Walsingham

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Map sources for Walsingham at grid reference TF934368

Seal of the Medieval Shrine

The Anglican National Procession to Walsingham proceeds through the ruined abbey, May 2003.

This refers to the village, for other uses see Walsingham (disambiguation)

Walsingham is a village (actually two conjoined villages: Little Walsingham and Great Walsingham—the "Great" referring to its age, rather than its size) and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. The village is famed for its religious shrines in honour of the Virgin Mary and is a major pilgrimage centre. It also contains the ruins of two medieval monastic houses.^[1]^[2]

The civil parish, which includes the two Walsinghams together with the depopulated medieval village of Egmere, has an area of 18.98 km² and in the 2001 census had a population of 864 in 397 households. For the purposes of local government, the parish falls within the district of North Norfolk.^[3]

Walsingham became a major centre of pilgrimage in the 11th century, following a vision of the Virgin Mary to Saxon noblewoman Richeldis de Faverches in 1061. Richeldis was instructed to build a replica of the house of the Holy Family in Nazareth, in honour of the Annunciation. The Holy House was panelled with wood and held a wooden statue of an enthroned Virgin Mary with the child Jesus seated on her lap.

Walsingham became one of Northern Europe's great places of pilgrimage, and remained so through most of the Middle Ages.

1 Priory
2 See also
3 References
4 Sources and external links

[edit] Priory

A priory of Augustinian canons was established on the site in 1153, a few miles from the sea in the northern part of Norfolk, England, and grew in importance over the following centuries. Founded in the time of Edward the Confessor, the chapel of Our Lady of Walsingham was confirmed to the Augustinian Canons a century later and enclosed within the priory. From the first this shrine of Our Lady was a famous place of pilgrimage. Hither came the faithful from all parts of England and from the continent until the destruction of the priory by King Henry VIII in 1538. To this day the main road of the pilgrims through Newmarket, Brandon and Fakenham is still called the Palmers' Way.

Many were the gifts of lands, rents and churches to the canons of Walsingham, and many the miracles wrought at Our Lady's shrine. Several English kings visited the shrine including Henry III (1231 or 1241), Edward I (1289 and 1296), Edward II in 1315, Edward III in 1361, Henry VI in 1455, Henry VII in 1487 and finally Henry VIII, who was later responsible for its destruction when the shrine and abbey perished in the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Erasmus in fulfilment of a vow made a pilgrimage from Cambridge in 1511, and left as his offering a set of Greek verses expressive of his piety. Thirteen years later he wrote his colloquy on pilgrimages, wherein the wealth and magnificence of Walsingham are set forth, and some of the reputed miracles rationalized. Two of Henry VIII's wives—Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn—made pilgrimages to the shrine.

Walsingham Abbey Remains

In 1537 while the last prior, Richard Vowell, was paying obsequious respect to Thomas Cromwell, the sub-prior Nicholas Milcham was charged with conspiring to rebel against the suppression of the lesser monasteries, and on flimsy evidence was convicted of high treason and hanged outside the priory walls. In July, 1538, Prior Vowell assented to the destruction of Walsingham Priory and assisted the king's commissioners in the removal of the figure of Our Lady, of many of the gold and silver ornaments and in the general spoliation of the shrine. For his ready compliance the prior received a pension of 100 pounds a year, a large sum in those days, while fifteen of the canons received pensions varying from 4 pounds to 6 pounds. The shrine dismantled, and the priory destroyed, its site was sold by order of Henry VIII to one Thomas Sidney for 90 pounds, and a private mansion was subsequently erected on the spot. Eleven people including the sub-prior of the abbey were hanged, drawn and quartered. Gold and silver from the shrine was taken to London along with the statue of Mary and Jesus, which was burnt.

The fall of the monastery gave rise to the anonymous Elizabethan ballad the Walsingham Lament on what the Norfolk people felt at the loss of their glorious shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham, which includes the lines:

Weep Weep O Walsingam,

Whose dayes are nights,

Blessings turned to blasphemies,

Holy deeds to despites

Sinne is where our Ladye sate,

Heaven turned is to helle;

Satan sitthe where our Lord did swaye,

Walsingham O farewell!

In the 20th Century, as a result of the initiative of the Anglican priest Fr Alfred Hope Patten, Anglican, Catholic and Orthodox Marian shrines have been re-established in Walsingham, and pilgrimages are held through the summer months. The Anglican National Pilgrimage takes place on the Spring Bank Holiday (the Monday following the last Sunday in May) and is regularly met by Protestant picket lines, but the highlight of the year is arrival of the Student cross pilgrimage on Good Friday.