More about the Via Francigena del Sud

This Sunday I join the "Road to Rome 2021" to start walking from Rome toward Santa Maria di Leuca, at the southern tip of Italy!!! 

The Via Francigena has always been "the road to Rome" from northern Europe - from the Frankish realms, hence the name "Francigena". So what does the road south of Rome have to do with it?  

First of all, people who live in Italy south of Rome might want to head northwards along this route on a pilgrimage to Rome. And secondly, the modern Via Francigena del Sud retraces the steps pilgrims would have taken on their way to the Holy Land in Palestine: the first and most important site of Christian pilgrimage. The present walking route has in fact been reconstructed on the basis of the report of an anonymous pilgrim on his or her way from the Holy Land back home to Bordeaux in the year 333 AD, known as the Itinerarium Burdigalense. Our earliest surviving account of a Christian pilgrimage, this document was written only 21 years after the Emperor Constantine made Christianity legal in the Roman Empire! 

Far from keeping what we would now call a diary, the writer of the Itinerarium Burdigalense merely listed the places where the group stopped overnight or to change their horses (see previous post). This unknown pilgrim travelled from Bordeaux to the Holy Land via the overland route through Constantinople, but travelled partly by boat on the way back, landing in Otranto (Puglia) and then walking/riding north to Rome, on to Milan, and then to France, making the trip into a circle tour.

The Itinerarium Burdigalense, AD 333  

The pilgrimage to the Holy Land could in fact be accomplished travelling either overland or by sea. The overland route became particularly popular during the eleventh century, when the conversion of Hungary to Christianity and the revival of Byzantium had brought most of the route under Christian control. Even so, the pilgrimage to Jerusalem was the most dangerous voyage a pilgrim could undertake. On a five thousand kilometre walk among suspicious and even hostile peoples whose language he or she did not understand, the medieval pilgrim might be attacked and robbed, mistaken for a spy, even sold into slavery. Bishop Gunther of Bamberg reported in 1064, "Truly we have been through fire and water... we have been harassed by the Hungarians, attacked by the Bulgars, and driven to flight by the Turks; we have endured the insults of the arrogant Greeks of Constantinople and the rabid fury of the Cilicians. But we are afraid that even worse disasters lie ahead of us!" (Annales Altahenses Maiores, pp. 66-70; quoted by Jonathan Sumption in The Age of Pilgrimage: The Medieval Journey to God, my chief source of information for today's blog entry [the book, not God!]).      

By the end of the eleventh century, instability in eastern Europe had made the overland route even more dangerous to travel, and pilgrims tended to prefer travelling by sea. But a sea voyage in the Middle Ages was by no means a luxury cruise! Poor pilgrims were stowed away in the most uncomfortable parts of small, unstable boats, sometimes with so little personal space they could not even turn over in their sleep; they had to remain lying down for much of the day, too, to keep out of the way of the sailors and the rigging. They were trampled over by insects, mice, rats, and sometimes larger animals as well, if the livestock brought onto the ship as part of the food supply broke loose! In spite of the presence of this meat on the hoof, the pilgrims who paid the cheapest fares would have been given only bread and water to eat, unless they brought their own food with them. 

Wealthier pilgrims fared slightly better, travelling on the larger oared galleys made available by the Republic of Venice. The medieval Venetians offered an all-inclusive package that included passage and food while onboard the ship and in the Holy Land, the cost of donkeys and pack-horses, tolls, taxes and bribes for Arab officials, guided tours of Jerusalem, and special expeditions including baptism in the Jordan River. The world's first package tour!

Medieval cruise brochure?
Ship of pilgrims – from British Library MS Royal 15 E I f. 404v

But for rich and poor alike, there was absolutely nothing to do on a sea voyage that took six weeks or more! The only forms of entertainment available onboard were drinking, playing cards and singing; more devout pilgrims could spend long hours reading and praying, or, if they were so fortunate (?) as to have a preacher onboard, listening to sermons. The expedition of 1494 was lucky enough to have aboard one Francesco Tivulzio, "a holy friar with a wonderful library in his head", who rose and delivered an elaborate sermon several hours long whenever the ship was becalmed. On the eve of the feast day of St. John, he preached from 5 pm until sunset, promising to deliver the remainder of his sermon the following day! With such options for entertainment, however, "most people simply sat about looking on blankly, passing their eyes from one group to another, and thence to the open sea." 

On the whole, I'd rather walk. Which is why I'll be joining the European Association of the Vie Francigene for "The Road to Rome 2021 - Start Again", a Long Walk open to everyone to join for a day, a week, or a month, celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Association's foundation and relaunching sustainable tourism and slow travel. This group of walkers, the membership of which is constantly changing, has been on the Via Francigena since June 16th, following this great cultural route connecting the north with the south of Europe: from Canterbury, across the Channel, along the entire length of France from north to south, through Switzerland, over the Alps and through northern and central Italy. Tomorrow, September 10, they will arrive in Rome, where they will spend a couple of days resting, meeting with local authorities, celebrating their arrival in the city of St. Peter. I will join them there on September 12 and walk out of Rome on the Appian Way towards the southernmost tip of the Italian peninsula, Santa Maria di Leuca: Italy's own finis terrae!

I hope you will follow me along the way, in this blog, or on my Joanne's Long Walk Facebook or Instagram channel!