YOU may well have been naïvely assuming that pilgrimage, a “spiritual journey to a sacred place”, is, on the whole, a fairly neutral experience: a journey of some distance, often made on foot, sometimes incurring an element of mild physical challenge, ending in an interesting visit to a famous historic site, occasioning a warm glow of satisfaction and a sense of achievement at its end. If there is an added dimension of spiritual growth, psychological transformation, inner enlightenment and/or epiphany, prayer answered, forgiveness obtained, so much the better.

Should you wish to maintain this delusion, it is best not to read this book.

At first glance, Holy Places is almost a gazetteer of famous and not-so-well-known pilgrim sites established by different faiths throughout the centuries. This would be to do it a real injustice. Kathryn Hurlock gives us a meticulously, almost relentlessly, researched examination of the cycles of development and decline, prosperity and poverty, which have constituted the history of these places.

In the exploration of this, she has laid out the extraordinary complexity of the pilgrim site, and the significant influence that they have had on the economic, political, and social development of the locations in which they are to be found. Throughout history, across continents, and within all faiths, pilgrimage has played a critical part not only in the story of the spiritual life of humanity, but in the changes that we have made to our environments, both physical and psychological.

Pilgrim sites have been used to gain and maintain political control, demonstrate religious power, and shore up legitimacy. They have provided opportunities to facilitate cultural exchange, encourage community cohesion, reinforce group identity, and enact legislation. They have been a pretext for conspiracy, a statement of political loyalty, a focus of unity, and a warning against rebellion, as well as a focal point for the hopes and aspirations, dreams and desires, of every type and level of society.

The movement of millions of people has provided livelihoods for millions more, supporting the economies of entire cities, determining trade routes, and facilitating the spread of news and ideas, as well as of material goods. Pilgrim places have witnessed massacres, spread diseases, altered ancient ways of living, been exploited by pilgrims, and exploited them in turn. They are places of power, both secular and spiritual; and the wise have always known this.

This is a grown-up read: it is densely written, thoughtful, and covers a vast topic with efficiency and insight. It will make you look again at the act of pilgrimage; and from your increased depth of understanding of its rich and layered history will, I hope, come a more profound, if more equivocal, understanding of the subject.

The Revd Dr Sally Welch is Vicar of the Kington Group in the diocese of Hereford.

Holy Places: How pilgrimage changed the world
Kathryn Hurlock
Profile £22*
(978-1-80081-743-2)
Church Times Bookshop £19.80
*paperback out in March at £12.99 (£11.69); 978-1-80081-744-9