Travel, pilgrimage and the family: displacement, obligation and crises of kinship in Middle English narrative

Abstract

This thesis aims to provide unique perspectives on responses to medieval pilgrimage by examining the largely ignored interactions between pilgrimage and the family in Middle English narratives. Ranging from the period 1400-1500, well known works such as The Book of Margery Kempe, The Vision of Piers Plowman and Sir Isumbras are examined alongside lesser studied narratives to form previously unestablished links and new conclusions on literary depictions of travel and kinship. The genres and modes of didactic and instructional literature, romance, hagiography, allegory and mystical writing are investigated for model episodes of familial crises of displacement and separation that are brought about and sometimes resolved by pilgrimage, a connection that has been previously overlooked in medieval scholarship. Recurring motifs concerning exile, penitence and the salvation of the individual’s soul are read within contexts of gender, audience expectations and the historical contexts and constructs of both pilgrimage and the family. The thesis demonstrates the varied ways both physical and imagined pilgrimages affect the family and explores the language and effects used to realise ongoing and insoluble debates concerning the contradictory obligations of the individual to the family and the Christian life.