WHAT MAKES A PILGRIM A PILGRIM? CONCEPTUALISING PILGRIMS AND PILGRIMAGE, C.300-1600
Manchester Metropolitan University, 13-14 July 2022
The appellation of ‘pilgrim’ is routinely applied to a wide range of medieval people undertaking a broad range of (normally) spiritual activities. A penitential pilgrim to the Holy Land, an armed crusader, a traveller seeking a cure at a local shrine, or the symbolic life-pilgrim which all Christians were metaphorically understood to be. And yet, there is often a gulf between what motivated each of these individuals, the actions they performed, and what these individuals were trying to achieve on their “pilgrimage”. Trying to understand what makes a ‘pilgrim’ a ‘pilgrim’ in the Middle Ages is further complicated by the application of the same term to describe Muslims undertaking the hajj or practicing ziyara, Medieval Jewish travellers, Christian travellers not within the Latin Christian tradition, or Buddhist or Hindu pilgrims travelling throughout Asia in this period.
In light of ever-increasing interest in pilgrimage in the contemporary world, this conference seeks to discuss the usefulness of hypernyms such as ‘pilgrim’ and ‘pilgrimage’ for describing various Medieval spiritual practices, as well as the extent to which these concepts changed over time, in space, and between religions during the years c.300-1600. We welcome papers on any of the following topics or similar topics relating to the conference’s theme: