We have now seen the efforts made by William Wey to enfold his audience into the pilgrimage experience through his writing and rewriting of his own visits to the holy places, as well as Bernhard von Breydenbach's exhortations to Christian unity at the expense of those on the outside, whom he regards as other. As we saw when examining Arnold von Harff's approach to other religions, though, he brings something else to the composition process: an expectation that his readers’ interest is not simply in the pilgrimage itself, but that travel provides the opportunity to learn about the contemporary world as well as about salvation history. In his work, secular interest sits squarely alongside the pilgrimage experience, as it does not in our other texts.
Having provided the customary praise of his patrons, Harff begins his account by outlining the highlights of his pilgrimage. These were to be Rome, Sinai, Egypt, Arabia, Syria, Armenia, Kollam on the coast of Kerala in India, the source of the Nile, Cairo, Jerusalem, Cappadocia, Antioch, Constantinople, Santiago de Compostela, Mont St-Michel, St Patrick's Purgatory in Ireland, and the shrine of the Holy Blood at Wilsnack. For pilgrims to boast of the scope of their pilgrimage was neither new, nor universally well received:
Þis folke frayned hym firste · fro whennes he come
Fram synay he seyde and fram owre lordes sepulcre
In bethleem and in babiloyne I haue ben in bothe
In ermonye in alisaundre in many other places
Ȝe may se bi my signes þat sitten on myn hatte
Þat I haue walked ful wyde in wete and in drye
And souȝte gode seyntes for my soules helth
Knowestow ouȝte a corseint þat men calle treuthe
Coudestow auȝte wissen vs þe weye where þat wy dwelleth
Nay so me god helpe seide þe gome þanne
I seygh neuere palmere with pike ne with scrippe
Axen after hym er til now in þis place
[The folk asked him first where he came from.
‘From Sinai,’ he said, ‘And from our Lord's Sepulchre. I have been in both Bethlehem and in Babylon, in Armenia, in Alexandria, in many other places.