Soul Travel: Spiritual Journeys in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe

300 Pages·2019·20.408 MB·English

by  Jennifer Hillman (editor), Elizabeth Tingle (editor)

This volume is an edited collection of original essays on spiritual travel S Soul Travel
in medieval and early modern Europe. Pilgrimage was a central feature
o
of medieval and early modern Christianity. However, holy travel was
u
not only a physical act, it was also an interior disposition and a spiritual
process. From at least the late Antique period, the life of a Christian l

was understood allegorically as a journey towards heaven. Also, many T
Spiritual Journeys in Late Medieval
people could not travel: enclosed orders of monks and nuns, men
r
and women with responsibilities tying them to localities, the sick and and Early Modern Europe
a
frail. Virtual travel was instead their recourse to the sacred sites. Thus
v
spiritual pilgrimage, instead of or alongside physical pilgrimage, became
e
prominent in medieval Europe and survived the Reformation in both
Protestant and Catholic traditions. l
These essays show that this experience took many forms: a lively
imagining of a journey with holy people or to holy places; an ‘out-of-
body’ experience such as the revelations of St Bridget of Sweden; guided
journeys; meditations upon holy places such as Jerusalem; and travel in
reconstructed landscapes, from the Monti Sacri reconstitutions to convent
churches. The volume includes an historiographical introduction by the
editors and nine case studies of spiritual journeys, drawn from across J
e
the late medieval and early modern periods and from different regions n
n
of Europe. i
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e
r

H
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Jennifer Hillman is a Visiting Research Fellow and Tutor in History in ll
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the Department of History and Archaeology at the University of Chester.
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n
She is an historian of early modern Europe, with particular interests in

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the religious and cultural history of seventeenth-century France. n
d

E
Elizabeth Tingle is Professor of History at De Montfort University, l
i
z
where she is also Head of the School of Humanities. She is an historian a
b
of the French Wars of Religion and the Catholic Reformation in Europe. e
t
h

T
i
n
g
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e

(
e
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)
ISBN 978-1-78874-567-3
Jennifer Hillman and Elizabeth Tingle (eds)
www.peterlang.com
Peter Lang
This volume is an edited collection of original essays on spiritual travel S Soul Travel
in medieval and early modern Europe. Pilgrimage was a central feature
o
of medieval and early modern Christianity. However, holy travel was
u
not only a physical act, it was also an interior disposition and a spiritual
process. From at least the late Antique period, the life of a Christian l

was understood allegorically as a journey towards heaven. Also, many T
Spiritual Journeys in Late Medieval
people could not travel: enclosed orders of monks and nuns, men
r
and women with responsibilities tying them to localities, the sick and and Early Modern Europe
a
frail. Virtual travel was instead their recourse to the sacred sites. Thus
v
spiritual pilgrimage, instead of or alongside physical pilgrimage, became
e
prominent in medieval Europe and survived the Reformation in both
Protestant and Catholic traditions. l
These essays show that this experience took many forms: a lively
imagining of a journey with holy people or to holy places; an ‘out-of-
body’ experience such as the revelations of St Bridget of Sweden; guided
journeys; meditations upon holy places such as Jerusalem; and travel in
reconstructed landscapes, from the Monti Sacri reconstitutions to convent
churches. The volume includes an historiographical introduction by the
editors and nine case studies of spiritual journeys, drawn from across J
e
the late medieval and early modern periods and from different regions n
n
of Europe. i
f
e
r

H
i
Jennifer Hillman is a Visiting Research Fellow and Tutor in History in ll
m
the Department of History and Archaeology at the University of Chester.
a
n
She is an historian of early modern Europe, with particular interests in

a
the religious and cultural history of seventeenth-century France. n
d

E
Elizabeth Tingle is Professor of History at De Montfort University, l
i
z
where she is also Head of the School of Humanities. She is an historian a
b
of the French Wars of Religion and the Catholic Reformation in Europe. e
t
h

T
i
n
g
l
e

(
e
d
s
)
Jennifer Hillman and Elizabeth Tingle (eds)
www.peterlang.com
Peter Lang
Soul Travel

Soul Travel
Spiritual Journeys in Late Medieval
and Early Modern Europe
Jennifer Hillman and Elizabeth Tingle (eds)
PETER LANG
Oxford • Bern • Berlin • Bruxelles • New York • Wien
Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek.
Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche
National-bibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available on the Internet at
http://dnb.d-nb.de.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-1-78874-567-3 (print) • ISBN 978-1-78874-568-0 (ePDF)
ISBN 978-1-78874-569-7 (ePub) • ISBN 978-1-78874-570-3 (mobi)
© Peter Lang AG 2019
Published by Peter Lang Ltd, International Academic Publishers,
52 St Giles, Oxford, OX1 3LU, United Kingdom
[email protected], www.peterlang.com
Jennifer Hillman and Elizabeth Tingle have asserted their right under the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Editors of this Work.
All rights reserved.
All parts of this publication are protected by copyright.
Any utilisation outside the strict limits of the copyright law, without
the permission of the publisher, is forbidden and liable to prosecution.
This applies in particular to reproductions, translations, microfilming,
and storage and processing in electronic retrieval systems.
Printed in Germany
Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek.
Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche
National-bibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available on the Internet at
http://dnb.d-nb.de.
This volume is dedicated to
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Mary Hillman
Jonathan Martin Tingle
A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-1-78874-567-3 (print) • ISBN 978-1-78874-568-0 (ePDF)
ISBN 978-1-78874-569-7 (ePub) • ISBN 978-1-78874-570-3 (mobi)
© Peter Lang AG 2019
Published by Peter Lang Ltd, International Academic Publishers,
52 St Giles, Oxford, OX1 3LU, United Kingdom
[email protected], www.peterlang.com
Jennifer Hillman and Elizabeth Tingle have asserted their right under the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Editors of this Work.
All rights reserved.
All parts of this publication are protected by copyright.
Any utilisation outside the strict limits of the copyright law, without
the permission of the publisher, is forbidden and liable to prosecution.
This applies in particular to reproductions, translations, microfilming,
and storage and processing in electronic retrieval systems.
Printed in Germany

Contents
List of Figures ix
Acknowledgements xi
Jennifer Hillman and Elizabeth Tingle
Introduction
Soul Travel: Spiritual Journeys in Late Medieval and
Early Modern Europe 1
Part I Modes of Spiritual Journeying 45
Mark Edwin Peterson
1 Reading as a Spiritual Journey: St Bridget of Sweden 47
Kathryn Hurlock
2 Performing Pilgrimage in Late Medieval Wales 81
Claudia Wardle
3 Participatory Passions: Spiritual Landscapes of
Fifteenth-Century Ferrara 105
Antonella Palumbo
4 The Camino de Santiago and the Via dell’Angelo: Historical
and Anthropological Contexts of their Routes 125
Elizabeth Tingle
5 Pilgrimage Confraternities and Spiritual Travel in Catholic
Reformation France 151
viii
Part II Life Writing and Spiritual Travel 179
Philip Booth
6 Seeing the Saviour in the Mind’s Eye: Burchard of Mount
Sion’s Physical and Spiritual Travels to the Holy Land,
c. 1274–1284 181
Paula Almeida Mendes
7 Spiritual Experiences in Portuguese Hagiographies and
Sacred Biographies in the Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries 207
Jennifer Hillman
8 The ‘Contagiousness of the Sacred’: Writing Spiritual
Biographies in Seventeenth-Century Le Puy-en-Vélay 235
Tom Wilson
Postscript
Spiritual Travel in the Twenty-First Century: Pilgrims or Tourists? 267
Notes on Contributors 281
Index 283