Age of Pilgrimage: The Medieval Journey to God

Wary at getting a true believer’s account of pilgrimage in the Medieval Ages to read along with a virtual wait on the Camino de Santiago, I was delighted with the scope and skepticism of this tome.

Ended up using this book in a college level class and the student loved it. Although some of Sumption's conclusions can be generalized and debated, there is no doubt that his writing style is lively, his examples well chosen to illustrate varieties of experience, and his survey is quite thorough. Somewhat hefty, but a great read. Recommend highly.

great book

Have just started the book and like the format and style. Very comprehensive and informative. Needs abit more on the Santiago site but otherwise quite good. I would reccomend it for anyone starting out on research topics on that great age.

The Catholic church has always presented a series of intriguing enigmas to anyone with the time or interest to look beneath the surface. But most interesting of all, perhaps, is the road that was taken on its journey toward ever-increasing decay. That road is illustrated no where so well as the medieval pilgrimages. Sumption has done an excellent job of bringing to life the people and places that were so prominent in the religious lives of everyone, peasant and prince, during the middle ages.In a tone light enough to engage any reader, but which never lends itself to frivolity, Sumption expounds on the origins of the popular pilgrimages, beginning with the "cult of the relics" and the almost idolatrous adulation of the saints as encouraged by the papacy. Miracles, healing, penitential pilgrimages - all are opened up to the modern mind with astounding clarity and lucidity.Sumption closes with a salvo of chapters on the "great age" of the pilgrimages, in which pious humility gave way to mere curiosity and even stylistic fads. His descriptions of the holy destinations - Jerusalem, Rome, Canterbury - sing with vibrancy, as he invites us to partake of the crowded streets of the Jubilees, the writhing crowds engaged in mass flagellation, and the combined adoration and skepticism exhibited in the widely varied thousands of pilgrims traversing the roads to the Holy Land.An excellent read, not only for those interested in the defined subject matter, but also those seeking the little gems about daily life and social mores in the middle ages. In this tidy volume, originally published under the title PILGRIMAGE, Sumption has set the bar very high indeed.

This book not only proved a gold mine for my current writing project, it is also a charm of a read. Sumption's prose goes down like a fine wine; his knowledge is vast but expressed with economy and an abundance of enjoyable stories and often comic escapades. This book is truly an example not only of rigorous scholarship, but of the kind of work that can provide intellectual uplift and be enjoyed by the generalist as well as the academic specialist.If you want to know about medieval pilgrimage, look no further. This book covers it all, from 500-1500. Want to know about saints and the cults of their relics? Here they are. Need miracles or healings? Seek and ye shall find! Sumption covers them all and more--journeys over land, sea voyages, traveling companions, hostels and way stations, politics, holy sites and the never ending gullibility of that omnipresent creature: homo faithfulus. Regardless of your own religious beliefs (or lack thereof), you should come away with a firm appreciation for how the human craving to believe, to be taken care of, to be lifted up from the mundane, to find hope and healing, distorts, deludes, corrupts and makes nonsense out of our alleged faculty of reason. Superlative!!

buyers should be aware that this is not a new book. it is a reprint, under a new title, of sumption's classic 1970s book on pilgrimage.it is an outstanding work - entertaining despite the seriousness of the scholarship. if you are planning a trip to santiago, this book will tell you more about those who have walked the road before you than a whole shelf full of new-age "camino as the path to enlightenment" books that have appeared in recent years.

This is a reprint of the 1975 edition 'Pilgrimage' and not an update, the lack of this information and advertising it on the same page is deliberate misinformation

Very interesting survey of the history of pilgrimage and the major sites in Europe. Amusing in parts, but most of all opens ones eyes to the strangeness of the medieval mind. Written in a direct and accessible style. Maybe a bit too repetitive for five stars?

Comprehensive, judicious, fascinating: an excellent read.