Pilgrimage was big business in the Middle Ages. Accommodating the needs of visitors to holy sites affected the design, use, and decoration of some of Europe’s finest religious buildings. This essay collection examines the overlooked but closely intertwined relationship between architecture and pilgrimage, making a significant contribution to the ongoing debate regarding form and function in medieval buildings.

Following an excellent, wide-ranging introduction by Paul Davies and Deborah Howard (1–18), the volume is divided into two parts: “Mediterranean Perspectives” and “Italian Sacred Places as Pilgrimage Destinations.” The geographical scope of the volume is ambitious—from Mecca to Venice, from Santiago to Rome—fitting into the current scholarly trend toward intercultural Mediterranean studies. Due to its relatively strong focus on Christian pilgrimage, however, it includes only one essay addressing Islam, and Jewish culture is omitted entirely.

The Mediterranean theme of the book’s first section begins with Henry Maguire’s essay “Pilgrimage through Pictures in Medieval Byzantine Churches” (21–37). Maguire examines Christological images in Byzantine cult churches, which specifically referenced the architecture and topography of the Holy Land, such as the Dome of the Rock and the cross that marked the location of Christ’s baptism. Maguire concludes that such specific allusions highlighted the parallel experiences of pilgrims visiting the local cult and the Holy Land, respectively, and forged close comparisons between the local saint and Christ. Texts written by Byzantine pilgrims indicate that when they visited the Holy Land, their experience was fundamentally affected by this familiar iconography.

As Avinoam Shalem explains, the Ka’ba in Mecca, with its almost cubic shape and diaphanous black covering, is a unique building whose image is firmly fixed in the Muslim psyche (“The Four Faces of the Ka’ba in Mecca,” 39–58). When pilgrims visit the building they form new memories of its three-dimensional form that “clash” with previously constructed …