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Time and Pilgrimage on the Mediaeval Way of Saint James

JabbaPapa

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There is an interesting study project on concepts of Time and Pilgrimage supported by the Xunta de Galicia ; briefly described here :


Those interested in various aspects of such questions will find different things in here, and personally I like the direct quotes from old sources.

10th/11th Century :

Peregrinantes in tres clases diuiduunt: prima est eorum qui sanctorum oratoria pietatis causa frequentant; altera poenitentium, quibus peregrinatio in poenam indicta est, vel qui sponte eam suscipiunt; tertia morientium, qui in loco sancto sepulturam eligunt.

(Three types of pilgrim -- those with a purpose of devotional prayer to the Saint ; those travelling penitentially, either of their own motivation or mandated thereto by a penalty ; and the dying, wishing to reach the holy place to be interred there.)

12th Century :

Aquellos que van en peregrinación a un santuario reciben en la iglesia el bordón y la escarcela bendecidos. Cuando ellos van a los santuarios con motivo de penitencia, les damos el bordón y la escarcela bendecidos, según la costumbre eclesiástica.

(Those departing on pilgrimage for penitence to a sanctuary, are given a pilgrim staff and a scrip by their church, blessed for the journey according to custom.) -- Modern equivalent, hiking poles and a backpack.

A summary article that appeared in the revue Galicia Histórica is reproduced on pp. 42-43 of the pdf.
 
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Interesting. Until mechanisation and industry came along and people moved into the towns and were ruled by factory whistles and time, earlier people were different in two main ways to us moderns, re time.

Before mechanical clocks were common a working day was dawn to dusk and a field worker would work "twelve hours a day" .. in summer that 'twelve hours' could be very long indeed but in winter perhaps only seven or even less.

And sleeping was different too - humans are designed for two sleeps a night. The first sleep of a few hours and then a few hours of alertness and then back to bed for a longer second sleep. Because of the climate southern Europeans adapted this to an afternoon sleep and a night sleep. Even Shakespeare mentions the 'first sleep' of the night and the 'second sleep'. The monastic life of prayers and service at midnight makes more sense.

Does mean that all those who think they have insomnia are actually just being the way that humans are designed to be.
 
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With hundreds and hundreds of studies already done, it can't be easy to find a new angle for an investigation of medieval pilgrimages to Saint James in Galicia. At least this researcher does not intend to ignore local and 'rural' pilgrimages to Santiago.

"Tiempo y viaje. El Tiempo y los tiempos en la peregrinación a Santiago de Compostela en la Edad Media"​
​
So that's Time and Journey. Time and times [or is that seasons? or The times? ] in the context of the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in the Middle Ages. I got curious and laboured through 35 pages of Spanish. The author has created a dedicated Twitter account with the handle @tiempoyviaje. In one of the first tweet he writes:

The importance and focus was not lying on a camino, or on the camino, or on the Camino, but on arrival and worship. Time was finite, and this meant attempts to reduce the journey, perhaps in order to be able to extend the time of stay in Santiago. Medieval crumbs [= we have so little to go by that lets us look into the heads of medieval pilgrims].​

 
Camino Way markers in Bronze
The one from Galicia (the round) and the one from Castilla & Leon. Individually numbered and made by the same people that make the ones you see on your walk.
It's something like "Time and tempos", but not quite -- this particular use of the word in the plural in the Romance languages (viz. French le temps / les temps) is hard to render properly into English.

It refers to cycles and rhythms and divisions in and of time as we perceive and create them from within the activities and processes of our personal day-to-day lives within the shared life that we have with each other. It's a concept from critical theory of the Paris School (Literature & Philosophy).

I guess you could translate it as Time and Journey. Time and tempora in the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela during the Middle Ages ?
 
Fascinating... although it seems we have so little knowledge of those times, it is lovely to be able to speculate about how people lived their lives, and their pilgrimages.
 
Wishing to see you on the Way again. The food and beers are on me.
 
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