During the summer of the year
2000, Medieval Art Historian Scott Montgomery and Early Modern
Historian Alice Bauer undertook the task of retracing the
medieval pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela. This book
documents their thousand-mile, sixty-seven-day journey walking
from Le Puy en Velay, France to the tomb of St. James at
Santiago de Compostela, Spain. It also examines the historical
background and numerous historical lessons gleaned from the
experience.
As academics, Montgomery and Bauer sought to
understand the daily life and experience of medieval pilgrims
through their own observations, emotions, and limbs. In
exploring the temporal and geographical aspects of the
pilgrimage, the authors discuss the varied motivations and
experiences of pilgrims then and now, unraveling the connections
between past and present in the cultures and practices of the
pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. Terrain, art, cuisine,
community, emotion and belief are all explored in their manifold
inter-relationships.
The authors also seek to situate the
medieval art of the pilgrimage road within the context of the
pilgrims’ experience. While using the narrative of their
movement through time and space, the authors’ purview extends
well beyond a simple travel account, incorporating historical
observations and reflections. Part historical anthropology of
religious practice and part travel narrative, this volume offers
a dynamic blending of past and present perceptions along one of
Europe’s most important pilgrimage routes.
