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Kingdoms, empires, and emirates in 1361. Pilgrimage as Metaphor (2).
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Pilgrimage as Metaphor (2) • Suppose, then, we were wanderers in a strange country, and could not live happily away from our fatherland, and that we felt wretched in our wandering, and wished to put an end to our misery, determined to return home. We find, however, that we must make use of some conveyance, either by land or water, in order to reach that fatherland where our enjoyment is to commence. But the beauty of the country through which we pass, and the very pleasure of the motion, charm our hearts, and turning these things which we ought to use into objects of enjoyment, we become unwilling to hasten the end of our journey; and becoming engrossed in a factitious delight, our thoughts are diverted from that home whose delights would make us truly happy, Such is a picture of our condition in this life of mortality. We have wandered far from God; and if we wish to return to our father's home, this world must be used, not enjoyed, so that the invisible things of God may be clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made--that ism, by means of what is material and temporary we may lay hold upon that which is spiritual and eternal. • Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana (5th c.)
Canterbury Relics • Becket’s coffined body • His severed head (which privileged pilgrims could kiss) • His haircloth underclothes • A statue of the BVM, which was purported to have spoken to Becket • The complete arms of 11 saints (St. George, St. Bartholomew, St. Mildred, St. Hugh, St. Wulfstan, St. Simeon) • Fragments of the arms of two other saints • The head of St. Swithun and the heads of other saints. • Fragments of the Holy Sepulcher, the manger and the rock on which the Cross stood
Canterbury Relics, part two • The column to which Christ was tied when he was whipped. • The stone on which Christ stood before the Ascension • The bed of the Virgin Mary • Aaron’s rod (Rome claimed to have the original) • Wool woven by the Virgin Mary • A piece of clay from which Adam was mad
Some other attitudes toward pilgrimage Some light-minded and inquisitive persons go on pilgrimages not out of devotion, but out of mere curiosity and love of novelty. All they want to do is travel through unknown lands to investigate the absurd, exaggerated stories they have heard about the east. Jacques de Vitry, Historia Hiersolymitana(13th c.) • Pilgrims and palmers made pacts with each other • To seek out Saint James and saints at Rome • They went on their way with many wise stories • And had leave to lie all their lives after. • I saw some that said they's sought after saints: • In every tale they told their tongues were tuned to lie • More than to tell the truth--such talk was theirs. • Piers Plowman B Prol.46-52 (circa 1378)
Lollard views of pilgrimage And again I said, "As their works shew, the most part of men or women that go now on pilgrimages have not these foresaid conditions; nor loveth to busy them faithfully for to have. For (as I well know, since I have full oft assayed) examine, whosoever will, twenty of these pilgrims, and he shall not find three men or women that know surely a Commandment of God, nor can say their Pater noster and Ave Maria nor their Credo, readily in any manner of language. And as I have learned, and also know somewhat by experience of these same pilgrims, telling the cause why that many men and women go hither and thither now on pilgrimages, it is more for the health of their bodies, than of their souls, more for to have richesse and prosperity of this world, than for to be enriched with virtues in their souls, more to have here worldly and fleshly friendship, than for to have friendship of God and of His saints in heaven. For whatsoever thing a man or woman doth, the friendship of God, nor of any other Saint, cannot be had without keeping of God's commandments.“ For with my Protestation, I say now, as I said at Shrewsbury, though they that have fleshly wills, travel for their bodies, and spend mickle money to seek and to visit the bones or images, as they say they do, of this saint and of that: such pilgrimage-going is neither praisable nor thankful to God, nor to any Saint of God; since, in effect, all such pilgrims despise God and all His commandments and Saints. For the commandments of God they will neither know nor keep, nor conform them to live virtuously by example of Christ and of his Saints… Also, Sir, I know well, that when divers men and women will go thus after their own wills, and finding out one pilgrimage, they will ordain with them beforehand to have with them both men and women that can well sing wanton songs; and some other pilgrims will have with them bagpipes; so that every town that they come through, what with the noise of their singing, and with the sound of their piping, and with the jangling of their Canterbury bells, and with the barking out of dogs after them, they make more noise than if the King came there away, with all his clarions and many other minstrels. And if these men and women be a month out in their pilgrimage, many of them shall be, a half year after, great janglers, tale-tellers, and liars. The Examination of Master William Thorpe, priest, Of Heresy, Before Thomas Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury, In the Year of our Lord 1407 (from Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse, ed. Alfred W. Pollard)
From Kathy Lavezzo, Angels on the Edge of the World: Geography, Literature, and English Community, 1000-1534 (Cornell, 2006)
From Kathy Lavezzo, Angels on the Edge of the World: Geography, Literature, and English Community, 1000-1534 (Cornell, 2006)
So, just as it was not impossible for God to set in being natures according to his will, so it is afterwards not impossible for him to change those natures which he has set in being, in whatever way he chooses. Hence the enormous crop of marvels, which we call "monsters," "signs," "portents," or "prodigies" ; if I choose to recall them all and mention them all, would there ever be an end to this work? The name "monster," we are told, evidently comes from monstrare, "to show," because they show by signifying something; "sign" (ostentum) comes from ostendere, "to point out," "portent" from portendere, "to portend," that is, "to show beforehand" (praeostendere), and "prodigy" from porrodicere, "to foretell the future"….Now these signs are, apparently, contrary to nature and they are called "unnatural"; and the Apostle uses the same human way of speaking when he talks of the wild olive being "unnaturally" grafted on to the cultivated tree, and sharing the richness of the garden olive. For us, however, they have a message. These "monsters," "signs," "portents," "prodigies" as they are called, ought to "show" us, to "point out" to us, to "portend" and "foretell," that God is to do what he prophesied that he would do with the bodies of the dead, with no difficulty to hinder him, no law of nature to debar him from so doing. Augustine, City of God 21:8 (5th c.)
Sources of Mandeville’s Travels Albert of Aix, Historia Hierosolomitanae Expeditionis Jacopo de Voragine, The Golden Legend (c.1260) Jacques de Vitry, Historia Hierosolomitana John of Sacrobosco, De Sphaera (d. 1256) Odoric of Pordenone, Itinerarius (1330) pseudo-Odoric, De Terra Sancta William von Boldensele, Itinerarius (1336) William of Tripoli, De Statu Saracenorum (1270?) The Letter of Prester John Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum Historiale and Speculum Naturale, including extracts from John of Piano de Carpini, Pliny and Solinus (d. 1264) Pilgrims' manuals Alexander Romances, including 'Alexander's letter to Aristotle' [Caesarius of Heisterbach, Dialogus Miraculorum (1220s)] [Brunetto Latini , Livre dou Tresor] [Burchard of Mount Sion, Descriptio Terrae Sanctae]
Odoric of Pordenone: The Vale Perilous (cp. Mandeville, 173-74) There was another terrible thing which I saw there. Passing by a certain valley, which is beside a pleasant river, I saw many dead bodies, and in the valley also I heard divers sweet sounds and harmonies of music, especially the noise of citherns. I was greatly amazed. This desert valley is in length seven or eight miles at the least, into which anyone who enters dies presently, and can by no means pass alive through it. Moreover, I was tempted to go in, and to see what it was. At length making my prayers, and recommending myself to God in the name of Jesus, I entered, and saw such swarms of dead bodies there as no man would believe unless he were an eye-witness thereof. At the one side of the valley in a certain rock, I saw the face of a man, which beheld me with such a terrible aspect that I thought verily I should have died in the same place. But always this sentence, "The Word became Flesh, and Dwelt amongst us," I began to pronounce, making the sign of the cross, and nearer than seven or eight paces I dared not approach to the face in the rocks. But I departed and fled to another place in the valley, ascending up to a little sandy mountain, where looking round about, I saw nothing but heard the citherns, which continued sounding and playing by themselves without the help of musicians. And being upon the top of the mountain, I found silver there like the scales of fishes in great abundance; and I gathered some into my bosom to show for a wonder, but my conscience rebuking me, I cast it up. And so, by God's grace, I departed without danger. And when the men of the country knew that I was returned out of the valley alive, they reverenced me, saying that I was baptized and holy, and that the bodies were men subject to the devils infernal, who used to play upon citherns, to the end they might allure people to enter, and so murder them. Thus much concerning those things which I beheld most certainly with mine eyes, I, Friar Odoric, have here written. Many strange things also I have of purpose omitted, because men will not believe them unless they see them.
Odoric of Pordenone: Tibet (cp. Mandeville, 186-87) Going on further, I came to a certain kingdom called Tibet, which is in subjection to the great Khan also, wherein I think there is more bread and wine than in any other part of the world. The people of this country do, for the most part, live in tents made of black felt. Their principal city [Lhasa] is surrounded with fair and beautiful walls, being built of white and black stones, which are disposed chequerwise one by another, and curiously put together. Likewise all the highways in this country are exceedingly well paved. In this city none dare shed the blood of a man, or of any beast, for the reverence they bear a certain idol. In this city their Abassi, that is to say, their Pope, is resident, being the head and prince of all idolaters, upon whom he bestows and distributes gifts after his manner, even as our Pope of Rome accounts himself to be the head of all Christians. The women of this country wear their hair plaited in over a hundred tresses, and they have two teeth in their mouths as long as the tusks of a boar. When a man's father dies among them, his son assembles together all the priests and musicians that he can get, saying that he is determined to honour his father. Then they carry the body to a field, all his kinsfolk, friends and neighbours accompanying them. Here the priests with great solemnity cut off the father's head, giving it to his son, which being done, they divide the whole body into morsels, and so leave it behind them, returning home with prayers in the company of the son. So soon as they are departed, certain vultures, which are accustomed to such banquets, come flying from the mountains, and carry away all the morsels of flesh; and from thenceforth a fame is spread abroad that the said party deceased was holy, because the angels of God carried him into paradise. This is the greatest and highest honour that the son can devise to perform for his deceased father. Then the son takes his father's head and, first cooking it and eating the flesh, he makes of the skull a drinking cup, from which himself with all his family and kindred do drink with great solemnity and mirth, in the remembrance of his dead father. Many other vile and abominable things does this nation commit, which I mean not to write, because men neither can nor will believe, except they should have sight of them.
William of Rubruck (d. 1293), Itinerarium: Tibet (cp. Mandeville, 186-87) Beyond these are the people of Tibet, men which are in the habit of eating the carcases of their deceased parents' that for pity's sake they might make no other sepulchre for them, than their own bowels. However, of late they have left off this custom, as they became abominable and odious to all other nations on account of it. But they still to this day make fine cups of the skulls of their parents so that When they drink out of them, they may, amidst 'all their jollities and delights, call their dead parents to remembrance. This was told me by one who saw it.
Dindimus, King of the Brahmans from MS Bodley 264, c. 1400 (http://image.ox.ac.uk/show?collection=bodleian&manuscript=msbodl264)
Marco Polo sets out (Oxford, MS Bodley 264 f.218r)
