Abstract: Between us and the medieval men and women who went on pilgrimage there stand many impediments to understanding: the Reformation, the Enlightenment, secularisation. This lecture will explore how tracing ancient routes on foot, and experiencing travel as people did in an age before trains and cars, can offer insights into the past. But is the sense of being accompanied by ghosts a delusion? Tom Holland will draw on experiences of reading Chaucer and undertaking pilgrimages during and after the pandemic.
Tom Holland is an award-winning historian, biographer and broadcaster. You can visit his website or follow Tom on X/Twitter.
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Wonderful @RoyalHistSoc talk this evening from @holland_tom exploring how experience informs historical understanding – and how challenging it is to us to accept the reality of spiritual / material transformation in pre-modern culture pic.twitter.com/tVuc5RVevg
Pilgrimages, Pandemics and the Past
Lecture by Tom Holland
Given at Gresham College on November 7, 2023
Abstract: Between us and the medieval men and women who went on pilgrimage there stand many impediments to understanding: the Reformation, the Enlightenment, secularisation. This lecture will explore how tracing ancient routes on foot, and experiencing travel as people did in an age before trains and cars, can offer insights into the past. But is the sense of being accompanied by ghosts a delusion? Tom Holland will draw on experiences of reading Chaucer and undertaking pilgrimages during and after the pandemic.
Tom Holland is an award-winning historian, biographer and broadcaster. You can visit his website or follow Tom on X/Twitter.
You can get more details and a transcript of this lecture from Gresham College.
Top Image: The Canterbury Tales – printed by Richard Pynson, 1492
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