Academic literature on the topic 'Medieval pilgrimage and relics'

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the late Middle Ages was the centre of a range of pilgrimage activity in which elite and popular beliefs and practices overlapped and complicated each other in exciting ways. The Jerusalem pilgrimage, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in particular, abounded in multiple levels of ‘elite’ and ‘popular’ experience. Through the pilgrimage writings of a fifteenth-century Dominican pilgrim named Felix Fabri, this paper will explore two specific levels: the distinction between noble and lower-class experiences of the Jerusalem pilgrimage (both physical and spiritual), and the distinction between spiritually ‘elite’ and ‘popular’ conceptions of pilgrimage itself – that uneasy balance between the spiritually-sophisticated, contemplative experience of pilgrimage promoted by St Jerome and the more ‘popular’ interest in traditional ‘tourist’ activities, such as gathering indulgences or stocking up on holy souvenirs and relics to take home. However, as we will see, even these tourist acts were grounded in the orthodox spirituality of late-medieval piety, and the elite and popular experiences of pilgrimage, whether social or spiritual, were not so distinct as they may first appear.

Over the course of the early modern period, parish, monastic, and pilgrimage churches across Catholic Europe and beyond eagerly sought to acquire the relics of ancient Roman martyrs excavated from the Eternal City's catacombs. Between 1648 and 1803, the duchy of Bavaria welcomed nearly 350 of these “holy bodies” to its soil. Rather than presenting the remains as fragments, as was common during the medieval period, local communities forged catacomb saint relics into gleaming skeletons and then worked to write hagiographical narratives that made martyrs’ lives vivid and memorable to a population unfamiliar with their deeds. Closely examining the construction and material presentation of Bavarian catacomb saints as well as the vitae written for them offers a new vantage point from which to consider how the intellectual movement known as the paleo-Christian revival and the scholarship it produced were received, understood, and then used by Catholic Europeans in an everyday religious context. This article demonstrates that local Bavarian craftsmen, artists, relic decorators, priests, and nuns—along with erudite scholars in Rome—were active in bringing the early Christian church to life and participated in the revival as practitioners and creative scholars in their own right.

In England, crosses on commemorative carvings are unusual in the two centuries after the Reformation. In south-east Wales, however, there are numerous examples, in a range of styles, suggesting the work of several groups of stonemasons. A number have the IHS trigram, in the square capitals format popularised by Ignatius Loyola as the emblem of the Jesuits. Some of these memorials commemorate known recusants, but most seem to exemplify the characteristic Welsh combination of traditionalism and loyalism. There is plenty of other evidence for Welsh communities in the early modern period continuing with traditional ‘Catholic’ practices (pilgrimage, veneration of relics and wells) while still regarding themselves as members of the Established Church. Some similar stones are found over the border into Herefordshire, but there are very few in north and west Wales, suggesting that this was a purely local fashion.

AbstractThis article seeks to identify a vein of ‘Puritanism’ running through orthodox religious culture in England over the century or so prior to the Break with Rome. It suggests that alongside the strong emphasis on the sensual and material in worship, it is possible to identify a current of austere and moralistic teaching, which was guarded or sceptical about the value of relics, images and pilgrimage. In the religious ferment around the turn of the fifteenth century, such attitudes developed alongside the forms of heterodoxy known as Lollardy, but were often explicitly anti-Lollard in intention. The article argues further that the strain of ‘puritanical’ Catholicism survived and developed through the fifteenth century, and into the sixteenth, partly as a consequence of the ability of print to preserve and promote old arguments. It converged with currents of Christian humanism, as well as providing a point of connection and reception for emergent evangelical ideas in the 1520s and later. The article thus aims to shed new light on the proposition that the origins of the Reformation are best looked for within the confines of late medieval orthodoxy.

Saint Sampson, whose feast is celebrated on June 27, was depicted among holy physicians. However, his images were not frequent. He was usually accompanied with Saint Mokios (in Saint Sophia in Kiev, the Transfiguration church in the Mirozh monastery and the church of the Presentation of the Holy Virgin in the Temple in the monastery of Saint Euphrosyne; possibly also in Saint Panteleimon in Nerezi and Saint Demetrios in the village of Aiani near Kozani; furthermore, in the church of Saint Nicholas in Manastir and, afterwards, in the katholikon of the Vatopedi monastery). In a later period, he was usually shown in the vicinity of Saint Diomedes (in the churches of Saint Achillius in Arilje, Saint George in the village Vathiako on Crete, Saint Nicholas Orphanos in Thessaloniki, the Annunciation in Gracanica, the narthexes of the Hilandar katholikon and the church of the Holy Virgin in the monastery of Brontocheion at Mistra, the katholicon of the Pantokrator monastery and the church of Saint Demetrios in Markov Manastir). There are no substantial data regarding the identity of the saints depicted next to him in the metropolitan Church of Saint Demetrios at Mistra, while in a number of cases the image of the saint shown next to him has not been preserved (e.g. Saint Irene in the village of Agios Mamas on Crete, Gregory?s Gallery in the church of Saint Sophia in Ohrid and the church of the Holy Virgin (Panagia Kera) near the village Chromonastiri on Crete). On the other hand, in the church of the Holy Virgin in Mateic, Saint Sampson is, exceptionally, depicted among bishops, while in the church of the Holy Archangels in Prilep and the chapel of the Holy Anargyroi in Vatopedi, he is, as usual, surrounded by holy physicians but his mates are not featured - neither Saint Mokios, not Saint Diomedes. The earliest known commemorative text dedicated to him is the extensive hagiography - Vita Sampsonis I, composed in the seventh or the early eighth century. Other hagiographies, which mostly date from the tenth century, are completely based on the earlier writing. Such a composition can be found in the Synaxarion of the Church of Constantinople. In the extensive text (Vita Sampsonis II), Symeon Metaphrastes added a part that included detailed descriptions of a number of posthumous miracles, mostly healings; all these events are also mentioned in the short Hagiography. Finally, in the late thirteenth century, Constantine Akropolites wrote the still unpublished Hagiography (Vita Sampsonis III), in which he presented an account of events from the later history of the Saint?s hospital. The hagiographies inform us that Sampson was a Roman by birth and a kin of Emperor Constantine. He inherited a fortune, which he distributed to the poor. Then, he departed for Constantinople, where he found a modest home. Patriarch Menas ordained him a priest. Relying on the medical knowledge, Sampson was saving the sick and he even cured Emperor Justinian from an incurable disease. For that reason, the Emperor found a large house, in which he established and fully equipped a xenon (hospital, ?????), whereas Sampson was appointed as the skeuophylax of the Great Church. The Blessed continued to work there until his death. His venerable leipsana, which rested in the church of Saint Mokios, constantly issued the cures. His feast was celebrated in the hospital founded by him. Long time had passed between the period in which the Saint had lived and the epoch in which his earliest hagiography was compiled. During that time, some events could have fallen into oblivion and accounts of other events could have been invented. Accordingly, the results of the researchers of Saint Sampson?s xenon?s history are valuable. The hospital was housed in Sampson?s home, where he provided not only health care, but also food and bed. It was presumably founded in the fourth century. The xenon was burned in the Nika riots in 532 and Emperor Justinian had it renovated and expanded. Based on some documents issued in the Empire of Nicaea, it may be concluded that the xenon had vast estates. The Crusaders first sacked it, to subsequently use it for their own needs, as they established the Order of Saint Sampson. The hospital soon received many properties in Constantinople and its environs, Hungary and Flanders. It seems that after the liberation of Constantinople, the activities of Saint Sampson?s hospital were ceased and that there was a monastery at its place in the Palaiologan period. Anyway, the reputation of its holy founder persisted throughout the thirteenth century. Constantine Akropolites wrote the already mentioned Hagiography, and in one of his letters he spoke of the Saint, who was also mentioned in a poem by Manuel Philes (died around 1345). In Constantinople, the veneration of Saint Sampson had two centres - the hospital named after him and the church of Saint Mokios, where his leipsana rested. According to the synaxaria of the Typikon of the Great Church and the Church of Constantinople, the feast dedicated to the Saint was celebrated at his xenon. The former text informs us that the service was held by the Patriarch, whereas Symeon Metaphrastes relates that the vigil on the eve of the feast took place over the relics in the church of Saint Mokios. The Patriarch celebrated the feast dedicated to Saint Sampson with hospital clergy in the church within the xenon, both mentioned by Metaphrastes. It was either this church or a shrine from a later period that housed the iconostasis noted down by Constantine Stilbes, an eyewitness of the Latin capture of the Byzantine capital. Written sources and archaeological finds are consistent in that the hospital was located between the churches of Saint Sophia and Saint Irene. However, the first excavations carried out at the site of the xenon were not properly documented, whereas archaeologists involved in further investigations could not rely on reliable data, though they carefully examined all finds. The question arises why Saint Sampson was at first usually depicted in the company of Saint Mokios, a presbyter who died a martyr?s death in Constantinople (May 11), and later, together with Saint Diomedes, the physician who died in Nicaea (August 16). Therefore, this paper briefly presents the hagiographies of the two saints and the churches in the Byzantine capital where their relics rested - the monastery of Saint Mokios, which did not exist in the mid-fourteenth century, and Saint Diomedes, which was counting its last days in the fourteenth century, reduced to a small monastery. Dobrynja Jadrejkovic (subsequently Antony, archbishop of Novgorod) noted down around 1200 that the saint?s stick, epitrachelion and robes were kept at the hospital of Saint Sampson, whereas in the church of Saint Mokios, under the altar, rested Saint Mokios and Saint Sampson. He also mentioned that water flew from the latter?s grave, as well as that the church of Saint Diomedes was near the Golden Gate and that the relics of Saint Diomedes rested there. However, the Russian pilgrims who visited Constantinople during the Palaiologan period mentioned neither Saint Sampson?s hospital, not the church of Saint Mokios, whereas the church of Saint Diomedes, but not his relics, was noted down only by an unknown traveller who described the pilgrimage undertaken between the late 1389 and the early 1391. The answer to the question of what happened to the leipsana that once laid in these churches is not possible to provide. The fate of the relics of Saint Sampson, previously kept in his xenon, is not known, nor is it known where the commemorations of the three saints were held in the capital during the Palaiologan period. Anyway, the depictions of Saint Sampson accompanied by Saint Diomedes - whose oldest examples are preserved in Arilje - indicate that the connection of these two priest-physicians had already begun by the time when the church was painted (1295/1296), but, judging by the available sources, the only evidence on the process is given by the paintings. Although Saint Sampson founded the hospital which was probably the oldest in Constantinople, and though his leipsana, kept in the church of Saint Mokios, had healing powers, while his relics in the xenon were visited by pilgrims, it seems that the respect for this saint in the Byzantine capital was not reflected in the frequency of his images among holy physicians: he was fairly rarely shown among them. As a matter of fact, the earliest representations of Saint Sampson originated from Constantinople. They can be found on lead seals made for the hospital in the second half of the sixth and during the seventh century. On the other hand, there is no any known preserved depiction of this saint in the mural decoration of the early churches. Accordingly, it may be assumed that the veneration of Saint Sampson was initially limited to Constantinople, and that it was only later, since the time when his short hagiography was included in the synaxarium and his extensive hagiography was written for the Metaphrastes?s comprehensive work, that it was adopted in other areas of the East Christian world. It may seem paradoxical that the preserved images of the Saint dating from the period when his xenon flourished are less numerous than those from the time when the hospital, in all probability, did not exist. It seems that after the liberation of Constantinople from Latin rule, Saint Sampson was earnestly honoured and that the believers frequented the monastery at the site of the old xenon, though the hospital did not exist anymore. The former assumption is corroborated by the writings of Constantine Akropolites and Manuel Philes, whereas the latter is supported by the coins from the Palaiologan period found in the sacral building within the complex that once belonged to Saint Sampson?s hospital. Although his miraculous leipsana rested in the church of Saint Mokios, the posthumous miracles of Saint Sampson, described in later hagiographies, mostly took place in his xenon, which housed the relics that were visited by pilgrims and where commemorative services dedicated to him were held. The veneration of the Saint was long fostered within the institution founded by him - the ancient hospital where trained doctors worked - i.e. it was nurtured between the reputation of medical skills based on secular knowledge and miraculous healings.

In the article there were studied the places where the relics of the most famous saints and beatific of Ukrainian Christian church are located, which are important objects pilgrimage for Christians. There was done the analysis of the location of the relics of best-known saints and beatific of Christian church. There also were given their characteristics and made a geographical scheme of their location on the territory of Halychyna. Key words: pilgrimage, religious pilgrimage tourism, relics of saints and beatific, Christian relic.

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 the business management and promotional aspects of pilgrimage shrines. From the literature reviewed, it is clear that many ‘modern’ business practices were being widely used by pilgrimage centers throughout Europe in the middle ages. Examples can be found of active brand management and promotional techniques adopted by shrines operating within a highly competitive market for pilgrimage services.

This thesis seeks to address the journeying context of pilgrimage within the landscapes of Medieval Britain. Using four case studies, an interdisciplinary methodology developed by the author is applied to a four different geographical and cultural areas of Britain (Norfolk, Wiltshire/Hampshire, Flintshire/Denbighshire and Cornwall), to investigate the practicalities of travel along the Medieval road network including the routes themselves, accommodation, the built environments and natural topographies encountered. An introduction, assessment of current theory and scholarship is provided, followed by an explanation of the methodology used. The four case studies are then presented (Ely to Walsingham, Salisbury to Winchester, St Asaph to Holywell, and Camelford to Bodmin). Within each case study, both the selected starting point for the pilgrimage (typically either a locale confirmed in the historical record as linked to the pilgrim destination, or a settlement of some significance within the local area and thus well connected to the route network), and the site of the saint cult itself are analysed for their growth, reaction and accommodation to the pilgrim phenomenon. Also addressed are the route networks of the county as a whole, relationships to economic centres and their impact on travel possibilities, the topography, the distribution patterns for saint dedications in parish churches within the area, material culture and the ecclesiastical built environment (for example pilgrim badges, monasteries), and the physical landscapes through which the pilgrim travels. Here, the interaction between the pilgrim and the environments through which they move is addressed. Considerations include fatigue, exertion, panoramas and way-finding, route visibility, sight lines to monuments, folklore within the landscape, and the potential echoing of Christian scriptural motifs within certain landscape types/features (e.g. wilderness and sanctuary). Within the final section of the thesis these themes are compared and expanded into the broader context of pilgrimage not only in Medieval Christendom, but within Buddhist, Hindu and Islamic religious traditions, in order to demonstrate the methodology's validity and flexibility in addressing pilgrimage holistically. Comparisons are made between the local and universal pilgrim routes in terms of material culture, landscape interaction and travel practicalities, and suggestions for future research and development of the pilgrim studies field are also provided.

In this study, I read late medieval vernacular texts of Mandeville’s Travels, Chaucer’s Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale, and Margery Kempe’s Book in terms of memory, place and authorial identity. I show how each author constructs ethos and alters narrative form by using memory and place. I argue that the discourses of memory and place are essential to authorial identity and anchor their eccentric texts to traditional modes of composition and orthodoxy. In Chapter one, I argue that memory and place are essential tools in creating authorial ethos for the Wife of Bath, Margery Kempe, and John Mandeville. These writers use memory and place to anchor their eccentric texts in traditional modes of composition and orthodoxy. Chapter two reads Mandeville’s treatment of holy places as he constructs authority by using rhetorical appeals to authority via salvation history and memory. His narrative draws on multiple media, multiple texts, memoria, and collective memory. Chapter three examines the rhetorical strategy of the Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale as directly linked to practices of memoria, especially in her cataloguing of ancient and medieval authorities and scripture. Chaucer’s Wife legitimates her travel and experience through citing and quoting from medieval common-place texts and ultimately makes a common-place text of her own personal experience. Chapter four argues that memory is the central structuring strategy and the foundation for Margery’s arguments for spiritual authority and legitimacy in The Book of Margery Kempe. I read the Book’s structure as a strategic dramatization of Margery’s authority framed by institutional spaces of the Church and by civic spaces of the medieval town. Chapter five considers the implications of reading the intersections of memory and place in late-medieval construction of authority for vernacular writers as contributing to a better understanding of medieval authorial identity and a clearer appreciation of structure, form, and the transformation of the pilgrimage motif into the travel narrative genre. This project helps strengthen ties between the fields of medieval literature, women’s writing and rhetoric(s), and Genre Studies as it charts the interface between discourse, narrative form, and medieval conceptions of memory and authorial identity.

The early Christian cults of saints and relics as well as the act and process of pilgrimage were central themes in the religious practice of the Middle Ages. The veneration of saints and relics, the belief in miracles, and the act of pilgrimage were aspects of Christianity rapidly adopted by the converted population of the North Atlantic. This thesis focuses on St Magnus, Earl of Orkney († c. 1116), the cult and pilgrimage process which emerged about a century after the conversion of the Northern Isles. The physical monuments and primary sources, are seen as defining the cult, the pilgrimage process, as well as outlining a trace of the route. St Magnus cult and pilgrimage are also discussed within a comparative context; of the Norse cultural sphere, and of the medieval Universal Church.

Using a methodological framework built upon principles of recent socio-anthropological and archaeological analyses on the sensory culture of the past, this thesis provides an original interdisciplinary socio-sensual approach to illustrate how the medieval ‘pilgrimage experience’ was socially constructed for and by three separate participatory groups – royalty, laity and a parochial society – at four English cult churches. The tapestry of evidence used is woven together to create invented narratives from past visitors, highlighting the differences in perception and lived experience, in opposition to studies which have provided only impersonal analyses of structures as revealed through archaeological excavation. Thus far, studies have failed to consider how developments – whether initiated by the church, external patrons or visitors’ needs – transformed the physical aesthetic of church space and how this affected the experience of the medieval pilgrim. This thesis seeks to remedy this deficiency. Not only does it mark a departure from the ‘traditional’ practice of buildings archaeology, but the principal original contribution of this work is that the conclusions provide a fresh understanding of how and why the churches were built for and around the inherent cults and, accordingly, how pilgrims – of all statuses – developed and manipulated the decorative and architectural schemes of such buildings for their own needs and ideological agendas. The research considers a church building not only as a complete sensory structure, but also how its construction was intended to impact/encourage devotion towards the resident cults as a continuation of ritualised practices: for example, how specific materials were chosen for their tactile qualities, shrines for their ability to allow bodily engagement with the holy, or galleries added for amplification. Significant research questions include: Were experiences created to suit different social groups and, if so, how did they impact on the archaeological record of the church building? Did the common layman have some influence on how cult churches were built and embellished? What imprint did these transient and ephemeral visitors leave? And, most importantly, how did pilgrims experience the cult churches and associated infrastructures them differently?

This thesis investigates two main topics: the medieval practice of imagined pilgrimage and a Middle English text called the Book of Marvels and Travels (1350s). While recent historical and literary scholarship has helped to uncover how English monastic audiences engaged in imagined pilgrimage, which is the act of going on a holy journey in spirit rather than in body, less work has been done to explore how secular English audiences turned to texts to undertake non-physical journeys. The focal point of medieval European pilgrimage, Jerusalem was largely out of reach for many medieval English men and women due to a variety of personal, political, and economic reasons. Imagined pilgrimage texts such as the Book fulfilled a need in readers for an alternative means to attain the same spiritual benefits that physical pilgrimage offered its participants. Employing an interdisciplinary approach to the study of the literary history of imagined pilgrimage, in this project I offer a new reading of the Book and investigate both the history of pilgrimage writing and the complex monastic and secular debates surrounding the shifting benefits, dangers, and definitions of physical and imagined holy travel. Presented by a narrator who identifies himself as a knight named “John Mandeville,” the Book provided its medieval English reader-pilgrims with the information needed to make imaginative pilgrimages to the Holy Land and the Eastern world that lies beyond it.
Arts, Faculty of
English, Department of
Graduate

Recent studies of early Islamic Palestine have stressed the minimal impact of the Arab conquest on the Christian communities of the region. None, however, have sought to trace the trajectories of these communities beyond the eighth century. This thesis provides the first long-term study of the impact of the Arab conquest on monasticism and pilgrimage between 614 and 950. The study explores the changes to the physical landscape of monasteries and Christian cult sites, in terms of site abandonment and continuity, and situates these processes in the broader political and economic context of the Palestinian region between the seventh and tenth centuries. This thesis offers a systematic critique of current theories which view Palestinian monasticism and Christian pilgrimage as social entities dependent upon patronage from Byzantium and the early medieval west. Rather, it stresses the need for a more nuanced recognition of monastic communities and Christian cult sites as places closely interlinked with localised developments and the high degree of variation between communities in terms of patron economies and social transactions. This study demonstrates that these variances often provide the key to understanding the highly varied response of Palestinian monastic communities and Christian cult sites to early Muslim rule.

This thesis explores the infrastructure and mechanics of Latin Christian pilgrimage to the Holy Land during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Jerusalem was an important religious site for Christians, though it did not gain large-scale popularity among pilgrims until the capture of the city by the crusaders in 1099. Despite the vast and ever expanding quantity of literature on the topic of medieval pilgrimage in Europe and to the Holy Land, the infrastructure and mechanisms for pilgrims has received little attention. This thesis addresses the following core questions: How did pilgrims maintain themselves en route to the Holy Land in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries? How important were pilgrimage infrastructure and mechanisms for pilgrims? How did the infrastructure develop over the course of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries? What impact did the changing political situation over the course of the crusades have on this network? Medieval pilgrim and travel narratives, canon law, cartularies, charters and other legal documents, chronicles, exemplars, hagiography, liturgical texts, and papal records are analysed to answer these questions. The thesis follows the pilgrim’s journey to the Holy Land, starting with mechanisms of protection associated with preparations for pilgrimage, continuing on to investigate those who provided infrastructure and mechanisms to pilgrims along the way, before focusing on infrastructure within the Holy Land itself. It demonstrates the scale of the infrastructure, showing the intertwining nature of real world mechanisms of protections with those of a spiritual kind, and how everyone from every level of society could participate and benefit from providing aid to pilgrims. This network is ultimately reflective of concepts such as poverty and charity associated with twelfth-century western Christian spirituality. Indeed, charity was at the heart of pilgrimage infrastructure.