¹ Thompson, Stith, Motif-Index of Folk-Literature, 5 vols (Copenhagen, 1955-58), 1, entries A972-A972.6; Janet Bord, Footprints in Stone (Loughborough, 2004) is a useful popular survey of this phenomenon, only some features of which are discussed in the current essay.Google Scholar

² See Aksland, Markus, The Sacred Footprint (Oslo, 1990); Perween Hasan, ‘The Footprint of the Prophet’, Muqarnas 10 (1993), 335–43; Anthony Welch,‘The Shrine of the Holy Footprint in Delhi’, Muqarnas 14 (1997), 166–78; Jacob N. Kinnard,‘The Polyvalent Pãdas of Visnu and the Buddha’, History of Religions 40 (2000), 32–57.Google Scholar

³ Kinnard, ‘Polyvalent Pãdas’, 38.

⁴ See Bradley, Richard, The Archaeology of Natural Places (London, 2000).Google Scholar

⁵ See my The Reformation of the Landscape: Religion, Identity and Memory in Early Modern Britain and Ireland (Oxford, forthcoming). For two earlier discussions of aspects of these themes, see Thomas, Keith, Man and the Natural World: Changing Attitudes in England 1500–1800 (Harmondsworth, 1983)Google Scholar; Schama, Simon, Landscape and Memory (London, 1995).Google Scholar

⁶ Flint, Valerie I.J., The Rise of Magic in Early Medieval Europe (Oxford, 1991), esp.211, 261–62, 406 n. 17Google Scholar; Blair, John, The Church in Anglo-Saxon Society (Oxford, 2005), 471–89.Google Scholar

⁷ Arnold, John Charles, ‘Arcadia becomes Jerusalem: Angelic Caverns and Shrine Conversion in Monte Gargano’, Speculum 75 (2000), 567–88.Google Scholar

⁸ See Reinach, S., ‘Les monuments de pierre brute’, Revue Archéologique 21 (1893), 195—223;Google Scholar and Bord, Footprints, chs 4—5 for an overview. For examples, see The Life of St Samson of Dol, ed. Taylor, Thomas (London, 1925), 96; and, in this volume, Raymond Gillespie,‘Devotional Landscapes: God, Saints and the Natural World’, 217–36.Google Scholar

⁹ Rhigyfarch’s Life of St David, ed. James, J. W. (Cardiff, 1967), 32.Google Scholar

¹⁰ For sensitive treatments of these contentious themes, see Delehaye, Hippolyte, The Legends of the Saints, trans. Donald Attwater (Dublin, 1998; first pubi. 1955)Google Scholar, ch. 6; Brown, Peter, The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity (Chicago, IL, 1981)Google Scholar; Howe, John, ‘Creating Symbolic Landscapes: Medieval Development of Sacred Space’, in Howe, John and Wolfe, Michael, eds, Inventing Medieval Landscapes: Senses of Place in Western Europe (Gainesville, FL, 2002), 208–23.Google Scholar

¹¹ See Thacker, Alan and Sharpe, Richard, eds, Local Saints and Local Churches in the Early Medieval West (Oxford, 2002), esp. the essays by John Reuben Davies, Thomas Owen Clancy, Catherine Cubitt and John Blair.Google Scholar

¹² To use Ronald Finucane’s phrase, in his Miracles and Pilgrims: Popular Beliefs in Medieval England (London, 1977), 26.

¹³ See Rollason, D.W., The Mildrith Legend: A Study in Early Medieval Hagiography in England (Leicester, 1982), 36, 67, 78, 132; Alan Smith,‘St Augustine of Canterbury in History and Tradition’, Folklore 89 (1978), 23–28.Google Scholar

¹⁴ See Martin, Martin, A Description of the Western Islands of Scotland (London, 1703), 367.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Brigid, On and Kevin, , see Ailbe Séamus Mac Shamráin, Church and Polity in Pre-Norman Ireland:The Case of Glendalough (Maynooth, 1996), 39–40; Bord, Footprints, 61–63. On Uinniau, see Thomas Owen Clancy,‘Scottish Saints and National Identities in the Early Middle Ages’, in Thacker and Sharpe, eds, Local Saints and Local Churches, 397–421, at 412.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Whiting, Robert, The Blind Devotion of the People: Popular Religion and the English Reformation (Cambridge, 1989), 58, 64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁷ Cambridge, CUL, MS Additional 3041, Nicholas Roscarrock, ‘Alphebitt of Saints’, fol. 304^r.

¹⁸ Calvin, John, A Very Profitable Treatise … Declarynge what Great Profit Might Come to al Christendome, yf there were a Regester Made of all Sainctes Bodies and other Reliques, trans. Steven Wythers (London, 1561), sigs EI^r-v and D5^v respectively.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Lambarde, William, A Perambulation of Kent (London, 1576), 81–82.Google Scholar

²⁰ London, BL, MS Sloane 1322, Robert Hegge,‘The Legend of St Cuthbert with the Antiquities of the Church of Durham’, fol. 5^r.

²¹ Henry Jones, Saint Patricks Purgatory: Containing the Description, Originall, Progresse, and Demolition of that Superstition Place (London, 1647), 130.

²² Dublin, Trinity College, MS 830, Depositions concerning murder and robberies committed in the counties of Roscommon and Galway, fol. 28^r. The page is fragmented at the edge, and it is unclear which part of the anatomy is under discussion.

²³ The Tour of the French Traveller M. de la Boullaye le Gouz in Ireland, A.D. 1644, ed. T. Crofton Croker (London, 1837), 30; Richardson, John, The Great Folly, Superstition and Idolatry of Pilgrimages in Ireland (Dublin, 1727), 69.Google Scholar

²⁴ CUL, MS Add. 3041, fols 87^v, 217^v, and see fol. 314^r on St Brigid. Mildreth’s footprints are recorded in a manuscript collection of the lives of women saints of Britain and Ireland compiled e. 1610—15: The Lives of Women Saints of our Contrie of England, ed. C. Horstmann, EETS os 86 (1886), 63.

²⁵ Schama, Landscape and Memory, 436—37.

²⁶ See Bord, Footprints, 38, for a reproduction of one such pilgrimage token, and Antony Wootton, A Defence of M. Perkins Booke, Called A Reformed Catholike (London, 1606), 390, for the Spanish image of the Virgin’s foot.

²⁷ Walker, George, God Made Visible in his Workes, or, A Treatise of the Externall Workes of God (London, 1641), 12 Google Scholar. See also Calvin, John, A Commentarie … upon the First Booke of Moses called Genesis, trans. Tymme, Thomas (London, 1578), 25–49 Google Scholar; Babington, Gervase, Certaine Plaine, Briefe, and Comfortable Notes upon Everie Chapter of Genesis (London, 1592)Google Scholar, fols 1^r-7^v; William Pemble, Workes (London, 1635), 265–69. See also Schreiner, Susan E., The Theater of his Glory: Nature and the Natural Order in the Thought of John Calvin (Durham, NC, 1991).Google Scholar

²⁸ Brinkmair, L., The Warnings of Germany (London, 1638), sig. *2^V.Google Scholar

²⁹ Hugh Binning, Fellowship with God (Edinburgh, 1671), 19–20; Manton, Thomas, One Hundred and Ninety Sermons on the Hundred and Nineteenth Psalm (London, 1681), 495 Google Scholar. See also Calvin, John, Sermons … upon the X. Commandementes of the Lawe, trans. I. H. (London, 1579), fol. 29^r-v.Google Scholar

³⁰ e.g. Ames, William, The Marrow of Sacred Divinity (London, 1642), 28 Google Scholar; Ray, John, The Wisdom of God Manifested in the Works of the Creation (London, 1691), sig. A6^V Google Scholar; Borlase, William, The Natural History of Cornwall (Oxford, 1758), iv.Google Scholar

³¹ Calvin, John, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1.11.1–2, trans. Henry Beveridge, 2 vols in 1 (Grand Rapids, MI, 1989), 1: 91.Google Scholar

³² See my Providence in Early Modern England (Oxford, 1999).

³³ See Clark, Stuart, Thinking with Demons: The Idea of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe (Oxford, 1997), esp. ch. 11.Google Scholar

³⁴ Calvin, Very Profitable Treatise, sig. E^v: ‘I dispute not weather Jesus Christ coulde have imprinted the fourme and fashion of hys fete on a stone. But I only dispute of the facte’.

³⁵ For a fuller exposition of this approach to folklore, see Walsham, Reformation of the Landscape, ch. 7. A more sceptical assessment of its value can be found in Scribner, Robert W, ‘Luther Myth: A Popular Historiography of the Reformer’, in his Popular Culture and Popular Movements in Reformation Germany (London, 1987), 301–22, at 321–22.Google Scholar

³⁶ For recognition of the role of pre- and post-Reformation Christianity in shaping such traditions, see Simpson, Jacqueline, ‘God’s Visible Judgements: The Christian Dimension of Landscape Legends’, Landscape History 8 (1986), 53—58; eadem,‘The Local Legend: A Product of Popular Culture’, Rural History 2 (1991), 25–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³⁷ Harland, John and Wilkinson, T. T., Lancashire Folk-Lore (London, 1882), 135—37 Google Scholar; Hole, Christina, Traditions and Customs of Cheshire (London, 1937), 206; Bord, Footprints, 145–46.Google Scholar

³⁸ Foxe, John, Actes and Monuments (London, 1563), 1118–29 Google Scholar; Smith, William and Webb, William, The Vale-Royall of England. Or, the County Palatine of Chester Illustrated (London, 1656), 197.Google Scholar

³⁹ ODNB, s.n. ‘Arrowsmith, Edmund’. The incumbent between 1603 and 1629 was Bennett, William: Farrer, William and Brownhill, J., eds, VCH Lancashire, 8 vols (1906–14), 6: 80.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Camm, Bede, Forgotten Shrines: An Account of some Old Catholic Halls and Families in England and of Relics and Memorials of the English Martyrs (London, 1910), 195 Google Scholar; Baines, Edward, History of the County Palatine and Duchy of Lancaster, 4 vols (London, 1836), 3: 498.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Cited in Watts, Michael R., The Dissenters, I: From the Reformation to the French Revolution (Oxford, 1978), 230–31.Google Scholar

⁴² Notes and Queries, ser. 3,9 (1866), 205,277; ser. 3, Io (1866), 189–90; ser. 4,9 (1872), 494, 542; Gutch, Mrs and Peacock, Mabel, Examples of Printed Folk-Lore Concerning Lincolnshire, County Folk-Lore 5 (London, 1908), 3–4; Bord, Footprints, 47.Google Scholar

⁴³ Nicholson, John, Folk Lore of East Yorkshire (London, 1890), 55.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Among others, see John W. B. Tomlinson, ‘The Magic Methodists and their Influence on the Early Primitive Methodist Movement’, in Cooper, Kate and Gregory, Jeremy, eds, Signs, Wonders, Miracles: Representations of Divine Power in the Life of the Church, SCH 41 (Woodbridge, 2005), 389–99. Forthcoming work by John Walsh will also illuminate this theme.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Bord, Footprints, 48.

⁴⁶ Fleming, Abraham, A Straunge and Terrible Wunder Wrought Very Late in the Parish Church of Bongay (London, 1577), sig. A6^V.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ See also Walsham, Providence, 186–94.

⁴⁸ MrsGutch, , Examples of Printed Folk-Lore Concerning the North Riding of Yorkshire, York and the Ainsty (London, 1901), 3–4.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Tour, ed. Crofton Croker, 102–103.

⁵⁰ Blomefield, Francis, An Essay towards a Topographical History of the County of Norfolk, 5 vols (London, 1739), 1: 157 Google Scholar. On this process, see Woolf, Daniel, The Social Gradation of the Past: English Historical Culture 1500–1700 (Oxford, 2003), 191–97.Google Scholar

⁵¹ Duncumb, John et al., Collections Towards the History and Antiquities of the County of Hereford, 6 vols (Hereford, 1804—1912), 2: 196 Google Scholar; Leather, Ella Mary, The Folk-Lore of Herefordshire (Hereford, 1912), 6-7 Google Scholar; Westwood, Jennifer, Albion: A Guide to Legendary Britain (London, 1987), 319–20. For Roscarrock’s Catholic account of the tale incorporating St Katherine, see CUL, MS Add. 3041, fol. 116^v.Google Scholar

⁵² Rublack, Ulinka, Reformation Europe (Cambridge, 2005), 157.Google Scholar