proclaimed every 25 years from 1470 onwards, and its
benefits were later expanded to cover churches and local
shrines worldwide.
In attacking relics, the early 16th-century critics of
what they saw as blatant abuses and absurdities in the
Church were attacking pilgrimage at its heart. ERASMUS
wrote a satire on the subject, A Pilgrimage for Religion’s
Sake (1526). Among the reformers, LUTHERsarcastically
remarked how strange it was that the bodies of no fewer
than 18 apostles were buried in Germany when Christ had
contented himself with a mere 12; he also specifically at-
tacked pilgrimages in his An den christlichen Adel deutscher
Nation (1520). CALVINweighed in with a treatise on relics
that ridiculed the proliferation of dubious items; if the Vir-
gin had been a wet-nurse throughout her life she could
scarcely have produced enough milk to fill all the phials of
the purported substance venerated across Europe. Even
supposing a particular relic to be genuine, it was Calvin’s
opinion that veneration of it distracted the laity from the
true Christian path by seeming to offer a shortcut to holi-
ness which could only properly be attained by following
the Gospels. The general consensus among reformers was
that the Church was at fault in both encouraging supersti-
tion among the gullible and then profiting financially from
their credulity.
As the Reformation spread, pilgrimage shrines, along
with other Catholic institutions in newly Protestant lands,
became targets for ICONOCLASM. Calvinists were particu-
larly zealous in their destruction of the material expres-
sions of Roman Catholic piety—or, as they saw it, “popish
superstition.” In Britain, the DISSOLUTION OF THE MONAS-
TERIES, was slightly different in that it was primarily insti-
gated by the monarch for political ends and its purpose
was plunder, not godliness, but the effect was the same: all
the great pilgrimage shrines (Thomas à Becket’s in Can-
terbury cathedral, of Our Lady at Walsingham, of the Holy
Blood at Hailes Abbey) were destroyed along with the re-
ligious houses associated with them. Pilgrimages were
specifically targeted in HENRY VIII’s royal injunctions of
1538, with the clergy instructed to preach against “wan-
dering to pilgrimages, offering of money, candles, or ta-
pers to images or relics, or kissing or licking the same...”.
In the Catholic lands the practice of pilgrimage
continued and played its part in the growth of popular
piety fostered by the Council of TRENTand the COUNTER-
REFORMATION. However, even here new Catholic pilgrim-
age locations came gradually to focus less on bodily relics
and more on miraculous happenings such as a vision
(very often of the Virgin Mary) or the finding of a con-
cealed holy statue or painting. For instance, a Spanish Do-
minican, Narciso Camós, visited the major Marian shrines
of Catalonia in 1651–53, and noted that out of 182 shrines
117 had foundation legends involving the miraculous dis-
covery of an image.
Further reading: James Bentley, Restless Bones: The
Story of Relics (London: Constable, 1985); Wes Williams,
Pilgrimage and Narrative in the French Renaissance: The
Undiscovered Country (Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon Press and
New York: Oxford University Press, 1998).Pilgrimage of Grace (1536–37) A rebellion provoked by
Henry VIII’s DISSOLUTION OF THE MONASTERIESand the at-
tempts of Thomas CROMWELL, the king’s chief minister, to
increase control of the north of England. The revolt was
supported by the nobility of the northern counties. The
most serious rising was led by the lawyer Robert Aske who
seized York with 9,000 insurgents. The rebels’ demands
included the return of England to papal obedience and a
parliament free from royal influence. The uprising was
crushed in the early months of1537 and around 250 men,
including Aske, were subsequently executed.
Further reading: R. W. Hoyle, The Pilgrimage of Grace
and the Politics of the 1530s (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 2002); Geoffrey Moorhouse, The Pilgrimage of
Grace: The Rebellion That Shook Henry VIII’s Throne (Lon-
don: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 2003).Pilgrim Fathers The usual modern name for the English
founders of the colony of Plymouth, Massachusetts, who
sailed for the New World in the Mayflower in September- As members of the more strictly Calvinistic wing of
the English Church (see PURITANS), they were opposed to
current ecclesiastical and political trends in England,
which they saw as tending toward “popery.”
Pilon, Germain (1537–1590) French sculptor
Born in Paris, Pilon was the son of a sculptor and special-
ized in monumental tombs executed in an elongated man-
nerist style. He was heavily influenced by PRIMATICCIO,
with whom he worked on a monument for Henry II
(c. 1560; Louvre, Paris), as well as by Domenico del Bar-
biere and Pierre BONTEMPS. His later works were executed
in the more fluid naturalistic manner of PONTORMOand
MICHELANGELO, as seen in his finest piece, the tomb
(1563–70) for Henry II and his wife Catherine de’ Medici.
As sculptor royal from 1568, Pilon also served in the post
of controller of the mint and produced many notable por-
trait medals as well as busts of the French royal family.
Other works include a bronze figure of René de Birague
(1583–85; Louvre), a contribution to the tomb of Francis
I at St.-Denis, an Annunciation in the Chapelle de la Vierge
at Valmont, a statue of the Virgin in Notre-Dame-de-la-
Couture, Le Mans (1571), and a bronze bust of Charles IX
(Wallace Collection, London).Pinto, Fernão Mendes (1510–1583) Portuguese writer
and adventurer
Born near Coimbra, Pinto enjoyed a lifetime of varied and
pioneering activity. He sailed for Goa in 1537, and there-33778 8 PPiillggrriimmaaggee ooff GGrraaccee