Category: pilgrimage

Bird of prey and chickens from 16th century manuscript

What Amazing Egyptian Chicken Hatcheries Can Tell Us about Perceptions of Other Places

In the 1320s, a Franciscan friar left Ireland to go on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Friar Simon Fitzsimons journeyed from Ireland, through London, Canterbury, Paris, to Venice, where he and his companions took a ship to Alexandria, Egypt. They toured the sites around Cairo, and then traveled overland through the desert to Jerusalem. … Continue reading What Amazing Egyptian Chicken Hatcheries Can Tell Us about Perceptions of Other Places

Primary source image for medieval pilgrimage

Pilgrimage as a Medieval “Vacation”

“What did you do and see on your pilgrimage?” This question was probably the medieval equivalent of “What did you do on your vacation?” If your curriculum includes history of the European Middle Ages, studying medieval pilgrimage can offer insight into the lives pre-industrial people as well as our own modern motivations for travel. Mixed … Continue reading Pilgrimage as a Medieval “Vacation”