The Via Francigena
he Via Francigena is a historical itinerary
leading to Rome from Canterbury, a major route which in the past was used by
thousands of pilgrims on their way to Rome. At the beginning of the 11th
century mainly, a multitude of souls "looking for their Lost Heavenly Home"
took the habit of travelling across Europe.
This route bears witness to the
importance of the practice of pilgrimage in medieval times; the pilgrim was to
travel mostly on foot (for penitential reasons), covering about 20-25 Km a
day,and was driven by a fundamentally devotional reason: the pilgrimage to the
Holy Sites of Christianity.There were at the time three main centers of
attraction for that journeying humanity:Rome, first of all, the site of the
martyrdom of Saint Peter and Saint Paul; Santiago de Compostela, the place
chosen by the apostle Saint James to rest in peace and obviously Jerusalem in
the Holy Land. The pilgrim did not travel alone but in a group and he used to
carry the pilgrimage emblems (the shell for Santiago de Compostela, the cross
for Jerusalem and the key for Saint Peter in Rome). Along these very same
pilgrim routes, an intense trading activity was carried out and armies followed
the same itineraries in the course of their movements.