
These excursions would have been entirely familiar to the medieval pilgrims who first trudged those routes and hunted for bargains at the shrines to take home, which back then included slippers, deerskin bags, packets of dried herbs and souvenir badges. With the recent reports of cruise ship passengers being stricken en masse with gastric bugs or attacked by pirates, it does remind you that modern travellers and medieval pilgrims still have a lot in common.
Not getting what you thought
you’d paid for was a frequent complaint among pilgrims back in medieval times, just as it is as
among package holiday makers now. In 1480, a seasoned pilgrim, known as Frater
Felix Fabri, complained that the sea-captain who’d brought them to Jerusalem tried
to charge them a ducat and 8 mercelins each for a donkey excursion which the pilgrims
insisted was included as part of the ‘package’ they’d already paid for.
Unfortunately, they were forced to pay up when the captain threaten to leave
them behind in the Holy Land.

In the early 1400’s, Venice was
the port from which most pilgrimage ships set sail and, to be fair, the authorities
tried their best to stop the pilgrims being ripped off. They appointed Cattaveri who oversaw the Piazza Guides stationed
on the Rialto or in St Mark’s Square who were there to translate for the foreign pilgrims, help
them find ships and ensure that they were not overcharged by vendors or being tricked
out of their change. But the pilgrims complained that the Piazza Guides all
went off together for a lunch break each day, so the authorities were forced to
insist the guides took their hours’ lunch break in shifts so there was always
someone on duty.
The Venetian authorities also inspected the pilgrim ships
giving them a star rating in the form of crosses for sea-worthiness and also
painted a cross at a particular level on the hull, like an early plimsoll
line, to ensure the ship couldn’t be overladen or set out without enough ballast.


The ladder leading down into the pilgrims’
cabin was removed at sunset, because of the dangers of being up on a wet deck
in the dark. But Felix Fabri reports that one overweight Dalmatian priest
forgot this and stayed too long on deck. He tried to climb down, but the ladder was gone, so he fell through the hatch and down into the cabin below, landing with such a crash
that whole deck shook, though mercifully he was unharmed. But he then started a
furious argument, accusing his fellow passengers of having pulled the ladder out
from under him whilst he was standing on it.
Little wonder then that King
Richard I, in an attempt to try to control the rowdy behaviour of pilgrims, drew
up statutes to curb their behaviour. Penalties were severe – if you killed
a fellow pilgrim you would be bound to his corpse and flung into the sea. If
you injured another pilgrim and drew blood, your right hand was chopped off and
if you slapped another pilgrim without drawing blood, you would be dunked in
the sea three times. But even assuming you escaped injury or death at the hands of your fellow passengers, you still had to face the hazards of pirates, violent storms, hidden rocks, contracting a deadly fever or dying of thirst when the ship became becalmed.
You know what – I think I’ll give
that cruise a miss this year. I’ve rather gone off the whole idea.

7 comments:
Oh no! Rushing for a seat at the dinner table! Tar on your clothes! Amputation for bloody fisticuffs!
These must be some of the proverbial "worse things that happen at sea"...
Thanks for this fascinating, horrific and funny post, Karen. It will most definitely put our next holiday gripes in perspective. :-)
Thanks for this fascinating post! I don't think I would have wanted to be one of these pilgrims! And yet, there were some who were hooked on pilgrimages and made sure they ad their Compostela seashell and other " I was there" souvenirs. I can imagine someone walking around with the mediaeval equivalent of "My Brother Went To The Holy land And All I Got Was This Stupid T shirt". ;-)
Brilliant post, Karen! I always hated the idea of a cruise...
This is quite brilliant! And very appropriate as I'm thinking nowadays a lot about Eleanor of Aquitaine who must have had some kind of First Class treatment, I guess. Plus ca change eh? (no accents, sorry!) Love it! But unlike Kath, I quite fancy a cruise only it has to be a) on calm waters and b) Cole Porter type LUXURY and c) pleasant passengers. So back to dreaming. Interesting to think of the Ship of Fools in the context of such travelling. Ace!
Fascinating details, Karen, thanks very much. Love the medieval souvenirs to take back, presumably one bought them after lugging one's rented mattress back to the Square.
Thank you,Karen!
Could not help laughing at some of these descriptions, especially the rows over limited space (economy-class long-haul?) and the tumble down the missing ladder and the thought of that much used bedding.
Hope they all got their sins forgiven and their blessings in heaven - as well as their impressively knowledgeable tales to tell of "Well, when I was on my pilgrimage . . ." Though without the video, of course.
Did they get norovirus, I wonder? I guess at least the survivors felt they had earned the distinction of being returned pilgrims!
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