Aims
This course aims to:
• survey and explore the visual culture and experience of medieval pilgrimage
• consider the ways in which visual imagery was used to frame holy places and to present the place or saint and to narrate their story and power to intervene
• identify and evaluate interpretations of the art of pilgrimage and contemporary reconstructions and presentations of places of pilgrimage
Content
Whether your interest in medieval pilgrims comes from the experience of walking ancient routes, visiting shrines in cathedrals or from literary works such as The Canterbury Tales, this course will give you insight into the medieval pilgrim’s perspective.
You will learn how patterns derived from the early Christian cult of saints and the holy places developed in medieval Christendom. You will gain a sense of the wide variety of types of saints’ cults and places of pilgrimage and pilgrim ways found in medieval England and beyond.
The course will offer a framework to understand the hierarchy of these, from local saints associated with landscape features, to major shrines which enjoyed royal and elite ecclesiastical patronage and promotion. Through comparison you will come to appreciate their common features and unique character. These approaches will give you ways to sift the large but fragmented and perhaps unpromising body of medieval visual evidence and equip you imaginatively to engage with the experience and motives of medieval pilgrims.
To learn about the visual promotion of pilgrimage you will focus on two important types of pilgrimage art: souvenirs and extended visual narrative. You will also see how the visual imagery gave legitimacy to new cults and you will glimpse the complex and uneasy relationship between popular enthusiasm and official promotion. You will also see in art how the stories of saints and their powers reveal something of the life of otherwise undocumented people.
Reformation iconoclasm and the passage of centuries mean that many saints’ shrines and pilgrimage routes and centres preserve only a shadow of their original medieval appearance. You will learn how visual evidence helps us reconstruct these lost holy places. This offers insight into the ways in which individual pilgrims encountered Saints and how dispersed interiors and landscapes offered multiple places for devotion, commemoration and contact.
This course will encourage you to think holistically about pilgrim experience and to engage reflectively with contemporary reconstructions and representations of historic shrines of saints. You will have the opportunity to address critically the idea that medieval places of pilgrimage were early tourist attractions.
Presentation of the course
You will be learning in a class. As well as being directly taught, you will be interacting with the tutor and also your fellow students. Projected images will give us our focus. You will have the opportunity to study these in detail and discuss them in small groups and in the full class.
We will use focussed extracts and readings to develop an understanding of context and historiography. You will sometimes be asked to read short extracts and come ready to discuss your ideas and interpretation. You will learn by looking, listening to your fellow students as well as the tutor and reflecting on different images and texts.
Course sessions
1. Seeking the Saint. In this session you will learn about the variety of local cults and pilgrimages in medieval England and the wider context. You will learn about major pilgrim routes in the British Isles and Europe.
You will develop the knowledge to understand these in the context of the origins of devotion to holy places and the cult of saints. You will ponder the sorts of experiences and expectations involved in pilgrimage in the Middle Ages. By examining surviving art and architecture and visual as well as literary documents it is possible to gain a clearer picture of what it meant for medieval people to seek a saint.
2. Meeting the Saint. In this session you will survey the striking and complex ways in which visual art and material culture were used to enable pilgrims to get close to the saint or holy site which was the focus of their pilgrimage. You will consider how architecture shaped and framed this experience and how many holy sites presented not a single object of devotion but rather a landscape of different locations and moments whether spread across a hillside or distributed inside the body of a church or along a pilgrim route. Physical settings, material objects and visual representations curated and supported encounters with the spiritual and intangible.
3. Telling the tale. You will learn about the development of narrative art within the context of pilgrimage. Places of pilgrimage recorded and preserved the life or legend of their saint and also accounts of those healed or sometimes punished by the saint themselves. Many of these stories were local and particular and showed the whole range of medieval people and their lives. Places of pilgrimage required clear and complex visual storytelling and often deployed the combination of words and pictures to show a power and potential of the place and the saint.
4. Selling the Souvenirs. You will learn about the development of souvenirs in the Middle Ages. From the early Christian period, material objects and works of art served contain mementoes of pilgrimage particularly pilgrimage to the Holy Land. In the later Middle Ages basic forms of artistic reproduction such as the casting of metal badges and printing enabled the mass-manufacture of tokens. The imagery of these tells us much about the focus and visual presentation of later medieval pilgrimage sites particularly in England where Protestant iconoclasm was so severe. The subsequent display and ritual use of these tokens by pilgrims shows us something about the meaning of pilgrimage to individuals and their communities.
5. Holy attractions. You will have the opportunity to think about the contribution of art and architecture to the medieval pilgrimage experience in a more holistic way. While some shrines have become ‘folk’ locations, since the 19th century, others have been the subject of archaeological and devotional reinstatement. Modern visual technology also enables the reconstruction of sites and shrines which are known only through archaeological fragments and early visual representations. It is also possible to animate these reconstructions through knowledge of liturgy and religious practises. The comparison between the medieval practise of pilgrimage and modern tourism is frequently made. This is an opportunity to reflect on how these medieval attractions worked and the range of types of art and architecture which were used to shape and enhance the experience of visitors.
Learning outcomes
You are expected to gain from this series of classroom sessions a greater understanding of the subject and of the core issues and arguments central to the course.
The learning outcomes for this course are:
• to understand the range of physical and visual evidence for the experience of the medieval pilgrim.
• to identify the variety of ways in which visual imagery was used to frame, promote and interpret saints and places of pilgrimage
• to evaluate the contribution of visual and architectural evidence to our understanding of the practice and experience of pilgrimage in the Middle Ages
Required reading
Rosewell, Roger, Saints, Shrines and Pilgrims: 797 Shire Library (Oxford and New York: Shire Publications, 2017) ISBN: 9780747814023
This readily available book/eBook is a field guide with introductory text and copious illustrations. We will look at some of these examples together and you will have a ‘souvenir’ of our study to resource your own explorations.
You might also enjoy this lavishly illustrated account of 10 major European pilgrimage routes: Brabbs, Derry Pilgrimage: the great pilgrim routes of Britain and Europe (Frances Lincoln, 2017), ISBN: 9780711239005
And for a comprehensive and current survey of pilgrimage in Britain
Mayhew-Smith, Nick, Guy Hayward, and Pilgrim Trust. Britain’s Pilgrim Places : The First Complete Guide to Every Spiritual Treasure (Lifestyle Press, Second edition, 2020)
ISBN: 0954476786
