Course of the plague, 1346-53

Canterbury Cathedral

Durham Cathedral

Santiago de Compostella

Chartres Cathedral

Vezelay

Ste. Chapelle, Paris

Nompar de Caumont (early 15th century)bought several pieces of fine colored silk at Jerusalem, together with four pieces of rope the length of the Holy Sepulchre, three silk purses, thirty-three silver rings and twelve silver crucifixes which had touched the Holy Sepulchre, a number of relics of doubtful worth, a bag of Jerusalem soil, a black embroidered purse, two pairs of golden spurs, four roses and a phial of Jordan water to distribute amongst his relatives and tenants when he returned.

From Pilgrimage: An Image of Mediaeval Religion, Jonathan Sumption

Pilgrimage and the souvenir

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 otherTo seek out Saint James and saints at RomeThey went on their way with many wise storiesAnd 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 lieMore than to tell the truth--such talk was

theirs.

Piers Plowman B Prol.46-52 (circa

1378)

Some other attitudes toward pilgrimage

Cynocephalescf. Mandeville’s Travels, p. 134

More Cynocephales (from the tympanum of Vezelay cathedral)

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 porro dicere, "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

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)

Hereford World Map of Richard of Haldingham

(c. 1300)

Hereford Map (detail): monstrous races

Hereford Map (detail):manticore

Hereford Map (detail): Tower of Babel

Kingdoms, empires, and emirates in 1361

Kingdoms, empires, and emirates in 1401

Kingdoms, empires, and emirates in 1361

Kingdoms, empires, and emirates in 1401

Kingdoms, empires, and emirates in 1361

Kingdoms, empires, and emirates in 1401

Kingdoms, empires, and emirates in 1361

Kingdoms, empires, and emirates in 1401

Cf. Mandeville’s Travels, p. 159

Cf. Mandeville’s Travels, p. 186