This semester students could do creative projects at the end of a semester devoted to medieval pilgrimage literature. We finished with Doris Betts’s The Ugliest Pilgrim, a 1969 short story which many of them called their favorite. As I had a knee replacement early in the semester, they gamely went on personal pilgrimages and wrote essays about them. Just great creative minds.
Here are some of their fantastic projects, from tapestries to embroidery to collages.
This tapestry by Cassie is just amazing, drawing (no pun intended!) on Mandeville’s Travels, The Life of St. Margaret, and images such as obscene pilgrim badges.
This student had never embroidered before but decided to embroidery Christ as he appears in the book of Christina of Markyate. It took her 10 hours!
And this student fashioned a medieval outfit for trekking the highways and byways of medieval Europe.
I may be retiring, but these wonderful creations will be something I’ll always remember and the students can keep forever!
A Medieval Woman's Companion 