Pilgrims by Matthew Kneale, review: a mischievous medieval road trip

Matthew Kneale, novelist, historian and son of Judith Kerr, has set his new novel in 1289, following a group of English pilgrims on their journey to Rome. Like his prize-winning English Passengers (2000), Pilgrims is a multi-narrator experience – though this time it’s seven rather than 20 – a high-to-low cross-section of medieval society recounting their experiences on the road.

“Simple Tom”, a raggedy bondsman walking to save his cat from purgatory, is the novel’s hero, of sorts. He’s joined by a motley crew of sinners and at least one aspiring saint, the irritating, visitation-receiving Matilda Froome. There’s a knight who punched an abbot, a mother convinced God is punishing her affair by making her son sick, a tailor and his daughter who believe themselves to be “God’s mouthpiece”, and “torchbearer”, a sexy twice-married noblewoman (and her intended next husband after a divorce from the Pope), and two women with a not-quite-mysterious Jewish past. All are superstitiously muddling through God’s plan, though the devil makes more appearances in the shape of broken wheels and ankles and the dangerously handsome “cousin Mark”.

Kneale’s women are most memorable, from the randy Lady Lucy frivolously matchmaking her fellow pilgrims, to Matilda, whose piety grates, but stems from the trauma of 13th-century wifehood (“living as a wife was no paradise”). There’s a poignancy to the Jewish women’s lament: “Whatever we do, it’s never enough. It will never be enough… in their eyes we’ll always be Jews, and we’ll always be scorned and hated and cast down.”

Pilgrims is heavy on backstory – Kneale rewinds with each new narrator, giving his odyssey a jerky pace. It’s a slow journey, but there are enough high jinks and nun-related mischief on the road to keep readers entertained, and wonderfully chaotic scenes in Rome once we get there. Kneale’s medieval world is animated with a refreshing lightness of touch.