‘Far is Rome from Lcohlong’: Gaels and Scandinavians on Pilgrimage and Crusade, c. 1000 – c. 1300
To what extent was the Mediterranean terra incognita to the inhabitants of the fringes of northwestern Europe – Gaels and Scandinavians – in the central Middle Ages?
‘Pilgrimage’, pilgrimage, and writing historical fiction
Dr. Pick discusses how she wrote and published a historical novel and the connection between academic writing and writing for a broader audience.
The Schola Saxonum and the Borgo in Rome
During the Anglo-Saxon era in England, there were many pilgrims to Rome. A community existed in Rome where these pilgrims would stay called the Schola Anglorum or Schola Saxonum.
Real and imaginary journeys in the later Middle Ages
For a proper understanding of the actions of men in the past it is necessary to have some idea of how they conceived the world and their place in it, yet for the medieval period there is a serious inbalance in the sources.
The Kingdom, the Power and the Glory: the Albigensian Crusade and the Subjugation of the Languedoc
In March of 1208, Pope Innocent III preached the Albigensian Crusade. The crusade, which covered an area from Agen to Avignon and the Pyrenees to Cahors, initiated a new phase in the already strained relationship between the Catholic Church and the Languedoc.
The Knight, the Hermit, and the Pope: Some Problematic Narratives of Early Crusading Piety
A much more general question, one that extends beyond the geographic confines of the Limousin and the period between 27 December 1095 and 15 August 1096 is why an individual choose to confront any of these difficulties at all. Why did they go?
“Viking” Pilgrimage to the Holy Land fram! fram! cristmenn, crossmenn, konungsmenn! (Oláfs saga helga, ch. 224.)
The Viking predilection for travel and adventure made it easy for Christianized Scandinavians to adopt the idea of pilgrimage. It was, after all, not entirely unlike their own secular tradition of going a-viking.
CONFERENCES: Count Hugh of Troyes and the Crusading Nexus of Champagne
This is my summary of a paper given at the Institute of Historical Research at the University of London.
Leiðarvísir: Its Genre and Sources, with Particular Reference to the Description of Rome
For the last two centuries, Leiðarvísir has been the subject of great interest by scholars from a variety of disciplines: not only Old Norse scholars, but also historians, geographers, toponymists and scholars of pilgrimage have studied and analysed this work.
Researchers trace medieval pilgrimage route in Scotland
A report released earlier this month has revealed the ways medieval pilgrims would travel to the one of Scotland’s most holiest sites.
Mass Pilgrimage and the Christological Context of the First Crusade
The importance of Jerusalem as a holy city for Christians serves as a starting point for understanding the motivations of eleventh-century pilgrims.
Saint Patrick’s Purgatory: a fresco in Todi, Italy
This essay deals with the tradition of the revelation of Purgatory to St. Patrick on Station Island in Lough Derg, whose popularity is testified not only in literary texts in the various languages of Medieval Europe but also in a unique work of art in the convent of the Sisters of Saint Clair at Todi, Umbria
Movement Through Stillness: Imagined Pilgrimage in Medieval Europe
This paper examines the phenomenon of ‘spiritual’ or ‘imagined’ pilgrimage in Medieval Europe.
The “Discrete Occupational Identity” of Chaucer’s Knyght
Popular critical opinion favors reading the pilgrim Knyght of Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales as the representative of the idealized chivalric knight; however, the pilgrim Knyght bears the hallmark of the early professional soldier that began to evolve as early as the eleventh century.
Holy War and the home front : the crusading culture of Berry, France in the eleventh through thirteenth centuries
Le Berry, in the geographical centre of France, developed its own “crusading culture” that both affected the ideas of the people living there and effected new institutions and traditions in that society pertaining to the crusades.
Experience and Meaning in the Cathedral Labyrinth Pilgrimage
A medieval design based in Sacred Geometry principles, this unicursal path through concentric circles is a metaphorical container for spiritualjourneying.
Criminal Behaviour by Pilgrims in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period
In the early and high Middle Ages, an introspective religiosity was predominant and supported by Benedictine and Cistercian monks; thus, pil- grimages to holy places were neither as popular nor practiced as they were in the period from the late Middle Ages onwards.
The First Jubilee
How did this tradition of Papal Jubilees start in the Middle Ages?
A Medieval Peace Movement: The Bianchi of 1399
‘It was truly an extraordinary thing, an amazing business!’ – the Bianchi in 1399 – a medieval peace movement in Italy
A Climate for Crusades? Weather, climate and armed pilgrimage to the Holy Land (11th–14th Century)
The crusaders found themselves confronted not only with foreign cultures and violent armed resistance, but also with an alien natural environment and climatic conditions that could prove to be sometimes just as fatal as the arrows of the enemy.
Auðun of the West-Fjords and the Saga Tradition: Similarities of Theme and Structural Suitability
Auðun of the West-Fjords and the Saga Tradition: Similarities of Theme and Structural Suitability Josie Nolan (Trinity College Dublin) Vexillum, Vol.3 (2013) Abstract…
Holy Meditations and Earthly Curiosities: Understanding Late Medieval Pilgrims to Jerusalem
There were many worthy sites along the way, destinations in themselves, but Jerusalem in particular was unrivaled. It lured pilgrims to face death just to stand upon Mountjoy, that fabled vantage point overlooking the city.
Ibn Jubayr: The Rihla
Abu ‘l-Husayn Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Jubayr (1145-1217) was not an exceptional man. As a relatively ordinary, middle-aged Muslim, Ibn Jubayr was neither the first nor the last to leave Al-Andalus to perform the hajj. Admiring kings only from afar, the closest that Ibn Jubayr came to royalty were encounters with imperial tax collectors. Paradoxically though, it is precisely Ibn Jubayr’s lack of distinction that helped earn him repute throughout the Islamic world in his time. It also makes him the ideal subject of the present study.
Representations of English Women and their Pilgrimages in Twelfth-Century Miracle Collections
Drawing on a survey of sixteen miracle collections compiled in twelfth-century England, the study examines the representation of women as pilgrims, and demonstrates that many modern assumptions about female travel in the Middle Ages are not consistent with the miracle accounts.