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Pilgrims and pigments
May. 6th, 2018 08:48 pmWe are fairly regular attenders at the lecture series organised by Durham's World Heritage Site management, so we trotted along to last week's IMEMS Annual World Heritage Lecture more or less by default. I had some reservations about the topic, A sense of place? Pilgrimages and the senses, past, present and future, because on the one hand I am interested in pilgrimage, what it is and why we do it (though my ambivalence runs through my various posts from the Camino de Santiago) but on the other hand I can get very irritated by a narrowly Christian interpretation of the topic. That bringing together of pilgrimages and the senses was unexpected, though...
The bad news is that although Dr Dee Dyas was an excellent speaker, the project on which her talk was based relates specifically to Pilgrimage & England's Cathedrals. According to the website, the project asks two key questions: Why did pilgrimage matter in the past and why does it still matter today?, and the lecture began with a montage of photos which include, alongside the shrines and cathedrals, hikers on the way to Compostela and candles spelling out the name 'Elvis' at the gates of Gracelands.
But while it recognises the larger context, its main concern appeared to be what it is about the cathedrals studied which creates the sense of pilgrimage. How can the visitor be made to feel that they are experiencing something of value to them, to which they may or may not attach the term pilgrimage? Visitor questionnaires showed people choosing, or not choosing, to describe themselves as pilgrims regardless of belief, or of distance travelled - which is in itself interesting, if irritating (I silently conjugated: I am a pilgrim, you are a visitor, he is a tourist). The study looked at Canterbury, Durham, York and - for balance - Westminster Catholic Cathedral, and this selection determined some of what it found out. I came away muttering about Walsingham, which surely stands alongside Canterbury as an English pilgrim centre (and having just looked it up, contrasts with the other examples in not basing its attraction on actual relics). Mutter, mutter, Saint Magnus, mutter mutter...
Some of what Dr Dyas had to say about the rôle of the senses, the part played not only by the visual splendour of the cathedrals but also by candles and incense and music, was interesting. Not to mention the extent to which medieval pilgrims could actually touch the relics, and what effect that had on them. Not strictly part of the sensory experience, more part of a very commercial pilgrim economy, but I loved her picture of a fold-it-yourself mini-shrine made from lead (not identical to this one, but similar). On balance, I'm glad I went.
There was a bonus in the involvement of IMEMS (Institute of Medieval and Early Modern Studies): we were given a sheaf of paperwork about other work in the field. I was particularly intrigued by a page about 'Team Pigment', a project bringing together the Chemistry and History Departments, using spectroscopy to study the inks and pigments used in medieval manuscripts. I can't find anything online which duplicates that printed page, but this blog details some of their work; research student Louise Garner also lists a blog about it, but if there is any content there, I can't find it.
ETA: Too tired last night to fit this in anywhere, possibly because it doesn't fit, since it takes a precisely opposite view of pilgrimage, that it's all about the journey (etymologically, this is sound, but words are entitled to deviate from their etymology!): a review of a book about a walk across Britain in search of curlews uses the word 'pilgrimage', which I think is the reviewer's, not the author's.
The bad news is that although Dr Dee Dyas was an excellent speaker, the project on which her talk was based relates specifically to Pilgrimage & England's Cathedrals. According to the website, the project asks two key questions: Why did pilgrimage matter in the past and why does it still matter today?, and the lecture began with a montage of photos which include, alongside the shrines and cathedrals, hikers on the way to Compostela and candles spelling out the name 'Elvis' at the gates of Gracelands.
But while it recognises the larger context, its main concern appeared to be what it is about the cathedrals studied which creates the sense of pilgrimage. How can the visitor be made to feel that they are experiencing something of value to them, to which they may or may not attach the term pilgrimage? Visitor questionnaires showed people choosing, or not choosing, to describe themselves as pilgrims regardless of belief, or of distance travelled - which is in itself interesting, if irritating (I silently conjugated: I am a pilgrim, you are a visitor, he is a tourist). The study looked at Canterbury, Durham, York and - for balance - Westminster Catholic Cathedral, and this selection determined some of what it found out. I came away muttering about Walsingham, which surely stands alongside Canterbury as an English pilgrim centre (and having just looked it up, contrasts with the other examples in not basing its attraction on actual relics). Mutter, mutter, Saint Magnus, mutter mutter...
Some of what Dr Dyas had to say about the rôle of the senses, the part played not only by the visual splendour of the cathedrals but also by candles and incense and music, was interesting. Not to mention the extent to which medieval pilgrims could actually touch the relics, and what effect that had on them. Not strictly part of the sensory experience, more part of a very commercial pilgrim economy, but I loved her picture of a fold-it-yourself mini-shrine made from lead (not identical to this one, but similar). On balance, I'm glad I went.
There was a bonus in the involvement of IMEMS (Institute of Medieval and Early Modern Studies): we were given a sheaf of paperwork about other work in the field. I was particularly intrigued by a page about 'Team Pigment', a project bringing together the Chemistry and History Departments, using spectroscopy to study the inks and pigments used in medieval manuscripts. I can't find anything online which duplicates that printed page, but this blog details some of their work; research student Louise Garner also lists a blog about it, but if there is any content there, I can't find it.
ETA: Too tired last night to fit this in anywhere, possibly because it doesn't fit, since it takes a precisely opposite view of pilgrimage, that it's all about the journey (etymologically, this is sound, but words are entitled to deviate from their etymology!): a review of a book about a walk across Britain in search of curlews uses the word 'pilgrimage', which I think is the reviewer's, not the author's.
