Pilgrimage
Some time ago I posted something about the famous medieval pilgrim route to Santiago de Compostela, so when I came across this post at the Oxford University Press Blog, it caught my eye ... Greetings From A Vanished World, During a 500 Mile Trek.
The article is about Chris Lowney, the author of A Vanished World: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Medieval Spain, who is undertaking a 500 mile pilgrimage to raise money for charity. Here's a bit from the post ...
It's my pleasure to contribute my first post to the OUP blog. It marks two related events. The first is the imminent publication of my book, A Vanished World, in paperback by OUP. The book explores the triumphs and tragedies of medieval Spain's Christians, Muslims, and Jews. At the dawn of the 21st century, we three faith groups (and civilization at large) have gotten ourselves into a terrible predicament, and my book draws lessons learned from our ancestors who lived together so long ago in Spain. Together, they utterly revolutionized the west---how we count numbers, the food we eat, even cowboy culture! Sadly, their civilization finally dissolved in jihad, Crusade, and inquisition. A Vanished World tells these stories.
This post also coincides with the 500 mile walking trek I've just started along the famous medieval pilgrim route to Santiago de Compostela that is profiled at length in my book. For a thousand years, Christians have trekked to Compostela, and I´m doing the same over these next 30 days. I've already climbed up the Pyrenees to Roncesvalles, and down the other side.
I hope to keep reporting to OUP readers through this blog as I make the trek, and I look forward to your comments either on my book or on the trek.
Chris is blogging his pilgtimage ... read about it here and see an interactive map of his travels here.
The article is about Chris Lowney, the author of A Vanished World: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Medieval Spain, who is undertaking a 500 mile pilgrimage to raise money for charity. Here's a bit from the post ...
It's my pleasure to contribute my first post to the OUP blog. It marks two related events. The first is the imminent publication of my book, A Vanished World, in paperback by OUP. The book explores the triumphs and tragedies of medieval Spain's Christians, Muslims, and Jews. At the dawn of the 21st century, we three faith groups (and civilization at large) have gotten ourselves into a terrible predicament, and my book draws lessons learned from our ancestors who lived together so long ago in Spain. Together, they utterly revolutionized the west---how we count numbers, the food we eat, even cowboy culture! Sadly, their civilization finally dissolved in jihad, Crusade, and inquisition. A Vanished World tells these stories.
This post also coincides with the 500 mile walking trek I've just started along the famous medieval pilgrim route to Santiago de Compostela that is profiled at length in my book. For a thousand years, Christians have trekked to Compostela, and I´m doing the same over these next 30 days. I've already climbed up the Pyrenees to Roncesvalles, and down the other side.
I hope to keep reporting to OUP readers through this blog as I make the trek, and I look forward to your comments either on my book or on the trek.
Chris is blogging his pilgtimage ... read about it here and see an interactive map of his travels here.
posted by crystal | 7:38 PM
3 Comments:
I can't believe he's doing the Camino de Santiago in early November. That's going to be brutal. My wife and I did it in August and it was hard enough. By this schedule, he's going to be hitting the mountains in Galicia almost in December. Wouldn't want to be doing that.
It's an extraordinary experience - the greatest thing I've ever done in my life, next to getting married. I highly recommend it to everyone.
But not in November.
Thanks for the post. I'll be curious to read his updates and compare notes.
I've read some articles by people who have made the pilgimage and they all said similar things about it. it sounds like a life changing experience.
He'll be ok as long as he doesn't decide to go through Moria instead of over the mountains :-)
Moria would probably be warmer, however. :-)
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