Bill sent me a message this morning asking for information about container ship cruises because his son wants to come home from Europe that way. Meanwhile Bill's daughter presently in Canberra is planning to take our son George to Alice Springs and beyond next month, or vice versa. My sister and brother-in-law are setting off to meet their daughters in India at the end of next week, one of whom is posting links on Facebook to photos of her boyfriend's trip to a family wedding in South Africa. Elva has been telling us about her recent meetings in hazardous Peru and then Bonn and the time it took getting back to Ottawa from Bonn; because of the weather her horrendous journey lasted more than 24 hours. At this very moment Carol and her parents are driving north towards Canada after their spring break at Hilton Head in South Carolina. That's going to take a while, too. Another friend of mine, Rosemary, is sending me emails from Lacoste in Provence attaching pictures she has taken of the vineyards and the old town (that looks remarkably like Roquebrun in the Languedoc-Roussillon area where I once spent a very enjoyable week). From France, Rosemary has also taken a trip to Bonn to visit a couple of German friends from our Konversationsgruppe who live there now. Another three friends of mine have been travelling to Cuba and yet another is moving to Jakarta, Indonesia, in April.
What is it that makes people want to move around so much? It's nothing new. I'm sure this urge to see the world was the main reason that young men left for the Crusades in the middle ages. Young women would have gone too, I expect, had they had the opportunity.
Next Tuesday evening Chris and I shall be setting off for our week in Cornwall where neither of us has been before.
5 comments:
Excluding a few religious motives (e.g., the children's crusade) the motives of the people going off for the crusades, particularly the 4th crusade, seemed to be simply booty. This is re-inforced by the attitude of the crusaders to Constantinople---a Christian city!
Is it done to engage in a debate with commenters? It is naive to suggest that booty was the prime motivation of the crusaders. There was surely a sense of self-righteous zeal involved, too. The ultimate prize was salvation, and hence eternal comfort; the prospect of acquiring earthly riches, through plundering the unbelievers en route, was only fair game.
Then as now, why do people set off elsewhere? Their motives are many and all mixed up, obviously, but (never mind the acquisitive side of human nature) I still come back to my first impression that the main impulse is the more innocent one of restless curiosity, or the yearning for a change of scene.
In response to "melandfaith" (a strange amalgam): Ah but, in accordance with the Christian principles, the people in Constantinople were not "unbelievers": they were fellow Christians. Yet all of the crusades tried to sack Constantinople and the 4th crusade never got further east than there.
In answer to anonymous. The fate of the people of Constantinople should be no surprise. Sectarianism and heresey have always been good stimuli for a purge. Look to the Albigensian Crusade, whose target was the Cathar heresy, or, more recently, the Catholic/Protestant decimation in Ireland. The word "simply" is inadequate when analysing political, acquisitive or religious motives.
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