Drinking Water by James Salzman

Author:James Salzman [SALZMAN, JAMES]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Tags: HIS000000, SCI081000
ISBN: 9781468306750
Publisher: Overlook
Published: 2012-10-09T16:00:00+00:00

This incredible—truly incredible—tale invented at Winchcombe Abbey was a likely result of such boosterism, as pilgrimage sites competed with one another to get a cut from the revenue stream. One can just imagine the enterprising pilgrimage marketing materials. “You think going on pilgrimage to St. Maelrubha’s Well is holy? Just listen to what happened at Winchcombe Abbey! Exploding eyeballs!”

The intense interest in visiting such holy places and offering contributions created a sizable stream of revenue to Church coffers. In fact, the Church often had well-managed staff in place precisely to gather the pilgrims’ offerings. Holy wells had strongboxes strategically located to accept donations, and priests collected the daily inflow. The take could be huge.

The Church was not entirely corrupt, of course, and men of good faith were troubled by this practice. Thus one can find a series of canons and laws from the period that forbade pilgrims to travel to wells and holy water sites or to worship there. King Egbert declared in the ninth century, “If any keep his wake at any wells, or at any other created things except at God’s church, let him fast three years, the first on bread and water, and the other two, on Wednesdays and Fridays, on bread and water; and on the other days let him eat his meat, but without flesh.” The Bishop of Lincoln actually threatened to excommunicate pilgrims journeying to holy wells in Buckinghamshire. These paternalistic efforts to protect pilgrims and their money seem to have had little effect. The allure of holy wells and their sacred waters was just too strong.

So how do these stories of holy waters and pilgrims explain the rise of bottled water?

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