A TRAVEL GUIDE TO THE MIDDLE AGES
by Anthony Bale
(Viking, $55 hb, ebook, audiobook)
“Yet the most fundamental purpose of travel was pilgrimage, an ambulant performance of piety and penitence.
There is nothing more emblematic of the illuminating, excruciating and sometimes very weird tales told in this book than a collection of medieval pilgrim badges. Fashioned out of cheap metal, these were sold to pilgrims and displayed with pride in remembrance of saints’ shrines visited over a lifetime. Many were styled as objects that symbolised the saint or holy place.
But alongside items such as the scallop shell sported by visitors to Santiago de Compostela, one finds a brace
