A guidebook for the Jerusalem pilgrimage in the Late Middle Ages

Throughout the Middle Ages people travelled to Palestine in very large numbers. The men - women were very few and far between - that travelled to what was felt to be the centre of the world may have been motivated by vastly differing aims, but they all faced the same perilous (and costly) journey. Travelling was hard work as roads were often in bad repairs, rivers had to be crossed while there were not many bridges and ferries, and there were hardly any signposts. Only the rich could afford horses and those that could not had to go on foot. The transport of pilgrims over the Mediterranean was taken care of chiefly by the Venetians. The crossing wasn't fun either: pilgrims complain about the noise, rats, seasickness, hunger, thirst, food that was infested with maggots, water that stank and boredom. As soons as the pilgrims disembarked Franciscan friars came to the rescue. They were the 'principalle resort and help' for all pelgrims and showed them all the holy places and explained, in different languages, what had to be known. The whole tour of the country, including a visit to holy places outside Jerusalem, seems to have been completed in about ten days only. We know how one travelled and what one endured because hundreds of pilgrims wrote about their journey. Many of those late mediaeval texts post dating 1300 show striking similarities: over and over again, the same places in the Holy Land are mentioned in much the same words and often in the same order.