This database Bedevaart en bedevaartplaatsen in Nederland is continuously maintained and updated. It also allows visitors to submit additions and possible corrections. In addition, the BiN database is also slowly being expanded by the Meertens Institute and the Catholic Documentation Centre with new search options and data on other forms of pilgrimage and pilgrimage.
Pilgrim routes
The Netherlands has an increasing number of walking routes. Some of them are referred to as pilgrims’ routes (or with a related designation). They are generally newly formed paths that are walked and experienced as pilgrims’ routes. This database is limited to paths located in the Netherlands. This database is under construction.
Find contemporary pilgrims’ routes in the Netherlands
Foreign places of pilgrimage
Not only do Dutch people visit places of pilgrimage in the Netherlands, over the centuries they have also travelled to places abroad. Below you can search for which places this has been the case. These are not descriptions of the places or the pilgrimage as in BiN, but only basic data to identify those places and to refer to the physical information files in the BiN archive in the KDC in Nijmegen, where more information on those places can be found. This file is under construction.
Find pilgrimage sites abroad visited by Dutch people
Disqualified cult sites
The ‘Pilgrimage sites in the Netherlands’ project also investigated hundreds of sites that were once listed as pilgrimage sites, but which ultimately turned out not to be pilgrimage sites because of erroneous attribution. Often this involved saint worship that was only local or there were no clear data to substantiate it. However, these cults were often described at the time. These descriptions can now also be consulted. The file is under construction.
Patron saints
Below is a link to a related Meertens database concerning a number of patron saints of humans and animals and saints for invoking fine or favourable weather. The information was collected using a questionnaire from 1959 and so, as a rule, data have validity only for (around) the year 1959.
Unlike the Pilgrimage Bank, this database contains data on both the Netherlands and also Flanders. These are mostly local saint venerations, which sometimes also have a pilgrimage character and then also appear in the BiN database as (Dutch) places of pilgrimage.
Lourdes caves
Below is a photo series of a number of Lourdes caves in Limburg. These are photos taken in 2019-2020 by Rudi van Delden and Daniël Siegersma with a technical Phase One IQ150 camera. Some of these caves also appear as pilgrimage sites in the BiN database.
