Religion, Popular Piety, Patchwork Religion

Abstract

The preceding article on “The Wanderer as a prototype of late modern religiousness” ended by pointing out the character of the pilgrim. The working title of this article was “Patchwork religion – an old hat”. Thus the question arose how the three terms – pilgrim – hat – patchwork religion could be matched: they do so in the image of the pilgrim on the Road to Santiago de Compostela, one of the most important pilgrimages of the Middle Ages. One of the special features was the pilgrim’s hat with the deep sea scallop. The Road to Santiago de Compostela and the legends around it are themselves already part of a patchwork religion. The name of the apostle James (the Elder) is handed down in the New Testament (he was executed around 40 AD according to the Acts of the Apostles 12, 1-2), but we have little additional information. The rest is legend, in part older legends, which were connected with James. Furthermore, political considerations played a role – he was declared patron of the Reconquista. The golden age of pilgrimage was from the 11 th to the 15th century and today, the Road to Santiago de Compostela is once again very popular – not in order to go to heaven but as a means to find oneself (annually, approximately 200000 pilgrims and 10 million tourists).

This article is based on a research project of several years. The first research report was published in 2004: Denz, H., Tschaikner, M.: “Hexenglaube, Alltagsmagie und Naturheilkunde im Bregenzerwald”. Within the framework of the project, 14 interviews on traditional everyday magic (Interviews A through Q) as well as 6 interviews on postmodern forms (Interviews R through W) were carried out and 7 mostly handwritten sources of varying lengths (Sources AA through GG) were collected. The interviews were low structured expert interviews (the interviews were preceded by a questioning of potential interview partners in order to identify the experts). For a number of theoretical and practical reasons, the feminine perspective is the focus of attention, which is why mostly women were interviewed.