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`The chief determinant of the Jubilee is not a place but a time.' The marking of this time is linked with the practice of pilgrimage and in this article the origins, role and types of pilgrimage are described.
On Christmas Eve last, the Pope opened a door at St Peter's Basilica that had been bricked up since Epiphany 1976. In doing so he declared the start of the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000. This Jubilee Year will last until the end of the following Christmas season, Epiphany 2001. (The Jubilee Year thus avoids arguments about when the twenty-first century begins by including both 1 January 2000 and 1 January 2001.) In doing so, the Pope has followed a long tradition that dates back to Boniface VIII (12941303), who inaugurated the first Jubilee year in 1300. During the Holy Year, the faithful are invited to make a pilgrimage to Rome, and in Rome to make pilgrimage to the four major basilicas (St Peter's, St Paul's, St John the Lateran1 and St Mary Major). Such a pilgrimage, together with confession and participation in worship entitles the pilgrim to an indulgence, a remission of the punishment due for sin. The indulgence can be claimed without going to Rome, as part of a pilgrimage and act of worship at a local shrine, but it is clear that pilgrimage to Rome remains the model. Similarly the Pope himself has committed himself to journeying to Sarajevo and to Jerusalem, and a pilgrimage through Egypt to Damascus, following the patriarchs, the exodus and the conversion of St Paul, as part of the celebration of the Jubilee.2
The immediate origins of the Jubilee year lie in the popular religious movement of the High Middle Ages.3 1299 saw a variety of rumours circulating around Europe, not least that 1300 would be a Jubilee Year. Many pilgrims came to Rome for Christmas feeling that Pope Boniface, at the time enjoying the high point of his career, decided belatedly to regularise the occurrence. His Bull, Antiquorum Relatio of 22 February 1300 announced the Jubilee and brought even more pilgrims into Rome. Both the city of Rome and the papacy enjoying the profits this brought. Prior to 1300, there had been Jubilee celebrations at...