Architecture and Pilgrimage 600-1600

Description

CRASSH, 17 Mill Lane, Cambridge, CB2 1RX

Although there is a primary association between pilgrimage and place, relatively little research has centred directly on the role of architecture. Even fewer studies have explored pilgrimage and architecture in a comparative and contextual framework with respect to the three monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, or even within different Christian traditions. This lacuna may be attributed, at least in part, to the fact that most scholars concentrate on one period, place or tradition. Architecture and Pilgrimage 600-1600 is intended to bring art and architectural historians, architects, and historians together in order to investigate the relationship between pilgrimage and place through architecture. We take a broad view of architecture, to include cities, routes, ritual topographies and human interaction with the natural environment, as well as buildings and compounds, and the emphasis will be on exploring both the way in which the physical embodiment of pilgrimage cultures is shared, and how we can learn from differences. The question of how geography relates to chronology is a critical one. The work is intended to contribute to the wider issues of how cultures migrate and are transmitted; architecture is an especially revealing way to explore this as it is, at one and the same time, highly static and place-oriented, and yet, its physical characteristics and symbolic content are regularly transposed.

The dates 600-1600 have been chosen to reflect the flowering of medieval and Renaissance pilgrimage, before the full impact of changes brought about by the Reformation. Contributions will focus on Europe, the Mediterranean and the Near East, in order to impose some boundaries on the exploration and yet give a well-balanced scope to the central regions of the monotheistic religions (where holy sites are often shared by different faiths). We are interested in pursuing the connections between pilgrimage and architecture through the investigation of issues such as topography, theology, ritual and liturgy, patronage, miracles and healing, relics, and individual and communal memory. Moreover, pilgrimage may be regarded on various levels, from a physical journey towards a holy site to a more symbolic and internalised idea of pilgrimage of the soul.

The Conference will be in a round table format and a limited number of places will be available.

Convenors:
Dr Georgia Clarke (Courtauld Institute)
Dr Paul Davies (University of Reading)
Professor Deborah Howard (University of Cambridge)
Dr Wendy Pullan (University of Cambridge)