Hello historians, I am trying to find a suitable thesis for a research paper I am writing about issues pertaining to pilgrimage in the late middle ages. I have just read Leigh Ann Craig's article "'Stronger then men, braver then knights' women and the pilgrimages to Jerusalem and rome in the late middle ages" where she argues that the number of female pilgrims might be higher then previously thought by medieval scholars, and I thought this might be an interesting debate to weigh in on. I have also been reading a bit about the Santiago de Compestela pilgrimage, which has some good scholarship, vis-a-vis the pilgrim's guide that was written for it.
However, I am not set on any particular topic, and I was wondering if there are any current issues in this specific field of study that are currently being debated, or otherwise discussed. Links to relevant journal articles or primary/secondary texts would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
If you're interested in women pilgrims, there are a couple books I can think of offhand. Craig's published a full book as well, Wandering Women and Holy Matrons (2009), and then Susan Signe Morrison's Women Pilgrims in Late Medieval England is a bit earlier (2000).
A few famous women pilgrims you could focus on: Margery Kempe, Birgitta of Sweden, Egeria, Helena of Skovde, and the most famous of them all--the fictional Alyson, Chaucer's Wife of Bath.
Some ways that scholars have approached pilgrimage:
Social classifications of pilgrims (women/children/men, nobles/peasants, disabled-sick, maybe seeking healing, traveling alone/families/groups of strangers)
Pilgrimage sites (publicity-promotion, economics, acquiring relics, competition, disputed sanctity of the place or relic)
Logistics (pilgrimage guidebooks, 'travel companies', fundraising, problems caused by pilgrims, shrine management, safety of travelers)
Theology and religious considerations (indulgences, veracity of relic, "spiritual pilgrimage" especially by cloistered nuns, Crusades-as-pilgrimage)
Travel narratives-pilgrimage texts (influence of texts, pilgrims' perceptions of other cultures, pilgrims' perceptions of different geographic terrain, role of pilgrimage in the European imagination e.g. why is Canterbury Tales set on pilgrimage when its inspiration, the Decameron, is not?)
Changes over time or geography with respect to any of the above; comparisons of different pilgrims' specific experiences
Do any of those strike your fancy?