In last week’s post we looked at pilgrim personalities, and I asked you to guess mine. Did you? If you guessed the mystic, you’re right. Yes, I’m the consummate armchair traveler! I’ve never been on a pilgrimage—but I take a journey of faith every day. I’m a spiritual pilgrim.

Are you?

These days, it’s common to discuss spiritual growth in terms of pilgrimage. But there’s a problem. So much of this discussion veers toward the therapeutic—we take a “journey of self-discovery” or a “pilgrimage to our innermost self.” We take to the road to “find out what it’s all about.”

If we look at the Great Age of Pilgrimage—the medieval era—we find a more grounded definition of spiritual pilgrimage; a Christ-centered definition. Medieval masters reveal that the destination of our pilgrimage is not our own self. Nor is it a mysterious unknown. Spiritual pilgrimage describes the heart’s journey to Jesus. When we hit the spiritual road, we’re traveling to the Beloved, the very center of our faith.

This theme is beautifully revealed in the writing of Walter Hilton, a 14^th-century Augustinian mystic. Not long ago Carl McColman wrote a wonderful introduction to Hilton and two other little-known mystics, and I encourage you to read his post.

Hilton is best known for his treatise on contemplative prayer, The Scale of Perfection. In Book 2 of this treatise, we learn that an anchoress asked him for advice concerning the formation of her soul. Hilton responded with an extraordinary exercise: he asked the anchoress to imagine her faith as a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Any pilgrim in his right mind yearns to reach this sacred city—it is, after all, where Jesus was crucified and resurrected. In the same way, the Christian longs to go to Jesus. Spiritual pilgrimage is the process of daily journeying to the cross of Christ.

This journey is no easy road. As Hilton spins out his pilgrimage metaphor, we learn about the realities of Jerusalem pilgrimage in the Middle Ages. The length of the journey. The physical hardships. The distinct possibility of being robbed or beaten. The doubt that creeps in along the way. Everyone and everything seems bent on deterring a pilgrim from reaching his destination. Only his single-minded desire keeps him on the road.

So it is for the spiritual pilgrim. Enemies (carnal desire and so forth) rear their ugly heads, and the only way the pilgrim will make it is by keeping her eyes on the prize. Hilton advises:

[K]eep on your way and desire only the love of Jesus. Always give this answer: I am nothing; I have nothing; I desire nothing but the love of Jesus alone . . . And if you will keep on this way and do as I have said, I promise that you shall not be slain but come to the place that you desire.

Hilton’s metaphor helps us access the danger and hope of our daily pilgrimage to Jesus. The danger is real. Like a medieval traveler, we risk losing everything—our journey might rob us of all we have and all we’ve come to believe about ourselves.

Like a medieval traveler, we leave everything behind—we tear ourselves away from our distractions and our sin. We walk away from all the things we thought life was about.

Like a medieval traveler, we lose and we leave—but we gain Jesus. That’s why pilgrimage is always an image of hope. It’s not necessarily easy, but it’s worth it.

I encourage you to embrace this wonderful spiritual exercise from the heart of the Middle Ages: imagine that you are on pilgrimage to Jesus. Leave behind what is holding you back. Keep on your way. See nothing but your love of Jesus. He’s waiting for you to take this pilgrimage now.

Last week I began blogging about pilgrimage and Christian identity. An unexpected benefit from my first post was friends and readers responding with songs on the pilgrimage theme. I loved this, because music is visceral; the fact that these songs came so readily to people’s minds means that pilgrimage really resonates with us today. It’s an image of longing and also of hope; we wander a sometimes barren land yet we know we’re on our way home.

I collected the pilgrimage songs here. Listen to them, read them, and rejoice that you are on the road.

My Twitter friend Marguerite points us to a favorite hymn, He Who Would Valiant Be. It contains the words,

There’s no discouragement shall make him once relent
His first avowed intent to be a pilgrim.

Tim Fall was reminded of I Am A Pilgrim And A Stranger. Tim also tweeted what he called “music for the pilgrimage of Christ” by Soul Stirrers—I’m A Pilgrim.

From Sophie comes a song she learned on the Camino de Santiago—Ultreia, a French chant sung by pilgrims following the Way of Saint James. I really like this one. I’ve had it on repeat for much of the week!

Debra Elramey let me know about a song she wrote. Her beautiful words echo the pilgrimage of life theme:

Looking unto Jesus
to his saving grace
Looking for a city
where he’s prepared a place

Looking unto Jesus
we can run the race
Knowing he’s the author
And perfecter of our faith.

Now we just need to get Debra to sing this for us!

Finally, check out this post by Mark Whiting (Psalter Mark) on The Journey Motif in Life, Art and Scripture. Mark discusses the language of journeying in popular culture and the Bible. This includes several psalms that he calls psalms of pilgrimage, which were “likely to have been used during pilgrimage to Jerusalem during the various Jewish festivals.” Psalm 84 is an example:

Blessed are those whose strength is in you,
    whose hearts are set on pilgrimage.
As they pass through the Valley of Baka,
    they make it a place of springs;
    the autumn rains also cover it with pools.
They go from strength to strength,
    till each appears before God in Zion.

I’ve really enjoyed these songs, and I hope you do, too. Have you seen (or heard) other pilgrimage echoes this week?

We learned in last week’s post that, as Christians, we can claim the identity of pilgrim. Read here to see why our faith is a forward-looking journey of hope.

But we can’t just say “I’m a pilgrim” and be done with it. When we look at the history of pilgrimage, especially in the Middle Ages, we learn that there are as many kinds of pilgrims as there are personality types. Not every pilgrim is a solitary travel wearing a backpack and footing it along rugged paths. Learning about the different kinds of medieval pilgrims can help to further define our journey of faith. It may even tell us something about our innermost self.

What’s your pilgrim personality? Take my assessment to find out!

1. The Exile. Your hard-core faith has led you to opt for self-banishment, setting yourself adrift in a boat and letting it take you where it will. A wanderer for God, you can handle surprises like not knowing where your boat will wash up and whether the natives are friendly. Ahoy!

2. The Penitent. For the crimes you’ve committed, you’ve been sentenced by a court of law to travel to a shrine. Execution and imprisonment are too good for you. Instead, you’ll be walking for A LONG time, nearly naked, with the instruments of your crime tied to you with chains.

3. The Lifer. From the moment of your birth, you’ve tried to stay on the straight and narrow path because you know you just get one shot at this pilgrimage-of-life thing. Only the good finish strong. So you look neither to the left nor the right, observe all the sacraments, and, hey, where’s the confessional?

4. The Stranger. You’ve always felt a strong sense of displacement, as if you’re just too good for this world. You know there must be something better ahead, so you keep walking toward it. Heavenly Jerusalem or bust!

5. The Crusader. Inspired by a series of sermons that fired up your sense of righteous indignation, you and half the men in your village are on a mission to reclaim the most sacred sites in Christianity. While you’re in the Holy Land, you hope to steal, er, pick up a few relics for your church back home.

6. The Walker. Strong and stout of heart, you pride yourself on being able to travel to any shrine, no matter how far. You can withstand inclement weather, gossipy companions, the stench of vomit, and rats swarming your food. You’ll need to be laid up in a hospital by the time you arrive (not the hospital-as-inn; an actual, real hospital), but hey, you sure learned some good songs along the way.

7. The Mystic. You think walking long distances to shrines that all claim to have the skull of John the Baptist is overrated. You’d rather sit in your cell and let the Spirit take you to places your poor deluded backpacking friends can only imagine.

8. The Proxy. You’re a people pleaser, so when your lord needed someone to go on pilgrimage in his place, you jumped at the chance. Not only do you get to keep your job; after you throw in a few prayers for your lord, you can take in some new scenery and maybe write a best-selling guide to boot.

9. The Adventurer. You display a healthy amount of skepticism about what happens at a shrine and a little eye-rolling at your fellow pilgrims’ tears and visions. But since it’s always a trip to go to the Holy Land, you’re in! If you get in a tussle with the sultan’s gatekeepers, so much the better. It makes for some great stories back home.

10. The Addict. You’re just not yourself unless you’re on the way to a shrine, although you can stop any time you want to. Some people call you overbearing but honestly they’re just jealous because you know so much about pilgrimage and who cares whether or not they believe the visions you’ve had or their wimple’s not as starched as yours.

So what’s your pilgrimage personality? And can you guess mine?

Next week: more on types of pilgrimage in the Middle Ages. Join me!

These days, more and more American Christians are finding their identity in the concept of exile. In blog posts and articles over the past year, Carl Trueman, Rod Dreher, Peter Leithart, and Matthew Young, among others, have all identified Christians as exiles in a politically and culturally hostile America. Not everyone is completely on board with this metaphor. Trueman and Dreher, in particular, have been criticized for a defeatism that is born more of nostalgia than of an accurate description of the Christian condition.

Russell Moore, President of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, responded here with the best exilic analysis that I’ve seen. (I’m totally in love with the phrase “exilic analysis,” by the way; I read it somewhere and I don’t remember where.) Moore says that Christians can be called exiles not because of their loss of status in a Christian America that perhaps never existed, but because this world will never be their home. Christians are citizens of a higher kingdom.

As a student of history, particularly the Christian Middle Ages, I’m surprised to see so many Christians embracing the identity of exile. In the discussions I’ve read, commentators seem unaware that in the Christian tradition, we find another, more hopeful way to talk about the feeling of displacement plaguing believers today. Literally, it’s a way—the way of the pilgrim.

In the early Christian and medieval traditions, exile and pilgrimage were two sides of the same coin. Sometimes, they even shared the same word (peregrinatio in Latin). This doesn’t seem obvious. Exile means banishment and wandering, while pilgrimage is a purposeful journey. Exile is (usually) enforced, while pilgrimage is voluntary. Yet in describing the journey of humanity, many writers in the Christian tradition, from New Testament authors to Church Fathers, feel the need for both concepts. In fact, they would never talk about exile without also referencing and even privileging pilgrimage. Which makes me wonder, why do we? Why is it easier for Christians today to describe the human condition in terms of exile rather than pilgrimage? Could it be that we don’t really understand what pilgrimage is about?

Christian history opens with a story of exile-turned-pilgrimage. I refer, of course, to the expulsion from the Garden of Eden. This is not distant history. We feel its effects today. Eden is the home in which we were meant to live, the home from which we have been cast out. This brings us to Dr. Moore’s point—as Christians, we are all exiles. J. R. R. Tolkien famously wrote, “We all long for it [Eden], and we are constantly glimpsing it: our whole nature at its best and least corrupted, its gentlest and most humane, is still soaked with the sense of ‘exile’” (The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Mariner Books, 2000, 110).

Here’s where the narrative takes a turn. The Christian tradition makes clear that we’re not just exiles from. We’re also travelers toward. Having been ousted from Eden, we have no real home in the world. But we do in the next. As we wander this earth, we’re on our way to the heavenly Jerusalem. Like a medieval pilgrim on the road to the Holy Land, we leave everything behind to reach a place (a person, really) better than anything we could have imagined. Our enforced exile is transformed into a voluntary banishment. We become pilgrims, purposefully taking step after step to arrive home.

We need the narrative of exile-turned-pilgrim to keep the faith. No matter the political climate in which we live, no matter the country we temporarily call our home, Christians everywhere and at all times are called to embrace a narrative of hope. We find it proclaimed in the book of Hebrews, which calls the church to follow the example of the ancients:

All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth . . . If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them. (Hebrews 11:13-16 NIV)

Depending on which version of the Bible you’re reading, you’ll see variations of the phrase “foreigners and strangers” in verse 13. The ESV calls the Israelites “strangers and exiles.” The King James Bible uses “strangers and pilgrims.” Partly this is an issue of translation, and partly it’s because the terms (peregrini and hospites in Latin), or at least their connotations, are nearly interchangeable. The Israelites are exiles who have no home on this earth and pilgrims who travel toward a sacred place (the city God has prepared for them).

Hebrews is merely one (a divinely-inspired one, to be sure) telling of the exile-turned-pilgrim narrative. In his works, Augustine of Hippo frequently speaks of the Christian life as a kind of wandering—but not of the aimless variety. In the Confessions, he mentions our heavenly home, calling it “the eternal Jerusalem, after which Thy pilgrim people sigh from their going forth unto their return” (9.13.37). We are a pilgrim people, Augustine says. We sigh because we have been cast out of the home God set aside for us. But we also sigh for the place toward which we journey. We know that we are on our way to Jerusalem.

This theme is summed up magnificently in The Two Cities of Otto of Freising, the 12^th-century bishop and chronicler. Describing the first events in human history, he writes of Adam that, “by a righteous judgment of God he was cast out into this pilgrimage” (Columbia University Press, 2002, 123). This phrase reminds us of Tolkien’s quotation about Eden, but Otto takes it a step further. Adam and Eve initiated humanity’s exile. But in our exile we find the place of our pilgrimage.

I’m not saying that there are no differences between exile and pilgrimage. Instead, I want to introduce a more hopeful way to discuss the human predicament. Christians are not just outcasts but are also people moving toward a clear and certain destination. As we walk through this world that is not our home, we know exactly where we are headed. We can see it in the distance. Yes, it’s a long and winding road. Yes, the going is difficult. But our pilgrimage fills us with hope and gives us an eternal perspective on our earthly trials.

What we call ourselves matters. How we frame our journey matters. What are you? An exile or a pilgrim?

In my own faith, I embrace the identity of pilgrim. I’m a firm believer in using the metaphor of pilgrimage to describe our spiritual journey. Please understand that I’m not talking in vague or therapeutic terms. I don’t mean a journey within or a voyage of self-discovery. I embrace a Christ-centered definition of pilgrimage. For me, pilgrimage describes the way we follow Jesus. It’s the way we walk away from self and toward him. The way we respond to his call each day.

In this blog series, I’ll be exploring how our identity as pilgrims helps us to live out our faith. I’ll be turning to—surprise!—the Middle Ages, which fine-tuned the practice and theory of pilgrimage. How medieval Christians did pilgrimage can help us understand our daily journey to Jesus. We can learn to live not just as aliens but as a people who are on the move.

Join me, won’t you?

Today, I want to do something a little different. I’d like to introduce a visual exercise to help us meditate on a passage from Scripture. Those of you who know me won’t be surprised that the image we’ll be using is a medieval world map. I turn to these maps again and again because they teach me so many lessons about the Christian faith. Today, we’ll see how the Hereford Map provides a way into Scripture.

One of my favorite New Testament passages comes from the book of Hebrews. Encouraging God’s people to hold fast to their faith, the author of Hebrews writes:

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith . . . (Heb 12:1–2 NIV)

In this passage, the author of Hebrews gives a direct command to the followers of Christ. In all things, fix your eyes on Jesus. When you grow weary, fixate on him. When you become entangled in sin, fixate on him. When you can’t fix your world, fixate on the one who can.

This seems like such a simple directive – fix your eyes on Jesus. And yet it can be so difficult. How busy and distracted I am! How hard it is to focus on Jesus in the midst of my scattered world.

The Hereford Map is a picture of my world—crammed full of things. In fact, the map contains some two thousand pictures and inscriptions. As is my own life, it’s easy to get lost in this world. One place helps us get our bearings: at the center of this bustling world is the city of Jerusalem with a picture of Christ on the cross.

Try this exercise. Find a good reproduction of the Hereford Map (you can look on my resources page or elsewhere on the internet) and spend some time with it. Let your eye wander over the world, from the Garden of Eden at the top to the Pillars of Hercules at the bottom.

This is fun to do, because there is a lot to see and discover! But I’ve learned something. When I spend time perusing the Hereford Map, I find that my gaze is drawn, again and again, to the center. I can’t look at the map for long without my eye coming to rest on the cross of Christ. I’m willing to bet that this is also the case with you. The mapmakers designed it this way because they knew the power of the center.

This experience with the map leads to Scriptural truth. When we contemplate the Hereford Map and let our eyes rest on the cross rising from the city of Jerusalem, we have put the admonition of Hebrews into practice. We have fixed our eyes on Jesus! We have focused on him and gazed at his beauty. We have, even if only for a moment, cut out the distractions of the world.

I encourage you to carry with you—in your mind, in your heart, maybe on a piece of paper—this passage of Scripture and this medieval map. Use them to help keep your eyes fixed on Jesus. It’s a wonderful way to begin putting into practice the words of Hebrews. Through it, we affirm that Jesus is the center of Scripture and of our world.

 

 

This weekend, the Church remembers St. Augustine of Hippo and his mother, Monica (on August 28 and 27, respectively). The two saints are as close in the Christian calendar as they were in life. In fact, we know about Monica primarily through Augustine’s spiritual “autobiography,” the Confessions, where he paints a moving portrait of a mother who never gave up on her son’s salvation.

As I looked at the Christian calendar, I realized that two of my favorite passages from the Confessions come from Augustine’s discussions of Monica. What better time to share them than today?

In chapter 3, Augustine reports that his mother wept for his soul before his conversion to Christianity. God comforted Monica in a vision. Augustine writes:

How could this vision come to her unless ‘your ears were close to her heart?’ You are good and all-powerful, caring for each one of us as though the only one in your care, and yet for all as for each individual.*

In this statement, Augustine paints a vivid picture of God’s overwhelming love. God rests his ear on Monica’s chest and listens to her heartbeat, her tears, her pain. In her moment of need, everything and everyone else fades from God’s view, and she becomes his only care and concern. Augustine notes that God lavishes this kind of care on each person who calls him Father.

Some people paraphrase Augustine’s statement by saying that God loves each of us like an only child. In Marilynne Robinson’s novel, Gilead, the character of Pastor John Ames proclaims as much: “Augustine says the Lord loves each of us as an only child, and that has to be true” (2004, pp. 245-46). I confess that I love this paraphrase. I love the idea of wallowing in God’s attention the way an only child would her father’s (I grew up as the oldest of three children, so I know what it’s like to compete for limited parental resources—especially when your siblings are younger and cuter than you are).

Later in the Confessions, Augustine describes the death of his beloved mother. He asks his readers to pray for Monica and for her husband. In this passage, Augustine refers to his readers as “my fellow citizens in that eternal Jerusalem, which Your pilgrim people sighs after from their Exodus, even unto their return.”**

Here Augustine introduces a theme that has become dear to my heart. He speaks of Christians as pilgrims. Like the Israelites during the Exodus, we are on the move. We’re taking a long journey—all the way to Jerusalem, where God has prepared a home for us. Each day, we complete part of our pilgrimage. The road is difficult, but we keep going because we long for Jerusalem. We sigh for it. We are a pilgrim people.

This passage is especially poignant because Monica has just completed her own journey home. She has reached the end of her pilgrimage. I like thinking that, centuries later, we’re on the same road that she took—she’s just farther along.

Both of these remarkable passages in the Confessions were inspired by Augustine’s love for his mother. His thoughts about Monica remind us of two important facets of our Christian identity:

—each of us is God’s only child

—each of us is a pilgrim on the road to Jerusalem.

Isn’t it amazing to realize that at the end of our pilgrimage, we will join Monica and Augustine in the eternal home God has prepared for us!

 

*Augustine, Confessions, trans. Henry Chadwick (Oxford, 2009), 3.11.19, p. 50.

**The Confessions of Saint Augustine: Modern English Version (Revell, 2008), 9.13.37, p. 150.

I recently re-watched series 3 of Sherlock—having a hard time waiting for the Christmas special, you know—and noted that the last episode contains a pseudo-medieval moment. Mycroft and Sherlock are talking outside the Holmes family home on Christmas Day. Mycroft calls Sherlock a dragon-slayer (rather, he says that’s how Sherlock views himself). Then Mycroft says Sherlock is needed in England and adds, ominously, “Here be dragons.”

That phrase—“here be dragons”—is a way to signal unknown or dangerous territory. Mycroft is saying that Sherlock doesn’t need to go halfway around the world to take out bad guys; there are plenty right there in England. Here be dragons.

This dragon talk is a rather fanciful way to refer to the scientifically-minded Sherlock Holmes. In fact, it harks back to the Middle Ages, which is surely antithetical to everything Sherlock stands for. When I watched this episode, my ears perked up. As many of you know, I recently wrote a book on medieval maps. Mycroft’s fanciful phrase refers to the supposed tendency of these maps to place the words “here be dragons” in the uncharted territories of the world. The phrase has entered popular consciousness because of this popular assumption about medieval maps.

For the most part, this assumption is incorrect. Only one medieval map—dating to the 15^th century—contains the inscription, “Here be dragons.” So does a 16^th-century globe.* So the phrase “here be dragons” can hardly be called a tradition. And it can hardly be called medieval—by the time the 16th century rolls around, we’re not really in the Middle Ages any longer. Isn’t it interesting how a “tradition” that seems to define the fanciful thinking of the medieval era turns out to be modern instead?

(Wait just a minute while I revel in the fact that I can correct anything having to do with the Holmes brothers . . . Okay, I’m done.)

Historians aren’t sure how the “here be dragons” myth came to be invented. One of the earliest references is from 1928. In Dorothy L. Sayers’ short story, “The Learned Adventure of the Dragon’s Head,” Lord Peter Wimsey says that he saw the phrase “hic dracones” on an old map. Where did Sayers get this idea? We don’t know.

That’s not to say that medieval maps don’t picture dragons. They do. On the Hereford Map (ca. 1300), for example, two dragons appear at the tip of Asia.

Today, dragons are portrayed as fierce and terrible (think of Smaug from The Hobbit), but in the Middle Ages, they were merely a sub-species of the serpent (when they weren’t being used to talk symbolically about sin, as in the Bible).

In fact, there are far more fierce and terrible creatures than dragons on the edge of medieval maps. Just look at the monstrous races clustered along the edge of medieval Africa and Asia.

And look at England itself. On the Hereford Map, England is located on the northwestern edge of the world, in the same outer zone as the dragons and the monstrous races. Medieval historians were self-conscious about this, referring to the British Isles as “pimples on the sphere of the earth” and “the boundaries of the world.”** England’s edgy position seems to have been dreaded as much as any dragons that might be roaming the periphery of the earth.

Perhaps this is what Mycroft is getting at, even though his dragon facts rest mostly on an invented tradition. What Sherlock has to fear the most are not fantastical creatures, but instead the “ordinary” people of his own world. Isn’t that what we fear, too? We are all—at least sometimes—“on edge.”

Here be dragons? Sort of. But also—here be monsters. Here be ordinary people. Here be you and me.

Notes:

*Chet Van Duzer, “Hic sunt dracones: The Geography and Cartography of Monsters,” in The Ashgate Research Companion to Monsters and the Monstrous, ed. Asa Simon Mittman and Peter Dendle (Ashgate, 2013), 389.

**Asa Simon Mittman, Maps and Monsters in Medieval England (Routledge, 2006), 20, 23.

Welcome to Part 3 of this blog series, in which I’m reviewing historical fiction set in the Middle Ages. Past posts concerned Pilgrimage by Lucy Pick and Down the Common by Ann Baer.

This week’s read is Doomsday Book by Connie Willis, the master of time travel fiction. I like this book for the juxtaposition of the seasonal setting—the “most wonderful time of the year”—with one of the worst epidemics in human history. I’ll explain why below.

Doomsday Book is set at Christmastime in the years 2048 and 1348. Kivrin, an Oxford history student in the 21^st century, takes a research trip to medieval England. She’s supposed to go to the year 1320 but ends up in 1348—right when the Black Death swept through England. At the same time, back in Oxford, a parallel epidemic hits, making it difficult for Kivrin’s team to rescue her. Stuck in the Middle Ages, Kivrin becomes the sole person able to tend plague victims since she has been inoculated against the disease.

When reading Willis’s novel, you’re going to have to get over a few implausibilities (other than the time travel itself). For example, no one in the year 2048 has a cell phone or any kind of mobile device; everyone’s always scrambling to get to a land line to make important calls (!). Just let that go.

But Willis gets many things right. There’s something about her characters and the surprising relationships they form that tugs at the heart. She gives the plague names and faces, painting an especially endearing portrait of a little medieval girl who can’t sit (or stand) still during a long Christmas Eve mass. Kivrin becomes close to this girl, who, like everyone else from the village in which Kivrin is stranded, does not survive the plague. This just about destroyed me. At the same time, it’s incredibly moving to see someone from another time—Kivrin—enter into the terrible suffering of a long-ago era. It’s a redemptive view of time, one in which humankind is called to help the past, one in which healing can take place across the ages.

Of course, Kivrin can’t “fix” the past. That would be against the laws of time travel. The medieval villagers see her as a kind of angel, but in the end, she can’t save anyone. But she can be a minister of mercy. She can love, and grieve, and, in the face of terrible suffering, never be the same again.

Every few years, I reread Doomsday Book, and I try to do so right at Christmastime. I find it a good antidote to the sentimentality of the season. There’s so much feel-good drivel at Christmas, so much mustered cheer and unthinking jubilation. Everyone just wants to feel cozy and warm and get the Christmas spirit. Willis’s book reminds us what the Christmas spirit really is: it’s the smallest of lights shining in the darkness. Christmas came because the world so desperately needs it. If you’re not feeling warm and fuzzy at Christmas, that’s good. It means you’re ready for a savior. That said, Doomsday Book is a good read any time of the year.

Thus ends this blog series on medieval historical fiction! What draws together the three books I reviewed is their refusal to romanticize the Middle Ages. None of them brings on sentimental nostalgia for the medieval era; none make me yearn to live there. Each book captures a difficult part of the Middle Ages—pilgrimage, peasantry, and plague—and shows how redemption enters in, even if it’s only through the cracks.

In this blog series, I’m reviewing a smattering of fiction set in the Middle Ages. Last week’s book was the wonderful novel Pilgrimage by Lucy Pick. Today, I’m taking a look at a less recent book–Down the Common: A Year in the Life of a Medieval Woman, by Ann Baer (M. Evans & Co., 1998).

Down the Common follows a peasant woman, Marion, through the months of a typical year in the small English village in which she lives. Each chapter bears the name of one month; the succession of months, along with the arduous yet lovingly described labors that accompany each one, forms the backbone of the plot. It doesn’t sound like much; yet the book manages to be meditative rather than merely descriptive.

Marion herself isn’t an overly meditative person, and this is part of what I appreciate about Down the Common. Marion isn’t a true “heroine.” Baer doesn’t try to make her modern by giving her a sense of self, like many authors do with medieval characters. As an aspiring fiction writer, I’ve often wondered how I would handle the Middle Ages. How do you characterize someone from a pre-modern era? How do you get inside the head of, for example, the laborers pictured on the cover of Baer’s book? I imagine my characters would end up being anachronistically modern.

Baer manages this difficulty pretty well, if not perfectly. We know that Marion isn’t very self-aware partly because we’re explicitly told so. For example, we read passages like, “Marion would never have thought to wonder why ” this or that happens. These interjections disrupt the point of view and narrative flow a bit. Still, it’s admirable that Baer refuses to let Marion “rise above adversity” or “find herself.” The labors of the months are the true heroines of this book. It’s like the calendar pages in a book of hours have come to life.

As an art historian, I found this delightful. I immediately thought of the calendar pages from the Très Riches Heures of Jean de Berry (pictured). But as a Christian, it’s disturbing. The calendar pages in a book of hours describe the rhythm of the year, and they precede the daily prayers. They’re part of a spiritual journey—through each day and through the year. In Down the Common, the year comes full circle—each season has its labors and feasts. Yet in this circle, there is no sense of the fullness of time, no sense of God’s story unfolding through the church year.

Instead, the liturgical year unfurls simply because it is what happens. It’s another labor. Marion and her fellow villagers believe what they’ve been told; and really, they don’t know what they believe. They attend Mass to influence God in their favor, in the same way that they bury a miscarried goat fetus under the stable threshold to prevent more misfortune. The villagers are led by a priest who is barely literate and carries around a board to which a single sheet of vellum has been glued. This is his “missal.”

It makes me wonder. Is Baer’s book an example of we moderns casting the Middle Ages as superstitious? All ritual and no belief? Or is this what “faith” was like for most of the people who lived then—the people who didn’t produce the texts and paintings we revere today? In claiming that the Middle Ages has a wonderful Christian worldview, have I and other historians assigned agency where there is none, or very little?

It’s good that this novel makes me doubt what I do as an historian. It reminds me that the past is “other.” It warns me to be careful about reading my own faith into the Middle Ages, although that is hardly avoidable.

Well, this was supposed to be a lighter review than it turned out to be! Know that Down the Common ends with a glimmer of hope (mingled as it is with fear). Sometimes a glimmer is all we have to hold onto . . . sometimes that has to be enough.

It’s summer, time to find a great beach or pool read. I know everyone wants to read about the Middle Ages. No? That’s just me? Okay, we’ll compromise and talk about fiction—fiction set in the Middle Ages.

For the next three weeks, I’ll highlight historical fiction that’s caught my eye. I’m not going to offer an in-depth review. I want to tell you what I think each book has to offer, primarily from a spiritual viewpoint.

We’ll begin this week with the most recent book of the three—Pilgrimage by Lucy Pick (Cuidono Press, 2014).

This book is about—you guessed it—a pilgrimage! It takes place in the 12^th century and concerns the Camino de Santiago, or Way of St. James, one of the most popular pilgrimage routes in the Middle Ages. The Camino is featured on the Hereford Map, which I write about in my recent book, so I was especially excited to see this route come alive. And it does, through a group of characters who walk the Camino, two of whom are writing the 12th-century pilgrim’s guidebook now known as the Codex Calixtinus.

The book’s most intriguing character is Gebirga of Gistel, who tells the story. She’s a Flemish crusader’s daughter who is quiet, resilient, reflective–and blind. Gebirga’s blindness is a nice touch; it adds a new dimension to the idea of pilgrim narratives.

But what interests me the most about Gebirga is that she is what we might call an “unintentional pilgrim.” She doesn’t set off on a sacred journey. She isn’t driven by a single-minded goal. She finds herself on the Camino as part of her job to escort a young noblewoman to her betrothed, in Spain; on the way, Gebirga becomes caught in a web of political intrigue and experiences all kinds of danger. Only at the end does her journey take on elements of what we think of as a true pilgrimage.

I appreciate this because it strips away some of the romanticism attached to the Camino and to pilgrimage in general. Today, pilgrimage seems noble and rugged, a great adventure. This is especially true of the Camino since travelers can still walk a good portion of this ancient route. Photos like the one below feature lone pilgrims in the wilderness of Spain, and you just know that they’re out there “finding themselves” on the journey.

I myself am probably guilty of idealizing pilgrimage. In my book and articles, I write about the sacredness of medieval pilgrimage and assume that pilgrims had the most devout of intentions. I imagine them setting out with hearts full of faith. In reality, pilgrims set out for all kinds of reasons, some of them pious and others, not so much. Don’t you love it when fiction reminds you of what is true historically?

I still think pilgrimage is a rich image of the Christian faith, and I’ll probably continue to write about it as such. But Pick’s book reminds me that in some ways, we’re all unintentional pilgrims. We don’t always set out with the best motives. We don’t know where we’re going. We may not even know or believe that healing is possible. And then, somewhere along the way, grace catches up with us. It reveals our destination and walks with us along the road.

Grace finds Gebirga, too. I won’t tell you how–read Pick’s book to the end to find out. As you do, remember that you, too, are on a sacred journey, even if it doesn’t always feel like it. God’s grace will catch up to you.