According to the tradition preserved in the ballad, Richeldis had a series of three visions in which the Virgin Mary appeared to her.[1] In these visions Richeldis was shown the house of the Annunciation in Nazareth and was told to build a replica of the house in Walsingham as a place of pilgrimage where people could honour the Virgin Mary. Mary is said to have promised, "Whoever seeks my help there will not go away empty-handed."[2]
According to the same tradition, there were early construction problems. One night, Richeldis heard singing and went out to her garden where she found that the little house had been completed about two hundred yards from the site of the original construction. Richeldis saw what she took to be angels leaving the now completed building.[3] The original Holy House was a simple wooden structure measuring approximately 24 ft. by 13 ft., with four small turrets and a central tower. The 'Holy House' was later encased in stone to protect it from the elements.[2]
Based upon a review of relevant documents, historian J.C. Dickinson (1959) posits a later date for the foundation of the shrine, sometime between 1130 and 1153, the founding of the nearby priory.[4] The Richeldis identified by J.C. Dickinson died in 1145, leaving her estate to her son. Before leaving to join the Second Crusade, Lord Geoffrey de Faverches had left the Holy House and its grounds to his chaplain, Edwin, to establish a religious order to care for the chapel of Our Lady of Walsingham. As travelling abroad became more difficult during the time of the Crusades, Walsingham became a place of pilgrimage, ranking alongside Jerusalem, Rome and Santiago de Compostella.[5]
The historian Henrietta Leyser also rejects the date of 1061, arguing that Richeldis flourished around 1130 and the family is not recorded in the Domesday Book as landowners in the area.[6]
