Johnston R.A. All Things Medieval: An Encyclopedia of the Medieval World
Подождите немного. Документ загружается.
Pilgrims
560
Not all writing was done with pens and ink. People who needed to take
quick notes at work needed a way to write things down for a short time
without using expensive parchment or paper. For this, they used wax tab-
lets. The best writing tablets were made of carved ivory, but lesser tablets
were wooden with a layer of wax. People used a bone or metal stylus to
scratch lightly into the wax.
See also: Books, Painting, Paper and Parchment.
Further Reading
De Hamel, Christopher. Scribes and Illuminators. Toronto: University of Toronto,
1992.
Thompson, Daniel V. The Materials and Techniques of Medieval Painting. New
York: Dover Publications, 1956.
Pilgrims
Since the earliest days of Christianity, believers had felt closer to their de-
ceased friends and leaders when they were near their burial places. They
came to believe that these bones and burial sites had a special holiness.
When Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity, his mother Helena
traveled to Israel and the Sinai Peninsula to fi nd Mount Sinai, Calvary,
Bethlehem, and other sites from Bible stories. She believed she had found
these places, and Constantine ordered a church to be built over the site
where Jesus had been buried. From that time on, Christian believers began
traveling to Jerusalem and Rome to experience the special holiness. Dur-
ing the Middle Ages, pilgrimages became big business. By the close of the
medieval period, pilgrimages had travel guidebooks, souvenirs, cruise pack-
ages, and a host of offi cial and illicit businesses based on pilgrim travel.
Pilgrim journeys could be long and dangerous or relatively short and
easy. Any trip to a saint ’s shrine was a pilgrimage, and every region had
its own saints’ shrines. French pilgrims could travel to Saint Denis in Paris
to venerate the tunic of the Virgin Mary, and English pilgrims could go to
Walsingham to venerate Mary in a shrine built as a replica of her early home
where an angel had appeared. Englishmen could go to Canterbury and visit
the relics of Saint Thomas the Martyr, a medieval celebrity in his own right.
Italians could take a ferry to Venice to pray before the bones of Saint Mark.
But pilgrims felt that their journeys had more merit if they were more dif-
fi cult and expensive. The most important pilgrimage sites were Constan-
tine’s Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, Spain’s Cathedral of
Saint James at Compostela, and Rome, the burial place of Saint Peter and
Saint Paul and the home of the Pope.
Pilgrims
561
Until the 11th century, the constant trickle of European pilgrims to Je-
rusalem met no real obstacles from the new Muslim regime. Each Muslim
dynasty had a different attitude and approach to outsiders and their reli-
gions. In 1095, the Pope heard reports that pilgrims were being harassed
and turned away, and these reports led to the call for the fi rst Crusade.
The Crusaders established Latin-speaking kingdoms between Jerusalem
and Antioch (in modern Turkey). Pilgrims took advantage of their newly
favored status and began coming to Jerusalem in greater numbers. Two
monastic orders of knights were established to help and protect them. The
Knights of the Hospital managed hospices for pilgrims (and, in some cases,
hospitals for the sick and wounded), while the Knights of the Temple were
supposed to guard the roads to keep them safe. The Crusades ended up
changing the political balance and international trade, but they were always
closely intertwined with the ideals and needs of pilgrims.
Pilgrimages were undertaken out of a variety of motives. Some noble-
men made pilgrimages to Jerusalem in order to be knighted at the Church
of the Holy Sepulcher at midnight. Many pilgrims were expressing religious
devotion, pure and simple. These included monks, priests, and lay people
who felt their religious belief deeply. The most famous late medieval pil-
grim was Margery Kempe, who published a detailed account of her pilgrim-
age to the Holy Land. Her motive was fanatical, emotional piety, and she
believed God had called her to be a pilgrim. Like Margery Kempe, many
people, both lay and cleric, had a lifelong romantic vision of fi nding true
meaning in life by sacrifi cing comfort and safety to go to the Holy Land.
Other pilgrims had made a vow in a time of trouble—if a saint helped
them, they would make a pilgrimage to that saint’s shrine. When they ful-
fi lled this vow, they always gave a gift of money at the church. Often, they
left a small memorial image of the way their prayer had been answered.
These were frequently made of wax and sometimes of ceramic; least often,
they were made of silver or gold. A tiny ship represented being saved from
shipwreck. A wax leg meant a leg had been healed. Wax images left at these
shrines range from babies to houses to ships to mysterious objects under-
stood only by the donors.
Pilgrimages were very often undertaken as penance, seeking forgiveness
of sin before life on earth ended. The church promised forgiveness of sin
could be won by meritorious pilgrimages. Penance could be voluntary, as
when a knight felt he needed to fi nd forgiveness for the violence of his way
of life. It was also often involuntary, imposed as a penalty by a judge. The
promise of a pilgrimage could be part of a plea bargain. It could also be part
of a treaty—the defeated city or baron had to promise to go on pilgrimage
to repent of rebellion or war.
When a pilgrimage was taken for penance, the pilgrim had to arrive at the
place and present himself to the abbot, bishop, or priest. There was a set of
Pilgrims
562
rituals to undertake for a set amount of time. Some pilgrims began to crawl
or bow from when they fi rst saw the destination and remained in that pos-
ture until they arrived. Some penances imposed further penalties and hard-
ships. A repentant knight or an aristocratic lady often vowed to make the
trip on foot, or even barefoot, so his or her feet became cut and bruised to
show repentance. One arrogant count was sentenced to wearing shackles as
he made his court-ordered pilgrimages.
Pilgrims wore certain badges and kinds of clothing. Crosses, red or
white, were the particular mark of a pilgrim. The cross would be sewn onto
their cloaks and hats; their hats often had a practical brim since the pil-
grims would be out in all weather. Men allowed their beards to grow, and
all carried staffs. They carried only small bags, for theirs was not a trip of
luxury. Pilgrims were expected to be unkempt and not have many changes
of clothes.
Both the bag and the staff were blessed with holy water before the pil-
grim set out. The bishop or priest gave the pilgrim a letter certifying his or
her status as a real pilgrim, since there were thieves who posed as pilgrims.
The pilgrim had another task before setting out; he or she had to settle all
debts and make a will. There were many dangers, and some pilgrims did
not return home.
After a pilgrim had reached his destination, he often displayed some
memento of the place on his hat. A palm stood for the Holy Land and a
scallop shell for the beach at Compostela. Many shrines sold badges made
In medieval art, pilgrims are indicated
by simple dress, staffs, and brimmed
hats. Here, the artist documents stages
of the pilgrim’s journey to the Holy
Land. A group of pilgrims could only
travel so far by foot or horse, and then
they had to contract with a ship to
ferry them across part or all of the
Mediterranean Sea. Many discomforts
and dangers lay ahead. (Bettmann/
Corbis)
Pilgrims
563
of lead or pewter. Each one depicted the saint holding some symbols of his
life or death or of the miracles done at his shrine. Pilgrims collected badges
and pinned them onto their clothing. On a typical pilgrimage, they stopped
at all shrines along the way, visiting the relics and collecting badges.
Pilgrims wanted to come home with more than just badges. Many car-
ried mementos for friends who could not come and brought these rosaries
or crosses into each shrine to take in some of the holiness the relics could
impart. Some had been commissioned with bringing home holy relics for
friends and family or for someone who was very sick. They might chip off
a piece of the tomb; Saint Martin’s at Tours had to put up a railing to stop
people from taking pieces of the stone shrine. Some souvenir relics could
be as simple as a strip of linen held as close as possible in the presence of the
saint’s shrine to soak in the holiness. Pilgrims also mixed oil with dust from
the tomb or burned a little oil on a cloth by the tomb. There were often
peddlers in the area, trying to sell bits of bone or hair that they claimed
were from that saint or some other. In Jerusalem, there were many bits of
wood passed off as shards of the true cross, thorns purportedly from the
crown of thorns, or bottles of saints’ tears or blood.
A typical pilgrimage from England to Rome took 50 days each way.
Monasteries that released monks to go on pilgrimage to the Holy Land al-
lowed a year. Pilgrimages to Compostela from France or England took only
Even in the Middle Ages, tourists wanted to leave their mark on places they visited.
Medieval pilgrims to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher scratched crosses and their
names onto the building’s stone walls. (Alfred J. Andrea)
Pilgrims
564
a few months, while a pilgrimage to the nearest shrine (Canterbury or Wals-
ingham for Englishmen, Saint Denis or Tours for Frenchmen) took only a
few weeks. No journey went as quickly as possible; everything was subject
to delays due to sickness, weather, and storm.
A pilgrim’s journey usually took him over mountains such as the Alps or
Pyrenees or over the sea. Mountain travel was dangerous due to snowstorms.
Storms also came at sea, as did pirates. Pilgrims walked into war zones and
sometimes found themselves stuck in a besieged city. Some pilgrims had al-
lied themselves with bishops or rulers whose enemies arrested and robbed
them. They were often attacked by ordinary robbers at inns and in forests.
They caught infectious diseases or food poisoning. A silent danger was pol-
luted or toxic rivers in some localities, and pilgrims or their horses could
become sick from drinking there. The locals could not always be trusted, since
they might reassure the traveler that the water was perfectly safe only to skin
the dead horse or make off with the dead pilgrim’s money.
Pilgrims had to avoid carrying coins. Many pilgrims funded their jour-
neys through begging. Wealthier pilgrims paid a deposit with a merchant’s
banking service so that, at a certain destination, they could receive the sum
in another currency to fund the next stage. Some who began with suffi -
cient funds ended up begging in order to make it home after misfortune
and robbery.
Certain orders of knights formed to protect pilgrims. The Knights of
Saint James were supposed to guard the region of Compostela. The Knights
of Malta began as an order that ran a hospice for sick pilgrims in Jerusalem.
Some of these orders ran hostels for pilgrims along the road. The Templars,
especially, also acted as bankers for travelers.
There were also simple travel services for pilgrims. Literate pilgrims wrote
books about their travels, and, if they had been along a route more than
once, some wrote guides and maps. These maps showed strips of road,
not as the road really lay on the true geography but as a string of places
the traveler encountered. They marked unsafe water, good inns, and rob-
bers’ haunts. Guides could be hired, but it was always a risk. Was the guide
honest, or was he planning to lead the pilgrims’ group into an ambush?
Pilgrims had to hire horses and mules along the way, as well as boats and
ships. Guidebooks told them which rentals and junkets to avoid.
The city of Venice was not only a pilgrim destination itself, it was also a
chief travel hub to the Holy Land. Ship owners organized hostels and travel
junkets for pilgrims who arrived in Venice. The doge, realizing how impor-
tant a hub Venice had become, extended protection to all pilgrims. The city
offered advice and shelter, and there were offi ces where returning pilgrims
could report complaints about Venetian ships. The galleys were owned by
the city of Venice, and all captains were supposed to follow protocol for
how they charged and treated their passengers.
Plague
565
Monasteries took in pilgrims as they traveled. In some places, there were
no inns, and only monasteries and convents would take in pilgrims. Inns,
when they existed, varied in comfort and security. In some places, travelers
slept in the same bed together. Frequently, they stayed together in a main
room, even if they slept on the fl oor or on separate cots. Robberies were
frequent. Pilgrims could also rent a house for a few days, if they were able.
In 1300, the Pope declared a Jubilee year for pilgrimages to Rome; pil-
grims could expect a plenary indulgence—the forgiveness of not just a few
sins, but of all. Rome was packed to capacity as pilgrims poured in from all
over Europe. In 1350, the Pope declared another Jubilee year. Europe was
barely recovering from the plague and had lost as much as one-third of its
population. Still, with a keen awareness of death, European pilgrims came
in the same numbers as before. After that, pilgrimages gradually lost some
of their pious fervor, and by the 15th century, they were drifting toward
secular tourism. During the Protestant Reformation, nations that cast off
the Catholic Church suppressed shrines and burned relics. The Catholic
Church, too, did not encourage pilgrimages as much as before. Skeptics
doubted the power of relics, and the pilgrims on the roads to Rome and
Compostela reverted to their scanty premedieval numbers.
See also: Church, Maps, Relics, Saints, Taverns and Inns.
Further Reading
Harpur, James. Sacred Tracks: Two Thousand Years of Christian Pilgrimage. Los
Angeles: University of California Press, 2002.
Kendall, Alan. Medieval Pilgrims. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1970.
Sumption, Jonathan. The Age of Pilgrimage: The Medieval Journey to God. Mah-
wah, NJ: Hidden Spring, 2003.
Ure, John. Pilgrimages: The Great Adventures of the Middle Ages. New York: Car-
roll and Graf, 2006.
Webb, Diana. Medieval European Pilgrimage, c. 700–c.1500. New York: Palgrave,
2002.
Webb, Diana. Pilgrims and Pilgrimage in the Medieval West. New York: St. Mar-
tin’s Press, 1999.
Plague
Medieval people knew many epidemic diseases, although they did not know
what caused them. Outbreaks of ergotism, typhus, infl uenza, and other
sicknesses often struck towns. What made the plague stand out was that
its symptoms seemed to include every possible malfunction of the human
body. It spread fast and killed quickly, and its victims experienced symptoms
of many illnesses at once.
Plague
566
There were two widespread, devastating plague periods during the Mid-
dle Ages. The fi rst was during the reign of the Byzantine emperor Justinian,
in the sixth century. The second, which is more famous, came to Europe
in 1347. At the time, it was called the Great Mortality, but we now call it
the Black Death. Between these plague periods, we have no records of mass
epidemics. Infectious disease on a large scale seems to have been unknown
for nearly 800 years. The two pandemics that bookended the Middle Ages
shaped its political and social history. Both epidemics cut Europe’s popula-
tion in half, disrupting empires and traditions.
The Plague of Justinian: 541
Records from this early medieval plague are limited. The outbreak was
fi rst recorded in Constantinople in 541, and it is commonly called the
Plague of Justinian. It may have begun in Egypt and moved north to Con-
stantinople with imported grain. The plague eventually spread all around
the Mediterranean Sea and into Europe, Asia, and North Africa. The death
rate may have been as high as 50 percent in many places. The plague sub-
sided, but it returned in waves for another two centuries.
The plague’s effect on the fading Roman Empire was severe. During the
sixth century, barbarians were attacking Italy. The plague weakened Italy’s
defenses and permitted the Goths to invade freely. Justinian was not able to
defend Italy due to his army’s losses to plague. The Byzantine Empire was
weakened in the East, as well. When Muslim Arabs invaded Palestine and
Syria in the seventh century, the depopulated Byzantines, also weakened
by wars with Persia, could not defend their territory.
The Black Death: 1347–1350
In the prelude to the greatest worldwide pandemic in history, there was
a series of catastrophes. Seismic activity in Asia sent clouds of volcanic ash
into the atmosphere, which accelerated a general cooling trend in the cli-
mate. At several points in the early 14th century, winters were harsher than
usual, summers were cool, and it rained so much that crops were ruined. In
each famine period, as much as 10 percent of Europe’s population died of
starvation. The Hundred Years’ War between England and France began in
1337 and left the French countryside traumatized, often with burned land
and ruined houses. In Italy, civil wars between rival families and cities were
so frequent that the Popes chose to live in Avignon, France, rather than
in Rome.
The Black Death, as the plague of 1347–1350 is now called, attacked a
weakened worldwide population. It is diffi cult to estimate how many peo-
ple died during the Black Death. Some records seem accurate, and some
After the plague, people’s image of death changed. Death was often pictured in art,
and the character of Death was always gruesome and corpse-like. Sometimes Death
drew people into a dance, but other times, as in this image painted about 25 years
later, Death relentlessly chose unwilling victims to murder. (Werner Forman Archive/
StockphotoPro)
Plague
568
do not. Estimates based on records of estates, churches, and families calcu-
late death rates that range from 25 percent to 60 percent. Mortality varied,
as well. Some villages were completely wiped out, while others survived and
kept their work going the whole time. In Ireland, one of the last regions
visited by plague, native Irish who lived in the hills were struck lightly, while
the English living in coastal towns died at rates similar to England’s. It is
diffi cult to determine the death rate for any one place, let alone for a larger
region. The most common mortality rate used for Europe as a whole is
30 percent. At least one in three people died; in some towns it was closer to
two in three. Some cities had a death rate of close to 50 percent.
Symptoms
The hallmark of the plague was an egg-shaped swollen lymph node on
the groin, in the armpit, or on the neck. The modern name for this swell-
ing is bubo, from the Greek word buboin, meaning “groin.” From this term
comes the name “bubonic plague.” As the patient grew sicker, more lymph
nodes swelled. A bubo could grow large, to the size of an egg or apple, or it
could remain small. They were usually acutely painful, and sometimes they
burst open, oozing black blood. As the illness progressed, many patients
also developed bruise-like markings on their arms or legs.
The violent symptoms of the plague often began with coughing. The
illness attacked the lungs early, and the patient coughed blood or, hav-
ing swallowed some, vomited blood. As the patient grew sicker, blood was
discharged from the anus, as well. Patients developed high fevers in most
cases. Another symptom that all contemporary observers recorded was that
sick people smelled very bad. There was a particularly offensive, rotting
odor on the breath and bodies of the sick.
The plague of 1347 was extremely contagious. Contemporaries reported
that people became sick from touching something a sick person had touched
or from merely looking at a sick person. Animals also caught it. The plague
altered its form during the epidemic. Those who caught it fi rst were most
likely to fall sick quickly and violently, and not always with buboes. They
died within two days. Those who fell sick during the later stages of the epi-
demic always developed buboes, but their lungs were not as affected. Some
of these recovered; those who died were sick for closer to a week.
There may have been three forms of the infection, depending on where
it settled. The form that is most common now, the bubonic form, is also the
least contagious and least fatal. The infection is mostly in the lymph system;
it is not spread through casual contact, but only by fl eabites. The infec-
tion can also be pneumonic, in the lungs. Pneumonic plague produced the
bloody coughs and rapid, airborne contagion. In the rarest cases, plague
can go straight to the bloodstream in septicemic form. Septicemic infection
Plague
569
results in rapid death, within hours, because the massive amounts of bac-
teria overwhelm the body before the victim has time to develop other
symptoms, such as buboes. The outbreak of 1347 may have been predomi-
nantly pneumonic, with some cases of septicemia, based on the descriptions
of observers.
Spread through Europe
The European outbreak of 1347 was heavily documented by many writ-
ers, since literacy was widespread by then. We have records from towns and
cities, parishes, bishops, private individuals who kept journals, and at least
two well-known writers, Petrarch and Boccacio. Boccacio was in Florence
when the plague struck, while Petrarch was in Avignon, where his beloved
Laura died from the plague. We know a great deal about the plague in Italy
and England, where meticulous record keeping went with large-scale com-
merce, but we know relatively less about Spain and Germany.
All sources from around the Mediterranean agree that ships from Genoa
spread the infection fi rst. Genoa had established a colony, called Caffa, on
the Black Sea. It was on the Crimean Peninsula, where modern Feodosia
is located. Inland, the Tartars had conquered Russia, and war broke out
between Caffa and the Tartars. The besieging Tartars caught the plague,
and, as they became too sick to fi ght, they fl ung dead bodies into Caffa.
The plague spread in Caffa, and some escaped in ships and headed back
to Genoa. It is less clear what happened after that because there were re-
ports of Genoese death ships in Constantinople, Sicily, Sardinia, Italian
ports such as Genoa and Naples, and Marseille. It seems unlikely that the
same ships from Caffa called at all these ports, since their crews were dying
rapidly. What is clear is that the trade network, extremely active in the
Mediterranean by the 14th century, rapidly spread the highly contagious
infection.
Constantinople, at the mouth of the Black Sea, was the fi rst region to fall
sick in great numbers. Genoese ships passed through the Aegean Sea and
reached Messina, Sicily. Sicilians rapidly caught the plague, and it passed all
through the island. The Italian peninsula followed, and, at the same time,
the plague entered France through the port of Marseille. It spread rap-
idly through these regions. As the rumor of the Genoese death ships
spread, ports became unwilling to allow ships to stay, and some cities drove
them away violently. The city of Genoa itself drove off its ships with burn-
ing arrows.
The plague was so highly contagious, though, that nothing could hold
back its march through Europe. By the end of 1347, Messina, Marseille,
and Genoa were infected, and a month later, Avignon, Venice, and Ra-
gusa were sick. In March and April of 1348, the plague entered Spain and