tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2077317076878844175.post4301751969635316206..comments2023-05-25T10:03:42.720-04:00Comments on In Romaunce as We Rede: How do you get from A to B if you have no alphabet?Karahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08984810303393456829noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2077317076878844175.post-16606838386373500102012-11-10T11:45:50.737-05:002012-11-10T11:45:50.737-05:00Thanks for your fantastic and thought-provoking re...Thanks for your fantastic and thought-provoking reply, Kate!<br /><br />I am seeing Isumbras in a whole new way now in response to what you've written above. The lack of clear time and space in the romance very much resonates with what I've been thinking about recently, and also with your own recent work on pilgrimage. So often we think of pilgrimage as about destination -- a pilgrimage to Rome or Mecca -- yet the actual act of making the pilgrimage is crucial. It's not about how long Isumbras's journey lasts, but the fact that he makes this transformative journey at all. There is some sense of time in that he chooses it now rather than later in the beginning of the romance, but once that choice is made, he's propelled into action by the sudden misfortunes that befall him. It's the way he responds to these misfortunes that makes up the journey. You've really got me thinking, Kate -- I think I'm going to need to reread Isumbras and a few other romances now. <br /><br />I also really like your point about the Camino as a Pilgrimage which does require a particular distance (isn't that a bit like a dissertation with a minimum page count which can be reached in different ways and at many paces?). Like you, the distance meant little to me until you paired it with the average time of 6 weeks. It's that time that makes it real to me. Even though it's a specific place and a specific distance, though, it seems like that the journey itself is privileged more than we might think. the fact that pilgrims must travel a certain distance to count as a true pilgrimage means that it's not just about getting to the end, but about really making that full trip to get there. If it were just about the destination, it wouldn't matter how you got there or how far you travelled. But the required distance and mode of travel means that arriving there only achieves its full significance as part of the larger journey. I especially love your point about walking the same distance on the same path but at different paces. Again, that sounds a lot like grad school to me!<br /><br />The idea of pilgrimage as emotional travel as well as literal travel also really resonates with me. The woman you describe, unlike Custance, has chosen this journey. But she clearly sees the journey as an internal one as well as an external one. And that, to me, seems crucial for pilgrimage. After all, the critiques of pilgrims in the later Middle Ages often centered around the idea that pilgrims were just using the pilgrimage as an excuse for tourism. That they weren't really experiencing the spiritually transformative parts of the process, but instead were just traveling. I, of course, feel like travel of many kinds can be transformative, but the fact that these critiques existed indicates that people saw a kind of pilgrimage occurring in which, though the distance was still traversed, the intent and experience of the traversal were lacking. The intent and experience, then, imbue the travel with the necessary meaning. It's not just journey or destination, but also the way in which the traveller engages with both.<br /><br />I hope that you share more of your interesting work on pilgrimage, Kate. I have a post in the works as well on peregrinatio pro amore dei, which is pilgrimage via rudderless ship. This is a kind of pilgrimage without destination at all, where the very act of placing yourself into the hands of fate constituted the journey. I think that will connect nicely with some of what you say above about pilgrimage and Custance. Kristi J. Castleberryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06720487517554975509noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2077317076878844175.post-82199280538864474892012-11-03T12:03:11.366-04:002012-11-03T12:03:11.366-04:00I love everything that you’ve said here, Kristi, a...I love everything that you’ve said here, Kristi, and it’s gotten me thinking a lot about pilgrimage. It dawned on me, as I was reading your wonderful account of the dynamic between time and distance, that the romance Sir Isumbras focuses far more on the years the hero spends on his pilgrimage than on the physical length of the journey. In fact, we don’t ever get a clear indication of where he comes from, nor do we get a sense of where he ends up; we know that he’s somewhere in Europe at the outset, and that he ends up somewhere in the Levant at the close. This vagueness prevents us from establishing a clear sense of distance, as a result. What we do know, however, is that his journey is painful and arduous, and we learn that not only through his suffering bodily harm and decreases in social station but through the persistent reminders of how long it takes him to complete his journey. I’d honestly never thought about Isumbras’ journey in quite that way, so many thanks for opening my eyes to this perspective! <br /><br />On a related note, I kept thinking about the Camino as I read your post. On the one hand, pilgrims are required to walk at least 100km if they want their journey acknowledged as a true pilgrimage; this requirement does, at least in some respects, prioritize distance in ways quite different from what you’re describing here. At the same time, however, pilgrims are not required to complete their 100km in any particular given time frame. They all walk along the same route, but at necessarily different paces. Moreover, at least for me (as a curious, potential pilgrim), the length of the Frances route meant far less to me than the amount of time it takes to traverse it. In fact, that was the first question I asked someone about the route. I knew how far the journey would take me, but knowing the length of time (roughly 6 weeks to do the entire 700+km route) made it much more concrete. <br /><br />Pilgrimages certainly differ from the rudderless ship journeys you describe in the sense that they do have a very real destination point. At the same time though, I wonder if the image of the rudderless ship could, in some respects at least, model the internal journey that the pilgrim undertakes. Pilgrimages are meant to fundamentally transform the pilgrim in some way (however subtle or quiet), and I wonder if that kind of travel corresponds at all with what you’re seeing. I think, in particular, of one of the women followed in The Camino Documentary. She described herself as a mess, as someone who needed to find herself again. She decided to walk the Camino to start that process, and so for her, making it to Santiago de Compostella still mattered a great deal, but so too did her goals of emotional healing. In this sense, pilgrims like her (there are many other kinds of pilgrims) seem to share a lot with Custance; they come to the Camino unsure of who they are and equally uncertain of where they will end up after the journey, but hopeful that the journey will lead them to a better place. <br />Leila K. Norakohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05104389368097283321noreply@blogger.com