The Hindu-Arabic Numerals c11.33

c11.33

Another powerful means for the circulation of mysticism and philosophy, and more or less of culture, took its start just before the conversion of Constantine (*c.* 312), in the form of Christian pilgrim travel. This was a feature peculiar to the zealots of early Christianity, found in only a slight degree among their Jewish predecessors in the annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and almost wholly wanting in other pre-Christian peoples. Chief among these early pilgrims were the two Placentians, John and Antonine the Elder (*c.* 303), who, in their wanderings to Jerusalem, seem to have started a movement which culminated centuries later in the crusades.² In 333 a Bordeaux pilgrim compiled the first Christian guide-book, the *Itinerary from Bordeaux to Jerusalem*,³ and from this time on the holy pilgrimage never entirely ceased.