Path to Salvation

The current state of research tends to isolate the late medieval and early modern periods.¹⁵ Yet, the practical arrangements, the dangers involved and possible methods of communication remained consistent despite political and social changes.¹⁶ Significant time and effort were required to complete long-distance travel. Observing the sun, the moon and the stars remained the principal means of navigation.¹⁷ Concerns about plague, civil unrest and robbery were uppermost in unfamiliar territory.¹⁸ For an elderly Franciscan friar in Leuven, unexpectedly stormy weather only added to the burden of undertaking an urgent journey to Spain in October 1626. He and his socius made their way from Flanders across France via Paris and the Pyrenees with ‘difficulty and troubles’, finally arriving in Madrid at the beginning of 1627.¹⁹

This book bridges the gap between introductory surveys and more weighty observations about individual journeys. Therefore, this volume fills an important gap in the historiography of travel. In the writing of religious history, travel is often understood in terms of pilgrimage and, as such, its significance is examined in many recent works.²⁰ When compared with other modes of travel, however, pilgrimage was more exceptional and, when made overseas, often costly. Instead, this book expands the research focus across a range of different experiences for the whole body of the Catholic faithful who placed travel in its various forms – temporal and spiritual – at the centre of their lives. In the transmission of knowledge and observation, other forms of travel were not inferior in merit to pilgrimage and are certainly suitable for historical research.

Journeys by members of the Society of Jesus are also beyond the remit of this book. In a similar vein to pilgrimage, the significant achievements of Jesuit missionaries and explorers have led to substantial scholarly research.²¹ Therefore, Jesuit travels are well catered for with a wide variety of historical publications based on a sound corpus of original sources. There is much to write about the accomplishments and intellectual activities of other religious orders. From their earliest days, mendicant friars travelled everywhere. This book’s emphasis on continuities in the Catholic world forestalls historiographical arguments about the end of pre-reform Europe and the start of the post-reform era. Combined with Gregory XV’s reorganisation of Propaganda Fide in 1622, the importance that Urban VIII gave to mission generated greater authority for evangelical endeavours.²² Nevertheless, later missionaries were the direct successors of earlier generations and of their motives to propagate the faith. An abundant supply of historical studies clearly explains the context for early modern missions from Europe.²³

Instead, the following research focuses on the key role of travel in daily life and the relationship between the clergy and laity as groups and individuals. Verdon’s classic work sets out in broad terms the routes taken, the means of transport and types of accommodation.²⁴ In a comparable light, the German scholar, Norbert Ohler, cites many different sources about a wide variety of secular and religious travellers.²⁵ Ohler challenges the view that people limited their geographical horizons and confined their ideas in the middle ages. More recently, John Romano has provided a comprehensive summary of this topic.²⁶

Felipe Fernández-Armesto demonstrates how voyages in the Atlantic – the ‘essential axis’ of the early modern world – succeeded earlier travels that took place in the western Mediterranean from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century.²⁷ Taking this theme further, J. R. S. Phillips explains how medieval explorers began the expansion of Europe, the extent of their contact with the wider world, and the persistence of myths and legends in the popular imagination.²⁸ Similarly, for Andrew Jotischky, the emergence of the Carmelites was rooted in their identification with ancient scriptural tradition. Their claim to precedent helped them to defend their credentials and develop as a religious order.²⁹ In this book, Paul Chandler scrutinises the work of Felip Ribot, whose late fourteenth-century writings formed the basis of Carmelite history. Here, Chandler examines the Carmelite origin story, which hermits of the order traced to the Old Testament prophet Elijah and his travels to Mount Carmel. The echo of imagined journeys continued in the contemplative traditions of Carmelite writings in the sixteenth century and beyond.³⁰ According to Bert Roest, the experiences of Augustinians, early Franciscans and Dominicans were all influenced by the eremitical lives of the Desert Fathers, that is, wandering Christian hermits. In subsequent centuries, as priestly formation became a greater priority for the mendicants, travel remained integral to the completion of preaching tours, further education and ministry as itinerant preachers and confessors.³¹