Popular Marian devotion played a vital role in the Catholic Church of Germany during the early modern period, especially during the “golden age of religious revival” experienced by post-Tridentine, baroque popular Catholicism. For example, at least ninety-seven local Marian shrines scattered throughout the diocese of Augsburg attracted pilgrims in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The most famous was certainly Andechs, which drew half a million visitors each year in the seventeenth century from all over the Holy Roman Empire. In turn, Catholics from the diocese of Augsburg traveled beyond the bishopric's borders to major and minor shrines near and far, such as Altötting in Bavaria. Yet while major sites dedicated to the Virgin Mary such as Andechs and Altötting reflected the intensity of ongoing popular Marian devotions, the breadth of the Virgin Mary's cultural significance is signaled by the large number of Marian shrines within the diocese itself, such as Kobel or Violau, which were mostly small, local affairs that attracted primarily nearby populations as pilgrims and supplicants.