The Art Bulletin

a quarterly published by caa

march 2018
volume 100, number 1

1 Miraculous cure of Roger of Valognes?, 1213–
15/20, stained-glass panel, n. III, 42, Christ Church,
Canterbury, Trinity Chapel ambulatory (artwork in the
public domain; photograph provided by Canterbury
Cathedral)
2 Miraculous cure of Roger of Valognes?, 1213–
15/20, stained-glass panel, n. III, 43, Christ Church,
Canterbury, Trinity Chapel ambulatory (artwork in the
public domain; photograph provided by Canterbury
Cathedral)
The Tour Guide in the Middle Ages:
Guide Culture and the Mediation of
Public Art
conrad rudolph
One of the great premises of medieval popular religion was the localization of the holy, the
essential principle of the pilgrimage. A striking understanding of this dynamic as it relates to
art was recorded in the mid-ninth century at the monastery of Prüm (which had a natural
economy at the time), located in present-day Germany, not far from Luxembourg, soon after
the arrival there of a number of new relics:
Wishing to rend material assistance there to God and to his servants the holy mar-
tyrs, a certain woman hurried to that place taking with her a wagon loaded with
food, drink, and other goods. When she drew near, she even ran ahead of the wagon.
However, when she saw that their tomb did not glitter with gold and silver, she looked
down on the place and ridiculed it, as dull and irreligious minds are accustomed to do.
Immediately turning around to meet her party, she ordered those who had come with
her to return, saying that there was nothing holy contained there.1
In other words, not only could holiness be perceived to be contained but also its
“containment”—the conception of the localization of the holy—which was repeatedly
denied by various Church Fathers, could at times be indicated by an elevated artistic
environment.2 The attitude of the pilgrim who came to Prüm to see relics but subcon-
sciously expected art was described by the chronicler as widespread, even customary. This
dynamic was of decisive importance for the development of medieval artistic culture.
As western Europe became increasingly secure and its people gradually freer from
feudal control, in the course of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the continuing phenom-
enon of the pilgrimage increased dramatically. Indeed, during this period, medieval sources
asserted—whether literally or as telling figures of speech—that approximately 500,000 pil-
grims a year made the journey to the tomb of Saint James at Santiago de Compostela, 60,000
pilgrims had gathered on the banks of the Jordan on one occasion, several thousand candles
were burned every day by pilgrims at Saint Peter’s in Rome, and so on (Paris is believed to
have had a population of around 3,000 at this time).3 At the same time, the vast majority of
these pilgrims were non-elite, and almost all of them had no or very little formal education.
Given the widespread equation between excessive art and holiness, it seems that art was used
at least in part to meet the expectations of some great experience on the part of the “carnal
[spiritually uneducated] people.”4 It seems that pilgrimage art was seen as necessary for those
institutions that wished to assertively participate in this pervasive and important aspect of
religious culture, and the lavish art programs that resulted from this desire appear to have had
far more resources devoted to them on what might be called a gross domestic product (GDP)
percentage basis than any culture in the world would ever consider expending today.5 And so
the question arises, in view of the important role of art in the lived experience of the pilgrim-
age (or other forms of church visitation): How were these often complex programs of visual
media negotiated in this unique intersection of high culture and the non-elite in actual prac-
tice? Put another way, what provided the crucial interface for a largely uneducated public and
37
the often phenomenally complex and expensive art programs—the expense being an indica-
tor of the level of social commitment—that had been created almost entirely for their benefit,
practically speaking? Or, put another way still, was there such a thing as a “tour guide” in the
Middle Ages (Figs. 1, 2)?
The term “tour guide” is unfortunate, potentially evoking some of the least appealing
aspects of modern tourist culture. But the names of the medieval positions from which this
occupation developed—typically, ostiarius, portarius, custos, doorkeeper, porter, custodian,
literally translated—convey even less well the potentially crucial role it played in the transmis-
sion of knowledge at a time when formal education was rare. Furthermore, the wide variety of
terms used to indicate someone who might fulfill this service often are synonymous, generic,
have changed with time, or have overlapping responsibilities.6 Perhaps simply the term “guide”
is best used, “guide culture” being understood here largely as a subset of pilgrimage culture,
which in its artistic (not more broadly religious) aspect I see as a subset of medieval artistic
culture.
By “medieval artistic culture,” I mean the broad cultural context in which works of art
were conceived, made, used, and understood. This cultural context was comprised of a wide
variety of social or religious subcultures, whose artistic practices might vary according to the
time, place, and subculture itself (for example, the second century as opposed to the twelfth
or the fifteenth; northern Europe as opposed to southern; secular as opposed to episcopal,
traditional Benedictine, Cistercian, or mendicant; urban as opposed to rural; rich as opposed
to poor; traditional as opposed to moderate reformist or radical; and so on). As a result, various
aspects of the work of art, such as expectations in material, craftsmanship, size, quantity, and
subject matter, might need to be negotiated.7
By “pilgrimage culture,” I refer to the body of beliefs, assumptions, practices, and envi-
ronments in which the medieval pilgrimage was practiced, the pilgrimage being understood
as a journey undertaken at least in part on the basis of the claimed spiritual value of a place
considered holy, usually because of its association with past events in the history of salvation or
with the remains of some miracle-working saint or object. My concern here is strictly with the
artistic aspect of pilgrimage culture.
And by “guide culture,” I mean a particular subset of practices existing within the
larger artistic culture—especially but not exclusively as it intersects with pilgrimage culture—
directed toward the instruction of pilgrims and other visitors with regard to specific aspects of
the holy place being visited, this being a body of practices that, on a general level, might be
found at most pilgrimage sites. Again, my interest with regard to guide culture lies primarily
with its artistic aspect, now particularly the mediation between the work of art and the vis-
iting public by a guide. (By “mediation,” I mean the provision of access to a certain degree
of “exclusive knowledge” related about a particular work of art or architecture by a guide to
a particular segment of a correspondingly uninformed public, this access sometimes being a
literal reading but more often conceptual and, when conceptual, it characterized or interpreted
the work for the public, rather than letting the individual members of the public read the work
for themselves.)
To the best of my knowledge, no systematic research has ever been devoted to medie-
val guide culture in its artistic aspect. In addressing this surprising oversight, I do not intend a
simplistic parallel between medieval guide culture and modern tourist culture. Rather, I hope
to flesh out the shadowy but important role of guide culture within broader medieval artis-
tic culture through an analysis of the sources and extant works of art. And so this will be an
examination of medieval guide culture in its artistic aspect, not one of pilgrims, the pilgrimage,
written guidebooks, travel accounts, or pilgrimage art per se, though all of these will come into

38 The Art Bulletin March 2018

play. Nor will it be concerned with recent thought on tourism, its taxonomies, definitions, or
theories, which apply only very poorly to medieval guide culture.8 More specifically, I propose
to investigate the evidence of medieval guide culture as it pertains to the mediation of the work
of art by members of the various communities of medieval artistic and pilgrimage cultures,
both official and unofficial, with regard to the visitor.

the precedent of a guide culture in the west before

the middle ages as it relates to art: written guides
and on-site guides
While it would be misleading to call the apostles and Paul the first recorded Christian tour-
ists, it is only because the holy places they are on record as having viewed were not Christian:
the Gospel of Matthew (24:1–2) records how the apostles tried to “show [ostenderent]” Christ
the magnificent buildings of Herod’s Temple, and, according to Acts (17:23), Paul seems to
have been careful not to miss the famed sights of Athens in his extensive travels. Indeed, there
existed a pre-Christian tourist culture so strong that it is hardly necessary to document it here,
even being commonly known among the general public today in the phrase “the Seven Won-
ders of the World.” (By “tourist culture,” I mean an environment in which sights considered
noteworthy are viewed for the sake of their noteworthiness in and of itself, noteworthiness
being a factor of such characteristics as beauty, size, or art historical or historical significance,
the latter potentially including a modest reflective value, such as historical value, as opposed
to a deeper claimed spiritual value.) More to our purposes here, within this tourist culture, a
strong guide culture existed as well, examples of which are many.
Guidebooks are an important source of evidence for guide culture, and the Greco-
Roman world once abounded in them. Almost all of these have been lost. The only guidebook
to have survived in a complete state, Pausanias’s Description of Greece (ca. 150–80), engages a
number of recurrent themes whose importance here lies in the fact that their appearance in
Early Christian and medieval written guides reveals not merely the continuity from classical
to Christian culture of the literary genre in the narrow sense but also of the guide culture itself
that was the basis of that genre. These themes—not just from the travel writing of Pausanias
but also from other authors and other types of writing that show evidence of guide culture—
include travel distances, the measurements of buildings, the circumference of city walls, the
number of gates of a city wall, the number of steps or windows in a structure, great wonders,
sometimes even miraculous occurrences, and reference to previous literature on the subject.9
The degree to which art was a part of guide culture—aside from Pausanias, in which it is a
constant—is indicated by the large number of written guides that, as we know from liter-
ary references, were specifically devoted to art and architecture. For example, The Athenian
Acropolis, The Paintings in the Propylaea, and The Treasure Chambers at Delphi represent only a
partial listing of such written guides—and even then by a single Hellenistic author, Polemon
of Ilium (fl. ca. 190 bce).10
But Pausanias and other classical authors (including Herodotus, Varro, Cicero, Pliny,
Plutarch, and Lucian) are also important for the evidence they give of the widespread existence
of on-site guides, who are a regular feature in the accounts of the ancient sites. Ranging from
professional guides to attendants, and from priests to the local populace11—that is, found at
every educational level—on-site guides are mentioned at locations everywhere from ancient
Troy to Athens and from Egypt to the cave of the Cumaean Sibyl.12 Notorious for their loquac-
ity and rote recitals—“Zeus, protect me from your guides at Olympia, Athena from yours at
Athens,” Varro is said to have written—guides often gave proper tours with full-scale lectures.13
However, once these guides moved away from their prepared talks, they were frequently unable

39 the tour guide in the middle ages

to answer reasonable questions from curious, well-educated visitors; in other words, their
understanding of the material typically seems to have been the result of something closer to a
narrow memorization than a relatively broad knowledge appropriate to the subject.14 More to
the point, they were widely known to be mistaken at times in their information, to contradict
information given at other sites, to make up stories, and to knowingly misrepresent artifacts
and works of art.15 On the receiving end of this sometimes fictive exchange, one contemporary,
Lucian, critically suggested that the mass of visitors preferred fables and exaggerated stories
to what might be called historical reality—a perceptive observation and one that indicates
something of the potentially complex nature of the fundamental dynamic of guide culture.16
The mentality described by Lucian acted as an “enabler” in the psychological sense for some
of the more extreme practices at these sites, such as some of the fabulous tales no doubt cre-
ated by the guides themselves. The attendant physical manifestation of this verbal practice
included “wonders,” objects of display whose claims could only have come from unscrupulous
guides, with such extraordinary wonders being shown to the public as the site of the earth
from which Prometheus made the first man (just as the site of the earth from which Adam
was made was shown to Christian pilgrims), the bones of Theseus (the latter “discovered,” just
like so many medieval relics), and displays of the chains of freed prisoners (just as in so many
medieval churches).17

the evidence of a guide culture in the middle ages as it

relates to art: written guides
In the Christian era, the sources are equally as filled with references to guide culture, although
in a more erratic and often more laconic way than is the case with classical culture. The con-
tinuity of a basic guide culture no doubt accounts for the persistence of certain themes in the
written guides: facts about travel distances, the size of buildings, city walls, city gates, and so
on. And there is no question but that medieval written guides, even in a culture so very dif-
ferent from classical, on the whole integrate art as a central aspect of the guide endeavor. But,
in light of the historical changes that had come about after the fall of the Roman Empire,
the reasons for the continued integration of art typically have less to do with the individual
motivations of the various authors than with the general place of art within the context of
medieval artistic culture and the pilgrimage experience. For, if some authors mention works
of art and architecture only because they are at times the public physical manifestation of the
holy objects and places sought out by the pilgrim with so much difficulty, these same works of
art and architecture, on a visual level at least, often seem to become almost indistinguishable
from the spiritual goal itself in the eyes of the pilgrim because of the same physical aspect in
the very physical proposition of the pilgrimage.18 However, aside from the potentially numi-
nous aspect of medieval art, works of art and architecture are frequently mentioned in the
written guides specifically for their artistic value, granted the pilgrimage context. These refer-
ences vary, of course, from author to author and from the Early Christian period to late medi-
eval times—from the formulaic references of the Bordeaux Pilgrim of 333 (generally considered
to be the first written pilgrimage itinerary) to the proto–art historical descriptions given by
Niccolò da Poggibonsi of 1346 to 1350.19 Nevertheless, they form a constant throughout this
time, a constant that increased as the references themselves became more articulate, as society
became more stable and prosperous, and as literacy, both Latin and vernacular, grew and the
practice of writing broadened. Opinions are given on the quality of works of art, some works
and sites are compared with others, pagan works of art are presented to the reader/visitor just
as readily as Christian, a personal reaction to a work of art might be given, artistic styles are
at times noted, and all kinds of art historical specifics are given: artist (though usually sacred),

40 The Art Bulletin March 2018

patron, date, provenance, measurements, subject matter, stories and miracles related to the
work, and even “firsts” (for example, two sculptures of Peter and Paul at Saint Peter’s in Rome
are noted as the “first” wooden sculptures ever made of these saints).20 Sometimes, what might
be called veritable tour guide accounts of works of art are presented, and, in fact, some of
the longest and most detailed medieval descriptions of works of figural art and architecture
of which I am aware come from The Pilgrim’s Guide, a central piece of evidence for medieval
guide culture.21

the evidence of a guide culture in the middle ages as it

relates to art: on-site guides
More directly pertinent to the subject of the mediation of the work of art within the context
of pilgrimage culture are the countless references to actual on-site guides. From the earliest
sources to the latest, the presence of the on-site guide is nowhere felt to be unusual, these
on-site guides often even appearing in works of art (Fig. 1; see below). Frequently, the pres-
ence of the on-site guide is simply implied through expressions indicating that something “is
shown” at a place, “we were told” here, “they say” there, or variations on these very common
verbal conventions, all used specifically in connection with the site visit.22
But who were these people and what, exactly, did they do?
To begin with, there was no such thing as a standard on-site guide. The historical evi-
dence indicates that, from the very beginning of Christian guide culture, on-site guides might
be either internal or external, official or unofficial, and found at any point on the social spec-
trum, including clerks, priests, bishops, monks, friars, abbots, and other ecclesiastical officials,
as well as official “professional” guides, properly speaking (both Christian and Muslim), unoffi-
cial “professional” guides, and, often, the local people.23
While unquestionably continuing previous cultural practice from the classical period,
the fundamental theoretical impetus to or justification of this interaction between a given
religious institution and visiting outsiders in the Early Christian and medieval periods lay
in a specifically Christian context. At a secular church (generally speaking, a nonmonastic
church), this justification or impetus lay in the bishop or priest’s duty to teach the faithful and,
at a monastery, in the Benedictine Rule, which commands the reception of visitors.24 And,
although there was no such thing as a standard on-site guide, the person who had the most
direct contact with the average visitor in the church itself typically would have been the door-
keeper/porter/custodian/guard/attendant, who, under various titles, was in charge of receiving
visitors, specifically understood as the representative of a higher official. This general position
was quite common at holy places with large numbers of visitors and is constantly mentioned
in the sources, often in connection with guide culture. More than acting as a guard in the nar-
row sense alone, such an official might also specifically be tasked in some places with oversee-
ing pilgrims, as in an early example given by Gregory of Tours.25 Whereas the actual activities
of a given individual mentioned in a source are not normally discernible from the title—for
example, a “doorkeeper” might not be merely a “custodian” as we might think of one today—
it seems that many of these officials were educated, even that their position could at times
mark a distinct place on what we today call a “career path.”26
The monastic cathedral of Christ Church at Canterbury—which thought enough of
the injunction from the Benedictine Rule to refer to it in one of its stained-glass windows27—
offers an excellent example of what might be called a full-scale guide infrastructure. The
staffing of the nine main shrines there varied, but the greatest of these shrines, the tomb of
Archbishop Thomas Becket in the Trinity Chapel, had two full-time monks and two full-time
clerks tending it. One monk was appointed as the “spiritual guardian” and the other as the

41 the tour guide in the middle ages


3 Christ Church, Canterbury, plan of the nine main
shrines (those that had their own staff), main
level and crypt (plan in the public domain; digital
work by Mateusz Ferens). The circles mark the
shrines; the colored areas around them indicate the
assumed areas of the various shrine attendants’
responsibilities.
“temporal guardian,” their titles suggesting their responsibilities (Fig. 2; the two figures on the
right, one with a book, represent the “spiritual guardian” and the “temporal guardian” of the
tomb of Becket in the crypt, before the Trinity Chapel was built). The title “clerk” indicates
here a lay person of notable education (Fig. 1; the two figures on the right depict the two sec-
ular clerks assigned to the tomb of Becket). Normally, at least one monk-guardian was always
present, and often both were, even regularly sleeping at the shrine to guard it, a common
practice in the Middle Ages. Though the monk-guardians were restricted to the shrine, the
two lay clerks were not, although they were limited to the general area of their own shrine as
one of the nine “competing” shrines situated throughout the church (Fig. 3).28 In their various
duties, the monks and clerks
of the shrine of Becket’s tomb
were very much part of a larger
infrastructure of reception by
monks and lay staff overseen by
the sacrist of Canterbury that at
one time included at least fifty-
one lay personnel as well as a
number of monks, including at
least one monk who received all
visitors individually at the door
of the church.29 (The sacrist, who
oversaw the guide staff, was also
financially responsible for the
maintenance of the works of art
of the place, such as the stained
glass,30 visitor reception and the
display of art apparently being
seen as related.) Both the monks
and the clerks were to “always
and in all circumstances assem-
ble, speak in a friendly manner with, and answer [the questions of ] pilgrims with all gentle-
ness, courtesy, and care.”31 That is, these officials were expected by their institution to interact
(in varying ways) with the visiting public as a regular part of their responsibilities. But what
exactly was this interaction and what, exactly, did they do?
Among many other formal interactions, the spectrum of officials I associate with guide
culture here received all pilgrims and other visitors. They took them to the church to pray.
They guarded the shrine (thefts of offerings such as coins were common; thefts of liturgical
artworks and even the relics themselves also occurred occasionally; a “watch room” in which
staff were stationed to help prevent such thefts still exists at Saint Albans Abbey, Fig. 4). They
said Mass and performed other liturgical functions at the shrine. They tended the shrine, tak-
ing care of things like candles, granting or refusing visitors admission to go within the shrine
proper, and so on. They maintained proper decorum among the pilgrims. They attended to
the sick, who so often came to the shrines in the hope of a miraculous cure, sometimes waiting
for months, even years (it may be that the transept informally came to serve as a space for this
particular type of visitor). They reported and recorded miracles. They sometimes investigated
the authenticity of miracles. They sometimes sold or oversaw the selling of wax that was used
for votive offerings (Fig. 5; the monk shrine keeper, with book, watches over the tomb of
Saint Edward the Confessor, next to which are votive offerings of coils of wax; the tomb has
42 The Art Bulletin March 2018

4 Watch room (the wooden structure underneath
the nave arch) overlooking the restored shrine of
Saint Alban, late 14th century, Saint Albans Abbey
(photograph © Adrian Fletcher, www.paradoxplace.com)
5 Monk shrine keeper at the tomb of Edward the
Confessor, from the Life of Saint Edward the Confessor,
ca. 1255–60, parchment, page 11 × 75/8 in. (27.9 ×
19.3 cm). University Library, Cambridge, MS Ee.3.59,
fol. 33r (artwork in the public domain; photograph
© Cambridge University Library, published under a
Creative Commons license BY-NC 3.0)
openings in and out of which the pilgrims crawl, though not into the sarcophagus itself, in
order to be closer to the saint). They sometimes gave out “blessings” (called eulogiae in some
sources: blessed bread, oil, water, fruit, and so on from the place), mementos (for example,
wax or some object such as a cross that had been in some kind of contact with the sacred goal),
and small relics (such as filings from Saint Peter’s
and Saint Paul’s chains, bits of manna from the
Hebrews’ wandering in the desert, or fragments
of the rod of Moses). They accepted gifts at the
shrine. They collected testamentary bequests.
They kept financial accounts of the income of
the shrine. And they cleaned up.32
the evidence of a guide
culture in the middle
ages as it relates to art:
extemporaneous interaction,
instruction, and tours
More to our purposes here, apparently the entire
spectrum of officials also interacted extempora-
neously with pilgrims and other visitors, within
the limits of their charge, and instructed them.
Extemporaneous interaction could
take a number of forms. At a monastery, for
example, both monks and lay assistants regu-
larly questioned visitors, asked what ailed them,
helped them, encouraged them, advised them,
and generally responded to any questions.33
This extemporaneous interaction by monks and
lay assistants with visitors was such an integral
part of pilgrimage culture that it entered into
pilgrimage visual culture as a natural part of the
visual narratives that have come down to us,
the most striking from Canterbury Cathedral,
from which so much other invaluable evidence
of medieval guide culture has survived (Figs. 1,
2, 6; in Fig. 6, the monk shrine keeper, at the
far right, holding a book, leads a group of blind men in a prayer of thanks for the miraculous
restoration of their sight).
Instruction, a more formal or even planned type of interaction, was often extended to
the public by the officials of the guide infrastructure of a given holy place. William Durandus
wrote, “We fulfill this office [of doorkeeper, ostiarius] provided that . . . we instruct” people
in the church.34 Gregory of Tours noted that the guard (aedituus) of a certain church offered
visitors a detailed history of the place, its relics, and its architecture.35 Elsewhere, he told how
the guardians (custodibus) disseminated information about recent miracles that had occurred
there.36 The Piacenza Pilgrim recorded how the nuns of a convent he visited in the Holy
Land recounted miracles of a local saint to pilgrims.37 Guillaume de Saint-Pair, a monk of
Mont-Saint-Michel, wrote a vernacular history of the foundation of the monastery specifi-
cally because so many visitors had asked about it and were given incorrect information.38 And
43 the tour guide in the middle ages
6 Monk shrine keeper at the tomb of Edward
the Confessor, from the Life of Saint Edward the
Confessor, ca. 1255–60, parchment, page 11 × 75/8 in.
(27.9 × 19.3 cm). University Library, Cambridge,
MS Ee.3.59, fol. 30r (artwork in the public domain;
photograph © Cambridge University Library, published
under a Creative Commons license BY-NC 3.0)
ecclesiastics in general read to the pilgrims and other visitors at the holy sites—typically, the
vita of the saint at his or her resting place, but also biblical passages at their claimed sites in the
Holy Land—another aspect of guide culture that was so pervasive it entered into pilgrimage
visual culture (note the books in Figs. 2, 5, 6).39
A natural extension of this type of official instruction was the tour: the visit to a place
directed by an on-site guide, accompanied by some kind of verbal presentation of relevant
information. The sources are filled with references to such tours. Whether put forth as part
of a larger guide or travel account of one type or another, or even as a direct criticism of such
tours themselves (for example, in the monastic context, the criticism of tours as a dilution
of monastic seclusion), the practice is universally taken for granted in the sources. From
the “expert storytellers” in the city of Constantinople to Bernard of Clairvaux’s criticism of
“the curious” in the cloister of Saint-Denis, and from the Templars’ tours of the Sheep Pool
(Bethesda) in Jerusalem to the anonymous professional guides’ tours of silk factories in Tyre,
actual tours were a common feature of medieval guide culture.40 In the fourth century, Jerome
complained of simple-minded monk-guides who pointed out red streaks in the marble at the
site of the Temple of Jerusalem as bloodstains from the martyrdom of Zechariah.41 Only a few
years later, Egeria’s travel account is a virtual litany of tours, given mostly by monks and at
almost every place she visited, including an ascent of Mount Sinai, the location of the dance of
the Golden Calf, the site where the Tabernacle was constructed, the place where Moses struck
the rock and water flowed, and so on, in almost endless fashion.42 In the sixth century, the
Piacenza Pilgrim was shown the alphabet book or primer of Christ, among other things, at the
synagogue in Nazareth, in what could only have been a guide situation (apparently by Jews for
Christians).43 In the seventh century, the Gallic Bishop Arculf recounted in detail to Adomnan,
abbot of Iona, the structured tour he had had of the Holy Land from a hired guide, Peter of
Burgundy, “an expert on the places” there.44 In the eleventh century, The Monastic Constitutions
of Lanfranc (the basic set of regulations that governed monastic life at Christ Church in the
Middle Ages) required the guestmaster to show the buildings (officinas) of the monastery—in
this case, that part of the monastery that was normally off-limits to pilgrims—to whomever
wished to see them, a practice followed to one degree or another at other great monasteries,
44 The Art Bulletin March 2018

7 Glastonbury Tabula, 14th century, parchment,
approx. 36 × 18 in. (91.4 × 45.7 cm). Bodleian
Libraries, Oxford, MS lat. hist. a.2 (artwork in the
public domain; photograph provided by Bodleian
Libraries, University of Oxford)
such as Cluny and Saint-Denis.45 And in the fourteenth century, highly organized tours of the
city of Jerusalem and its environs (the Holy Circuit) began to be given in multiple languages
by the Franciscans, “who were familiar with all the places visited by pilgrims.”46
the evidence of a guide culture in the middle ages as it
relates to art: guide aids
These tours were supported by what I call “guide aids”: publicly displayed texts (tabulae), texts
for individual reading, and, apparently, visual aids.
The great tabulae were large-scale, publicly displayed texts, characteristically written
on mounted sheets of parchment and not so different in size, at least, from what we often have
today in places of public interest (Fig. 7).47 Each tabula was unique in regard to its specific con-
tent, but, generally speaking, a tabula might give the history of the place (including legendary
pre-Christian history and Christian foundation stories), relate
it to a larger history (the history of salvation beginning with
creation and/or sometimes a more “national” history, replete
with battles and conquests), list relics possessed by the church,
detail saintly and royal burials at the place, provide a guide to
other burials, note potential indulgences, defend the rights and
claims of the institution (ready to be conveyed to all, but no
doubt more pointedly to visiting dignitaries), and sometimes
make reference to works of art and even what might be called
the building history of the place (occasionally even from no
longer extant buildings all the way up to contemporary con-
structions).48 Once apparently ubiquitous, such tabulae have
survived only from Glastonbury and York, to the best of my
knowledge.49 Typically written in Latin, these great tabulae,
with their tales of battles and legendary figures, undoubtedly
were not primarily intended for visiting elite literates, a distinct
minority of the visiting public, such as Erasmus, who, in a visit
to Our Lady of Walsingham in 1512, sarcastically dismissed
the claim that one such tabula was an “authentic record.”50
And they certainly were not meant as a source to be presented
from beginning to end to the illiterate visiting public through
an on-site guide reading; one modern author estimated the
Glastonbury Tabula to be about sixty pages in “ordinary exer-
cise book size.”51 Rather, they appear to have been principally
used as aids for on-site guides in transmitting selected parts of
the information in the tabulae to the illiterate public, their written nature perhaps conveying
to the illiterate audience “proof ” of the authenticity of the information asserted by the on-site
guide. In fact, at the Cathedral of York, the Vicars Choral (priests who were hired to perform
liturgical and other duties of the cathedral canons) were required to know by the end of their
first year of service not only the Book of Psalms but also specifically the information contained
in the York Tabula, which gives a complete history of the place as well as the building history
from pre-Christian to contemporary times—the implication being that these relatively low-
level ecclesiastics were expected to convey this information to others as part of their official
duties.52 It is generally the same information that was given to Gregory of Tours by the guard
of the church he visited, as mentioned earlier.53 A thirteenth-century “belt book” (a small book
in a folded format designed to be read from a hanging position on the reader’s belt) from
45 the tour guide in the middle ages

8 Warriors fighting, before 1125, capital, abbey church
Sainte-Foy, Conques, nave, south tribune (artwork in
the public domain; photograph © Emmanuel PIERRE/
Romanes.com)
Glastonbury Abbey giving a summary of the history of salvation and of the abbey—precisely
the kind of information contained in the Glastonbury Tabula—suggests that on-site guides
of one kind or another carried this text around for quick reference, perhaps as guides-in-
training.54 And the central panel of the York Tabula—a verse history of the place described by
one modern scholar as “fantastic and unreliable”—is scanned (syllabic stresses are marked) for
public reading.55
The consistent appearance of secular historical content in the tabulae raises questions in
regard to art, particularly of the Romanesque period. If secular histories were all but universally
referred to in guide culture in the later Middle Ages, given the strong continuity of the content
of guide culture, it would seem likely that they were also mentioned in guide culture before this
time. Tabulae are documented about 1190 and may have been used centuries earlier, though
dates of the fourteenth century and later are more common, suggesting, at least, that the later
Middle Ages was a high point in their development and
spread.56 If these secular histories were referred to in this
later period through tabulae at a time when sculptures and
other images of “fighting soldiers” as criticized by Bernard
of Clairvaux in the early twelfth century were generally
not considered appropriate in religious establishments that
saw themselves as contemporary,57 how might these same
subjects have been evoked in the earlier period? Might
not at least some—certainly not all—of the imagery of
“fighting soldiers” of the earlier period have functioned as
guide aids in a way similar to the historical accounts of the
tabulae but now figurally rather than textually (for example,
as at Conques, Fig. 8)? If a tabula refers to the campaigns
of Charlemagne in an account of the distant history of its
institution, such as Saint-Denis, might not an image of
Charlemagne—for example, the Charlemagne window at
Saint-Denis—which claimed a shared participation in this history, have been used in a simi-
lar way by on-site guides (perhaps Abbot Suger’s matriculariis clericis, church wardens, clearly
literate) in a presentation of their own claimed past?58 Might not the same general function, in
certain specific instances, encompass images of the creation account from Genesis (even in an
abbreviated fashion, as at Sainte-Madeleine at Vézelay), perhaps certain Old Testament and New
Testament events (as in the stained-glass windows of Canterbury Cathedral), and even some
saints’ lives (such as the martyrdom of Saint Dionysius in the west right tympanum of Saint-
Denis)?59 Might not images of church donors (as at Saint-Lazare at Autun, Fig. 9)—and also
certain single images of men and women (perhaps as at Saint-Philibert at Tournus, Fig. 10)60—
conceivably relate to the public presentation of foundation stories in a way that was once a clear
part of the local guide culture but that is now irrevocably lost? Might not images of patrons who
later rebuilt the churches in which they appear (such as the images of Suger at Saint-Denis, this
function being in addition to and perhaps in association with the traditional commemoration
and solicitation of prayers for the patron61) have acted similarly as visual prompts for on-site
guides? And might not some images that related to local cultures (including images whose icon-
ography is not identifiable to art historians today) have generally not been meant to be recog-
nized at sight by visiting pilgrims, but were expected to be mediated by on-site guides?
Texts for individual reading could also sometimes operate in a way similar to these
tabulae in providing comparable information. Among others is Guillaume de Saint-Pair’s
vernacular history of Mont-Saint-Michel, written specifically for pilgrims and complete with
46 The Art Bulletin March 2018

9 Donor of the church of Saint-Lazare, 1130–45,
capital, former collegiate church of Saint-Lazare, Autun
(artwork in the public domain; photograph © keepps)
10 Unidentified subject, ca. 1025–50, relief, Arch of
Gerlannus, church of Saint-Philibert, Tournus (artwork
in the public domain; photograph © TangoPaso)
foundation accounts, tales of relics, miracle stories, and so on.62 The Descriptio Lateranensis
ecclesiae and the Descriptio basilicae Vaticanae no doubt also functioned this way in part,
though for better-educated visitors, with their discussions of (sometimes mythical) pre-
Christian histories, foundation stories, relics, institutional claims to status, elements of build-
ing history, works of art (including miraculous works of art), donors and
provenance of some works, altars and burials, and even the location of where
guides might be obtained (guidones, at the Porta Guidanea).63 It may be that
this practice of making prepared texts available to pilgrims accounts for more
specialized writings as the Cymiteria totius Romanae urbis (a simple list of
venerable burial places and their locations) and the De locis sanctis martyrum
quae sunt foris civitas Romae (a street-oriented list of holy places with limited
commentary),64 and it may perhaps even explain a bit more fully the original
impetus to the Mirabilia urbis Romae, these texts having been intended by
the source institutions as self-guiding tours for literate but perhaps not truly
distinguished visitors.
Aside from publicly displayed texts and texts for individual reading,
the evidence suggests there was at least a limited use of publicly displayed
visual images: visual aids, something apparently employed by the on-site
guide in the course of his duties. It is difficult to explain in any other way
the existence of the seemingly misnamed large Canterbury Waterworks Plan
(Fig. 11).65 The image depicts the monastery of Christ Church laid out in plan
but rendered in elevation, on a bifolium (a single sheet of parchment that
forms two double-sided pages, here, with two illustrated sides facing each
other). When the manuscript is rotated to take advantage of the length of the
individual folios as is often done with books even today, it becomes appar-
ent that the image of the monastery has its primary visual focus—the abbey
church/cathedral building and the majority of the monastery buildings—all
on the one side of the open bifolium, as if the viewer were looking toward the
south from inside the monastery.66 The remaining part of the monastery—on
the other side of the open bifolium—is shown as if the viewer were looking
toward the north, again, from inside the monastery. The cardinal directions
are written in large letters along the lengths of the remaining three original
sides, the south side inscription having been trimmed away sometime in the
past. Along with the buildings of the monastery, the water system is shown,
both being depicted in great detail and at the level of artistic care one might
expect to find in a high-quality manuscript illumination.
The plan is found at the end of the exceptionally large and lavish
Eadwine Psalter, a comparative compilation of three different Latin Psalm
traditions, along with glosses and translations of the Psalms into Old English
and Anglo-Norman, the two vernacular languages of that part of England at
the time. According to an ambitious team study, the plan was not part of the original Psalter
but was added shortly after its completion, the study concluding that the Psalter was made
from 1155 to 1160 and that the plan was drawn in the 1160s on blank parchment pages that had
already been bound in the volume, contrary to the normal practice of undertaking such work
before binding.67 There is no consensus on the purpose of the plan, which has been variously
seen as a practical work of “hydraulic engineers,” a symbolic representation of the priory of
Christ Church as the Heavenly Jerusalem, or a commemoration of Prior Wibert’s (r. 1151/4–67)
construction of the waterworks.68 However, the high artistic level of the plan and its binding
47 the tour guide in the middle ages

11 Canterbury Plan, plan in elevation of the monastic
cathedral of Christ Church, Canterbury, parchment,
open bifolium 36¼ × 26 in. (92 × 66 cm). Wren
Library, Trinity College, Cambridge, MS R.17.1, fols.
284v–285 (artwork in the public domain; photograph
provided by the Master and Fellows of Trinity College,
Cambridge)
into a luxury Psalter clearly indicate that it was not meant for the plumber.69 The image exhib-
its none of the age-old visual devices that signify the Heavenly Jerusalem. And the inscriptions
on the drawing detail far more than Prior Wibert’s accomplishments, and in a manner com-
pletely out of character with the idea of commemoration, suggesting that the plan was meant
neither for such commemoration nor for the monks of Christ Church themselves. Rather, the
inscriptions suggest that the plan was intended for those who were not already familiar with
what was depicted on the plan: pilgrims and other visitors to Christ Church.
To begin with, the general format of the plan appears to have been intended for con-
venient public presentation: it is depicted on a bifolium for increased size, with orientation
clearly marked along all sides, and with the subject laid out in plan but with major elements
represented in elevation, not unlike many tourist maps today and quite different from the visual
conception of the Plan of Saint Gall, for example, which is generally considered to be an ideal
plan.70 The images and inscriptions of the Canterbury Plan apply themselves to the three areas
of general orientation, pilgrim- or visitor-related points, and what might be called wonders,
though not religious wonders. General orientation is addressed by the basic plan itself. The
need for general orientation is why such major structures were indicated on the plan in the first
place: the chapter house, the refectory, and the dormitory, all places that the monks themselves
knew well from operating in them on a daily basis, were new and of interest to the vast major-
ity of the visiting public. The pilgrim- or visitor-related points are very telling. The size of the
Greencourt Gate, the gate the pilgrims used to initially enter the monastery, and of the Aula
Nova, the hospice immediately adjoining it, where pilgrims of low status, that is, the majority
of pilgrims, would have stayed once they arrived,71 are greatly enlarged on the plan in order to
make them visually stand out (Fig. 11, the large pair of structures in the lower right corner of the
bottom folio). The main gate, the Pentice Gate, that these same pilgrims would have had to pass
through once inside the monastery on their way to their final goal is also very much increased
in size on the plan (Fig. 11, the pair of doors near the lower right corner of the top folio), and
both the Pentice and Greencourt Gates carry the unnecessary detail of a window in one of their
double doors. Cellarer’s Court is “preposterously exaggerated” on the plan, according to Robert
Willis, the important nineteenth-century historian of the architecture of Christ Church,72 it
being a place that pilgrims and other visitors might have thought of as an area for themselves
to congregate in while waiting to enter the church and/or cloister (Fig. 11, the court the Pentice
Gate leads into and the place where the Domus Hospitum, the hospice for lesser aristocracy and
gentry, was located). All of these locations were especially associated with and no doubt would
have been especially identifiable (including the details of the gates) to the pilgrims of all classes
as new arrivals, the increased size and details being in strong contrast to the depiction of other
gates on the plan (such as the three gates associated with the cemetery and the gate between
the prior’s grounds and infirmary offices). Details of daily life are given on the plan that could
really be of interest only to outsiders and not to the monks themselves, such as where the fish
for dinner are washed and where the monks’ dinners are served up and the dishes returned.73 As
to wonders, most notably, the waterworks of the monastery are shown figurally and described in
some detail through inscriptions, with related fountain houses and water tower rendered, again,
in exaggerated size in order to help visualize the course of this amazing system, a “wonder”—mi-
rabiliter in the obituary for Prior Wibert, precisely the same term used for its counterpart at
Cluny74—by the standards of the average visitor, who had no such “indoor plumbing” at home.
But perhaps it might be more accurate to say that the entire monastery was a wonder,
and it was the presentation of this wonder to the visiting public that explains the existence
of the plan in the first place. As mentioned, the plan is believed to have been added to the
Eadwine Psalter very shortly after the Psalter’s completion. Too big for use in the liturgy and
49 the tour guide in the middle ages
too luxurious for individual study, according to the historian Margaret Gibson, the Psalter was
kept in the Great Cloister by at least about 1320, “and probably much earlier.”75 According to
The Monastic Constitutions of Lanfranc: “It is his [the Guestmaster’s] responsibility to show the
buildings to those who wish to see them, taking care that the community is not then sitting in
cloister.”76 If the Eadwine Psalter was not used in the liturgy or for individual study, and if the
plan was not made for the monks themselves—and if the Psalter (and so the plan) was kept
in the cloister and if pilgrims and other visitors were brought through the cloister on a larger
tour of the monastery—the only other use that I can see that explains its distinctive features
is that it was shown to the pilgrims and other visitors as part of a general presentation of the
monastery in all its wonder, including the waterworks. Such a use would explain the promi-
nent appearance of the cardinal directions: to orient the audience in this maze of astonishing
structures. It would suggest why such details as the Aula Nova and the gates through which
the pilgrims had passed receive such visual prominence in the plan: again, to help orient the
audience. Such a function would account for the particular details of the plan, such as the
inscriptions relating where the fish for dinner was washed and where the monks returned
their dishes after meals: because a discussion of the monastic life of the monks was part of the
oral presentation. It explains why the bifolium generally situates the monastery as if one were
looking toward the north on one side and as if looking toward the south on the other: because
that was the general view the visitor had when standing in the cloister. It clarifies why the
inscription “hostium cripte” (the door to the crypt) is written on the depiction of the Water
Tower, otherwise seemingly unexplainable: because the pilgrims and other visitors were led
to the crypt through this door, which stood “behind” the Water Tower, after their tour of the
cloister and the other buildings of the monastery was complete.77 It offers a reason why the
plan was added to the Eadwine Psalter in the first place, which was not made for liturgical use
or for individual reading and which was one of the great books of images produced in England
at this time: because the Psalter was on occasion meant to be shown to visiting lay dignitaries
when they passed through the cloister, where this striking statement not just of the wealth of
the monastery but also of its learning was always available. With the death of Becket, it would
seem likely that the reading of the Liber miraculorum of Becket to pilgrims that is known to
have taken place in the chapter house, situated on the cloister, was integrated with the tour
(while those who did not take the tour might perhaps be read a vita at the tomb of Becket
itself ).78
Other visual aids, which once must have been innumerable, include written signs,
such as the brass plaque at Glastonbury that marked the site of an important early church
building, informing the public—whether through presentation by an on-site guide or through
individual reading by those who were literate—of the history of the site, then giving the size
and exact position of the ancient church in relation to the visitor.79 Marmoutier and Saint-
Martin at Tours had systems of inscriptions that apparently led the literate pilgrim—or pil-
grims accompanied by an on-site guide—through the churches in a mix of tour proper and
spiritual exercise that involved figural art, precisely what one might expect in the tour of a
holy place made for religious purposes in the Middle Ages.80 And many churches displayed
announcements of indulgences, lists of relics, and, of course, inscriptions accompanying works
of art.81 Written signs like these operated as more than mere static conveyors of information.
They were active participants, operating at a different level from on-site guides in the poten-
tially complex dynamic of guide culture. Although certainly less interactive than the oral pre-
sentations of on-site guides, they nevertheless may have been considered to carry more weight
than the spoken words of a guide, especially one of low social status, in that their written
medium derived from literate culture, generally considered more authoritative.82

50 The Art Bulletin March 2018


12 Construction of the first church of Crowland,
Guthlac Roll, 1210?, parchment, roll 9 ft. 4¼ × 6¾ in.
(2.85 × .17 m), image approx. 6¾ × 6¾ in. (17 ×
17 cm). British Library, London, MS Harley Roll Y.6,
roundel 5 (artwork in the public domain; photograph ©
British Library)
The reading of saints’ vitae at their tombs was a common practice in the Middle
Ages, and it may be that another unique survival was used for a similar purpose. The Guthlac
Roll, generally thought to be from Crowland Abbey, which possessed Guthlac’s relics, is a
relatively narrow roll (285 centimeters long by 17 wide; roughly 9 feet 4 inches by 7 inches)
that carries eighteen roundels illustrating
the life of Saint Guthlac (Fig. 12).83 The
series of images includes the building of
the first church at Crowland, the story of
Guthlac’s scourge (a relic also possessed by
Crowland), and a depiction of the benefac-
tors of Crowland at Guthlac’s shrine (the
inscriptions of which include reference to
the rights of the abbey). Believed to have
been made about 1210, the series is based
on one of two related vitae of Guthlac,
with the added subject of the relic of the
scourge. While some believe that the
roll may have been made as a model for
stained-glass windows, the overlapping
of the roundel borders by compositional
elements in almost every scene strongly
implies that such was not the case. Rather,
might not this otherwise unexplained
roll—with its emphasis on the church of
Crowland, the shrine of Guthlac, and the relic of the scourge—have been displayed to the
largely illiterate public as the vita of Guthlac was read or recited extemporaneously to them in
the church, at the shrine, with the venerable scourge nearby? Would not such a practice for the
largely illiterate public mirror the practice described by Henry of Huntingdon for the literate
when, in presenting a list of English saints, he does so as if visiting their shrines, something he
conceives of as an intimate integration of both reading one form or another of the saint’s vita
and miracles and seeing the imaged life and miracles of the same saint at the saint’s shrine as
part of the pilgrimage process?
. . . seek the churches . . . see the miraculous deeds . . . read of the many great
achievements . . . looking at the brilliant deeds . . . in that place you will also see
the praises . . . observe the great miracles . . . behold the marvellous deeds . . . see the
great triumphs . . . read of the secret martyrdom . . . see the virginal life . . . find the
chaste life . . . see the wonderful life . . . see the praiseworthy life . . . look at the revered
life . . . discover both the bodies and lives . . . seeing the miracles . . . the splendid miracles
of this virgin are read in that place.84
Or, for a closer surviving parallel still, would not such a practice mirror that implied in the
thirteenth-century Vie de Saint Denys, made at Saint-Denis? An abridged, vernacular version
of material related to the cult of Saint Dionysius, including an account of his life in relation
to the history of France and a discussion of the relics of the monastery, it is accompanied by
an independent section of thirty consecutive full-page miniatures, whose folio layout suggests
they were designed for public presentation.85
And there is the Canterbury Roll, a recording of the inscriptions of the Typological
Windows of Christ Church in roll format, apparently for use by on-site guides in conducting
51 the tour guide in the middle ages

13 Canterbury Roll, early 14th century, parchment,
8 ft. 10 in. × 9½ in. Canterbury Cathedral Archives
and Library, MS C 246 (artwork in the public domain;
photograph provided by the Dean and Chapter of
Canterbury Cathedral)
tours for pilgrims and other visitors (Fig. 13).86 All but certainly used by the two clerks of the
shrine of Becket at the high altar, in whose general area this particular series of windows was
installed (Fig. 3), the body of inscriptions is far too long for full public presentation. Rather,
like some of the other guide-related material, the comprehensive body of information con-
tained in the roll would likely have been reviewed by the individual
clerk-guide, who then would have selected what seemed best to him for
his immediate needs, using it as the basis (whether in hand or not) of
his public interaction and instruction.
The evidence also suggests the practice of guide training, which,
naturally, would have varied widely from place to place and probably
over time.87
the evidence of a guide culture in the
middle ages as it relates to art: the public
mediation of art
And so we see that there was indeed a guide culture, that is, a body of
practices directed toward the instruction of pilgrims and other visitors
with reference to specific aspects of the holy place being visited. And
within this broad guide culture, art and architecture—the visual and
physical environment of the holy place, generally speaking—were part
of the instruction, however much such instruction may have been
matched by those in authority to the perceived intellectual/spiritual
level of their audiences.
More challenging than working out the basis of guide culture
as it relates to art is finding evidence for what was actually said by the
on-site guides, to ascertain just what the actual mediation or range of
mediation between the work of art and the visiting public consisted of.
With regard to sources written by those who were not members of the
spiritual elite, part of the reason for the lack of surviving expositions by
on-site guides seems to be that these expositions most commonly appear
to have been something akin to sermons, and the detailed evidence of
sermons from the Middle Ages comes almost entirely from those who gave them, not those who
heard them. As to those sources that were, in contrast, written by the spiritual elite, this same
absence of surviving evidence seems to be because such presentations by on-site guides was con-
sciously or unconsciously felt by those of a claimed higher spiritual-social level to be removed
from their own religious experience, perhaps with some even considering that both the majority
of guides and their accounts, aimed at the level of the common pilgrim, were intellectually and
spiritually beneath these spiritual elites—not unlike a certain highborn priest who was unwilling
to mingle with the common pilgrims at Canterbury in the early twelfth century.88 Only the most
fleeting glimpses of what these on-site guide expositions may have been like have come down us.
In an earlier study, I discussed twelfth-century thought on the role of the senses in the
process of spiritual ascent in relation to a three-level spiritual hierarchy, with particular refer-
ence to the use of imagery.89 While the basic features of the three-level hierarchy were generally
recognized by leading thinkers—specifically, Hugh of Saint Victor, Bernard of Clairvaux, and
William of Saint-Thierry—certain details, including the use of imagery within it, varied some-
what from author to author. However, for our purposes, it might be said that the most widely
accepted understanding of the theoretical relation between art and spiritual ascent was one that
did not recognize the use of imagery at the highest level. At the intermediate level, imagery
52 The Art Bulletin March 2018
was considered acceptable if it actively engaged advanced learning on the part of the individ-
ual viewing the image. And, at the lowest level, imagery was allowable without any claim to
advanced learning if the subject matter conveyed was appropriate: the Virgin, saints, figures
and narratives from the Bible, and so on. What was not appropriate by the middle to late
twelfth century, generally speaking, for any level was monstrous and other kinds of imagery
that was not specifically religious being employed in a religious context, even if earlier exam-
ples of such imagery remained on public view in the churches.90 Also inappropriate would
have been the exposition of appropriate imagery in an inappropriate way by on-site guides,
that is, in a way that departs from the original context of the imagery.
As to the hierarchy just described and its relation to guide culture, the highest level of
spiritual ascent, which did not accept the use of art, of course had no guide practice.
The intermediate level, which allowed art that actively engaged advanced learning,
might have had no guide, an elite guide, or a nonelite guide, depending on exactly what type
of artistic dynamic was in operation.
For example, no guide would have been employed, at least in theory, for that type of
art that was self-consciously complex and heavily dependent on advanced learning, such as
the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit panel at Saint-Denis, since the claim was that the individual
viewing such art did so on the basis of his or her own advanced learning.91 In fact, such art at
times even made a claim to the engagement of such learning as its justification against criticism
that art acted as a distraction to the spiritual person, to the extent that this use of art acted in
a way similar to scriptural study, being described by Suger as “accessible only to the litterati,”
that is, accessible only to the spiritually literate choir monk.92
What might be called an elite guide might or might not have been part of the
dynamic of the art that was the subject of a “textual community” (as conceived of by Brian
Stock, a voluntary association founded not on the ability to read, although some members
were literate, but on the ability to interpret a text recognized as authoritative that forms the
basis of a shared belief ), as I have suggested is the case with the Good Samaritan window at
Chartres Cathedral on the basis of patristic literary culture.93 Here, while some members of
the predominantly lay textual community might engage with the relatively complex work
of art on an individual basis, the circumstances also indicate that an elite guide might act
as a mediator between such imagery and the “elite” community as a group, the elite guide
being one who had advanced education and who expounded the material at a relatively high
level of learning. It appears to have been a member of one of these lay textual communities
in the early thirteenth century who, acting as an elite guide, mediated the Good Samaritan
window at Bourges Cathedral, apparently on the basis of patristic literary culture, to Eudes
de Châteauroux when the latter was young—subsequently chancellor of the University of
Paris, Eudes had certainly already begun his education—Eudes later writing that, before this
mediation, “I had no idea what it all meant.”94
And what might be called a nonelite guide would have expounded relatively less com-
plex but often still modestly demanding art to nonelite audiences, that is, the vast majority
of the public and, most notably, the majority of pilgrims at pilgrimage churches. A certain
amount of advanced learning or at least a certain level of informed interpretation would have
been required on the part of the nonelite guide for him to mediate this level of art to the pub-
lic, such mediation now operating at a relatively lower level of understanding than would have
been the case with more complex art, and now as part of a popular guide culture rather than
a community of learning, whether a monastic or lay textual community. Nevertheless, this
nonelite intermediate level might operate across a broad spectrum of mediation practices and
interpretative depth.

53 the tour guide in the middle ages

 For example, the stained-glass window program at Christ Church at Canterbury
displayed a complete history of salvation into which the institution inserted itself, just as was
done in so many tabulae and other guide aids.95 The Canterbury Roll, which acted as an aid
for on-site guides, addressed the most complex part of the program: a largely Old Testament/
New Testament typology of the life of Christ, which required a certain amount of advanced
learning to understand.96 Using the roll, on-site guides would have offered a selection of these
typological pairings, which ranged from exegetically standard to unique, to a visiting public
that had a fair knowledge of New Testament figures and incidents but not of Old Testament
ones, as explicitly stated in the preface to the contemporary English program of model typo-
logical window inscriptions known as the Pictor in carmine, a program written specifically for
public consumption.97 This relatively complex typological imagery was thus presented and
interpreted—mediated, even controlled—by the on-site guide for audiences who were, in
principle, unable to make such interpretations for themselves and who presumably were not
as a group interested in doing so, as the context suggests, unlike Eudes de Châteauroux, who
also could not understand complex typologies until instructed.98 The presumed modest level of
knowledge on the part of the visiting public and the practical need on the part of the on-site
guide to select what must have been only a very small portion of the comprehensive program
imply that the mediated exposition was one that must have been somewhat superficial relative
to art described here as having no guide or an elite guide.
But what about art employed at the nonelite intermediate level that did not follow
traditional Old Testament/New Testament typologies? If it were consistently New Testament
imagery, would it even have been explained to a visiting public that seems to have had a fair
New Testament knowledge, according to the Pictor in carmine, and, if so, how? One passage
that gives every sign of being the written vestige of an actual on-site mediation appears in the
De picturis et imaginibus of Saint Albans Abbey, a text potentially used by an on-site guide
in preparation for his duties. I say this because the passage does more than simply mention
works of art at the monastery as if part of a history of the place as seen in certain tabulae, and
it is certainly not an inventory. Rather, it expounds in particular on three paintings of New
Testament subjects—the Transfiguration, the Passion, and the Resurrection—at the Altar of
the Cross at Saint Albans in guide fashion, not merely identifying or even giving the exeget-
ically literal significance of the paintings but conveying “the meaning of the paintings and
mysteries” of the altar in an allegorizing way.99 That is, it treats the images not just individually
but as a group, and not just as a group strictly speaking but as part of the space of a particular
shrine—not merely the altar per se but the area around it as an administered space within the
church, just like the assumed shrine areas of Christ Church at Canterbury (Fig. 3). And it does
so as a site to be visited, not as a “literary” subject. In its exposition, the passage first identifies
a number of the figures in the Transfiguration and the Resurrection as witnesses of divine reve-
lation, and then uses this nonnarrative association to force a very loose “exegetical” connection
between the three subjects in general and so between the images. Next, relaying one of the
classic pieces of Holy Land guide information (and general scriptural lore) of the Passion (and
of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre)—that the place of the Crucifixion in Jerusalem marks
the center of the world—the exposition associates the idea of the prominence of this central
location and the implied spread of the Gospel to humankind with the prominence of the place
of the Altar of the Holy Cross within the church of Saint Albans, thereby evoking the ability
of the altar and its imagery to disseminate the knowledge of the Scriptures to the pilgrims and
other visitors. Explicitly presented as a history of salvation, however abbreviated, the subject of
exposition at Saint Albans is, ultimately, a completely idiosyncratic reading, and one in strik-
ing contrast to the more standard approach to the history of salvation as given at Canterbury.

54 The Art Bulletin March 2018

Based on an individual’s own exegetical reading of the material (as opposed to being patris-
tically based), the guide mediation of these works of art was one that no visitor, however
educated, would ever have been likely to come up with on his or her own. Nevertheless, in its
complexity, the guide mediation here was one that also claimed a position of superior learning
on the part of the on-site guide, even at the risk of a highly forced reading.
Also very commonly employed at the non-elite intermediate level but less demanding
than exegetically based imagery—and apparently more popular—was the publicly displayed
imagery of saints’ lives and miracles. In this important aspect of medieval religion, ground
zero for the miraculous was the tomb of a miracle-working saint. Books of miracles recorded
hundreds of miracles performed by the greatest of these saints, most commonly at their
tombs, but were also typically publicly read at these same tombs.100 Surrounding the tombs
were often images of those miracles—sometimes simple, sometimes elaborate—acting in
witness of the immense power of the saint enshrined there and affirming the extreme holi-
ness of the very site itself. And these two ostensibly distinct media—the oral presentations of
miracles and their visual renderings—at times apparently worked together in the process of
the mediation between the image and the visiting public at these great holy places, something
Henry of Huntingdon seems to have alluded to, whether consciously or unconsciously.101
Many of these miracles were straightforward enough. To take the example of Becket: Becket
saves a boy from drowning, he saves a man from a collapsed house, he saves another from a
cave-in while digging a trench, and so on. Less straightforward are certain others recorded in
his vitae and books of miracles: Becket cures paralytics, makes the blind see, the deaf hear,
the mute speak, the lame walk, cures lepers, and raises the dead—this particular sequence
of miracles as given by John of Salisbury being used to relate Becket to Christ by closely
paraphrasing the same language used to describe Christ’s own miracles as given in the New
Testament (in addition to other explicit and implicit parallels with Christ by both John
and a number of other Becket hagiographers).102 And so, when some on-site guide at Christ
Church, Canterbury—a literate clerk, trained in the material of the guide culture of the
place—expounded on certain of the miracle windows of the Trinity Chapel that show par-
alytics being cured, the blind being made to see, the lame being made to walk, lepers being
cured, and the dead being raised, might not he have mediated this imagery by indirectly com-
paring Becket to Christ in relating these same miraculous cures to his nonelite visitors, just as
was done in the broader culture of the place when these miracles were read aloud to pilgrims
in the chapter house during the tour of the monastery, as recorded in the sources?103 When
the death of Becket was systematically compared to Christ’s death in one of his vitae or in the
liturgy for his feast day,104 might not that same guide have made the same comparison already
voiced at the site as he discussed the windows of the martyrdom of Becket or the nearby
stained-glass panel of the Crucifixion of Christ,105 in this way mediating the work of art for
his non-elite audience?
The device of relating a particular saint to Christ or to another great saint was most
certainly not limited to Becket.106 At Sainte-Foi, at Conques, for example, another church with
a great pilgrimage culture, when Foi is repeatedly compared to Saint Peter and even said to be
“a second Peter” in the Liber miraculorum Sancte Fidis—the partial copy preserved at Conques
clearly being designed for public reading—might not the on-site guide, in speaking about one
of the images of Foi there, have compared the miraculous power of Foi on the basis of this
particular aspect of local culture to that of Peter, who also appears in no fewer than four extant
images there?107 When the same book of miracles recounts how a knight was thrown from
his horse and killed after threatening a monk of Conques and compares him to the vice of
pride, might not an on-site guide—while elaborating on the image of a knight falling from his

55 the tour guide in the middle ages

14 The Journey to Emmaus, ca. 1130, cloister pier,
Santo Domingo de Silos (artwork in the public domain;
photograph © Jim Anzalone, published under a
Creative Commons license BY-SA 2.0). The pilgrim’s
staff carried by Christ is broken at the top and bottom.
15 Pilgrims to Santiago and Jerusalem leading the
saved, ca. 1130–45, lintel. Former collegiate church of
Saint-Lazare, Autun, north (main) portal (artwork in the
public domain; photograph © Holly Hayes, published
under a Creative Commons license BY-NC 2.0). The
staffs of the pilgrims are broken.
horse in the Last Judgment tympanum of the monastery, an image that is unique among Last
Judgment scenes—make a generally similar mediating reference to the enemy of Conques?108
Might not a dynamic similar to those described at Canterbury and Conques have been
at operation at other pilgrimage churches, where images of miracles of Christ and the saints—
otherwise seemingly unrelated to the immediate local culture of the institution or part of a
clear image program—were displayed in the shrine of the local saint?
To take the idea of association through mediation an admittedly conjectural step fur-
ther, the theme of the journey to Emmaus (Luke 24:13–35) is surprisingly common along the
pilgrimage roads. Where the story is discussed in the context of pilgrimage culture—in the
Veneranda dies, a sermon incorporated into the Codex Calixtinus, a twelfth-century compi-
lation of materials related to the pilgrimage to Santiago (including The Pilgrim’s Guide), and
believed to have been read on the feast day of Saint James in various churches—Christ is char-
acterized specifically as a pilgrim. And so, when these images of the journey to Emmaus—at
least one of which, found along the pilgrimage road to Santiago, shows Christ dressed as a pil-
grim and wearing the scallop shell of a pilgrim to that same place (Fig. 14)—were expounded
on to the pilgrim audience, might not this understanding have been mediated to them in
such a way that they felt a kind of identification with the story as pilgrims?109 And, when
two pilgrims—one to Santiago and the other to Jerusalem, as shown by the symbols on their
satchels—lead the way of the saved in the Last Judgment tympanum at the pilgrimage church
of Saint-Lazare at Autun (Fig. 15), preceded only by Adam and Eve, might not an on-site
guide have mediated his account of the sculptures in such a way as to encourage the visiting
pilgrims to identify with these pilgrims—and might not an on-site guide have done the same
at Saint-Jouin-de-Marnes, where all of the saved in the Last Judgment program were depicted
as pilgrims?110
56 The Art Bulletin March 2018
 As to art that corresponds to the lowest level—whether appropriate or inappropriate
art, and whether appropriately or inappropriately expounded on—it, too, might be presented
to the general public by a non-elite guide, but now without any claim to advanced learning,
however undemanding such claims might at times actually have been.
It is difficult to establish what was actually said about appropriate art of the lowest
level when it was presented to non-elite audiences, just as was the case with art of the interme-
diate level. But guide culture is marked by a certain broad similarity of practice, and it appears
that some aspects of written guides emulate or follow in the tradition of on-site guides. The
most obvious example might be the practice by on-site guides of giving statistics—the length
of the church building, the number of columns, the number of windows, and so on—it
being a purely descriptive, noninterpretative, and, usually, nonspiritual way of mediating the
religious objects that church architecture and the tombs of the holy were.111
Figural imagery also appears at times to have been treated in the same way, that is,
primarily as an object of description rather than as a subject of interpretation. For example,
with regard to an individual nonnarrative figure, the language of the passage from the Liber
miraculorum of Sainte-Foi at Conques—a passage that begins, “If you kindly people have
time to listen”112—strongly suggests that the account of the lavish image-reliquary of Foi that
follows came out of on-site practice. Here, the author gives a highly detailed commentary
on the material aspect of the image-reliquary, complete with repeated aesthetic judgments,
explicitly treating the sacred object of veneration as a work of art. The passage initiates a series
of accounts concerning the incremental acquisition of various components of metalwork and
jewels incorporated into the image-reliquary (as well as other works of art in the church), at
the same time including a very brief history of the monastery, all of this remarkably resembling
what one might expect from an on-site guide. Far from being exceptional, presentations like
this seem to have been regular practice, as suggested by Erasmus’s report of a similar nonin-
terpretative public description of the tomb of Becket centuries later, with individual jewels
actually singled out with a pointer by an on-site guide.113
Works of art with multifigure programs of one kind or another (both narrative and
nonnarrative) were also apparently conveyed in a similarly straightforward, noninterpretative
way. Among numerous examples in The Pilgrim’s Guide of what appears to be the continuation
in a written guide of the oral practice of on-site guides is a passage on the visual program of
the shrine of Saint Gilles at Saint-Gilles-du-Gard.114 The account of its relatively complex visual
program is purely descriptive, intermingling identifications of religious images with details
of decorative work and precious stones, the author making no attempt to provide a coherent
theme and, at times, showing himself both explicitly and implicitly uncertain about some of
the iconographic components. In fact, just how focused on the aesthetic and purely material
aspect of the shrine the author is is made only too clear from the precedence he seems to give
these qualities when, even in the middle of a long account of the miraculous cures that took
place there, he writes, “How beautiful—and rewarding—it is to visit his costly tomb!”115
In a different vein, art that was considered appropriate might be mediated with
stories that, in the beginning at least, were consciously fabricated by on-site guides. For
example, already in one of the earliest Christian accounts of an on-site guide in a religious
context, Egeria tells how she was shown two colossal statues amid the quarried ruins of what
she believed was Ramses—a city of ancient Egypt alleged to have been built by the enslaved
Hebrews and from which they began the flight from Egypt—statues that were said to be
of Moses and Aaron and that had been set up by the Hebrews.116 The vast majority of this
extremely common type of claim had to do with nonartistic religious subjects: objects and sites
relating to the full spectrum of biblical topics, such as the site of the earth from which Adam

57 the tour guide in the middle ages

16 Man on a locust making an offering to a basilisk,
ca. 1125–40, capital 74, Sainte-Madeleine, Vézelay,
north aisle wall (artwork in the public domain;
photograph by Éditions Lin, Paris, 1938)
17 Half-naked woman holding a skull in her lap,
ca. 1105–12, tympanum, Santiago de Compostela
Cathedral, Puerta de las Platerías (artwork in the
public domain; photograph © Alma from gl, published
under a Creative Commons license BY-SA 3.0)
was made, stones that supported Moses’s arms during the battle with the Amalekites, different
sites for the beheading of John the Baptist, a stone on which Christ sat when he preached,
bread from the Last Supper—even the tomb of Moses, who is said in the Bible, no less, to
have been buried in an unknown place.117 The typically popular character of such assertions
implies an origin in on-site guide practice, which then migrated to written guides through
exposure of the authors of these written guides to the same on-site practice. These fabricated
claims were no doubt often initiated by a perceived need by one site or guide to contend with
other competing sites and guides, all seeking to attract and please the pilgrim audience—to
capture market share, as it is sometimes put today. The artistic counterpart to this general
practice was simply one facet of the larger phenomenon. Many of these fabricated claims that
relate to art and architecture were noninterpretative, such as assertions of extraordinary author-
ship of a particular work of art (miraculously provided, sculpted by Nicodemus, painted by
the evangelist Luke, and so on), of the object’s miraculous powers (images curing supplicants,
speaking to them, sweating), or of historically baseless site identifications (tombs of certain of
the patriarchs, Christ’s “prison” in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre), most of the instances of
this type of fabricated claim probably not being considered particularly inappropriate by the
majority of the medieval public.118
But certain other fabricated claims regarding works of art that were more fancifully
mediated and that also undoubtedly had their origin in on-site practice surely must have been
seen as inappropriate to at least the more reflective elements of the public. Some art that by
the middle to late twelfth century was considered inappropriate in a religious context by many
might include works of monstrous and violent figures that carried some kind of allegorical
content, as well as imagery that was, practically speaking, meant to be essentially ornamen-
tal—both apparently lumped together by Bernard, who described them collectively as “an
58 The Art Bulletin March 2018
amazing kind of deformed beauty and yet a beautiful deformity.”119 For at least part of this
type of inappropriate art, like the capital at Sainte-Madeleine at Vézelay, depicting a man on a
locust making an offering to a basilisk (Fig. 16), some on-site guides no doubt strained to give
interpretations.120 Yet the vast majority of this kind of art—such as the lions with two bodies
but one head in the imposts in the cloister at Saint-Pierre at Moissac or the Griffin windows
at Saint-Denis—would almost certainly have received no specific interpretation at all on the
part of on-site guides and would simply have contributed to the general sensory saturation of
the holy place as a kind of general ornamentation, probably with vaguely aristocratic conno-
tations.121 Perhaps more informative is the sculpture of a half-naked woman holding a skull in
her lap in the Puerta de las Platerías of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela (Fig. 17). It
is said in The Pilgrim’s Guide to be the image of a woman holding the head of her lover that
her husband had cut off and that she was forced to kiss every day, a tale still told today.122 The
reason I say this sort of mediation must have been considered inappropriate by at least some
is that it goes beyond what might be called the common expectation of the instruction of pil-
grims and other visitors to a holy place in giving fanciful readings unrelated to the holy place
or even to general Christian instruction, particularly doing so in a sensational way. In the end,
the value of the tale of the half-naked woman lies not only in its illustration of on-site practice
but also in underscoring the continuity between these practices and similar ones satirized by
Lucian a thousand years earlier, when he wrote (with reference to tipping) that “no tourist
wants to hear the true facts, even for free.”123

“we sighed for something new”: a summation of guide

culture in the middle ages
“We sighed for something new,” an unknown monk of Christ Church wrote in the book of
miracles of Thomas Becket, about the desire of the monks there (“spiritual men”) for a new—
that is, a novel—miracle, at a time when the place was saturated with miracles, the miracle
with which this passage is related later being depicted in one of the stained-glass windows
of the church.124 Through something new, he explained, one’s spiritual fervor might flare
up anew.
The “carnal people” also sighed for something new—in their case, desiring to find
something else somewhere else that they did not feel they had found at home. In fact, whether
springing from a longing to see “concrete testimony to God on earth” or merely from “curios-
ity,” the desire for something new was a fundamental part of the very dynamic of the pilgrim-
age, in which sincere religious belief and curiosity about the world around the pilgrim were
most certainly not incompatible.125 And, in order to meet the expectations of the carnal people
when a miracle was not at hand to demonstrate the presence (praesentia) of the holy at a given
holy place—“you will . . . experience my presence,” Saint Dunstan said to one of his supplicants
in a vision, urging him to visit his tomb at Canterbury126—that presence might be evoked by
the sensory saturation of the holy place through the conscious employment of programs of
excessive art. As shown only too clearly in the reaction of the woman in the mid-ninth century
who came to Prüm to see relics but subconsciously expected art—a reaction not essentially
different from Canon Pietro Casola’s more subdued response to a visit to San Cristoforo in
Venice more than six hundred years later127—there was a culture-wide recognition of the neces-
sity of pilgrimage art, whether individual institutions chose to act on it or not. Artistic expec-
tations, however, extended beyond pilgrimage culture, and, as the experience of young Eudes
de Châteauroux indicates, even presumably moderately educated members of the public might
have no idea of the meaning of certain imagery in major artistic programs in major churches.
For sometimes different reasons, then, guide culture, which already existed at the holy place in

59 the tour guide in the middle ages

general, became an integral part of the institutional interface between works of art and visitors
at both pilgrimage and nonpilgrimage churches.
A continuity of guide culture from the classical through the Early Christian and
medieval periods can be seen with regard to both written guides and on-site guides, though
with the ascendancy of Christianity, guide culture was naturally affected by the same changes
that transformed the rest of Western culture. Although relics and places associated with
Christ and other Christian figures became the primary focal points of guide culture, the
common use of excessive art at these places to enhance the sense of presence (as well as for
other reasons) ensured that art continued to be an important part of guide culture. While
there was no standard practice regarding mediation between the work of art and the public
by on-site guides, officials at some ecclesiastical institutions were formally expected to inter-
act with pilgrims and other visitors, answer their questions, instruct them, and sometimes
provide actual guide service. Guides in general were of varying status and educational levels,
from low to high, and ranged from proper official guides to unofficial local people. And they
operated at all of the various levels of artistic engagement: elite guides for art that engaged
some level of advanced learning for “elite” audiences and non-elite guides for art that was
presented in a way that was less dependent or not dependent at all on advanced learning for
nonelite audiences. On-site guides sometimes had written aids (both large-scale public texts
and texts for individual reading, for both visitors and themselves) and they sometimes seem
to have had visual aids to help them. All types of art appear to have been addressed: typolog-
ical, narrative, and nonnarrative art. And a full spectrum of mediating expositions seems to
have been presented to the different publics: typological expositions, what might be called
creative interpretations, straightforward descriptions, statistical presentations, historically
fabricated accounts, and sometimes fanciful readings.
What does all this mean for the art historian or cultural historian, aside from the fact
that there were “tour guides” in the Middle Ages?
It means a number of things.
In general, it means that there was a widespread practice of the mediation of works of
art and architecture of various kinds with regard to certain elements of the public as part of a
larger guide culture, which was a significant aspect of the basic dynamics of medieval artistic
culture and pilgrimage culture.
More specifically, it means that certain extant works of art should be understood as
part of the otherwise largely lost infrastructure of guide culture in the area of exposition (the
Canterbury Plan, the Guthlac Roll, the Vie de saint Denys, the Canterbury Roll) and should
take their place beside other recognized vestiges of this infrastructure, such as the Glastonbury
and York tabulae, the De picturis et imaginibus of Saint Albans, and the still extant watch room
at Saint Albans.
It means that guides as mediators must be understood as operating in a number of
different ways.
At the simplest level, it means that the guide might be said to operate literally as
gatekeeper in the simple act of controlling access to the holy place, as a kind of initial medi-
ation between the holy and the profane. While this might seem at first glance to be a rather
superficial application of the idea of mediation, it may sometimes be forgotten that access to
many medieval churches was not public but controlled, with some monasteries (Cistercian, for
instance) normally prohibiting women as a matter of course.128 In the context of guide culture,
such control implicitly affirmed or even asserted a certain social/spiritual hierarchy on the part
of the institution having authority over greatly desired access to the holy place that so many
went to such great lengths to reach.

60 The Art Bulletin March 2018

 At the introductory and intermediate levels of artistic mediation in particular, it
means that the guide again might be said to operate as gatekeeper, but figuratively now, con-
trolling access not to sacred space but to elite knowledge. Mediation at these levels might,
generally speaking, be understood as involving instruction ranging from local historical nar-
rative and simple descriptions of art and architecture to expositions that required at least a
modest amount of learning and could be understood as making accessible elite knowledge
that had been previously inaccessible. In what must have been a fairly striking performance
during much of the Middle Ages, the guides’ control over the elite knowledge of the tabulae,
typically written in Latin and apparently translated by them for the illiterate public, was no
doubt understood by the nonelite as not so different from access to a book, properly speak-
ing, containing elite knowledge. This may have been part of the purpose of the covers of the
tabulae, which are a distinguishing feature of the surviving Glastonbury Tabula, to reinforce
both the booklike format and the guides’ control over the covers that open and close them,
covers that control access to the elite knowledge they possess. It may even be that the naturally
high positions of some sculpted capitals in Romanesque churches—which must have been
very conspicuous to the early twelfth-century audience when brightly painted, with no overt
function yet made at great cost and creating the effect of a kind of spiritual Disneyland—also
lent themselves to a form of control on the part of the guides in that they knew in advance the
subject matter of these sometimes difficult-to-see images even as the visiting non-elite public
might still be trying to visually make them out, with the guides then further mediating this
imagery in one way or another to this presumably receptive public. And it may be that the
stained-glass windows of the great Gothic churches—with their complexity and often their
distance—operated at times in a similar manner with regard to guide mediation (though the
dynamic here is generally fundamentally different from Romanesque capitals, typically relating
to a better-educated and more differentiated public). In these introductory and intermediate
levels of artistic mediation, the institution having authority and access over the holy place not
only fulfilled its obligation to receive visitors and instruct them, it also affirmed or asserted its
elite status in the social/spiritual hierarchy through the guide.
At a more profound level, it means that while some of this mediation was straight-
forward enough and affects the content of given works of art very little—for example, simple
iconographic identification, more or less direct narrative—the mediation or implicit nonmed-
iation of other works is so intimately related to the content of the imagery that the mediation
or nonmediation should be seen as an actual part of that content. For example, in the context
of medieval artistic culture, of guide culture, the claim that the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit
panel at Saint-Denis was “accessible only to the litterati” and that its “public” would have
required, at least in theory, no guide to mediate it is part of its original content in its claim
that the knowledge required to fully understand the window implied elite status in the social/
spiritual hierarchy. In a related but lesser way, the claim that the Good Samaritan windows of
Chartres and Bourges Cathedrals were understandable only to certain lay “textual communi-
ties” through acquired elite knowledge (whether presented by an elite guide or learned by an
elite viewer) as part of their original function—thereby claiming participation in an intermedi-
ate status in the social/spiritual hierarchy—is also part of their original content, as opposed to
the content simply consisting of an exegetical reading alone.
Distinct from this dynamic, it means that, in some cases, the immediate reading of
an image does not necessarily provide the total content of a work of art as it was understood
in the Middle Ages, content being added to these particular works of art through guide
mediation itself on the basis of contemporary exegetical understandings (“new exegesis,” not
based or not fully based on patristic exegesis, as suggested by the De picturis et imaginibus

61 the tour guide in the middle ages

of Saint Albans), local histories (as in the tabulae), and local cultures (as in saints’ lives, for
instance)—content that, undoubtedly, is often no longer recoverable. The general process of
guide culture was one of control or, seen another way, the shaping of the desired perception of
the subject in question. And, in this effort, guides may have furnished general information to
their audiences, but they also no doubt acted more pointedly at times in affirming the identity
and authority of their institutions through the mediation of the sometimes great public works
of art that these institutions went to such enormous expense to put before the visiting public
and that were potentially active, not passive, agents in the projection of that same identity
and authority.
And it means that the presentation of (or access to) elite knowledge to the visiting
public appears to have been deliberately selective at some churches at certain times. One
implication of this is that what was not addressed through mediation (or, in some cases, not
completely addressed), and so presumably not understood (or not fully understood) by non-
elite pilgrims and other visitors, would also have contributed to the maintenance of the social/
spiritual hierarchy in that it would have affirmed the elite status of those who were assumed
to understand (or implicitly claimed to understand) through their elite knowledge on the
basis of their display of and proprietary relation to such art, while at the same time confirm-
ing the inferior position in that hierarchy of those who did not understand (or did not fully
understand).
Guide culture, with its mediating dynamic, which formed an integral part of certain
areas of medieval artistic and pilgrimage cultures, has largely been overlooked. But at least
something—even if little more than an awareness—of this culture, ephemeral by nature, may
be recovered. It was an active factor in the transmission of particular categories of knowledge
and claims, and it strongly affected both the object–viewer dynamic and the social con-
text of the medieval public art that we as art and cultural historians study today.129 And in
this dynamic, the on-site guide, however understood, often acted as the principal mediator
between the ordinary visitor and the sometimes incredibly lavish and complex art programs—
between the public and the public work of art—of the Middle Ages.

conrad rudolph is Distinguished Professor of Medieval Art History at the University of California, Riverside.
He is a Guggenheim Fellow and a Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America. He is the author, most recently, of The
Mystic Ark: Hugh of Saint Victor, Art, and Thought in the Twelfth Century [Department of the History of Art, University
of California, Riverside, CA 92521, conrad.rudolph@ucr.edu].

70–79. For the sometimes related question of material-

notes
For a range of advice and support given during the writ-
ing of this article, I would like to recognize Paul Binski,
Ray Crosby, Andrew Jacobs, Herbert Kessler, Stella Nair,
Anna Rudolph, the late John Williams, and especially
Phil Gruen. Although I gathered sources for this study
for almost forty years, a number of anthologies were of
enormous help, most notably, the Library of the Palestine
Pilgrims’ Text Society and the publications by John
Wilkinson and Denys Pringle.
1. Historia translationis reliquiarum SS. Martyrum Chrysanti
et Dariae 9, in Patrologia latina (hereafter PL), ed. J.-P.
Migne (Paris: Patrologia Latina, 1844–64), 121:cols. 673–82,
at 676.
2. The dynamic here is primarily one of the equation
between excessive art and holiness, on which see Conrad
Rudolph, The Things of Greater Importance: Bernard of
Clairvaux’s “Apologia” and the Medieval Attitude toward Art
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990), 7,
ity, see the recent essay on the subject by Aden Kumler,
“Materia, Materials, ‘Materiality,’” in A Companion to
Medieval Art: Romanesque and Gothic in Northern Europe,
ed. Conrad Rudolph, Blackwell Companions in Art
History, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, forthcoming).
3. Theodericus, De locis sanctis 30, in Peregrinationes tres:
Saewulf, John of Würzburg, Theodericus, ed. R. B. C.
Huygens (Turnhout: Brepols, 1994), 143–97, at 177;
Jonathan Sumption, Pilgrimage: An Image of Mediaeval
Religion (London: Faber & Faber, 1975), 165; J. Stopford,
“Some Approaches to the Archaeology of Christian
Pilgrimage,” World Archaeology 26 (1994): 57–72, at 59;
and Robert-Henri Bautier, “Paris au temps d’Abélard,”
in Abélard en son temps (Paris: Belles Lettres, 1981), 21–77,
at 39.
4. On the equation between excessive art and holiness, see
n. 2 above. The term “carnal people” is a common one. I
borrow its use here from Bernard of Clairvaux, Apologia ad
Guillelmum 28, in Rudolph, Things of Greater Importance,

62 The Art Bulletin March 2018

232–87, at 278–80, a classic example of the medieval dis-
tinction between the “carnal” and “spiritual” peoples in
regard to art.
5. On the necessity of pilgrimage art, see Rudolph, Things
of Greater Importance, 42–50.
6. For example, Benedict of Nursia, Benedicti regula 66, in
Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum latinorum, ed. R. Hanslik
(Vienna: Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum,
1960), 155, 156 (“hostiariis, portarius”); Liber pontificalis 47
(Leo), ed. L. Duchesne (Paris: E. de Boccard, 1955), 1:239
(“custodes qui dicuntur cubicularii ex clero Romano”);
Gregory the Great, Letter 4.30, in Registrum epistularum
libri, ed. Dag Norberg (Turnhout: Brepols 1982), 249
(“mansionarii”); Liber miraculorum Sancte Fidis 1.9, 1.25,
1.26, 2.12, ed. Luca Robertini (Spoleto: Centro Italiano
di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo, 1994), 104, 127, 130–31, 176
(“custos”); Liber tramitis aevi Odilonis abbatis 30, ed. Petrus
Dinter (Siegburg: Schmitt, 1980), 250–51 (“portararius”
[sic]); William Durandus, Rationale divinorum officio-
rum 2.4, ed. A. Davril and T. M. Thibodeau (Turnhout:
Brepols, 1995), 1:149–50 (“ostiarii”); and Ben Nilson,
Cathedral Shrines of Medieval England (Woodbridge, UK:
Boydell, 1998), 130 (“custos feretri, feretrarius, custos tum-
borum, tumbarius, altararius”). On the shrine keeper in
general, see Pierre-André Sigal, L’homme et le miracle dans
la France médiévale (XIe–XIIe siècle) (Paris: Éditions du
Cerf, 1985), 123–26; and Nilson, Cathedral Shrines.
Richard Brilliant has discussed the role of a hypothet-
ical interlocutor for the Bayeux Tapestry in “The Bayeux
Tapestry: A Stripped Narrative for Their Eyes and Ears,”
Word & Image 7, no. 2 (1991): 98–126; Vincent Debiais has
written of the intermediary role of inscriptions in Messages
de pierre: La lecture des inscriptions dans la communication
médiévale (XIIIe–XIVe siècle) (Turnhout: Brepols, 2009);
and Calvin B. Kendall has conjectured a guide for the
tympanum of Sainte-Foy at Conques, in The Allegory of
the Church: Romanesque Portals and Their Verse Inscriptions
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998), 168–69.
7. For a different angle on the same subject, see Rudolph,
Things of Greater Importance, 7.
8. For this article, I consulted a number of theoretical
studies, among which the most pertinent were Dean
MacCannell, The Tourist: A New Theory of the Leisure
Class (New York: Schocken Books, 1976); John Eade
and Michael J. Sallnow, eds., Contesting the Sacred:
The Anthropology of Pilgrimage (Urbana: University of
Illinois Press, 2000); John Urry, The Tourist Gaze, 2nd
ed. (London: Sage, 2002); Ellen Badone and Sharon R.
Roseman, eds., Intersecting Journeys: The Anthropology of
Pilgrimage and Tourism (Urbana: University of Illinois
Press, 2004); and Tazim Jamal and Mike Robinson, eds.,
The SAGE Handbook of Tourism Studies (London: SAGE,
2009). For quite some time now, anthropological thought
has quite rightly rejected as fundamentally flawed the
premise of Victor Turner and Edith Turner’s theory on
Western medieval pilgrimage as expressed in Image and
Pilgrimage in Christian Culture (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1978) and elsewhere; for example, Eade
and Sallnow’s introduction to Contesting the Sacred, 1–29,
at 3–5.
9. For a few examples out of many, Herodotus, Histories
124–27, in Herodotus, trans. and ed. A. D. Godley
(London: W. Heinemann; New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons,
1921), 1:424–28; Pliny, Naturalis historiae 3.66, 31.16–17,
ed. L. Jan and C. Mayhoff (Stuttgart: Teubner, 1967),
1:257–58, 5:7; Pausanias, Greece 9.8, in Description of Greece,
trans. and ed. W. H. S. Jones (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press; London: W. Heinemann, 1918), 4:206–8;
Lucian, Philopseudes 5, in Lucian, trans. and ed. A. M.
Harmon (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1921), 3:319–81, at 326; Notitia urbis regionum XIV (sect.
14 of the Chronography of 354) reg. 8, 9, in Topographie
der Stadt Rom im Alterthum, by H. Jordan (Berlin:
Wiedmannsche Buchhandlung, 1871), 2:539–754, at 552,
556; and J. G. Frazer, Pausanias’s Description of Greece
(London: Macmillan, 1913), 1:lxxii–lxxix. For a few won-
ders, see below.
10. Lionel Casson, Travel in the Ancient World (Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974), 294.
11. For example, Herodotus, Histories 124–27, vol. 1:424–
28; Cicero, In C. Verrem actionis secundae liber quartus
(De signis) 4.132, ed. Gianluigi Baldo (Florence: Felice
le Monnier, 2004), 132; Pliny, Naturalis historiae 36.32,
vol. 5:317–18; Plutarch, Moralia (Oracles at Delphi) 14,
16, trans. and ed. Frank Cole Babbitt (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1936), 5:294, 298; Pausanias,
Greece 1.22, 1.31, 1.35, 2.17, 5.6, vol. 1:108, 170, 190–92,
332, 2:410; and Pseudo-Lucian, Amores 8, 11–17, in Lucian,
trans. and ed. M. D. MacLeod (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1967), 8:147–235, at 162, 166–76.
12. For example, Herodotus, Histories 2.2, 2.99, vol. 1:276,
384–86; Varro, work lost but quoted in Nonius Marcellus,
De compendiosa doctrina 419 M., ed. Wallace M. Lindsay
(Leipzig: Teubner, 1903), 676; Pseudo-Justin Martyr,
Cohortatio ad gentiles 37, in Corpus apologetarum chris-
tianorum saeculi secundi, ed. Johann Otto (Jena: F. Mauke,
1851), 2:18–125, at 122; Julian, Letter 19, in The Works of
the Emperor Julian, trans. and ed. Wilmer Cave Wright
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1913), 3:50;
and esp. Frazer, Pausanias’s Description, 1:lxxvi–lxxvii.
13. Varro, quoted in Nonius Marcellus, De compendiosa
419 M., 676.
14. For example, Plutarch, Moralia (Oracles at Delphi) 13,
16, pp. 292, 298; and Pausanias, Greece 1.31, 1.42, 2.9, 2.31,
vol. 1:170, 226, 296, 416.
15. For example, Herodotus, Histories 2.131, vol. 1:432;
Pausanias, Greece 1.35, 2.9, 2.17, 2.21, 2.23, 5.10, 5.18, 9.3,
vol. 1:192, 296, 332, 356, 370, 2:434, 486–88, 4:182; Lucian,
Philopseudes 5, p. 326; and Pseudo-Lucian, Amores 8–17,
pp. 162–76.
16. Lucian, Philopseudes 5, p. 326.
17. Pausanias, Greece 2.13, 3.3, 10.4, vol. 1:316, 2:18,
4:384–86.
18. For example, Bernard of Clairvaux, Apologia 28, p. 280.
19. Bordeaux Pilgrim, Itinerarium (Wesseling 594, 599), in
Itineraria et alia geographica, ed. P. Geyer et al. (Turnhout:
Brepols, 1965), 1–26, at 17, 20; and Niccolò da Poggibonsi,
Oltramare 14, in Pellegrini scrittori: Viaggiatori toscani del
trecento in Terrasanta, ed. Antonio Lanza and Marcellina
Troncarelli (Florence: Ponte alle Grazie, 1990), 31–158,
at 43.
20. For example, Piacenza Pilgrim, Itinerarium 23, in Geyer
et al., Itineraria, 129–74, at 141; Adomnan, De locis sanctis
63 the tour guide in the middle ages
2.7, 3.5, in ibid., 183–234, at 208–9, 233–34; Pilgrim’s Guide
8, 9, in The Pilgrim’s Guide: A Critical Edition, ed. Paula
Gerson et al. (London: Harvey Miller, 1998), 2:10–90, at
34, 36–40, 68–70, 72–76; Benedict the Canon?, Mirabilia
urbis Romae, passim, in Codice topografico della città di
Roma, ed. R. Valentini and G. Zucchetti (Rome: Tipografia
del Senato, 1946), 3:1–65; Descriptio Lateranensis ecclesiae,
passim, in Valentini and Zucchetti, Codice topografico di
Roma, 3:319–73; Descriptio basilicae Vaticanae, passim,
in Valentini and Zucchetti, Codice topografico di Roma,
3:375–442; Magister Gregorius, Narracio de mirabilibus
urbis Rome 1, 3, 6, 12, 15, 16, 23, and passim, ed. R. B. C.
Huygens (Leiden: Brill, 1970), 11–12, 13, 16–18, 20, 21, 22,
25, and passim; Theodericus, De locis sanctis 12, 16, pp.
155, 163–64; Anonymous VI, De descripcione 3, in Itinera
Hierosolymitana crucesignatorum (saec. XII–XIII), ed. Sabino
de Sandoli (Jerusalem: Franciscan Printing Press, 1978),
3:46–75, at 56; La citez de Jherusalem 2, in Les églises de
la Terre Sainte, by Melchior de Vogüé (Paris: V. Didron,
1860), 436–44, at 437; Burchard of Mount Sion, Descriptio
5 [2], in Sandoli, Itinera Hierosolymitana, 4:122–219, at 136;
Mirabiliana, in Mirabilia Romae e codicibus vaticanis emen-
data, ed. Gustavus Parthey (Berlin: F. Nicolai, 1869), 47–62,
at 47–48, 49, 51, 52–53, 54, 60, 61; Frescobaldi, Viaggio 159,
169, 174, 177, 206, 212, 214, 215, 216, and passim, in Lanza
and Troncarelli, Pellegrini scrittori, 167–215, at 198–99,
200, 201, 206, 207–8, and passim; Sigoli, Viaggio 219, in
Lanza and Troncarelli, Pellegrini scrittori, 217–55, at 253; and
John Poloner, Descriptio, in Descriptiones Terrae Sanctae ex
saeculo VIII. IX. XII. et XV., ed. Titus Tobler (Leipzig: J. C.
Hinrichs, 1874), 225–81, at 263.
21. For example, Pilgrim’s Guide 8, 9, pp. 36–40, 72–76;
Theodericus, De locis sanctis 5, pp. 147–48; and Niccolò da
Poggibonsi, Oltramare 14, p. 43.
22. For example, Eusebius/Jerome, Onomasticon, in
Das Onomastikon der biblischen Ortsnamen, ed. Erich
Klostermann (Hildesheim: G. Olms, 1966), 5 (Noah’s Ark),
43, 59, 71, 77, and passim; Piacenza Pilgrim, Itinerarium
4, 6, 17, 22, pp. 130, 131–32, 137, 141; Burchard of Mount
Sion, Descriptio, 5, 8, 12, 13, and passim [2, 4, 6], pp. 136,
144, 152, 156, and so on; Marino Sanudo, Liber secretorum
fidelium crucis super Terrae Sanctae bk. 3.14.3, 3.14.8–11, and
passim (Hannover: Ioannis Aubrii, 1611; repr., Jerusalem:
Massada Press, 1972), 248, 249, 255, 257, 259, and passim;
and Ogier d’Anglure, Saint voyage 174, 251, 354, in Le saint
voyage de Jherusalem du Seigneur d’Anglure, ed. François
Bonnardot and Auguste Longnon (Paris: Firmin Didot,
1878), 43, 68, 100.
23. For example, Egeria, Itinerarium 8.4, 10.8, 12.3, 19.5,
20.2, in Geyer et al., Itineraria, 37–103, at 48, 51, 52, 60,
62 (priest, bishop); Jerome, In Matheum 4 (23.35–36),
in Commentariorum in Matheum, ed. D. Hurst and
M. Adriaen (Turnhout: Brepols, 1969), 220 (monks);
Gregory the Great, Letter 4.30, p. 250 (priest); Adomnan,
De locis sanctis 2.26, 2.27, pp. 219, 220 (unofficial “profes-
sional” guide); Einhard, Translatio et miracula Sanctorum
Marcellini et Petri 4, in Scriptores 15.1, ed. Georg Waitz
(Hannover: Monumenta Germaniae Historica, 1888),
239–64, at 241 (unofficial “professional” guide); Daniel the
Abbot, Journey 1B, 77, in Jerusalem Pilgrimage 1099–1185,
trans. John Wilkinson et al. (London: Hakluyt Society,
1988), 120–71, at 121, 158 (unofficial “professional” guide);
Pilgrim’s Guide 9, pp. 74–76 (unofficial “professional”
guide); Anonymous II, Peregrinationes 6, in Sandoli,
Itinera Hierosolymitana, 3:10–15, at 12 (“Templars”); Gesta
Regis Ricardi, in The Chronicle of the Reigns of Henry II.
and Richard I., ed. William Stubbs (London: Longmans,
1867), 72–252, at 228–29 (pope); Giraldus Cambrensis,
Vita Hugonis 95, in The Life of St. Hugh of Avalon: Bishop of
Lincoln 1186–1200, trans. and ed. Richard M. Loomis (New
York: Garland, 1985), 70 (ecclesiastical official); Matthew
Paris (Thomas Walsingham), Gesta abbatum monasterii
Sancti Albani, ed. Henry T. Riley (London: Longmans,
1867), 1:3–324, at 282, 285 (monk); Burchard of Mount
Sion, Descriptio prol., 5, 15 [prol., 2, 7], pp. 124 (local peo-
ple), 136 (local person), 162 (monks); Itinerarium cuiusdam
Anglici 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, in Biblioteca bio-bibliografica
della Terra Santa e dell’Oriente francescano, ed. Girolamo
Golubovich (Florence: Quaracchi, 1923), 4:435–60, at 450,
451, 453, 454, 455–56, 458 (ecclesiastical official, official
“professional,” unofficial “professional”); Ogier, Saint
voyage 54, 249, pp. 13–14, 66 (friar/ecclesiastical official,
official “professional”); Frescobaldi, Viaggio 128, 190, pp.
192 (bishop), 204 (friars); Gucci, Viaggio 18.1, in Lanza and
Troncarelli, Pellegrini scrittori, 257–312, at 288 (friars and
devout women); and Pietro Casola, Viaggio a Gerusalemme
di Pietro Casola 96 [12], ed. Anna Paoletti (Alessandria:
Orso, 2001), 193–94 (unofficial “professional”).
24. Benedict of Nursia, Regula 53, pp. 123–26; see also
chap. 66, pp. 155–57.
25. Gregory of Tours, Gloria martyrum 43, in Gregorii
Turonensis opera, ed. W. Arndt and Br. Krusch, Scriptores
rerum merovingicarum 1 (Hannover: Monumenta
Germaniae Historica, 1884), 484–561, at 517.
26. Liber Pontificalis 47 (Leo), 1:239; Diversorum patrum
sententie sive Collectio in LXXIV titulos digesta 138, ed.
Joannes T. Gilchrist (Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica
Vaticana, 1973), 94; and William Durandus, Rationale 2.4,
vol. 1:150.
27. Now lost: Presbytery, n. VII, 11; for the inscription,
see Madeline Harrison Caviness, The Windows of Christ
Church Cathedral, Canterbury (London: British Academy,
1981), 131.
28. C. Eveleigh Woodruff, “The Financial Aspect of the
Cult of St Thomas of Canterbury,” Archaeologia Cantiana
44 (1932): 13–32, at 14–15; and Nilson, Cathedral Shrines,
130–33. For an excellent, if satirical, impression of how
such a system of shrines might have worked on the eve of
the Reformation, see Erasmus, Peregrinatio religionis ergo,
in Opera omnia Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami, ed. L.-E.
Halkin et al. (Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1972), ord. 1:3,
pp. 470–94.
29. William Urry, Canterbury under the Angevin Kings
(London: Athlone, 1967), 157; and D. H. Turner, “The
Customary of the Shrine of St. Thomas Becket,” Canterbury
Chronicle 70 (1976): 16–22, at 17–20. For the monk at
the door (if we can trust the superb fictional description),
see Tale of Beryn, in The Canterbury Tales: Fifteenth-
Century Continuations and Additions, ed. John M. Bowers
(Kalamazoo, MI: TEAMS, 1992), 60–196, at 63–64.
30. Urry, Canterbury, 157; and Turner, “The Customary,”
21.
31. The quote, from the Customary of the Shrine of Saint
Thomas, refers to the clerks, as cited by Nilson, Cathedral
Shrines, 132–33, translation mine.
32. See, in general, Sigal, L’homme et le miracle, 123–26;
Nilson, Cathedral Shrines; Julie Kerr, Monastic Hospitality:
The Benedictines in England, c. 1070–1250 (Woodbridge,
UK: Boydell, 2007); and John Crook, English Medieval
Shrines (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 2011).
33. For example, Thomas of Monmouth, Vita Willemi
7.18, in The Life and Miracles of St William of Norwich,
ed. and trans. Augustus Jessopp and Montague Rhodes
James (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1896),
281; Benedict of Peterborough, Miracula Thomae 2.16,
in Materials for the History of Thomas Becket, Archbishop
of Canterbury, ed. James Craigie Robinson (London:
Longmans, 1875), 2:21–260, at 67; Giraldus Cambrensis,
Vita Hugonis 77, 95, pp. 50–52, 70; and De miraculis
de Rocamadour 1.33, in Les miracles de Notre-Dame de
Rocamadour au XIIe siècle, trans. and ed. Edmond Albe
(Toulouse: Le Pérégrinateur, 1996), 142.
34. William Durandus, Rationale 2.4, p. 150.
35. Gregory of Tours, Virtutibus Sancti Juliani 2.2, in
Opera, 562–84, at 564–65.
36. Gregory of Tours, Virtutibus Sancti Martini 3.45, in
Opera, 584–661, at 643.
37. Piacenza Pilgrim, Itinerarium 34, p. 146.
38. Guillaume de Saint-Pair, Roman 1, in Le roman du
Mont Saint-Michel (XIIe siècle), ed. Catherine Bougy
(Caen: Presses Universitaires de Caen, 2009), 115.
39. See for example Egeria, Itinerarium 3.6–4.8, 10.7–11.3,
14.1–15.4, 20.3–23.5, and passim, pp. 40–43, 51–52, 55–56,
62–66, and passim; Augustine, De civitate Dei 22.8,
ed. Bernhard Dombart and Alfons Kalb (Turnhout:
Brepols, 1955), 815, 816, 823–24, 825, 826; Gregory of
Tours, Virtutibus Sancti Martini 2.49, p. 626; William
Fitzstephen, Vita Thomae 155, in Robinson, Materials,
3:1–154, at 151; Guernes de Pont-Sainte-Maxence, Vie de
Thomas, line 6158, in La vie de Saint Thomas de Canterbury,
trans. and ed. Jacques T. E. Thomas (Louvain: Peeters,
2002), 1:346; and cf. Liber miraculorum Sancte Fidis 3.24,
4.21 [4.20], pp. 215, 255.
40. Piacenza Pilgrim, Itinerarium 2, p. 130 (implied by
the type of information); Adomnan, De locis sanctis 3.4,
pp. 229–33, trans. John Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrims
before the Crusades, 2nd ed. (Warminster: Aris & Phillips,
2002), 204; Bernard of Clairvaux, Letter 78.4–5, in Sancti
Bernardi opera, ed. Jean Leclercq and H. M. Rochais
(Rome: Editiones Cistercienses, 1957–77), 7:203–4; and
Anonymous II, Peregrinationes 6, p. 12.
41. Jerome, In Matheum 4 (23.35–36), p. 220; in reference
to Matthew 23:34–36, Luke 11:49–51.
42. For example, Egeria, Itinerarium 1–5, 10–11, pp. 37–45,
51–52.
43. Piacenza Pilgrim, Itinerarium 5, p. 158.
44. Adomnan, De locis sanctis 2.26–27, pp. 219–20, trans.
Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrims, 194.
45. Lanfranc, Constitutions 90, in The Monastic
Constitutions of Lanfranc, trans. and ed. David Knowles,
rev. ed. Christopher N. L. Brooke (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2002), 130–32; Bernard of Clairvaux,
Letter 78.4–5, in Opera, 7:203–4; and Peter the Venerable,
Statute 23, in Statuta Petri Venerabilis, ed. Giles Constable
64 The Art Bulletin March 2018
(Siegburg: Consuetudines Benedictinae Variae, 1975),
19–106, at 60.
46. The best account of the Holy Circuit of which I am
aware is postmedieval: Pietro Casola, Viaggio 93–105 [12],
pp. 190–205.
47. On tabulae in general, see Jeanne Krochalis, “Magna
Tabula: The Glastonbury Tablets,” in Glastonbury Abbey
and the Arthurian Tradition, ed. James P. Carley (Rochester,
NY: Brewer, 2001), 435–567.
48. Examples of all these aspects of tabulae are given
in J. A. Bennett, “A Glastonbury Relic,” Somersetshire
Archaeological and Natural History Society’s Proceedings 34
(1888): 117–22; John Higgitt, “Epigraphic Lettering and
Book Script in the British Isles,” in Inschrift und Material,
Inschrift und Buchschrift: Fachtagung für mittelalterliche und
neuzeitliche Epigraphik Ingolstadt 1997, ed. Walter Koch
and Christine Steininger (Munich: Bayerischen Akademie
der Wissenschaften, 1999), 137–49; and Krochalis, “Magna
Tabula.” For other ways in which a historical account
of a religious institution might integrate certain aspects
of its building history and the miraculous, see Conrad
Rudolph, “Building-Miracles as Artistic Justification in the
Early and Mid-Twelfth Century,” in Radical Art History:
Internationale Anthologie, Subject: O.K. Werckmeister, ed.
Wolfgang Kersten (Zurich: Zip Verlag, 1997), 398–410.
49. The Glastonbury Tabula: Bodleian Libraries, Oxford,
MS lat. hist. a.2; and the York Tabula: York Minster
Library, MSS Add. 533, 534. On these, see Bennett, “A
Glastonbury Relic”; J. S. Purvis, “The Tables of the York
Vicars Choral,” Yorkshire Archaeological Journal 41 (1966):
741–48; Higgitt, “Epigraphic Lettering,” 148–49; and
Krochalis, “Magna Tabula.”
50. Satirically, Erasmus, Peregrinatio, lines 274–76, 333–34,
pp. 478 (“peruetustam ursi pellem tignis affixam”), 479
(“tabulam authenticam”).
51. Bennett, “A Glastonbury Relic,” 119.
52. Frederick Harrison, Life in a Medieval College: The
Story of the Vicars-Choral of York Minster (London: Murray,
1952), 65–67.
53. See n. 35 above.
54. Bodleian, Oxford, MS Laud misc. 750. Krochalis,
“Magna Tabula,” 437, suggests that it may have been used
by guides.
55. Purvis, “Tables of the York Vicars Choral,” 742.
56. Krochalis, “Magna Tabula,” passim, but esp. 441–42.
57. Bernard of Clairvaux, Apologia 29, p. 282. For an
example of what I mean by “contemporary” with regard
to artistic production, see Conrad Rudolph, Artistic
Change at St-Denis: Abbot Suger’s Program and the Early
Twelfth-Century Controversy over Art (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1990).
58. The York Tabula makes such a reference to the activity
of Charlemagne in the history of the cathedral; Purvis,
“Tables of the York Vicars Choral,” 745. The story of the
acquisition of some of the great relics of Saint-Denis was
interwoven with a legendary history of Charlemagne
in Descriptio qualiter Karolus Magnus clavum et coro-
nam Domini Constantinopoli aquisgrani detulerit, in Die
Legende Karls des Grossen im XI. und XII. Jahrhundert, ed.
Gerhard Rauschen (Leipzig: Gesellschaft für rheinische
Geschichtskunde, 1890), 103–25. See also Émile Mâle,
Religious Art in France: The Twelfth Century (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1978), 306–7; Elizabeth A. R.
Brown and Michael W. Cothren, “The Twelfth-Century
Crusading Window of the Abbey of Saint-Denis,” Journal
of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 49 (1986): 1–40;
and Elisabeth A. R. Brown, “St.-Denis and the Turpin
Legend,” in The Codex Calixtinus and the Shrine of St
James, ed. John Williams (Tübingen: G. Narr, 1992), 51–88.
On the matriculariis clericis of Saint-Denis, see Suger,
Ordinatio, in Oeuvres, trans. and ed. Françoise Gasparri
(Paris: Belles Lettres, 1996–2001), 2:228–57, at 249; alter-
natively, Ordinatio, in Abbot Suger: On the Abbey Church
of St-Denis and Its Art Treasures, trans. and ed. Erwin
Panofsky, 2nd ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1979), 122–37, at 132. For my rendering of matriculariis as
“church wardens,” contrary to Panofsky’s translation, see
J. F. Niermeyer, Mediae latinitatis lexicon minus (Leiden:
Brill, 1984), “matricularius” no. 4, citing Suger, De admi-
nistratione 7, for which see Suger, Oeuvres, 54–155, at 70.
59. For the Vézelay capital, see Kirk Ambrose, The Nave
Sculpture of Vézelay: The Art of Monastic Viewing (Toronto:
PIMS, 2006), 20–28, 113, illustrated as Capital 93. For
general documentation of the Old and New Testament
typologies at Canterbury, see Caviness, Windows of Christ
Church, 77–156. On the integration of these into a his-
tory of salvation, see Conrad Rudolph, “The Parabolic
Discourse Window and the Canterbury Roll: Social
Change and the Assertion of Elite Status at Canterbury
Cathedral,” Oxford Art Journal 38 (2015): 1–19, at 11–12. On
the west right tympanum of Saint-Denis as integrated into
a possible larger history of salvation, see Conrad Rudolph,
“Inventing the Gothic Portal: Suger, Hugh of Saint Victor,
and the Construction of a New Public Art at Saint-Denis,”
Art History 33 (2010): 568–95, at 589–90.
60. On the image from Autun, see Denis Grivot and
George Zarnecki, Gislebertus, Sculptor of Autun (Paris:
Orion, 1961), 67–68. On the image from Tournus, see
Bernhard Rupprecht, Romanische Skulptur in Frankreich
(Munich: Hirmer, 1984), cat. no. 3.
61. On the images of Suger, see Clark Maines, “Good
Works, Social Ties, and the Hope for Salvation: Abbot
Suger and Saint-Denis,” in Abbot Suger and Saint-Denis:
A Symposium, ed. Paula Lieber Gerson (New York:
Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1986), 77–94.
62. See n. 38 above.
63. Descriptio Lateranensis, passim; Descriptio Vaticanae,
passim (chap. 46, 429–30, for the reference to guides).
On these texts, see also Eivor Andersen Oftestad, “The
House of God: The Translation of the Temple and the
Interpretation of the Lateran in the Twelfth Century”
(PhD diss., University of Oslo, 2010), passim, but esp.
61–67.
64. Cymiteria totius Romanae urbis, in Geyer et al.,
Itineraria, 299–300; and De locis sanctis martyrum quae sunt
foris civitas Romae, in ibid., 315–21.
65. Eadwine Psalter, Trinity College, Cambridge, MS
R.17.1, fols. 284v–285. On this, see Paul Binski and Stella
Panayotova, The Cambridge Illuminations: Ten Centuries
of Book Production in the Medieval West (London: Harvey
Miller, 2005), cat. no. 25; R. Willis, “The Architectural
History of the Conventual Buildings of the Monastery
of Christ Church, Canterbury,” Archaeologia Cantiana 7
(1868): 1–206, at 158–81; William Urry, “Canterbury, Kent,
circa 1153 × 1161,” in Local Maps and Plans from Medieval
England, ed. R. A. Skelton and P. D. A. Harvey (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1986), 43–58; and Francis Woodman,
“The Waterworks Drawings of the Eadwine Psalter,” in
The Eadwine Psalter: Text, Image, and Monastic Culture in
Twelfth-Century Canterbury, ed. Margaret Gibson et al.
(London: Modern Humanities Research Association,
1992), 168–77.
66. For codicological descriptions of the bifolium and
its relation to the rest of the manuscript, see Nicholas
Pickwoad, “Codicology and Palaeography,” in Gibson
et al., Eadwine Psalter, 4–24, at 4–12; and Peter Fergusson,
Canterbury Cathedral Priory in the Age of Becket (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 2011), 26–32.
67. Pickwoad, “Codicology and Palaeography,” 4–6; and
Margaret Gibson, “Conclusions: The Eadwine Psalter in
Context,” in Gibson et al., Eadwine Psalter, 209–13, at 209.
Fergusson, Canterbury Cathedral, 30–31, believes that the
plan is part of the original Psalter and dates it to 1158.
68. Willis, “Architectural History . . . Canterbury,” 5;
Urry, “Canterbury, Kent,” 50; and Fergusson, Canterbury
Cathedral, 42–46.
69. For a depiction of the waterworks at Canterbury that
falls below the artistic level of the plan in question, see the
Eadwine Psalter, Trinity College, Cambridge, MS R.17.1,
fol. 286; for a reproduction, see Fergusson, Canterbury
Cathedral, fig. 10. See also Willis, “Architectural History . . .
Canterbury,” 158–81; and Woodman, “The Waterworks
Drawings.”
70. On the Plan of Saint Gall, see Walter Horn and
Ernest Born, The Plan of St. Gall (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1979). For further discussion of the
Canterbury Plan and the Plan of Saint Gall, see Fergusson,
Canterbury Cathedral, 31, 36, 75.
71. On the different guesthouses for different classes of
visitors, see Fergusson, Canterbury Cathedral, 21.
72. Willis, “Architectural History . . . Canterbury,” 126;
noted by Fergusson, Canterbury Cathedral, 15.
73. For the inscriptions on the plan, see Urry, “Canterbury,
Kent,” 44–45.
74. For Prior Wibert’s obituary, see Fergusson, Canterbury
Cathedral, 152; for Cluny, see Peter Damian, De Gallica
Petri Damiani profectione 13, in Scriptores 30.2 (Leipzig:
Monumenta Germaniae Historica, 1934), 1034–46, at 1043.
75. Gibson, “Conclusions,” 211, 213; with reference
to Montague Rhodes James, The Ancient Libraries of
Canterbury and Dover (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1903), 51, no. 322. As to the book cupboard in the
cloister in which it may have been kept, see Lanfranc,
Constitutions 83–84, p. 114.
76. Lanfranc, Constitutions 90, pp. 130–32. I have retained
much of the language of Knowles’s translation, The
Monastic Constitutions.
77. For the likely route from the cloister to the crypt, see
Willis, “Architectural History . . . Canterbury,” pl. 3, nos.
65 the tour guide in the middle ages
44, 43. For a more precise plan of the crypt entrance, see
Francis Woodman, The Architectural History of Canterbury
Cathedral (Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981), fig. 28.
78. William Fitzstephen, Vita Thomae 155, p. 151; Guernes
de Pont-Sainte-Maxence, Vie de Thomas, line 6158,
1:346. The monk-guardians of the shrine of Thomas at
Canterbury owned a copy of Guernes’s Vie de Thomas:
British Library, London, MS Add. 59616; see “Detailed
record for Additional 59616,” accessed November 24, 2016,
http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts
/record.asp?MSID=8363&CollID=27&NStart=59616.
79. J. Armitage Robinson, Two Glastonbury Legends: King
Arthur and St Joseph of Arimathea (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1926), 42–44, 56–58, and, for a facsimile of
this now-lost visual aid, pl. V. Erasmus, Peregrinatio, lines
239–40, p. 477, also records the use of a brass plaque at Our
Lady of Walsingham that apparently acted as a visual aid.
80. Sylloge epigraphica Turonensis 1–16, 18–19, in Francis
John Gilardi, “The Sylloge epigraphica Turonensis de S.
Martino” (PhD diss., Catholic University of America,
1983), 203–15. For further discussion, see Raymond Van
Dam, Saints and Their Miracles in Late Antique Gaul
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 308–17. For
an illustration of the inscription (no. 13) from the altar-
tomb of Martin, see May Vieillard-Troiekouroff, Les monu-
ments religieux de la Gaule d’après les oeuvres de Grégoire de
Tours (Paris: H. Champion, 1976), fig. 61.
81. For example, Gregory of Tours, Virtutibus Sancti
Juliani 2.2, pp. 564–65; Sigoli, Viaggio 146–49, and pas-
sim, pp. 242–43, and passim; Arwed Arnulf, Versus ad
Picturas: Studien zur Titulusdichtung als Quellengattung
der Kunstgeschichte von der Antike bis zum Hochmittelalter
(Munich: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 1997); Kendall, Allegory
of the Church; Krochalis, “Magna Tabula,” 435; and
Debiais, Messages de pierre.
82. This is implied in Erasmus, Peregrinatio, lines 273–339,
pp. 478–79.
83. British Library, London, MS Harley Roll Y.6; Nigel
Morgan, Early Gothic Manuscripts [I] (London: Harvey
Miller, 1982), cat. no. 22; and J. J. G. Alexander and Paul
Binski, The Age of Chivalry: Art in Plantagenet England
1200–1400 (London: Royal Academy of Arts, 1987), cat.
no. 37.
84. Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum 9.50–52, in
Historia Anglorum: The History of the English People, trans.
and ed. Diana E. Greenway (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1996), 686–94.
85. Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, MS n. a. fr.
1098; reproduced in Henri Omont, Vie et histoire de Saint
Denys (Paris: Berthaud Frères, 1905). And see Gabrielle
Spiegel, “The Cult of St. Denis and Capetian Kingship,”
Journal of Medieval History 1 (1975): 43–69, at 54, who
feels that this manuscript was made for the instruction of
visitors at Saint-Denis (further citing Léopold Delisle, who
thought the same thing).
86. Canterbury Cathedral Archives and Library, MS
C 246. For more on this aspect of the Canterbury Roll,
including bibliography, see Rudolph, “Parabolic Discourse
Window and the Canterbury Roll.”
87. I am currently working on a short study of guide train-
ing, which I hope will come out soon.
88. Eadmer of Canterbury, Miracula Dunstani 4, in Lives
and Miracles of Saints Oda, Dunstan, and Oswald, trans.
and ed. Andrew J. Turner and Bernard J. Muir (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2006), 160–211, at 162.
89. Conrad Rudolph, “Inventing the Exegetical Stained-
Glass Window: Suger, Hugh, and a New Elite Art,” Art
Bulletin 93 (December 2011): 399–422.
90. The best-known impetus for this new attitude may be
found in Bernard of Clairvaux, Apologia 28–29, pp. 278–
82; see also Rudolph, Things of Greater Importance, 104–24.
And see the later treatise Pictor in carmine, in M. R. James,
“Pictor in Carmine,” Archaeologia 94 (1951): 141–66, at 142.
91. Rudolph, “Inventing the Exegetical Stained-Glass
Window,” 402–6.
92. Suger, De administratione 2.12–13, in Oeuvres, 1:130–38,
esp. 132–34; alternatively, De administratione 33, in
Panofsky, Abbot Suger, 40–81, at 60–66, esp. 62; Rudolph,
Things of Greater Importance, 104–24; and idem, Artistic
Change at St-Denis, 60–63.
93. Brian Stock, The Implications of Literacy: Written
Language and Models of Interpretation in the Eleventh and
Twelfth Centuries (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1983), 90–92, 522; idem, Listening for the Text: On the Uses
of the Past (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,
1990), 22–24; and Rudolph, “Inventing the Exegetical
Stained-Glass Window,” 413–17.
94. Eudes de Châteauroux, Sermon 74, in Analecta novis-
sima spicilegii Solesmensis: Altera continuatio, ed. J. B. Pitra
([Paris]: Typis Tusculanis, 1888), 2:270–73, at 270. I follow
the translation in Wolfgang Kemp, The Narratives of Gothic
Stained Glass (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1997), 71–72.
95. Rudolph, “Parabolic Discourse Window and the
Canterbury Roll,” 8–9, 11–12, 19.
96. As used here, typological art is art that participates
in the use of exegetical typologies. Exegesis, consisting of
either three or four levels of interpretation, was the basic
literary interpretative methodology in the Middle Ages.
Hugh of Saint Victor expressed its three-level formula-
tion in the following manner. History is the narration of
events that are contained in the immediate meaning of
the text. Allegory is the signification through something
said to have been done of something else done in the past,
present, or future. Tropology is the signification through
something said to have been done of something else that
ought to be done. Hugh of Saint Victor, De sacramentis
Christianae fidei 1, prol. 4, in PL, 176:cols. 183–618, at
184–85.
97. Pictor in carmine, p. 142.
98. For further discussion of this dynamic at Canterbury,
see Rudolph, “Parabolic Discourse Window and the
Canterbury Roll,” 16–19.
99. De picturis et imaginibus, juxta altare Sanctae Crucis,
in ecclesia monasterii Sancti Albani, in Annales monasterii
S. Albani, ed. Henry Thomas Riley (London: Longmans,
1870), 1:418–30, at 419. There were two Altars of the
Cross at Saint Albans; this one was in the north transept;
Ridgway Lloyd, trans. and ed., An Account of the Altars,
Monuments, and Tombs Existing A.D. 1428 in Saint Alban’s
Abbey (Saint Albans: Langley, 1873), 66.
100. For example, Egeria, Itinerarium 23.5, p. 66; and
Guernes de Pont-Sainte-Maxence, Vie de Thomas, line
6158, vol. 1:346.
101. See n. 84 above.
102. John of Salisbury, Vita Thomae 28, in Robinson,
Materials, 2:299–322, at 322, following Matthew 11:5 and
Luke 7:22. For more explicit comparisons between Becket
and Christ by John of Salisbury, see Vita Thomae 17, 22,
23–26, in ibid., 2:312–13, 317, 318–21. Cf. Guernes de Pont-
Sainte-Maxence, Vie de Thomas, lines 5885–90, 1:332–34,
who also echoes the language of Matthew 11:5 and Luke
7:22, and, more explicitly, lines 5616–20, p. 320. This
attitude is widespread in other passages from the vitae
and books of miracles of Becket; for example, Benedict
of Peterborough, Miracula Thomae 1.8, pp. 37–38;
William of Canterbury, Miracula Thomae 2.63, 2.91, in
Robinson, Materials, 1:137–546, at 222, 251–52; Guernes
de Pont-Sainte-Maxence, Vie de Thomas, lines 5616–20,
1:320; Anonymous, Miracula Thomae 6.7, in Robinson,
Materials, 2:261–81, at 279; William of Canterbury, Vita
Thomae 2.41, in Robinson, Materials, 1:1–136, at 132;
Edward Grimm, Vita Thomae 84, in Robinson, Materials,
2:353–450, at 440; William Fitzstephen, Vita Thomae 154,
pp. 150–51; and Herbert of Bosham, Vita Thomae 6.13,
6.15, in Robinson, Materials, 3:155–534, at 518, 522.
103. For example, the following windows in the Trinity
Chapel ambulatory, Christ Church, Canterbury, all of whose
narratives are related in the slightly earlier books of miracles
of Becket: n. V 7 (paralytic), n. IV 28–29 (lame), n. III 42
(lame), n. III 40 (leper), n. III 23, 26, 28 (lame), n. II 69–71
(blind), n. II 57–59, 65–67 (leper), s. VI 14, 16 (dead raised),
s. VI 11, 32 (dead raised), s. VII 36 (leprosy), s. VII 41 (lame);
for general documentation, see Caviness, Windows of Christ
Church, 179, 182–83, 187, 188, 189, 193–94, 194–95, 206–8, 212.
104. See n. 102 above and Liturgical Offices, in Sherry
Reames, trans. and ed., “Liturgical Offices for the Cult
of St. Thomas Becket,” in Medieval Hagiography: An
Anthology, ed. Thomas Head (New York: Garland, 2000),
561–93, at 571, 584.
105. Trinity Chapel ambulatory and Corona, Christ Church,
Canterbury, n. VII, n. VI, I. 4; for general documentation,
see Caviness, Windows of Christ Church, 166, 175–77.
106. More broadly, see Herbert L. Kessler, Spiritual Seeing:
Picturing God’s Invisibility in Medieval Art (Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), 179–86; and
idem, Seeing Medieval Art (Peterborough, ON: Broadview,
2004), 79–82.
107. Liber miraculorum Sancte Fidis 4.13 [4.12], Epilogus
[4.24], app. II:3 [L.3], pp. 244, 269, 282. For a photograph
of Bibliothèque de l’Abbaye, Conques, MS 1, see Pamela
Sheingorn, The Book of Sainte Foy (Philadelphia: University
of Pennsylvania Press, 1995), fig. 1.
108. Liber miraculorum Sancte Fidis 1.5, pp. 94–95. Louis
Bousquet, Le Jugement dernier au tympan de l’église Sainte-
Foy de Conques (Rodez: P. Carrére, 1948), 42–46, first made
this association. For the tympanum and a detail of the
knight, see Georges Gaillard et al., Rouergue roman (La
Pierre-qui-Vire: Zodiaque, 1963), figs. 9–10, 16.
109. Veneranda dies, in Liber sancti Jacobi: Codex Calixtinus,
ed. Walter Muir Whitehill (Santiago de Compostela:
Seminario de Estudios Gallegos, 1944), 1:141–76, at 155.
66 The Art Bulletin March 2018
110. Rupprecht, Romanische Skulptur, fig. 103.
111. For example, Anonymous IV, Iter 15, in Sandoli, Itinera
Hierosolymitana, 3:24–28, at 26; Anonymous V, De locis 2,
3, in ibid., 3: 30–43, at 30; Anonymous VII, Descriptio 2,
in ibid., 3:78–83, at 78; Pilgrim’s Guide 9, pp. 66–70; and
Niccolò da Poggibonsi, Oltramare 16–30, pp. 44–51.
112. Liber miraculorum Sancte Fidis 1.16–17, pp. 116–18. I
follow the translation in Sheingorn, Book of Sainte Foy, 81.
113. Erasmus, Peregrinatio, lines 742–47, p. 490.
114. Pilgrim’s Guide 8, pp. 36–40.
115. Ibid., p. 34; translation mine.
116. Egeria, Itinerarium 8.1–2, p. 48, with reference to
Exodus 1:11, 12:37.
117. For example, Egeria, Itinerarium 12.1–2, p. 52 (cf.
Deuteronomy 34:5–6); Piacenza Pilgrim, Itinerarium
40, p. 149; Mirabiliana, p. 52; Burchard of Mount Sion,
Descriptio 8, 29 [4, 9], pp. 144, 200; and John Poloner,
Descriptio, p. 263 (but see also pp. 273–74).
118. For example, Epiphanius the Monk, The Holy City
and the Holy Places 3, trans. Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrims,
207–15, at 208; Anonymous IV, Iter 4, p. 24; Anonymous
V, De locis 12, p. 32; Anonymous VI, De descripcione 2,
3, pp. 48, 54, 56; Mirabiliana, pp. 48, 49, 52, 54, 60, 61;
William of Malmesbury, De antiquitate 26, in De antiqui-
tate: The Early History of Glastonbury, trans. and ed. John
Scott (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 1981), 78; Wilbrand of
Oldenburg, Itinerarium 1.8, ed. Denys Pringle, “Wilbrand
of Oldenburg’s Journey to Syria, Lesser Armenia, Cyprus
and the Holy Land (1211–12): A New Edition,” Crusades
11 (2012): 109–37, at 120; Thomas of Burton, Chronica,
Hugh 10, in Chronica monasterii de Melsa, ed. Edward
Bond (London: Longmans, 1868), 3:35–36; and Burchard
of Mount Sion, Descriptio 29 [9], p. 200 (Burchard is
clearly amused rather than concerned by this claim).
119. Bernard of Clairvaux, Apologia 29, p. 282; see also
Rudolph, Things of Greater Importance, 120–22, 334.
120. On the ambiguity of this capital, see Ambrose,
Sculpture of Vézelay, 107–8.
121. For images, see Thorste Droste, Die Skulpturen von
Moissac: Gestalt und Funktion romanischer Bauplastik
(Munich: Hirmer, 1996), fig. 60; Louis Grodecki, Les
vitraux de Saint-Denis: Étude sur le vitrail au XII siècle
(Paris: C.N.R.S., 1976), color pls. IV, XV. On the sensory
saturation of the holy place, see Rudolph, Things of Greater
Importance, 63–69.
122. Pilgrim’s Guide 9, pp. 74–76. I myself was told this
tale by a fingerless beggar at the portal in 1996; Conrad
Rudolph, Pilgrimage to the End of the World: The Road to
Santiago de Compostela (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 2004), 17. Most recently on this sculpture, see
Claudia Rückert, “A Reconsideration of the Woman with
the Skull on the Puerta de las Platerías of Santiago de
Compostela Cathedral,” Gesta 51 (2012): 129–46.
123. Lucian, Philopseudes 5, p. 326; I largely follow the
translation in Casson, Travel in the Ancient World, 267.
124. Anonymous, Miracula Thomae 6.1, p. 261. The win-
dow is in Trinity Chapel, ambulatory, s. VII, 12, 14, 19, 25,
29, 30. For general documentation, see Caviness, Windows
of Christ Church, 213–14.
125. William of Malmesbury, Gesta 4.353, in Gesta Regum
Anglorum: The History of the English Kings, trans. and ed.
R. A. B. Mynors et al. (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1998), 620. On curiosity, see for example Bernard of
Clairvaux, Apologia 28–29, pp. 278–82; see also Rudolph,
Things of Greater Importance, 104–24. For pilgrim interest
in such subjects as figures from classical mythology and
secular history, exotic animals and plants, and geologic
marvels, see for example Bordeaux Pilgrim, Itinerarium
(Wesseling 564, 572, 577, 578, 604), pp. 6, 9, 10, 22;
Hugeburc, Vita Willibaldi 4 [30], in Vita Willibaldi episcopi
Eichstetensis, ed. Mario Iadanza (Florence: Galluzzo, 2011),
40; Anonymous VI, De descripcione 2, 3, pp. 48, 54, 56;
Thietmar, Peregrinatio 8, in Mag. Thietmari peregrinatio, ed.
J. C. M. Laurent (Hamburg: T. G. Meissner, 1857), 21, 24;
and Niccolò da Poggibonsi, Oltramare 181–84, 234, 246–50,
pp. 118–19, 140, 145–46. More generally on curiosity and
the pilgrimage, see Jean Leclercq, “Monachism et pérégri-
nation du IXe au XIIe siècle,” Studia Monastica 3 (1961):
33–52; Giles Constable, “Opposition to Pilgrimage in the
Middle Ages,” Studia Gratiana 19 (1976): 125–46; and
idem, “Monachisme et pèlerinage au Moyen Âge,” Revue
Historique 258 (1977): 3–27.

126. Eadmer of Canterbury, Miracula Dunstani 10, p. 168.

I am especially referring here to Peter Brown’s concept
of praesentia; Brown, The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and
Function in Latin Christianity (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1981), 86–105.

127. Pietro Casola, Viaggio 14 [3], p. 92.

128. For a very telling exception to general Cistercian prac-

tice, see Thomas of Burton, Chronica, Hugh 10, 3:35–36.

129. For an example of the application of the conclusions

of this study to a major work of public art (with impor-
tant implications for our understanding of the medieval
sculpted portal), see Conrad Rudolph, “Macro/microcosm
at Vézelay: The Narthex Portal and Non-Elite Participation
in Elite Spirituality,” to appear soon.

67 the tour guide in the middle ages