ve got a quite a few sacred sites in Britain as well. The first walk I did felt became a pilgrimage for me was to Bath Abbey about this in a sense, like seemingly coincidence.
00:06:45:18 – 00:07:03:26
Speaker 2
So I didn’t intend I didn’t realize that walk finished it off. But when I got there, that was a really interesting experience. And for me, that’s what grafted the process of pilgrimage on to writing. Sorry, on to walking. So. So I mean, the the world is the world. It’s rich with sacred sites.
00:07:04:28 – 00:07:11:12
Speaker 1
Tell us about your first pilgrimage that you were intending to walk to Bath Abbey or what you weren’t intending it to be a pilgrimage.
00:07:11:12 – 00:07:39:09
Speaker 2
Intending to walk to Bath. It was for Cotswolds Way, which goes down the Cotswolds and sort of west west England. That’s about a week’s walk. So for me, I mean, when I set out, that was like any other long distance walk. So great, great experience. When I got close to there, but it was actually a box in the woods that had a notepad with all the different comments of various pilgrims and everyone walkers, pilgrims.
00:07:39:09 – 00:08:00:14
Speaker 2
Everyone was saying, Yeah, we’ve got to get to both Abbey. So I was walking really in ignorance to that particular route in the sense that it finished where it did when I got to Bath at the I mean it’s a pretty profound experience, although something clicked information and that was sort of going back off to that point. I was like, okay, I can see how these two traditions, if you like, can marry.
00:08:01:15 – 00:08:02:24
Speaker 2
So that was one experience.
00:08:03:10 – 00:08:04:19
Speaker 1
What was profound about it?
00:08:06:12 – 00:08:33:23
Speaker 2
I mean, obviously I was arriving in a an established abbey, so it really brought to the fore feelings for me for someone to look at about my Christian upbringing. That’s one of the themes I’ve helped to explore in the book. I’ve written my kind of relationship to that. It’s been one of the questions I’ve asked as I write the book, and that’s had a lot of research for me.
00:08:33:24 – 00:08:58:18
Speaker 2
That’s why I think I like Beckett, became so interesting because he had a very profound spiritual life, and that’s a big part of his story. And that also, you know, interesting questions about the degree to which he took that. So that was very fertile ground. So these were some of the reasons I chose to write about the themes that I did.
00:08:59:03 – 00:09:05:16
Speaker 2
The Pilgrims were in particular, and how that reflects on Becket and Henry, the second of their lives.
00:09:06:08 – 00:09:19:15
Speaker 1
So going back to what a pilgrimage is. How far back do they date? You said they predate Christian faith. Do you can you can you tell us a little bit about the history of pilgrimages?
00:09:20:12 – 00:09:53:05
Speaker 2
To the best of my knowledge, I think my understanding is that think this is something that goes back so, so far, back into our collective history, it would be hard to pin on anything or evidence. I’ve heard, you know, people who are like traditional law that would pilgrimage was a very big factor in our ancestors lives. So, you know, clearly huge the pilgrims way that goes along an ancient ridge.
00:09:53:12 – 00:10:28:27
Speaker 2
So if you look at if there’s a really good book by Philip Coggan, I’m sure many of you heard of, he wrote about Copper Druid way. One of the things he says in that book is that the Palm of Sorrow, the Salisbury Plain, is like the palm of a hand in southern England. So if you can envision on the different chalk ridges stretching out from that spread out from Salisbury by the fingers of one hand, you know, it’s forwards and there’s a lot of archeological evidence that people would travel along these ridges to the central heartland and uplands of southern England.
00:10:29:09 – 00:10:48:11
Speaker 2
So that’s just one example. And, you know, this is a lot of evidence of our own roots. That’s one example of how far these things can go back, these routes where the hilltops were kind of highways in a sense, in southern England, because they were clear of a muddy ground, clear of a forest that the going was better.
00:10:48:24 – 00:11:11:14
Speaker 2
So, you know, that led to Bronze Age, Iron Age, all these hail forts and shrines appearing along along these ridges. There’s been a lot written about that. So that’s one example. But as as as I say, my understanding is that pilgrimage is universal to all cultures and it goes back goes back to our earliest days. And we were always, you know, for a very long time nomadic.
00:11:11:26 – 00:11:41:12
Speaker 2
So you had these you had these traditions. People would travel tribal lands, connect up the places important to them. Anthony That sort of been reflected in my own failings since a young age. But part of the point of going on a long walk is to connect one place to another without the kind of disruption of more modern means of transport.
00:11:42:07 – 00:11:54:28
Speaker 2
For me, that’s always been quite profound when I have had the opportunity to walk to different places on foot. That’s a very different experience than modern fast travel.
00:11:55:24 – 00:12:05:23
Speaker 1
So how long would a pilgrimage take in general? I mean, I know that there are they vary from path to path, but give us a a range.
00:12:07:00 – 00:12:31:08
Speaker 2
I mean, it’s how long have you got? I mean, people can can spend their whole lives in pilgrimage sometimes. I mean, as a as a guide, I was hearing about the other day and he’s been walking around the coast of Britain, so he’s been doing that for the last five years. MM If you look at a Continental or pilgrimage made pilgrimage medieval times, people might walk Santiago, for example, that could take months and months.
00:12:31:14 – 00:13:02:10
Speaker 2
Then you’d have to walk back again from the other side of that. So, you know, people went to Jerusalem and stayed there. You know, it’s this huge body of kind of cultural cross fertilization of all these people on the move going to be sacred sites, maybe lingering somewhere, maybe taking work at places like the cities in northern Spain, which had been deeply enriched by many of the people passing through, as well as some of the different cultures who’ve come there for, you know, different reasons.
00:13:02:11 – 00:13:28:27
Speaker 2
So it’s an open ended thing people would often do on pilgrimage, even medieval times, and then start on another straightaway. It became a kind of lifestyle. And if you look medieval, the medieval period, pilgrims could they could, you know, it was often one of the greatest opportunities of your lifetime for extensive and proper travel. So some people would just do that.
00:13:28:27 – 00:13:54:22
Speaker 2
And if they could carry on, they would, because once you you’ve moved on from your background or don’t you know, you could use what you know, you could you could cut the ties with your background, but you also get an opportunity to to, to travel and see see the world as it is. So I think there’s no real limit to how long any pilgrimage can work.
00:13:55:25 – 00:14:04:22
Speaker 1
And did people in the past, did they generally go in large groups or do they go and just a family unit or how would how would they travel?
00:14:05:07 – 00:14:36:04
Speaker 2
Yeah, I think it varies. I mean, people could go individually. People often did travel in groups because it’s clearly safer. And so travel in medieval Europe was maybe a slightly different creature than it was today. So people would definitely travel sometimes in moderate to large numbers. There’s a place on the Pilgrims way at some final days walk ins before a word called King’s Word, which apparently was frequented, frequented by vagrants, bandits.
00:14:36:16 – 00:14:59:20
Speaker 2
So the story goes. So there’s an actual church near the entrance to King’s Wood with a little porch, with a kind of chimney. And the the story goes that pilgrims would gather there and wait till they had a kind of band of numbers in which to transcribe words and thereby, you know, help ward off any kind of band, so to speak.
00:14:59:29 – 00:15:06:00
Speaker 2
So so that’s one example. But yeah, certainly the groups. Yeah.
00:15:06:25 – 00:15:20:13
Speaker 1
And where, where people sleeping. How are people they just sleeping on the side of the road or are they sleeping in inns like I am. The ins and outs of this is very fascinating to me.
00:15:20:16 – 00:15:47:01
Speaker 2
Yeah. I mean it’s a good question. Obviously you had over monastic houses which were a much bigger body, certainly in England than they were post reformation. So that was a kind of hostel was hospitable, literally tradition. So that was one thing you had. You had business as well. So that’s a whole other subject area. Undoubtedly people would camp.
00:15:47:04 – 00:16:11:17
Speaker 2
I think, you know, you look at you look at the history of these places, that could be a very broad roots. I mean, it’s one of the kind of things about historiography of the roots I’ve written about is that sometimes the antiquarians can be very fussy. And this went specifically here in Bear, you know, very, very particular. But if you look at the roots, I mean, pilgrims could travel.
00:16:12:12 – 00:16:44:24
Speaker 2
They wouldn’t necessarily stick to a given path. Even you look at places like on the towns that help form part of a route. So Dorking and Reigate and Guildford, for example, all those high streets measure up east to west. So that kind of indicates a likeliness that they were through east to west for the pilgrims. So I think it was a combination of things and undoubtedly people would would sleep in the woods and be set up for that as well.
00:16:44:24 – 00:16:46:12
Speaker 2
So I think I think it did vary.
00:16:47:29 – 00:16:51:26
Speaker 1
And then you said they would sometimes would take up work along the route.
00:16:53:13 – 00:16:57:19
Speaker 2
Well, you can only imagine if you’re traveling somewhere for months at a time.
00:16:58:01 – 00:16:58:15
Speaker 1
Right.
00:16:59:20 – 00:17:20:02
Speaker 2
If you’ve given up your previous work, say goodbye to your family. People would often kind of make wills before they left to get over worldly affairs in order. And then so you find yourself in southern France or northern Spain or Turkey, and you can only imagine that that became a practical thing for some pilgrims to do, depending on funds.
00:17:21:23 – 00:17:42:06
Speaker 2
You know, modern times, you see pilgrims, they set up camp on the side of a road sometimes. So I can only imagine that would be part of the case for a good proportion of pilgrims doing. But I mean, quite possibly the vast majority would turn home. You had a return home at the earliest opportunity once they completed the pilgrimage.
00:17:43:14 – 00:18:04:24
Speaker 2
But for Moneymore, I mean, you know, I mean, my understanding is like a place like Pamplona, northern Spain. BURGOS These places, they were followed by pilgrims. They were also craftsmen. So you have craftsmen for a for out the kind of the known world would stick around and contribute to the culture locally. So.
00:18:06:14 – 00:18:16:19
Speaker 1
Yeah. So let’s talk about your pilgrimage. What got you interested in doing pilgrimages in the first place?
00:18:16:26 – 00:18:40:15
Speaker 2
Like I say, I’ve always been, yeah. For my adult life, at least making King long distance walker. I grew up privileged to grow up on the South Downs, so that was one key thing. The old tracks there at the Hill, Forts. There’s something about it, but it just kind of got on my skin so I under my skin.
00:18:40:15 – 00:19:09:07
Speaker 2
So I always enjoyed walking. And at some point that grafted onto long distance walking. And that was that particular experience I described in the Cotswolds and walking down to Bath. But I just always had a feeling really, that if you could it’s a sort of kind of wanderlust growing up. If you could see a place on the horizon, I’d just have a feeling that I’d like to walk.
00:19:09:14 – 00:19:22:04
Speaker 2
So there was a kind of interest in covering the grounds between between places by foot. So it’s kind of as simple as that, really. And I know.
00:19:22:08 – 00:19:28:05
Speaker 1
When you say you were a long distance walk or prior, what a type of long distance walking did you do?
00:19:29:07 – 00:19:57:11
Speaker 2
And yeah, so I’ve done various tracks throughout throughout Britain. There’s already got the long distance walkers hand boat, which has literally every known distance path in Britain. So there’s a lot to choose from. For me, growing up in the Southeast, I’d, you know, the South Downs way was kind of one of my kind of modal points, maybe you could put it.
00:19:57:27 – 00:20:09:19
Speaker 2
So I walked up the South Downs quite a few times and that goes from where I grew up, along the bridge of the South Downs, up to Winchester. That’s one thing I’ve been using.
00:20:09:26 – 00:20:10:26
Speaker 1
Along with that take, you.
00:20:12:03 – 00:20:12:09
Speaker 2
Probably.
00:20:13:11 – 00:20:16:01
Speaker 1
Have no idea.
00:20:16:01 – 00:20:37:19
Speaker 2
Look at you. Look something like that. You may recognize the Appalachian Trail and some of the other routes. I mean, they’ve asked you that. So it’s like relatively short by comparison. But you could walk from where I was to Winchester in five, six, seven days, depending on your speed. Gotten to walk in Towpath, which obviously is a different thing.
00:20:37:19 – 00:20:44:21
Speaker 2
But the paths along the side of canals are very good points to connect places up. So difficult to.
00:20:44:21 – 00:20:45:10
Speaker 1
Contact.
00:20:46:10 – 00:21:13:17
Speaker 2
Like Canal Towpath. So literally they’d have horses go. These are industrial paths along the canals. Oh 19/18 centuries. So you’d have the paths for the horses to go along and they’d pull over barges before motorized transport, I mean, as part of sustainable existence today. So they go, if you’re walking in Britain, they’re really good routes to follow. I’ve been a general.
00:21:13:17 – 00:21:21:18
Speaker 2
I’ve tried to get a decent, you know, a few days walking every every year. And that’s that’s encompassed different things along the years.
00:21:22:25 – 00:21:29:21
Speaker 1
And so this particular walk where you walk to Thomas Becket Shrine, can you talk about what’s special about Thomas Becket Shrine?
00:21:30:26 – 00:21:33:09
Speaker 2
Thomas Becket Shrine. I mean, it’s some.
00:21:33:27 – 00:21:35:20
Speaker 1
And who is Thomas Becket? Yes.
00:21:36:02 – 00:22:01:01
Speaker 2
Well, it is sort of a history of this route. And while there are other routes I could have written about, I chose to write about this one for various reasons. I mean, one of which is that it’s quite accessible, it’s relatively short. So you can go in a week at eight ties in on. For me, that kind of the story of Becket is closely associated with it.
00:22:01:17 – 00:22:32:29
Speaker 2
Thomas Becket was Chancellor and Archbishop during the reign of Henry the second. So this was the 12th century, 1100s. Yeah, really fascinating story. He he was some Becket and Henry were very good friends from a relatively young age. Becket was Henry’s right hand man. At one point, Henry decided. I’m just trying to brave the story. But was.