Geography Lesson 2: Where the Rostock Pilgrims Went

This blog post is a part of a four part series focussing on twenty-nine medieval badges found in the Baltic coastal town of Rostock, Germany. The first post, “Geography Lesson 1: Badges and Soil Composition,” features an introductory statement and can be found here.

The twenty-nine pilgrim badges found in Rostock testify to journeys to different holy sites. Medieval pilgrims purchased religious badges at the sites they visited and then brought the objects home with them. Dr. Ansorge uses the badges found in Rostock as evidence to see where and how far the Rostock pilgrims travelled. 

Some Rostock pilgrims ventured far to visit holy sites of outstanding importance in medieval Christendom. Santiago de Compostela in Spain, whose badges were mentioned in the previous blog (Part One), is about 2500 kilometers from Rostock. Also found were single badges from Rome (about 1700 kilometers distant), and from Canterbury where Saint Thomas Becket was revered (about 1000 kilometers distant). A single badge was found from Saint-Josse-sur-Mer in northern France (Picardy) (about 1000 kilometers southwest), which may have been a waystation on the pilgrim road to either Santiago or Canterbury and another was found from Einsiedeln (Switzerland) (about 1000 kilometers south), which may have been a waystation on the way to Rome.

The Becket badge from Canterbury is one of only two such badges found in northern Germany. The other was found in the Hansa city of Wismar and can be dated to the 1260s. The Becket shrine at Canterbury was the most important pilgrimage site in England and it was not old; Becket was murdered in 1170 and made a saint in 1173. The quintessential Englishness of Becket’s popularity and its being wrapped up in the specifics of English politics make one wonder whether the Becket badges found in Rostock and Wismar might in fact have been discarded there by English traders and merchants, who frequented Hanseatic League cities.

Roughly half of the Rostock badges are from the large, old pilgrim sites on or near the Rhine or Meuse rivers. Aachen, Cologne, and Maastricht, for example, were linked together as an established pilgrim route. Besides being relatively close to one another, the great shrines of these cities were ancient, traditional holy sites. Clearly Rostock pilgrims wished to partake in this venerable divinity. To the frequent finds can be added two more sites southwest of Rostock: Stromberg and Steinfeld. These sites are in middle distance range, between 600 and 700 kilometers west or southwest of Rostock and it is likely that Rostock pilgrims visited two or more of them on one trip. 

Some Rostock badge finds testify to journeys to local shrines which could have been completed round trip in about a week. These are represented by badges from now obscure or vanished holy sites at Kenz (about 60 kilometers east northeast of Rostock), Güstrow (about 40 kilometers south), and Sternberg (another 30 kilometers southwest of Güstrow). Also present are badges from the great holy site of Wilsnack, which is less than 200 kilometers southwest of Rostock, and from Königslutter, another 150 kilometers southwest of Wilsnack, both established way-stations on middle and long distance pilgrim journeys. 

There is a badge from a holy site dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary that is about 300 kilometers east of Rostock in what is now Poland on the mountain, Góra Chełmska (German, Gollenberg, Mount Gollen), east of the town of Koszalin. Easily accessible from the Baltic, it seems likely that Rostock pilgrims would have travelled there by sea. 

And finally, there are two badges that have not yet been identified, probably because they came from small, local holy sites that vanished when the territories around Rostock adopted Lutheranism in the Reformation. Using his skills as an archaeologist-dectective, Dr. Ansorge continues to seek the home and saintly identity of these badges.  

Identifiable by their imagery as coming from specific holy sites, the surviving pilgrim badges found in Rostock can be ordered according to the distance between holy site and find site. They show people from Rostock travelling near and far on what were once well-established roads and pilgrim routes, not all of which are still known today.

Written by Dr. Ann Marie Rasmussen. 

Works Cited

Ansorge, Jörg. “‘pelgrimmatze in de ere des almechteghen godes’: Pilgerzeichen und Schriftquellen zum mittelalterlichen Wallfahrtswesen in Rostock,” in Verknüpfungen des neuen Glaubens. Die Rostocker Reformationsgeschichte in ihren translokalen Bezügen, edited by Heinrich Holze and Kristen Skottki. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck-Ruprecht, 2019, pp. 29–83.