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The Book of the Wanderings of Felix Fabri: Spiteli

March 1, 2018 / bohnerc / 0 Comments

Spiteli is a small town in Italy and Fabri notes that the name means “Little Hospice” (18). Fabri doesn’t describe the physical features of the town or the inn in which he stayed, etc. Rather, Fabri focuses on when the lords asked him to give a Mass in order to celebrate the Mass of St. George. While he is recounting this anecdote, Fabri is critical of the lack of religious supplies. He is upset that there are no wafers or bread, he notes that he had “great difficulty” getting the chapel open, and due to the lack of bread he is forced to perform what is referred to as an “empty” Mass. He discusses the weather, which he finds disagreeable as well.

In Fabri’s account of his first journey, he wasn’t very focused on the details of the trip, but in this section, he notes down dates and modes of travel. He mentions that he’s riding on horseback and is accompanied by a retinue. His traveling group stops in Spiteli on the 22nd of April and they spend the night. They had left their previous stopping place after they ate dinner and didn’t arrive at the village of Spiteli until very late at night. His group usually spends the night at the local inn, accompanied by other pilgrims and, very often, knights on crusade. Fabri isn’t interested in writing down his physical surroundings too much. He often recounts stories about the people he meets or local lords, kings, dukes, etc. He’s also very interested in local religious practices and individual people.

One thing I found fascinating in this particular section was Fabri’s distinct disdain for the Italian common-people. He at one point mentions that they had expressions of “wonderment and surprise” after he gave the Mass, and said that it was because they “had never heard a sermon preached in their church in German except by me” (18). This quote isn’t necessarily insulting, but it is revealing in that it tells us what Fabri expects the villagers to know and not know. He jumps to the conclusion that the Italian villagers aren’t very well-traveled or worldly despite being unable to know this for sure. Later on in the passage, Fabri notes that some Italian villagers only spoke Italian and “were not accustomed to serve the nobility, nor had they the materials for serving them with proper respect” (18). He categorizes this situation as disagreeable and notes that the servants of the lords were unhappy with the villagers because of this as well. Despite this condescension towards the Italian villagers, Fabri never directly insults them and calls them “good, simple people” (18). This attitude, however, is condescending and portrays the Italian villagers as uneducated and not intelligent. Fabri also paints himself as kind and benevolent, while making sure to keep himself in a position of superiority. This dynamic is fascinating because Fabri obviously looks down on these people, but presents his condescension as complimentary and charitable.

The Book of Margery Kempe: Venice

March 1, 2018 / flemingg / 0 Comments

Margery and her company travel to Venice from Bologna, and her account does not detail how long this journey took. Assuming they went by foot, this journey would have taken approximately 32 hours, or a couple days if one accounts for breaks, meals, and sleeping (estimated time courtesy of Google Maps). Kempe is only allowed to travel with the company to Venice (as the company had previously abandoned her) if she promises to not speak of the Gospel at mealtime but instead make a concerted effort to sit and make merry like everyone else in the company when they are dining. Margery stresses that the company stayed in Venice for thirteen weeks (101). While she is there she again focuses primarily on herself and the religious services she partakes in. In Venice, Margery details that she “received communion every Sunday in a great house of nuns– and was very warmly welcomed amongst them” and she goes on to say she was visited by Jesus Christ, and out of her devotion she wept so much that the nuns were amazed by it (102). Sickness also overtakes Kempe in the latter half of her stay in Venice, where she claims the Lord “made her so ill that she thought she should die” but was made well by Him again (102). As she did in Zierikzee, Margery also preoccupies her narrative with accounts of how poorly her company is treating her. After speaking about the Gospel at a meal as she had promised not to, her company called her out on her broken promise. Margery then claims it is unjust for her to keep her promise because she must speak of her Lord Jesus Christ. She details that after this incident she ate alone for six weeks. Kempe also speaks with distaste for her maidservant, whom she claims “prepared the company’s food and washed their clothes” while failing to attend to Margery, whom the maidservant had made an oath to serve (102).

It appears that in her travels to Venice, and throughout the text in general, Margery’s purpose in recording the information that she does serves to align herself more with God and holy servants of the church (like the nuns) and separate herself as being morally better than the company of pilgrims she is traveling with. When detailing the “great house” of nuns, she describes them as being “good ladies,” but especially stresses that she was “very warmly welcomed” by them and that the nuns were “amazed” by Margery’s devotion to Christ and her tears (102). On the flip-side, when discussing the average pilgrims she is traveling with, she highlights how her maidservant neglects her, and sees her promise to not speak of the Gospel at meals as being unfair and ungodly, stating that she simply “must speak of [her] Lord Jesus Christ, though all this world had forbidden [her]” (102). Claiming the world is forbidding Margery to speak about the Gospel acts as an insult to her company, by framing them as a group of so-called “religious” pilgrims who do not want to hear the Word of God. This insult functions to make them look like hypocrites that do not truly care about Jesus Christ or the Christian religion and religious reasons behind their travels as much as Margery does. By Margery noting that she is welcomed with open arms by the nuns and that they were amazed by her tears, Margery sides herself with women who devote their lives to Christ, and contrasts herself from the anti-Gospel sentiments of her company. It is altogether ironic that Margery is so well received by a nunnery considering she is a woman in the Middle Ages who walks around with no escort wearing white and has over ten children, but nonetheless her description of the nuns accepting her with joy and amazement serves to make her appear very holy. While Margery dictated her text, it was in vernacular language and thus her audience aimed at the lay people. Her descriptions of her travels, such as in Venice, that seek to align her with God and against other pilgrims, help establish her own authority as a female author. Through seeking alignment with God, being accepted by nuns, being compelled to share the Gospel at dinner, claiming to be visited by Jesus Christ and moved to tears, and more, Margery establishes herself as a woman of God. By establishing herself explicitly as a woman of God, Margery makes her opinions and descriptions of visions and locations in the text seem more accurate and “biblical” in and of themselves. In framing herself as beloved by God, she also frames her company of fellow pilgrims as being rather averse to Jesus Christ and the Gospel, making Kempe appear morally superior. Pilgrims were often regarded as insincere and not wholly invested in their religious pilgrimages, and in a way Margery seems to corroborate those stereotypes while also asserting that she is a true pilgrim undertaking her journeys to gain new experiences with Christ. This move of framing herself above her company urges her lay-audience readership to take her words and musings on Christ as being the truth– so she is ultimately providing a religious manifesto of sorts, although it is mainly focused on her personal day-to-day feelings.

The Book of the Wanderings of Felix Fabri: Feltre

March 1, 2018 / Kara Smith / 0 Comments

Felix Fabri describes the town of Feltre, Italy in the account of his second pilgrimage to Jerusalem. In his writing, Fabri explains that his party only wanted to pass through Feltre, but ended up being detained for a day due to the weather. Most of the account of Feltre focuses on the effects of the weather on their travel, the people of the inn Fabri’s party stayed in, and the general layout of and a brief explanation of the history of the town.

Fabri’s party experienced heavy rains on their journey and planned to stop at Felte for a few hours, or until the rain stopped. Fabri recounts with annoyance, however, that the rain instead grew worse, and they had no choice but to stay. Even now, it is undesirable to drive through heavy rain, so it makes sense that the weather would be such a cause of delay in their plans. Upon a break in the storm, Fabri’s party left Feltre and rode on despite the “rising waters,” “swift rivers,” and overflowing torrent beds that made travel extremely dangerous. Their insistence to travel despite the overwhelming danger of post-storm conditions reflects the serious nature of their purpose for journey; Fabri’s party was willing to risk dangerous conditions to complete their pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

Fabri writes that staying in the inn in Feltre longer than absolutely necessary was “disagreeable” due to the landlord, landlady, and household. As it was an inn in Italy, everyone except Fabri’s party only spoke Italian. His annoyance at the language barrier seems strange because all of the blame is placed on the local people. He does not place the blame on his party for not knowing Italian when they knew they would be traveling through Italy for a while, but focuses on the fact that the local people do not speak his foreign language that they have little reason to know. This misplaced annoyance reveals the Fabri’s ego; he expects to be accommodated. This annoyance is not only placed on the language barrier, but also on the landlord, landlady, and household’s lack of knowledge on how to serve nobility and the proper materials to serve them “with proper respect.” Again, the people of the inn should not be expected to know how to serve German nobility property since they are not German and it is assumed that they do not serve nobility in general often, if at all. Fabri puts himself on a pedestal as a compassionate and understanding man because he realized that they were “good, simple people, and did all that they could” and wrote that because of this, he was more considerate than the lordships’ servants. Through these comments, Fabri’s demonstrates his condescending and ‘holier than thou’ attitude towards both the people of the inn and the lordships’ servants, which tells us more about his mentality and personality.

During their stay in Feltre, Fabri’s party attended Mass at the local church. Their insistence to brave the continued bad weather for their religion again shows their dedication to it. After Mass, they viewed the town of Feltre. Fabri tells of its history as a town built by Antenor to defend the mountain country, telling a short story in his usual romanticized fashion, and comments on the town’s geographical layout. In regards to the contents of the city, Fabri only wrote that it has old buildings, a bishop, and monasteries, which fits with the theme of his focus on religion.

Felix Fabri’s account of the town of Feltre reveals how he thinks about himself in relation to others, his dedication to his religious purpose, and the effect of weather on medieval travelers.

The Book of Margery Kempe: Constance

February 28, 2018 / kayleigh / 0 Comments

Towards the beginning of her pilgrimage, Margery Kempe passes through a city she refers to as Constance (most likely Konstanz, Germany) with her unfriendly companions. This city lies on the route between Norwich, England, where Kempe began, and Bologna, Italy, where she travels next. Her brief stay in Constance reveals how Kempe interacts with the cities that she passes through on the way to pilgrimage sites.

When Kempe and her companions arrive in Constance, Kempe mentions that she hears an English friar who is also a legate of the Pope is staying in the city. She does not describe her arrival to the city, the city’s physical characteristics, or the people she encounters in the city. Instead she jumps directly to her meeting with the Pope’s legate, who she seeks out because of his wisdom. She confesses to him, and tells him her entire life’s story, as well as her current troubles with her traveling companions, who dislike her and try to stop her from praying, crying, and maintaining a vegetarian diet. She also tells him “what grace God gave her of contrition and compunction, of sweetness and devotion” and the visions He had given her (Kempe 99). This is as immodest as Kempe’s constant assertion of her superiority over her companions. Kempe then tells of how her traveling companions invite the legate to dinner. The legate, who has taken Kempe’s side, tells her to behave as submissively at dinner as she always does. Then, when her traveling companions ridicule her, the legate stands up for her, and refuses to tell her to cease her unorthodox habits. This prompts her companions to abandon her, but the legate makes arrangements for her. Kempe tells of how, despite her dire conditions, God provides for her. He sends her a kindly traveling companion to accompany her to Bologna, where she arrives before her old traveling companions.

It is clear that Kempe believes that the most noteworthy aspects of her visit in Constance are her acquaintanceship with an important religious figure, her suffering at the hands of her traveling companions, her eventual vindication, and the divine intervention on her behalf. She reveals very little about the city of Constance. She gives no identifying features, meaning the city might not even be Konstanz, Germany. However, she reveals some aspects of the place pilgrims occupied when they passed through the city, and raises questions about the travels of religious authorities. What brought an English friar, who was a legate of the Pope, to Constance? Was he on official Church business? Was he living there? Was he on pilgrimage himself? Was he there to interact with pilgrims passing through? This in turn raises the question of Constance’s role in pilgrimages. Was it a common place for pilgrims to stop?

Whatever the case, it is shown that the pilgrims’ status is high enough to be able to invite an important religious authority to dine with them. They also complain to this authority, and grow angry when he takes Kempe’s side. They seem to interact with some level of informality. However, it is clear that legate has a higher status. He sits down first at dinner, and the company asks him to regulate Kempe’s behavior, showing that they understand him to have some control over at least the religious life of pilgrims (and, probably, Christians in general).

Kempe’s account of Constance reveals that pilgrims were able to find people who spoke their language in various cities, dine with them, and consult with them. More established English speakers in non-English-speaking cities could help English pilgrims exchange their currency and make travel arrangements, as the legate helps Kempe. This shows both that there were English people, at least religious authorities and pilgrims, abroad, and that they helped each other when they encountered each other in foreign places. This could even hint at a formal or informal support network for pilgrims that could potentially exist in the cities en route to important pilgrimage sites like Jerusalem.

Ibn Fadlan and the Land of Darkness: the land of the Ghuzz Turks

February 28, 2018 / messere / 0 Comments

After crossing a mountain, Ibn Fadlan comes to the territory settled by the Ghuzz Turks. Here, he is almost entirely concerned with the cultural traditions, customs and practices of the Ghuzz Turks but also touches briefly upon their democratic form of government.

We don’t learn much about Ibn Fadlan’s physical journey at this point or the terrain, except for the first mention of crossing a mountain and the mention of the desert as a place to cast a poor man or slave who has fallen ill and leave him to the elements.

One of the most prevalent themes in this section of text is Ibn Fadlan’s focus on the cultural and societal place of Turkish women. His first anecdote after introducing the reader to the Turks and their government is that of a woman who “bared her private parts and scratched” in the presence of the travellers, but, as her husband is pleased to comment, “protects them and allows no one near” (12). Ibn Fadlan and his companions respond to this incident by “cover[ing] our faces with our hands” and seeking God’s forgiveness in a reaction of evident horror and shock. This moment of disgust with the Turks’ cultural understanding of modesty and the female body immediately follows a commentary on the Turks’ bathing habits, the lack of which is clearly frowned upon by the Muslim traveller who himself ritually washes frequently and considers this to be good practice. By using a description of filthiness and “pollution” as a transition into discussing the female body and what parts of it should be covered, Ibn Fadlan demonstrates an understanding of modesty that requires women to “hide” certain parts of their bodies from the male viewer. Not only does he impose his own cultural understanding onto his interaction with the Turkish woman and her husband, he relates her husband’s response to his reaction, stripping the woman of any voice she may or may not have had.

Ibn Fadlan also writes of Turkish marriage customs, emphasizing that once a man has “paid his debt” to the man who “posseses” the woman he wishes to marry, he “comes without the slightest shame, walks into the house where the woman is and takes possession of her in front of her father, her mother and her brothers, and they do not stop him” (13-4). Ibn Fadlan’s use of the work “shame” indicates his disapproval of this custom, but his disapproval stems not from the ritual of purchasing a wife, or the moment of “possession” (which is understood to be intercourse and possibly, if not likely, rape) but rather the fact that intercourse takes place before the woman’s family and that “they do not stop him” (14). The individual listing of the bride’s “father, her mother and her brothers” emphasizes the disapproval and focuses the reader’s attention to the audience of the marital “tak[ing of] possession” and collaborates with the final comment that “they do not stop him” to display that this is the source of Ibn Fadlan’s discomfort, not the purchasing of a wife, like a slave, nor the possibility of rape. In fact, Ibn Fadlan’s failture to mention the reception of the bride to her husband only highlights his disinterest in women’s well-being, never mind their rights, agency, voice or representation.

Mapping the Global Middle Ages