The Mediatization of Camino De Santiago: Between the Pilgrimage Narrative and Media Circulation of the Narrative

In this article, we seek to analyze the mediatization of pilgrims’ narratives on Camino de Santiago. Centuries ago, pilgrims were deprived of contact with their homes for extended periods. The narrative of the experience was only shared with their loved ones once they had arrived home. In the 20th century, landline telephones, computers connected to the Internet, and smartphones gradually reduced the time necessary to share these stories with the outside world. Upon analyzing pilgrimage narratives published on the Internet (Facebook, blogs), we observe that the intimate experience of pilgrims has become a media product that, when circulated, interferes in both the storytelling and the actual pilgrimage experience.

Place

The question of the Church’s location became a central issue of the Protestant Reformation: was it the material, visible Church containing the saved and the damned (as yet unable to be distinguished), or the immaterial, invisible Church of the Elect? This little noticed but hugely significant issue preoccupied Reformation theorists, but already in the late fourteenth century writers were conscious of it. Pilgrimage narratives, particularly narratives in which the visible, located Church’s relics are exposed as disgusting, exploitative and fake, underline the fragilities of the “located” Church. This essay defines the theological issue of place, and then sees how it works in practice with two Canterbury pilgrimage texts, Chaucer’sPardoner’s Taleand Desiderius Erasmus’sPilgrimage of Pure Devotion.