hested a pilgrimage to Walsingham and to St. Leonards for you." Again, Justice Yelverton thanks John Paston, "especially for that ye do much for our Lady's house at Walsingham, which I trust verily ye do the rather for the great love that ye deem I have thereto; for truly if I be drawn to any worship or welfare, and discharge of mine enemies' danger, I ascribe it unto our Lady."
In proportion to the piety of the pilgrim flames the wrath of the reformer. Denunciations from poets of a radical turn, like Langland and Skelton, echo shrilly through English letters.
Pylgrimis and palmers plyghten hem togederes,
To seken seint James and seintes at Rome,
Wenten forth in hure way with many unwyse tales,
And haven leve to lyen alle hure lyf-tyme.
This sounds like the bitterness of the stay-at-home, resenting with his whole soul the allurement of travellers' tales,—tales to which Chaucer lent a tolerant ear. A century and a half later, when reform had had its way, when the relics of St. Thomas had been scattered to the winds, when our Lady's image had been flung
