Brewer's: Palmer

A pilgrim privileged to carry a palm-staff: In Fosbroke's British Monachism we read that “certain prayers and psalms being said over the pilgrims, as they lay prostrate before the altar, they were sprinkled with holy water, and received a consecrated palm-staff. Palmers differed from pilgrims in this respect: a pilgrim made his pilgrimage and returned to public or private life; but a palmer spent all his days in visiting holy shrines, and lived on charity.”

His sandals were with travel tore, Staff, budget, bottle, scrip he wore; The faded palm-branch in his hand Showed pilgrim from the Holy Land.

SirWalterScott: Marmion, i. 27.

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
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