“Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,” said Gregory Chaucer in his book, The Canterbury Tales, meaning people long to go on religious pilgrimages. The act of pilgrimage during the Middle Ages had been a very popular and traditional practice in the Christian society. This visit to shrines or holy places was an act of religious devotion and played a role in the lives of many Europeans, especially those in the western regions of Medieval Europe. In order to understand the importance of pilgrimages, we will emphasize the purpose of pilgrimages, the diversity of pilgrims that took part in them, and the various shrines pilgrims visited.
The motive of going on a pilgrimage in Western Europe during the medieval period consists of several purposes. Pilgrims usually went due to a description of religious pilgrimage in the Bible. The Christians pilgrims followed a scripture in the Bible that stressed the activity of pilgrimage in life. This scripture was the word of St. Paul and Christ (Housley 654). It described how a follower of the Christian religion was a “wanderer of this world,” which is an indication of a pilgrim (654). The scripture also stressed the idea of how life on earth was a preparation for real life in heaven. Those biblical teachings were the motives of pilgrims getting closer to God during the Middle Ages. Another reason why Christians participated in pilgrimages was for cult relics (654). The cult relics were physical remains from dead saints. The objects ranged from sculptures to antiques consisting of spiritual powers like healing sickness and the answering of prayers. Although church hierarchy usually disregarded the idea of cult relics, cult relics had shown to perform miracles and provide healing powers accordi...
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...as sometimes full of hardship. Sometimes there could be obstacles including bad road conditions. On the other hand, bandits were usually accustomed to interrupting the pilgrimage process, especially barbarians. Although there were hardships, Christians always enjoyed partaking on this holy journey to praise their leader.
Work Cited
Bunyan, John. The Pilgrim’s Progress. New York: Signet Classic, 1981. Print.
Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales .Eds. A. Kent and Constance Hieatt. New York: Bantam, 1981. Print.
Housley, Norman. ”Pilgrimage, Western Europe.” Dictionary of the Middle Ages. Vol.9. Ed. Joseph R, Strayer. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1982. Print.
Knight, Judson. Middle Ages Almanac. Ed. Judy Galens. Detroit: UXL, 2001. Print.
Sumpton, Jonathon. The Age of Pilgrimage: The Medieval Journey to God. Mahwah, N.J: HiddenSpring, 2003. Print.
Dana C. Munro, "Urban and the Crusaders", Translations and Reprints from the Original Sources of European History, Vol 1:2, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1895), 5-8
- - - The New Penguin Atlas of Medieval History. London, England, Penguin Books, no publication
In 1785, a Christ Child was said to have appeared. A shepherd boy from the village of Tayankani played with the child, but the child disappeared. The child was believed to have disappeared into a rock that was left with his imprint. This is the story behind the pilgrimage to the rock, but those of our community don’t pay much attention to it. Their purpose in the event is to ‘honor’ their supernatural beings. They pay homage to Rit’i (the snow), Taytakuna (Fathers), and the great Apus (Lord Mountains).
“A Pilgrim’s Visit to The Five Terraces Mountains”. Making of the Modern World 12: Classical & Medieval Tradition. Trans. Richard F. Burton. Ed. Janet Smarr. La Jolla: University Readers, 2012. 108-110. Print.
What is a Crusade? How did a Crusader crusade? What caused him to seek “holy war?” Is a Crusade a Holy War or a Pilgrimage? Did a crusader only leave to find his own economic benefits? What caused the success of the first crusaders? These are some of the many questions that laid before me when I started my research. The crusading movements are such widely debated among the modern historian that they leave many readers confused about what actually caused the crusades, and what a crusade actually entails. In the coming pages I hope to give my reader something to ponder, understand, and acknowledge about it’s origins, and eventually lead my reader into the first crusading movement. Thus, the argument I intend to make examines the events in previous centuries, and the culmination of political and moral changes, as well as economic ones that occurred before Urban’s call for crusade. We will explore Feudalism, it’s war-centric society and how this caused Urban (as well as some Popes and religious figures before him) to seek a peaceable solution that would ensure safety for the clergy, the peasant, and the non-violent. Furthermore, Pope Urban sought to continue Pope Gregory's (and Cluniac) reform to solidify Papal authority over Christendom, and respond to years of Muslim raids along the Mediterranean and upper Italian Coastlines that threatened Italian unity. In effect, the first crusading movement represented and embodied the European culture, society, and ideologies of the time.
When Jesus walked the earth his twelve disciples put aside all of their worldly possessions and worldly pursuits to fully and faithfully follow him. After the fall of Rome, Europe slipped into what has been referred to as the “dark ages.” However, even in these dark ages men and women put aside their secular desires and devoted themselves to a life of celibacy and simplicity. This similar desire between many people drew them together and this pursuit became know as monasticism. No one had a bigger influence on this way of life and on these people who chose this calling than Saint Benedict of Nursia. His teachings and life would have an impact on monasticism all throughout Europe helping to form its spirituality and culture.
Lambdin, Laura C. and Robert T. Lambdin, ed. Chaucer's Pilgrims: An Historical Guide to the Pilgrims in the Canterbury Tales. London: Greenwood Press, 1996.
Howe, Helen, and Robert T. Howe. A World History: Ancient and Medieval Worlds. Volume 1. White Plains, NY: Longman, 1992. 533.
Furthermore, to display their piety, most medieval people became nuns and popes. Many medieval people set sail and went on pilgrimages. Thus, by becoming nuns, monks, and pilgrims many displayed piety differently even through religion, literature, architecture, art, thought, and practices.
The year was 1095; Pope Urban II was caught in a war with Germany, and he had multiple conflicts in France as well as amongst his countrymen. In the midst of all this chaos, the Pope still wanted to recapture Jerusalem from the Muslims who occupied the city. So he decided to start a pilgrimage to the holy land in order to regain it back. This pilgrimage was called The First Crusade. The Pope led a rally at Claremont, a town in France in 1095, to gain the support of the christian community. In his speech he said, “Arm for the rescue of Jerusalem under your captain Christ. Wear his cross as your badge. If you are killed your sins will be pardoned." He made men feel obligated to fight for this cause as if Christ himself was being defiled. These pilgrims were also given benefits such as exemption from taxes and their protection by the church. The trip to the Holy land proved to be difficult, for the Crusaders could not use the Mediterranean Sea because it was controlled by the Muslims. Instead they had to cross the land in scorching heat and also deep snow in order to reach their destination. They soon ran out of fresh water and had to resort to drinking blood and their own urine in order to survive. They suffered from heat stroke and dysentery caused by drinking the di...
Europe’s political, social, and economic order was facing a positive turnaround in at the turn of the century. Expansion was prevalent and, as a result, the economy was improving greatly from the turmoil it had experienced in 900. While all of this sounds good and was good to a certain extent, things were still fragile. Strength and the power of the unknown paved the way for the crusades. Land, expansion, adventure, zeal, soldiers, and powerful papal leadership were the essential ingredients for crusading, which became “popular social movement” (Noble 416). No one could have imagined what the Crusades meant from the first to the last. Peter Charanis notes that the motivating factors that promp...
In his Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer assembles a band of pilgrims who, at the behest of their host, engage in a story-telling contest along their route. The stories told along the way serve a number of purposes, among them to entertain, to instruct, and to enlighten. In addition to the intrinsic value of the tales taken individually, the tales in their telling reveal much about the tellers. The pitting of tales one against another provides a third level of complexity, revealing the interpersonal dynamics of the societal microcosm comprising the diverse group of pilgrims.
In Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, a collection of tales is presented during a pilgrimage to Canterbury Cathedral. The pilgrims on the journey are from divergent economic and social backgrounds but they have all amalgamated to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas. Chaucer uses each pilgrim to tell a tale which portrays an arduous medieval society. The values, morals and social structures of the society can be examined through the fictitious tales, unravelling a corrupt, unjust and manipulative world, a world that is based around an ecclesiastical society.
In the 14th century, war, and violence were prevalent. The Canterbury Tales were written during the Hundred Years War, when the Catholic Church was dealing with the Western schism, and “Against the darkest period of his life…” (Bloom 14). The story is centered on a group of thirty pilgrims who are traveling to the shrine of St. Thomas at Canterbury (Bloom 14). The pilgrims are all focused on a theme which is backed by the story’s underlying tone of religion.
In Geoffrey Chaucer’s writing, “The Canterbury Tales”, he writes of a pilgrimage and describes every character that is involved, some more in depth than others. Keep in mind that this writing is dated back in the 1300’s, so there is going to be some distinction between those he described on the pilgrimage compared to how one would describe people of today. If Chaucer did write about people today, three people he would most likely choose would be a teacher or professor, a professional athlete, and a song artist.