See also: Walsingham (homonymy)

Walsingham is a locality of England and a civil parish of the county English of Norfolk. It is in fact coupled made up of two villages: Little Walsingham and Great Walsingham , the word " Great" (large) referring to its seniority and not to its size. The village, known like holy place and of pilgrimage devoted to the Virgin Mary, shelters the ruins of two medieval Monastère S. '

The civil parish, which includes/understands both Walsingham as well as the old medieval village of Egmere, now deserted, has a surface of 18.98 km ² and a population of 864 inhabitants divided into 397 hearths with the census of 2001. The parish is under the jurisdiction of the district not métroplitain of North Norfolk for the businesses concerned with the local government.

It is with the XIe century that Walsingham became a important Pèlerinage after the Virgin Mary had appeared with noble the saxonne Richeldis de Faverches in 1061. Richeldis accepted the order to build a counterpart of the house of the Holy Family of Nazareth, in the honor of the Annonciation. The Holy House was built out of wood and was decorated of wood a statue of the Virgin Mary in Throne holding the Jesus Child sitting in his arms. Walsingham remained during all the Moyen-âge one of largest the Pèlerinage S of Northern Europe.

Priory

In 1153, a Prieuré monks Augustins is established on the site with ten kilometers of the sea close to the northern coast to the Norfolk and thrived during the following centuries. Founded at the time of Edouard the Confessor, the vault of Notre Dame de Walsingham was entrusted to the monks augustins one century and was incorporated later in the priory. This sanctuary was initially a famous place of pilgrimage. The faithful ones flowed there of all the areas of England and the continent, until its destruction by the king Henry VIII in 1538. Nowadays, the main roads of the pilgrims passing by Newmarket, Torch and Fakenham are still called Palmers' Way (the way of the pilgrims).

The monks of Walsingham accepted many gifts grounds, silver and churches, and the sanctuary of Notre Dame was the witness of several Miracle S. Of kings d' Angleterre went there, among whom Henry III (in 1231 or 1241), Edward I (in 1289 and 1296), Edward II in 1315, Edward III in 1361, Henry VI in 1455, Henry VII in 1487 and finally Henry VIII, which was then the author of its destruction. Erasme, achieving a wish, made a pilgrimage since Cambridge in 1511, and left as offering a collection of worms in Greek where it expressed his piety. Thirteen years later he wrote his collection of the pilgrimages in which the richness and the munificence of Walsingham are announced and certain the most famous miracles rationalized. Two wives of Henry VIII Catherine d' Aragon and Anne Boleyn, achieved they also the pilgrimage of Walsingham.

In 1537 the last Prior, Richard Vowell, lent allégence to Thomas Cromwell by opportunism. Its subordinate Nicholas Milcham on the other hand was accused of conspiracy and rebellion against the decree of removal of the monasteries. Convinced of the crime of high treason on unimportant evidence, it was hung with the wall external of the priory. In July 1538, the Vowell Prior granted the destruction of the priory of Walsingham and went until lending strong hand to the agents of the king to remove the statue of the Virgin as well as many parts of money or gold ornament. It also took part in the general plundering of the sanctuary. In reward of its complicity, he lives himself to grant a pension of 100 pounds per annum, a large sum for the time, while fifteen monks accepted pensions ranging between 4 and 6 books. Once the stripped sanctuary and the destroyed priory, the site was sold on order of Henry VIII to a certain Thomas Sidney for the sum of 90 books, and a private manor was then built at this place. Eleven people, whose prior as a second of the Abbey, were hung or quartered. The gold and the money of the sanctuary were carried with London as well as the statue of Marie and Jesus which was finally burned.

The destruction of the monastery inspired the lamentation of Walsingham (Walsingham Lament) an anonymous ballade élisabéthaine which translates the sorrow of popular after this tragic event. It contains in particular these famous 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!

Cries, cries O Walsingham

You of which the days are now nuits

the blessings changed into blasphèmes

the holy actions in méfaits

the sin settled where our Dame

was the sky became the enfer

And Satan sat down in the place of our Seigneur

Adieu O Walsingham!

With the XXe century, on the initiative of the priest Anglican Brother Alfred Hope Patten, the sanctuaries of Marie of the worships Anglican, catholic and orthodoxe were restored in Walsingham, and of the pilgrimages organized during the summer months. The National Pilgrimage Anglican takes place with Spring Bank Holiday (Monday following last Sunday of May) and encounters Protestant stoppings regularly. The culminating point of the year is the arrival of the pilgrimage of Easter of the Cross of the students (Student cross-country race) the Good Friday.

References

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