Page "Pilgrims' Way" Paragraph 3

From Thomas Becket's canonization in 1173 until the dissolution of the monasteries in 1538 his shrine at Canterbury became the most important in the country, indeed " after Rome ... the chief shrine in Christendom ", and it drew pilgrims from far and wide.

Winchester, apart from being an ecclesiastical centre in its own right ( the shrine of St Swithin ), was an important regional focus and an aggregation point for travellers arriving through the seaports on the south coast.

Travellers from Winchester to Canterbury naturally used the ancient way, as it was the direct route, and research by local historians has provided much by way of detail — sometimes embellished — of the pilgrims ' journeys.

The numbers making their way to Canterbury by this route were not recorded, but the estimate by the Kentish historian William Coles Finch that it carried more than 100, 000 pilgrims a year is surely an exaggeration.

A separate ( and more reliably attested ) route to Canterbury was by way of Watling Street from London, as followed by the storytellers in The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer.