Spring Voyage Pilgrimage

Pilgrimages to the Holy Land were popular among European Christians in the Middle Ages. They offered participants a rare opportunity to visit sacred sites and view important relics of the Christian faith. In addition, the pilgrims were able to experience adventure and to make a change from the usual dull routines which characterized everyday life at the time (Mitchell 15-16). In the late 15th century, the Holy Land was under Islamic rulership. The Mamluk dynasty was in power at that time. The area had been controlled by Arabs for hundreds of years. In the 7th century A.D. the Arabs seized control of the Holy Land from the Byzantine Empire. The Mamluk reign began during the 13th century (1250) and continued until the early 1500s, when the Turks of the Ottoman Empire came into power (1516). Thus, the two pilgrimages discussed in this study took place during the final period of Mamluk rule. Despite the many hardships endured by travellers to the Holy Land, the European pilgrims were for the most part welcomed while the area was under Islamic rule. The ability to exact tolls and tribute

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by the pilgrims' own perceptions. In some cases, the biased or uninformed views of the travelers resulted in confused images of what life was really like in the Middle East at the time. Although much of the data in the pilgrims' logs was useful and relevant, a great deal of it was subjective and thus inaccurate from a scientific viewpoint. The Pilgrimage of Arnold Von Harff Almost forty years after the Spring Voyage, Arnold Von Harff embarked on a similar pilgrimage to the Holy Land, which lasted from 1496 to 1499. Von Harff was a well-to-do knight, who unlike the members of the Spring Voyage, set off on his pilgrimage alone. During his journey, he often travelled with merchants and other people he met along the way (Letts 4). His solo status enabled him to avoid paying some of the heavy tributes which were exacted from other pilgrims, because he was able to pose as a merchant (Letts xxiii). Von Harff's pilgrimage featured stops at Rome, Palestine, Mt. Sinai and Cairo. Although he claimed to have visited many other lands as well, such as India and Central Africa, researchers today dispute these claims (Letts xvi). Like the pilgrims of the Spring Voyage, Von Harff made many notes regarding the conditions of travel duri
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Approximate Word count = 5154
Approximate Pages = 21 (250 words per page)