Place and Space in the Medieval World

Meg Boulton, Jane Hawkes, Heidi Stoner, Meg Boulton, Jane Hawkes, Heidi Stoner

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781315413631
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Kunst
• Subtopic: Kunstgeschichte

This book addresses the critical terminologies of place and space (and their role within medieval studies) in a considered and critical manner, presenting a scholarly introduction written by the editors alongside thematic case studies that address a wide range of visual and textual material. The chapters consider the extant visual and textual sources from the medieval period alongside contemporary scholarly discussions to examine place and space in their wider critical context, and are written by specialists in a range of disciplines including art history, archaeology, history, and literature.

1 The Secret Language of Movement

Interior Encounters with Space and Transition during Medieval Pilgrimage

Martin Locker

Pilgrimage accrete[s] rich superstructures of mythological representations.¹

Introduction

This paper was born out of research into the practicalities and sensualities of pilgrim travel in medieval Britain.² What stood out the most during the course of this research and the treading of various pilgrim trails throughout England and Wales was the highly personal series of interactions between pilgrim and landscape, interactions which remain largely a mystery to many due to their swapping the well-worn shoe for the engine in getting from A to B. In any journey by foot, particularly alone, there is a highly individual nature to the interplay between traveller and landscape, and what will be explored further here is how this interplay might be affected by the theological and cultural trappings of medieval Christianity: in short, to consider how the medieval pilgrim experienced the landscape, filtered through their Christian sensibilities, with snatches of scripture ringing in their heads and their hearts brimming with holy zeal for the journey.³ The majority of this discussion is dedicated to rural and wild landscapes, due to their lack of coverage in the scholarship, but for the sake of completeness consideration of urban environments will not be neglected. It must be emphasized that much of what will follow is speculative; by very definition the subject matter is, to a strong degree, subjective. However, it is hoped that, at the very least, in introducing this aspect to the burgeoning field of ‘pilgrim studies’, we might finally begin to arrive at what Jennie Stopford called for in 1994: a holistic approach to the phenomenon of pilgrimage.⁴

Turner and Movement: The Kinetic Ritual

In becoming a pilgrim or peregrinus it was understood that one would cast off familial society, and assume the marginal role of a traveller and, before the concept of pilgrimage became so popular amongst the medieval Christian laity, the early Christian peregrinus would perhaps become almost psychologically hermit-like for the duration of the journey, shunning company as a distraction from their veneration and devotions.⁵ Declaring oneself a ‘stranger’ in this context echoes the words of the Hebrews in the Old Testament who “confessed themselves no more than strangers and passing travellers on earth.”⁶ Liminality and temporal exile are states which characterize the pilgrim experience, existing outside normal societal interactions, in their journey through often unfamiliar landscapes towards a holy destination, mirroring their travelling through life towards Heavenly Jerusalem, no longer an earthly figure but rather moving towards communion with the divine. By donning the mantle of an ‘exile’ the Christian pilgrim (temporarily) rejects the notion of their home residing on earth, and embraces the concept of their home being found in paradise. This concept of striving for reunification within the ‘true home’ of all Christians, earthly and heavenly, the shedding of normal societal privileges (or indeed disadvantages depending on one’s status) and the embracing of a liminal position in which your presence is temporary within both society and the landscapes through which one travels, are all deeply tied into the concept of a pilgrim’s ‘self-identity’.

On a more pragmatic note, it can be argued that pilgrimage, especially within monotheistic cultures, represents an attempt to understand the concept of the ‘omnipresent’ God, a concept that is as hard to conceptualize as the vastness of space. In this context, sacred sites and pilgrim centers represented tangible locations of divine activity, which acted as touchstones that could be definitely said to have seen God’s presence. This is perhaps best expressed in the Christian context through miracle sites, such as Holywell in Wales or, in more modern times, Lourdes, in France. Victor Turner termed the practice a ‘kinetic ritual’, which is perhaps the most succinct definition—a ritualized movement which aims at transformation and realization. As will be explored here, this movement obviously involves traversing differing environments, especially during longer and international pilgrimages.

Landscape and Theology

Wilderness and sanctuary, the earthly and the profane, rural and urban; the common perception of ‘the medieval mind’ paints a world of immutable duality, where two definite qualities exist in opposition to each other. However, the duality of sacred and profane elements in the landscape has long been a subject occupying scholars investigating disparate cultures. In the context of medieval Western lay society, with religious ideals and activity being fundamentally interwoven into the fabric of life, this duality is exemplified by the pilgrim; in “defining the holy”, Sarah Hamilton and Andrew Spicer argued that “for many people the mundane landscape was, and is, interwoven with sacred sites.”⁷ Using this assertion as a starting point, it is possible to see the laity as acting out both the rituals of everyday existence and also engaging in devotions which utilized sacred sites, all within a landscape that allowed the coexistent simultaneous presence of sacred and profane spaces. An explicit example of this coexistence of spatial uses was present at some of the more celebrated urban pilgrim sites. It would not be unusual to see merchants and pedlars within the church nave itself, jostling for position amongst the clerics and pilgrims, and there are records of tooth-pullers and cobblers plying their trade amongst the hordes of pilgrims on the steps and in the atrium of St Peter’s Basilica in Rome.⁸ Members of the laity were also known to celebrate feasts by coming into church and singing obscene songs, bringing the profane world into direct contact with sacred space.⁹ Mircea Eliade reconciles the simultaneous attributes of these spaces with the supposition that the religious person views the whole world as “the work of the gods” and consequently sacral at all times, bringing these layers of interaction into union.¹⁰ Timothy Insoll provides a similar yet more nuanced suggestion that “the same landscape can mean different things to different people, and can be one and the same, and thus lack any arbitrary division.”¹¹

Into the Wild

Following this line of thinking at a basic level (putting aside for the moment the wealth of personal mnemonic attachments to landscape), the primary medieval literary and orthodox theological views of nature stem from two sources that formed western Europe’s mindset: the classical and the Hebraic. Through the popular culture of the sermon and the folktale, both shaping the personal response to nature, the non-urban environment represented a locus amoenus (lovely place, typically a bucolic pastoral landscape) as well as the locus horribilis (terrible place, wild and barren in character).¹² The concept of locus amoenus, inherited from Greek and Roman pastoral literary traditions (in texts such as Theocritus’ Idylls and Virgil’s Pastorals),¹³ presented a landscape containing all that was beautiful, pure and representative of a paradisiacal state, devoid of distractions from spiritual contemplation, and thus ideally suited to hermits and religious retreat—although it was not thought of as being beyond improvement through human effort.¹⁴

The ‘wilderness’, on the other hand, was the setting for many biblical tales of interaction with the spiritual world (such as Moses’ receipt of manna, Christ’s temptation and John the Baptist’s dwelling place),¹⁵ although this interaction was not always benevolent, and it formed a realm separate from that encountered in the daily rhythm of most of the laity. This view of the ‘wild’ landscape was inherited from Hebraic literary traditions that run through the scriptures, and it was just these barren environments to which hermits and monastic communities were originally drawn in the East, something that may have started the transformative process from horribilis to amoenus simply by means of their Christian presence.¹⁶ The locus horribilis of the Hebraic ‘wilderness’ is the bleak and blighted landscape that represents the quintessential ‘wilderness’ found in scripture,¹⁷ and provided the concept of wilderness, that of a blighted topography and uninhabitable lands. It is possible that this image of wilderness was familiar to the laity due to its presence and role in some of the more commonly known scriptural stories (such as those of Moses, John the Baptist and Jesus’ temptation by the devil).

However, whilst the concept of wilderness may have been scriptural, a more practical understanding of ‘wild places’ would have been informed by the immediate surroundings of the medieval laity, particularly those living in rural settings. These settings provide one example of how spiritual, cultural and personal memories and tales can become layered over a landscape, shaping the interactions between man and nature as he or she moves through it. Moorland, fenland, woodland and other less habitable areas were the source of tales and supernatural occurrences, not to mention very real danger from both the landscape and those peripheral figures that made such locations their home, who might not welcome visitors (be they hermits, thieves or charcoal burners as suggested by Jacques Le Goff).¹⁸

Much of the laity would have been familiar with the most celebrated biblical events, through transmissive events such as sermons and the wall-paintings found within medieval churches, with many natural features of the landscape being linked, as noted, to spiritual experiences. Most obviously, water was associated with regeneration and healing (one only has to observe one of the central Christian rites—baptism—to see the importance attributed to water as a spiritual cleanser and means of transition), and rivers act as natural boundaries across which a shift from one area to another (geographically and spiritually) can be made.¹⁹ For example, the River Jordan is not only the scene of Christ’s baptism,²⁰ but is both the conduit and symbol of the event, becoming so rooted within Christian tradition as a representation of the event that pilgrims even today gather to pray at the site and purchase vials of the river water to take home, continuing the tradition of ampullae. Trees and plants have a long and complex associated symbolism within Christian theology: grapes symbolizing, by means of their association with wine, the blood of Christ; the chestnut symbolizing chastity; the acacia, the purity of the Virgin; the fern symbolizing humility; and the cedar, Christ himself. However, it is fair to estimate that these nuanced and complex associations were known mainly to clerical scholars and monastic communities rather than the general laity.²¹ More importantly, trees were linked with the Cross, and the Golden Legend speaks of the Tru...