The Pilgrim's Road or Pilgrims' Road''Pilgrims' Road''
The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity (2018), Oxford University Press, via OxfordReference.com. Accessed 23 Aug 2023. was a route through

Asia Minor Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...

to the

Holy Land The term "Holy Land" is used to collectively denote areas of the Southern Levant that hold great significance in the Abrahamic religions, primarily because of their association with people and events featured in the Bible. It is traditionall ...

.1963 S. Frederick Starr, "Mapping Ancient Roads in Anatolia" Archaeology, 16:165

Description

The name Pilgrim's Road has been traditionally given to the network of roads that connected Constantinople with the eastern provinces of the

Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived History of the Roman Empire, the events that caused the ...

such as

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

and

Arabia The Arabian Peninsula (, , or , , ) or Arabia, is a peninsula in West Asia, situated north-east of Africa on the Arabian plate. At , comparable in size to India, the Arabian Peninsula is the largest peninsula in the world. Geographically, the ...

. The route started in

Chalcedon Chalcedon (; ; sometimes transliterated as ) was an ancient maritime town of Bithynia, in Asia Minor, Turkey. It was located almost directly opposite Byzantium, south of Scutari (modern Üsküdar) and it is now a district of the city of Ist ...

, opposite to

Constantinople Constantinople (#Names of Constantinople, see other names) was a historical city located on the Bosporus that served as the capital of the Roman Empire, Roman, Byzantine Empire, Byzantine, Latin Empire, Latin, and Ottoman Empire, Ottoman empire ...

and went to Antioch via

Nicomedia Nicomedia (; , ''Nikomedeia''; modern İzmit) was an ancient Greece, ancient Greek city located in what is now Turkey. In 286, Nicomedia became the eastern and most senior capital city of the Roman Empire (chosen by the emperor Diocletian who rul ...

Nicaea Nicaea (also spelled Nicæa or Nicea, ; ), also known as Nikaia (, Attic: , Koine: ), was an ancient Greek city in the north-western Anatolian region of Bithynia. It was the site of the First and Second Councils of Nicaea (the first and seve ...

Ancyra Ankara is the capital city of Turkey and the largest capital by area in the world. Located in the central part of Anatolia, the city has a population of 5,290,822 in its urban center ( Etimesgut, Yenimahalle, Çankaya, Keçiören, Altında ...

, the

Cilician Gates The Cilician Gates or Gülek Pass is a pass through the Taurus Mountains connecting the low plains of Cilicia to the Anatolian Plateau, by way of the narrow gorge of the Gökoluk River. Its highest elevation is about 1000m. The Cilician Gates ...

and then Tarsus. The surface was paved with small pebbles covered with gravel shortly after the Roman conquest. It was widened from 21.5 feet to 28 feet in the

Christian era The terms (AD) and before Christ (BC) are used when designating years in the Gregorian and Julian calendars. The term is Medieval Latin and means "in the year of the Lord" but is often presented using "our Lord" instead of "the Lord", tak ...

to accommodate commercial travel. Asia Minor ca 740 AD

While the route ensured primarily a rapid connection especially for military forces, pilgrims such as the anonymous pilgrim of Bordeaux who wrote the

Itinerarium Burdigalense ''Itinerarium Burdigalense'' ("Bordeaux Itinerary"), also known as ''Itinerarium Hierosolymitanum'' ("Jerusalem Itinerary"), is the oldest known Christian '' itinerarium''. It was written by the "Pilgrim of Bordeaux", an anonymous pilgrim from ...

came to take this route in 333-34 and thus gave it the name Pilgrim's road. Apart from the ''Itinerarium Burdigalense'', two other sources, the Itinerarium Antonini and the

Tabula Peutingeriana ' (Latin Language, Latin for 'The Peutinger Map'), also known as Peutinger's Tabula, Peutinger tablesJames Strong (theologian) , James Strong and John McClintock (theologian) , John McClintock (1880)"Eleutheropolis" In: ''The Cyclopedia of Bibli ...

, describe the route with only one minor divergence between the sources. Pilgrims would also often take detours to visit shrines of saints, such as Egeria who visited the shrine of St. Thecla close to Tarsus in the 380d.

History

The possibly first prominent pilgrim that took the Pilgrim's road was the mother of

Constantine the Great Constantine I (27 February 27222 May 337), also known as Constantine the Great, was a Roman emperor from AD 306 to 337 and the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity. He played a Constantine the Great and Christianity, pivotal ro ...

, Helena, whose route was retraced by the author of the ''Itinerarium Burdigalense'' and who took around two months to get from Constantinople to

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

in 326. In the century after the Bordeaux pilgrim, possibly on instigation of bishop

Basil of Caesarea Basil of Caesarea, also called Saint Basil the Great (330 – 1 or 2 January 379) was an early Roman Christian prelate who served as Bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia from 370 until his death in 379. He was an influential theologian who suppor ...

, many hostels were founded along the road, often by wealthy Roman women. These hostels, also known as '' xenodochia'', resembled earlier Greek or Roman inns but were catering specifically to pilgrims, were operated by monks and were typically funded from Church funds or by

donation A donation is a gift for Charity (practice), charity, humanitarian aid, or to benefit a cause. A donation may take various forms, including money, alms, Service (economics), services, or goods such as clothing, toys, food, or vehicles. A donati ...

s so that also poor pilgrims could use the facilities. During the middle Byzantine period the route via Ancyra fell out of favour as the Byzantines preferred the route to the Cilician Gates via Dorylaeum,

Amorium Amorium, also known as Amorion (), was a city in Phrygia, Asia Minor which was founded in the Hellenistic period, flourished under the Byzantine Empire, and declined after the Sack of Amorium, Arab sack of 838. It was situated on the Byzantine m ...

and

Iconium Konya is a major city in central Turkey, on the southwestern edge of the Central Anatolian Plateau, and is the capital of Konya Province. During antiquity and into Seljuk times it was known as Iconium. In 19th-century accounts of the city in En ...

. There were also several other important roads that branched of the Pilgrim's road to the Amasia and Neocaesarea or to Melitene.

References

{{Reflist History of road transport Pilgrimage routes Christian pilgrimages Catholic pilgrimage sites

Description

History

See also

References