All the World’s a Stage: Pilgrimage as Performance and Portals as Props

Medieval pilgrimage was a journey of salvation that played out against a landscape of churches decorated with elaborately carved portal programs. Along the major pilgrimage roads through France and Spain, these portal images were unified in their themes, presenting views of sacred history culled mainly from the Book of Revelation. How did these portal images serve to inform the pilgrim's quest? How might these images have been read by the faithful? This paper investigates the role of the sculpted portal as a prop which reinforced the performance of the pilgrimage. By examining the portals in the context of medieval literature and philosophy, we find that the visual vocabulary of the portal served as a didactic tool and a type of memory aid which supported the pilgrim's ultimate quest for salvation - entry into the Heavenly Jerusalem.