Monday, April 4, 2011

Wandering Women


A few quotes about women on pilgrimages: 

"Whoever builds his house out of willows, and spurs his blind horse over plowed land, and suffers his wife to go seeking shrines, is worthy to be hanged on a gallows!"
The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer

“[It would] provide a certain shield against vice, if your synod and your princes would forbid matrons and veiled women to make these frequent journeys back and forth to Rome.  A great part of them perish and few keep their virtue.  There are very few towns in Lombardy and Frankland or Gaul where there is not a courtesan or harlot of English stock.  It is a scandal and a disgrace to your whole church."
St Boniface to the Archbishop of Canterbury, 8th century

“[Tolerate] neither broken sword nor wandering woman.”
Spanish proverb

It sounds like my gender is going to have to be one of the anachronistic elements of my journey. 

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