Sacred Journeys in the Counter-Reformation

Sacred Journeys in the Counter-Reformation examines long-distance pilgrimages to ancient, international shrines in northwestern Europe in the two centuries after Luther. In this region in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, saints' cults and pilgrimage were frequently contested, more so than in the Mediterranean world. The central focus is that of agency in religious change: what drove spiritual reform and what were its consequences for the 'ordinary' Catholic? This is explored through concepts of the religious self, holy materiality, and sacred space.