Where the Middle Ages Begin
This paper will explore the importance of sensory experience throughout the late twelfth to the early fifteenth-century, with a particular focus on the act of bodily participation with the divine, and how this was reflected in the architectural and visual structure of a saintly site
Pilgrimage, after Whitby, and before Vatican II, was a secular activity, a performance of piety by the laity, not by the clergy; although there were a few exceptions.7 Chaucer’s Monk, Friar, Prioress, Nun, Priest, Summoner, Pardoner and Parson ought not to be here. Their presence is outrageous comedy. Inns were forbidden to the cloistered clergy who, if they had to travel, were enjoined to stay in other monastic establishments along their route.
Isolda Parewastell from Somerset, who was in Jerusalem in 1365, fitted into this fourteenth-century pattern. Despite the risks involved, women pilgrims were inspired by an instinct for travel and change, as well as by a sense of religious obligation and the hope of spiritual reward.
Who were these pilgrims? Literally, they were hoi polloi; they came from every stratum of society, from all vocations (including the indigent and sick), and from every corner of the Christian world.
It is very difficult to estimate the exact scope of Polish pilgrimages to Santiago de
Compostela in the Middle Ages on the basis of preserved historical sources. The presence of pilgrims from Poland was mentioned in the Pilgrim Records of the Middle Ages found in the archive of the Kingdom of Aragon in Barcelona…
Much scholarship has been devoted to researching and documenting the significance and metaphysical qualities of the ringing of the bells within Christian culture. Specific efforts have been made to capture bells from defeated cathedrals as symbols of victory throughout history.
A medieval pilgrimage was a dangerous undertaking. The search for salvation and spiritual as well as physical healing could end in illness, injury, even death.
Medieval Italian pilgrims to Santiago de Compostela: New literary evidence By Gloria Allaire Journal of Medieval History, Volume 24, Issue 2 (1998) Abstract: This paper offers literary evidence of the interest in the cult of St James on the part of late medieval Italian pilgrims. While extant written itineraries are few, occasional literary references demonstrate […]
Equally vibrant developments have characterised the concurrent academic analysis of Early Islamic polemical discourse directed against Christian communities and associated monastic writers between the eighth and tenth centuries
Birgitta of Sweden and the Divine Mysteries of Motherhood Stjerna, Kirsi Feminist Forum, 24, no. 1 (1997) Abstract St. Birgitta of Sweden is most widely known as the founder of her order Regula Sanctissimi Saluatoris and as the “author” of the Revelaciones S. Birgittae, the collection of her 700 revelations. Born in 1303 to one […]
The Shepherd Goes to War: Santo Domingo Revisited Daas, Martha M.(Old Dominion University) eHumanista: Volume 11, (2008) Abstract The thirteenth century was witness to a revolution in personal piety and the Camino de Santiago represented this new age. Pilgrimage in the Middle Ages became not only a symbol of devotion, but also a powerful method […]
Music Associated with Santiago and the Pilgrimage Pederson,E.O. Perspectives on the Camino: A collection of essays on the Camino (2007) Abstract The Medieval Period The tradition of pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela is more than 1,000 years old, and over that time musical styles and tastes, indeed the very language of music itself and the […]
Recasting the Concept of the ‘Pilgrimage Church’: The Case of San Isidoro de León By Therese Martin La Corónica, A Journal of Medieval Spanish Language, Literature & Cultural Studies Vol.36:2 (2008) Introduction: What makes a building a “pilgrimage church”? When Kenneth John Conant codified the “great churches of the pilgrimage roads” in 1959, the definition […]
When Pope Urban II called for a military campaign to the Holy Land in 1095, he launched what would be the first in a series of Christian crusades. But even more than that, he advocated a form of warfare that would be pleasing to God.
Ideology and Motivations in the First Crusade By Jean Flori Palgrave Advances in the Crusades, ed. Helen J. Nicholson (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005) Introduction: The ideology of crusade did not suddenly appear with Pope Urban II’s appeal at Clermont in November 1095. Scholars now acknowledge that it resulted from a slow evolution that, in the […]
Why did people go on the First Crusade?
Who Went on the Crusades to the Holy Land? By Christopher Tyerman The Horns of Hattin: Proceedings of the Second Conference of the Society of the Crusades and the Latin East, ed. B.Z. Kedar (Jerusalem, 1992) Introduction: However the crusades to the Holy Land are regarded, the question of who undertook the journey to Jerusalem […]
Why Jerusalem? Why then? A study of the religious significance of Jerusalem to the West in 1095 Larson, Erin (Clemson University) PhD Thesis, Clemson University, May (2010) Abstract One of the fascinating aspects of this research is how what individuals believe to be true leads to collective action as a society. Research for this paper will […]
Novgorodian Travelers to the Mediterranean World in the Middle Ages Matsuki, Eizo Studies in the Mediterranean World Past and Present (1988) Abstract “Novgorod the Great,” a unique republic city state in the 12th-15th centuries, was situated at the Northwest corner of the Russian plain, not far from the Baltic Sea. It was on the northern […]
Legend, Veneration, and Nationalism: The History of Devotion and Pilgrimage to the Miraculous Icon of Our Lady of Czestochowa Młynarz, Mike (University of Alberta Edmonton, Alberta) Axis Mundi (2005/6) Abstract According to legend, St. Luke the Evangelist painted an icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which eventually found its way to a monastery in Częstochowa, […]
Allison Gray walked with a fractured foot. Megan Drohan overcame distaste for the outdoors. Jessica Hickam Roffe found meaning and confidence. These former Roanoke College students and at least three others battled blisters, injuries and exhaustion to forge a path that Spanish pilgrims once took long before them. They hiked the varied terrain of the […]
The Journey of Saint Catherine of Mount Sinai Duelt, Daniel Duran Mediterraneum: The Splendor of the Medieval Mediterranean (13th-15th centuries), ed. Xavier Barral i Altet (Lunwerg, 2004) Abstract During the Middle Ages, the monastery of Saint Catherine of Mount Sinai was a pilgrimage centre of great importance for the Christian world. The 6th century foundation by Justinian was […]
Session 47 – Thursday, May 12, 2011: The Sacred and the Secular in Medieval Healing I: Images and Objects Sponsor: AVISTA: The Association Villard de Honnecourt for the Interdisciplinary Study of Medieval Technology, Science, and Art and Medica: The Society for the Study of Healing in the Middle Ages Organizer: Barbara S. Bowers, (Ohio State […]
The Medieval Pilgrimage Business By Adrian R. Bell and Richard S. Dale Enterprise and Society (2011) Abstract: Although medieval pilgrimage has been the subject of extensive historical research, the economic and financial dimension has been somewhat neglected. This paper is an attempt to provide a synthesis of published and unpublished work on pilgrimage, focusing on […]
How you can Follow Us!