In ‘Luther and the Trajectories of Western Pilgrimage,’ Matthew R. Anderson asserts that after his long trek from Erfurt in 1510-1511, monk and Protestant reformer Martin Luther’s negative remembrances of Rome became one of the catalysts for his influential critique of pilgrimage. Luther’s fear of social unrest, Protestant theological attacks on the doctrines of merit, and Luther’s own personality solidified his antipathy to the practice. The Reformation led to the near-demise of pilgrimage in Protestant areas and the disruption of travel to those shrines that had an international draw. Because of this temporary eclipse, the rebirth of a form of international travel in the Romantic era that emphasized individualism, experience, and sentiment led to the coming of age of tourism, pilgrimage’s transformation in Catholic territories, and the wide variety of contemporary practices now referred to as pilgrimage
