Europe was crisscrossed by a network of different types of communication routes within which pilgrimage played a key role in the dissemination of different religious cults, relics and objects, patronising artists and influencing taste. Associated with travel and pilgrimage is the copying of miraculous images, which reveals just how powerful these routes and cultural links were, albeit within well defined political frontiers. Some abbeys, convents and monasteries became major educational centres, acting not only as repositories of knowledge, but also production and cultural centres as well.