Pilgrims to Jerusalem in the Middle Ages

P-- ILe Monde/I/PPNicole Charyeron has produced a well-written and engaging study of a corpus of fascinating and under-studied travel accounts of pilgrims from all over Catholic Europe from the fourteenth to the early sixteenth century. She does a wonderful job of bringing these texts to life and weaving them together into a coherent narrative while respecting their individual voices. -- John Tolan, Universit} de Nantes and author of ISaracens: Islam in the Medieval European Imagination/I/PPThis work is of major importance in several fields, among them literature, medieval studies, religious studies, cultural studies, ethnography, studies of travel narratives, philosophical issues of alterity, and many others. Chareyron's book should find a broad readership both among academics and the general public: it is well-written, interesting, crammed withanecdote and detail as well as scholarly analysis. The book is especially timely given its investigation of the interactionsbetween Islam and Christianity, the antecedents of present-day tensions, concerns and, perhaps, as resolutions. -- Catherine Randall, Professor of French, Fordham University/PPEvery man who undertakes the journey to the Our Lord's Sepulcher needs three sacks: a sack of patience, a sack of silver, and a sack of faith. -- Symon Semeonis, an Irish medieval pilgrim /PPAs medieval pilgrims made their way to the places where Jesus Christ lived and suffered, they experienced, among other things: holy sites, the majesty of the Egyptian pyramids (often referred to as the Pharaoh's granaries), dips in the Dead Sea, unfamiliar desert landscapes, the perils of traveling along the Nile, the customs of their Muslim hosts, Barbary pirates, lice, inconsiderate traveling companions, and a variety of difficulties, both great and small. In this richly detailed study, Nicole Chareyron draws on more than one hundred firsthand accounts to consider the journeys and worldviews of medieval pi