Spiteli is a small town in Italy and Fabri notes that the name means \u201cLittle Hospice\u201d (18). Fabri doesn\u2019t 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 \u201cgreat difficulty\u201d getting the chapel open, and due to the lack of bread he is forced to perform what is referred to as an \u201cempty\u201d Mass. He discusses the weather, which he finds disagreeable as well.<\/p>\n
In Fabri\u2019s account of his first journey, he wasn\u2019t very focused on the details of the trip, but in this section, he notes down dates and modes of travel. He mentions that he\u2019s 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\u2019t 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\u2019t 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\u2019s also very interested in local religious practices and individual people.<\/p>\n
One thing I found fascinating in this particular section was Fabri\u2019s distinct disdain for the Italian common-people. He at one point mentions that they had expressions of \u201cwonderment and surprise\u201d after he gave the Mass, and said that it was because they \u201chad never heard a sermon preached in their church in German except by me\u201d (18). This quote isn\u2019t 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\u2019t 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 \u201cwere not accustomed to serve the nobility, nor had they the materials for serving them with proper respect\u201d (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 \u201cgood, simple people\u201d (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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Spiteli is a small town in Italy and Fabri notes that the name means \u201cLittle Hospice\u201d (18). Fabri doesn\u2019t 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. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3774,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[143614],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-felix-fabri","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-the-middle-ages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-the-middle-ages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-the-middle-ages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-the-middle-ages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3774"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-the-middle-ages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-the-middle-ages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-the-middle-ages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-the-middle-ages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-the-middle-ages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}