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If, in a few thousand years, archaeologists come across images of kilometer-long Easter traffic jams in front of Gotthard in the south, they may not be able to interpret them correctly. You might think: all these people in their carriages were making a pilgrimage to St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, where the then Catholic Church was based – and Easter was one of its main holidays. And they have no idea that most of these “pilgrims” have already reached their destination in Ticino.
Anthony Bale (48), professor of medieval history at the University of London’s renowned Birbeck College, wants to get the hang of traveling back in time. “And I packed my bags and followed the routes of medieval travelers – through the streets and churches of Rome and Jerusalem,” he writes in his book, published in German this week. He makes not just time travel, but time travel that is fascinating and extraordinary.
“For this book, I use the authors of medieval guidebooks and travel accounts as sources,” Bale writes. Between the 6th and 15th centuries, people traveled as churchgoers, cartographers, traders, or crusaders. “When it comes to the reasons why people go to distant regions,” says a British medievalist, “the incentive to plunder and conquer territory is one of the long-term factors.”
Travel at that time was far from the modern joyful holiday and required a lot: we needed animals carrying luggage, gold and money in various currencies to pay tolls and patience: “For the almost hundred-kilometer route from Aachen to Bonn we would have needed “A horse traveler it took about thirty hours,” Bale writes. “On this route alone we had to pay tolls six times.” Yes, and inns opened gradually, tourism developed gradually.
Those who made pilgrimages not only to the Pope in Rome, but also to Jesus in Jerusalem, could not ignore the Franciscan Order, which “more or less took upon itself the role of a tourist agency for holy places” (Bale). The exact course and stages of the Via Dolorosa – the path of Jesus’ suffering from the verdict of Pilate to the crucifixion – were formally determined only at the end of the 15th century. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher marks the culmination and completion of the “newly developed” tradition.
“As tourists have always done,” Bale writes, “countless visitors wanted to leave their mark on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, immortalizing themselves with scratches on the stone—a kind of graffiti.” For the pilgrims, Jesus Christ was, in fact, the model for their actions, because, as Bale says: “In the Christian tradition, Jesus was the prototype of the traveler.”
Source: Blick
I am David Miller, a highly experienced news reporter and author for 24 Instant News. I specialize in opinion pieces and have written extensively on current events, politics, social issues, and more. My writing has been featured in major publications such as The New York Times, The Guardian, and BBC News. I strive to be fair-minded while also producing thought-provoking content that encourages readers to engage with the topics I discuss.
