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Walsingham is a village (actually two conjoined villages: Little Walsingham and Great Walsingham) in the English county of Norfolk. The village is famed for its religious shrines in honour of the Virgin Mary and as a major pilgrimage centre. It also contains the ruins of two medieval monastic houses.〔Ordnance Survey (2002). ''OS Explorer Map 251 - Norfolk Coast Central''. ISBN 0-319-21887-2.〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】 Welcome to Walsingham )〕 The civil parish, which includes the two Walsinghams, together with the depopulated medieval village of Egmere (), has an area of 18.98 km² and in the 2001 census had a population of 864 in 397 households, the population decreasing to 819 at the 2011 census.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Civil Parish population 2011 )〕 For the purposes of local government the parish falls within the district of North Norfolk.〔Office for National Statistics & Norfolk County Council (2001). ''(Census population and household counts for unparished urban areas and all parishes )''. Retrieved December 2, 2005.〕 Walsingham became a major centre of pilgrimage. In 1061, according to the Walsingham legend, a Saxon noblewoman, Richeldis de Faverches, had a vision of the Virgin Mary in which she was instructed to build a replica of the house of the Holy Family in Nazareth in honour of the Annunciation. Her family name does not appear in the Domesday Book. When it was built, the Holy House in Walsingham was panelled with wood and contained a wooden statue of an enthroned Virgin Mary with the child Jesus seated on her lap. Among its relics was a phial of the Virgin's milk. Walsingham became one of northern Europe's great places of pilgrimage and remained so through most of the Middle Ages. ==Governance== An electoral ward in the same name exists. This ward stretches south to Sculthorpe with a total population taken at the 2011 census of 2,167.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Ward population 2011 )〕 ==Priory== (詳細はpriory of Canons Regular was established on the site in 1153, a few miles from the sea in the northern part of Norfolk and it grew in importance over the following centuries. Founded in the time of Edward the Confessor, the Chapel of Our Lady of Walsingham was confirmed to the Augustinian Canons a century later and enclosed within the priory. From the first, the shrine was a famous place of pilgrimage and the faithful came from all parts of England and the Continent until the destruction of the priory under King Henry VIII in 1538. To this day the main road of the pilgrims through Newmarket, Brandon and Fakenham is still called the Palmers' (Pilgrims') Way. Many were the gifts of lands, rents and churches to the canons of Walsingham and many were the miracles sought and claimed at the shrine. Several English kings visited the shrine, including Henry III (1231 or 1241), Edward I (1289 and 1296), Edward II in 1315, Edward III in 1361, Henry VI in 1455, Henry VII in 1487 and finally Henry VIII, who was later responsible for its destruction when the shrine and abbey perished in the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Erasmus, in fulfilment of a vow, made a pilgrimage from Cambridge in 1511 and left as his offering a set of Greek verses expressive of his piety. Thirteen years later he wrote his colloquy on pilgrimages, wherein the wealth and magnificence of Walsingham are set forth and some of the reputed miracles rationalised. Two of Henry VIII's wives — Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn — made pilgrimages to the shrine. In 1537 while the last Prior, Richard Vowell, was paying obsequious respect to Thomas Cromwell, the Sub-Prior, Nicholas Milcham, was charged with conspiring to rebel against the suppression of the lesser monasteries and, on flimsy evidence, was convicted of high treason and hanged outside the Priory walls. Eleven people in all, including two lay choristers who had been instrumental in organising the revolt were hanged, drawn and quartered. What they feared would happen came the following year. In the July Prior Vowell assented to the destruction of Walsingham Priory and assisted the king's commissioners in the removal of the figure of Our Lady and many of the gold and silver ornaments and in the general spoliation of the shrine. For his ready compliance the Prior received a pension of 100 pounds a year, a large sum in those days, while 15 of the canons received pensions varying from four to six pounds. With the shrine dismantled and the priory destroyed, the site was sold by order of Henry VIII to Thomas Sidney for 90 pounds and a private mansion was subsequently erected on the spot. Gold and silver from the shrine was taken to London along with the statue of Mary and John (Jesus) which was later burnt. The fall of the monastery gave rise to the anonymous Elizabethan ballad, ''The Walsingham Lament'', on what the Norfolk people felt at the loss of their Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham. The ballad includes the lines: :''Weep Weep O Walsingam,'' :''Whose dayes are nights,'' :''Blessings turned to blasphemies,'' :''Holy deeds to despites'' :''Sinne is where our Ladye sate,'' :''Heaven turned is to helle;'' :''Satan sitthe where our Lord did swaye,'' :''Walsingham O farewell!'' 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Walsingham」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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