Pilgrimages in 1300

Imagine a German pilgrim in 1300 taking advantage of the jubilee year proclaimed by Pope Boniface VIII (c. 1230–1303; pope 1294–1303) to travel over the Alps to visit Rome. The crusty old pope had promised the remission of one’s sins in return for a truly contrite confession by those who elected to make a pilgrimage to the Holy City that year, thirteen hundred years after the birth of Christ. Although his jubilee appears to have been an innovation, it was enough of a success that later popes regularly repeated it. They saw it as encouraging religious enthusiasm and stressing papal leadership in the West. It also enhanced the city of Rome’s reputation as a goal of pilgrims and pilgrimages. For a German the idea of a pilgrimage would have been familiar, as it had been a popular form of piety and religious fervor across the Middle Ages. Many made short trips to nearby holy shrines. But there was also a well-established circuit of more demanding pilgrimage routes that by the thirteenth century were equipped with inns and hospitals – serving as lodgings for travelers and pilgrims – that because of their popularity offered the relative security of traveling in groups with fellow pilgrims.

Actually, a generation or so earlier a German chronicler, the Franciscan monk Albert of Stade, wrote a chronicle that spanned the history of the world from the creation to his own day, but as he neared the present his story became more complex, including a section presented as a dialogue between two imagined characters, Birri and Firri. In the midst of discussing the genealogies of ruling German families, Firri abruptly asked Tirri, “My good Tirri, I want to go to Rome, give me an itinerary.” A willing and able interlocutor, Tirri proceeded to outline for Firri not one but several routes that would take him from Stade in northern Germany to Rome.