This blog is a multimedia project ...

the sound of fighting, accompanied by a cacophony of bells, permeates the air, followed by screams 🙂‍↕️

"You need to clean the wounds thoroughly…"

Or, finally Adder feeling physically loved :) free interpretation as always 💚

lovebirds 🪶

Metro creature

it was on the 11th of september when we first talked about this idea of yours. i offered to send you the screenshots of the entries that i had and dropped some -ahem- hints that i wouldn‘t mind helping out with the research too, if you needed me. you said: "at least this is now a mutually involved project" and i replied: "oh i am fucking involved."

i don’t think i fully understood what i got myself into when you finally gave in to my nagging three days later lol. neither of us did probably. two entries per day was the idea at first, one by you, one by me. we managed to do that for.. i don‘t even remember, a week maybe? because we quickly grew above the limits we had set ourselves — going from one fun fact to entries that could span entire wars and reigns, from one paragraph to half-essays, from one little website, to 4, 5, 6 scientific papers, because there was always more to learn. we were improving daily — the quality of this project, the standards we held for ourselves, our own abilities. we grew as the codex grew. later on i sometimes felt the urge to go back to some of the earliest entries and rewrite them, with everything i had learned along the way. but that would have taken away from what the codex had become to me. not just an anthology of history, but an anthology of our history, of how we worked and approached these topics, of the knowledge we had gathered.

an anthology of memories too. birthday parties i couldn‘t wait to leave to finally get home and start working on the codex. day-long train rides filled with reading through dozens of websites, pre-loaded of course (because fuck the DB). headphones in, music maxed up, to not hear my annoying roommate in the hospital to codex away the boredom. spending hours at work, with friends, at family gatherings to share all the exciting information we had found.

we would gather so much more than we could ever put into the entries, even if he had decided to make each of them 50 paragraphs long. hundreds of pdfs for you, for me (i checked again!) 528 DIN A4 pages of notes. sometimes the stuff we discovered was so fascinating we would talk about it for hours, sometimes a whole night long. you said up there that you occasionally felt like you didn‘t deserve my dedication to the project, and it makes me happy to hear that you valued my participation so much, but i still gotta call you out for that. because it has never really been my dedication, or at least not mine alone. it was always a reflection of yours. your dedication, your passion, your ever-improving standards inspired me to do the same. which is why i did not only learn a lot through the actual codex work but also through you.

so after all this rambling (if this was a codex entry you’d probably tell me: hm… maybe we could shorten it a bit?), the only thing left to say is: thank you. thank you for taking me along. thank you for inspiring me. thank you for being a friend i happily embarked on this insane journey with. it might have become a little bit of an obsession at times. a bit more than what would have been considered healthy hehe. but i had a lot of fun. and i‘m so fucking proud of us.

(i still wouldn‘t mind if you waited another year or so before proposing the next crazy idea to me, okay?)

MYSTERIA ECCLESIAE — Pilgrimages to Jerusalem

In the Middle Ages, pilgrimages were journeys with a spiritual purpose, associated with inner transformation and often the forgiveness of sins. Pilgrimages were undertaken by individuals and groups, on foot or on horseback. A special type of pilgrimage was the Crusades to Jerusalem, a place associated with the foundations of Christian faith and culture. Participants in the Crusades received fame and recognition, and the Pope himself could grant them indulgences for participating in the campaigns or making the pilgrimage. Participants in the campaigns to Jerusalem often brought treasures and precious relics back to their homelands, such as bones from the remains of saints, splinters from Christ's cross, or thorns from his crown. Although their authenticity was often disputed, these objects had considerable spiritual value, and their presence in a church or monastery attracted the attention of pilgrims and donors.

TRIVIA

— The oldest surviving account of a Christian pilgrimage to the city of Jerusalem is the Itinerarium Burdigalense ("Bordeaux Itinerary"), written by an anonymous traveler who visited the Holy Land in 333–334. The pilgrimage tradition was established by Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great, whose journey to Jerusalem helped establish many of the holy sites later venerated by pilgrims.

After the Muslim conquest of the Holy Land in the 7th century, pilgrimage became more difficult. Travel often depended on the political climate of the time, but periods of relative peace allowed Christian pilgrims to continue visiting Jerusalem even under Muslim rule.

Pilgrimage also carried political influence. Rulers often made an effort to establish new pilgrimage routes and build grandiose churches where holy relics were held, hoping to attract visitors and reinforce religious fervor. It was also largely because pilgrimage routes brought fame, wealth and influence to the regions that hosted them, significantly boosting the local economy. By the 11th and 12th centuries, pilgrimage to Jerusalem had reached the height of its popularity, drawing thousands of travelers from across Europe. Undertaking the pilgrimage to the Holy Land was not only a religious obligation but also a status symbol for those who could afford it. The journey was expensive, and only the wealthy and influential members of society could afford to undertake it. However, for the less privileged, there were various ecclesiastical organizations, such as the Hospitallers and the Templars, who provided accommodations, protection, and medical aid to the pilgrims.

The pilgrimage to the Holy Land declined in the 13th and 14th centuries due to the rise of Islam and the increasing hostility between the East and the West. The fall of Acre in 1291, the last Christian stronghold in the Holy Land, marked the end of the pilgrimage era.