The current appreciation of El Camino, the pilgrim route to Santiago de Compostela, is the climb of the Pyrenees from south-west France and the descent towards journey’s end at the shrine of St James the Great. But that is, and always has been, for the majority only the last leg. In the Middle Ages Compostela ranked beside Rome as the great devotional pilgrimage whether the pilgrim set out from Britain, Scandinavia, northern or eastern Europe. If from eastern Europe the pilgrim would cross Austria to reach Switzerland and then France. If from what is now Slovakia he would cross the Danube at Bratislava and walk steadily eastwards on the High Road to reach the Swiss border at Feldkirch. If from Hungary he might enter Austria close to Gratz and turn south to reach the Drau in what is now Slovenia, and then follow its course westwards to its source in Sud Tyrol. The Reinz would then lead him on to the Brenner Pass, descending to join the High Road in Innsbruck. If from what is now the Czech Republic or from eastern Bavaria he would join the Inn at Passau and follow it south via Kufstein, again to join the High Road at Innsbruck. A variant runs from Passau to join the High Road at Salzburg. So within the bounds of historic Austria (Austria before the reprisals of the Great War) there were three distinct Austrian ways feeding into the Austrian High Road to Compostela.
Over the centuries of Habsburg domination of the Holy Roman Empire the use of pilgrimage as an act of devotion declined and the Austrian pilgrim paths fell into desuetude. Only in the 20th century was there a revival of interest in the road to Compostela, as people of all faiths or none sought an escape from a world of industrialisation, capitalism and consumerism. In Austria the local wanderwegen were easily linked and fused to revive the old pilgrim paths. These were then adopted by the European Union which financed their promotion and conservation.
It was by chance that I came to find them in June 2013, when I was still just a judge facing retirement at the end of the following month. After a casual taste of a day’s walk, 35 kilometres in length and 10 hours in duration, I was entranced and could not abandon the exploration of the four Austrian paths. As though magnetic, they drew me away from my life in England. My technique was to fly to Vienna and to take the train to the start of my next stage, always the end of the stage before. I would then walk for up to five consecutive days before breaking off and taking the train back to Vienna. These train journeys became progressively longer as I crept, insect-like, westwards across the map of Austria.
Thanks to the Counter-Reformation and the direction of Emperor Leopold I, Austria became a conservatively Catholic country that expressed its faith in the Baroque, the movement’s architectural language. I had studied this language at its source in Rome, expounded by Bernini and Borromini, and followed it across the Alps into Bavaria, Austria, expounded by the Fischer von Erlachs, and Czechoslovakia. So as I walked nearly 2,000 kilometres across Austria and over seven years of my life I stopped at every parish church and at every religious house. There are few medieval parish churches that were not extensively reinterpreted in the language of the baroque and then cherished, resisting all opportunities for further change. A considerable number are dedicated to Saint James, reflective of his popularity and influence in the Middle Ages, and wherever practicable the Austrian paths to Compostela pass, or even deviate to pass, a church so dedicated.
The Austrian monasteries are not as widely known and appreciated as they deserve to be. They have survived many trials, particularly the reforms of the emperor Joseph II at the end of the 18th century and the invasion of Hitler in the last. On from Vienna comes Herzogenburg, then Gottweig, then the mighty Melk. The further I went the more I planned to invoke the traditional monastic obligation to shelter the pilgrim. I would arrive before Vespers in the evening and leave after Mass the following morning. Only once did the weather play a part, easily persuading me to stay on at Stift Fiecht until the deluge had run its full course. The experience of each of these stays varied greatly but all are vivid in my memory: perhaps an individual act of kindness and care, perhaps the beauty of the place or of the rendering of the Vespers for the day, perhaps the sense of the inspiration elevating the life of the community.
As I walked along the Traun from Linz I stayed the second night at Lambach Abbey and gloried at the nearby church of Stadl Paura, so ingeniously dedicated to and celebrating the Trinity. I was conscious of another and more celebrated Benedictine monastery, Kremsmünster, lying perhaps 10 km east of the path I walked. I had made it a principle always to sleep on the way, thus avoiding deviation. But the literature and the illustrations persuaded me to visit Kremsmünster as a pilgrim, but not as one following the way to Compostela. I chose the next winter, having learned that my pilgrimage was better done in the winter season.
I made contact with the Father Gastmeister and arranged a stay. That was the beginning of a relationship with him, Pater Franz, and with the community that continues to this day. I have been profoundly influenced by Kremsmünster and its influence contributed to my decision to leave the Anglican Church of my baptism and to be confirmed in the Catholic Faith. I was able to express my attachment to Kremsmünster by persuading Country Life to publish one of its weekly architectural articles on the Abbey. The article that developed was the work of John Goodall illustrated by the photographs of Will Pryce. They both excelled.
When I started the walk I was so haphazard that I had only a regional brochure from the local tourist office. It was only in a Linz bookshop that I acquired the guide to the High Road published by Kompass. They also publish guides to each of the three tributary routes. My relationship with the Kompass guides was fraught. The text was often in unnecessarily poetic German and the information and advice often outdated. Only the maps for each walking day were commendable.
So I early conceived the ambition to publish a guide in English which might fill a void for pilgrims who were more familiar with English than with German. I had started with a daily diary of each walking day, seldom dictated at the day’s end (I was too exhausted) but at the end of each return to the challenge, for such this pilgrimage became. However, what I conceived as a reliable guide upon which experienced long-distance walkers could safely rely gradually evolved into a very personal account of a long series of day journeys, quickened by anxieties, uplifted by delights and frustrated by the obscurities within the only available guide.
Gradually a text emerged as intermittently as I walked. Despite all its shortcomings I felt I had to publish my account of my journey. It might be a real help to someone minded to try even part of only one of the Austrian paths. Then it had had such an influence on my life that I needed to declare it. So gradually I moved along the road to publication. The title of the book came to me as a sudden certainty from which I never wavered. It was confessional: an admission to myself of my emotional conflicts. My heart was divided over the attraction of the so-familiar language of Anglican worship and my despair at the direction taken by Anglican leaders since the seeming certainties of my boyhood. My heart was divided by those I had loved, perhaps not wisely, over the years of pilgrimage. Above all my heart was divided between my love of my homeland and my love of Austria, its Habsburg history, its kind people and its glorious countryside.
Sir Mathew Thorpe is a former Lord Justice of Appeal. A Divided Heart: Walking the Jakobsweg in Austria is available online
This page is available to subscribers. Click here to sign in or get access.
Areas of Catholic Herald business are still recovering post-pandemic.
However, we are reaching out to the Catholic community and readership, that has been so loyal to the Catholic Herald. Please join us on our 135 year mission by supporting us.
We are raising £250,000 to safeguard the Herald as a world-leading voice in Catholic journalism and teaching.
We have been a bold and influential voice in the church since 1888, standing up for traditional Catholic culture and values. Please consider donating.