Historian of Medieval and Early Modern Europe
PROXY PILGRIMAGE DIGITAL VISUALIZATION
Chapter Six of my dissertation studied the late-medieval phenomenon of proxy pilgrimage, where one person would ask that another person go to a shrine as a proxy. Evidence for this is found mainly in English wills as the dying were concerned that their outstanding spiritual debts were paid off before they died and sought additional aid in case they ended up in purgatory instead of heaven.
I found 172 testators requesting a proxy pilgrimage in English wills from 1230 until 1537. Many of these testators asked for multiple pilgrimages as well. While I was able to synthesize this information narratively in the chapter, I also wanted to visualize the information in a digital format. After speaking with a few digital humanities librarians, I was able to compile my data in a visual manner. Because I knew where each will was located (either the person's hometown or the place where the will was proved), and because I knew where each testator requested their proxy pilgrim to go, I was able to geolocate each of those origins and destinations using the Carto mapping software.
Embedded below is an interactive version of the visualization that allows the user to move around the map and click on the green and red points, which represent the will locations and pilgrimage locations, respectively. Clicking on the green points, in particular, brings up a pop-up text box that includes more detailed information about the testator who asked for a proxy pilgrimage, such as: date, name, will location, pilgrimage location, gender of testator, gender of proxy, social status of testator, social status of proxy, full text of the instructions from the will, and the source found.
While the dissertation itself used various forms of this data generated by the Carto software, I have included below a dynamic visualization of this information.
Here, proxy pilgrimage shrines are indicated in red, showing where testators in English wills wanted their proxy pilgrims to go.
I intend for this project to be as open source as possible. Scholars and educators have permission to use the data found in these visualizations and to share the maps as needed, credit the author wherever possible.
I would also like to continue to compile data regarding proxy pilgrim requests in wills from all over Europe, some of which I have already identified from countries like Italy, France, Germany, and Spain. If any researcher, independent scholar, or interested person has information regarding such requests, please feel free to contact me. My hope is that by making this information public, the larger scholarly community can work together to make additional visualizations of proxy pilgrimage for Europe as a whole and for other countries.