A Companion to Medieval Pilgrimage

Pilgrimage to shrines and places of particular holiness was a feature of all three major religious traditions in medieval Europe and the eastern Mediterranean. Pilgrims exposed themselves to risk and loss in order to experience the spiritual benefits of devotion to the shrine of a saint or a holy place. This authoritative and comprehensive Companion offers a thematic approach to the experience of the medieval pilgrim, from departure to return. The central focus is on how pilgrims prepared for and negotiated their journeys; what they saw and did at shrines; and how they understood their journeys. The Holy Land stands at the centre of the book, because it was the main site of pilgrimage for Jewish, Christian, and Muslim pilgrims, but pilgrimages to other sites across Europe and the Near East, and to the shrines of local saints, are also explored.

Andrew Jotischky is Professor of Medieval History at Royal Holloway University of London. He has published extensively on monasticism, pilgrimage, and religious life in the Crusader States. His most recent book, co-authored with Bernard Hamilton, is Latin and Greek Monasticism in the Crusader States (2020).

William J. Purkis is Professor of Medieval History at the University of Birmingham. He is a historian of crusading, pilgrimage, and monasticism, whose publications include Crusading Spirituality in the Holy Land and Iberia, c. 1095–c. 1187 (2008).