Summary
A manuscript from the west-midlands, Harley 2253, contains two short texts from the thirteenth century intended to serve as guidebooks for pilgrims or crusaders to the Holy Land: the Les Pelrinages communes que Crestiens fount en la Seínte Terre and the Pardouns d’Acre. The first and longer of the two texts, the Pelrinages belongs to a group of medieval writings that outlined the holy geography of the Holy Land for western pilgrims in a biblical context. Arising from a tradition of Latin travel writing established by Bede, Eusebius, and Jerome, these texts organized their information geographically, leading the reader on their journey from one biblical location to another. The Pelrinages is a shorter adaptation of another vernacular text in this tradition, such as the Holy Pilgrimages or Ways and Pilgrimages of the Holy Land, two other vernacular guides to the Holy Land that prescribe similar itineraries. The Pelrinages begins in Acre and leads the pilgrim down the coastal road to Jaffa and then East to Jerusalem, from where the pilgrim moves in a circuit to the major holy sites: Jericho, Bethlehem, and Hebron. The text then takes the pilgrim north to Nazareth before ending again at Acre. The geography of the Pelrinages is biblical, emphasizing the ties between these locations and stories in both the Old and New Testament. The second text, the Pardouns, is much shorter, occupying only single folio in the Harley manuscript. It is an itinerary list of forty churches in geographical order through Acre which a pilgrim could visit to receive indulgences and the amounts awarded at each location.
MSS
British Library ms Harley 2253, f. 67-70.
Edition
Romanini, Fabio and Saletti, Beatrice, (editors). I Pélrinages communes, i Pardouns de Acre e la crisi del regno crociato. Storia e testi. Padova. Italy: libreriauniversitaria.it, 2012.
Secondary Literature
Jacoby, David. “Pilgrimage in Crusader Acre: The Pardouns d’Acre.” In De Sion Exibit Lex Et Verbum Domini De Hierusalem: Essays on Medieval Law, Liturgy, and Literature in Honour of Amnon Linder. Edited by Yitzhak Hen and Amnon Linder. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2001. 106–117.
Pringle, Denys, (editor). Pilgrimage to Jerusalem and the Holy Land, 1187-1291. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2012. [includes a translation of the text].