Off the Road Read Online Free Page B

each numbered and cataloged,
and sailed for New York on the next boat.
    For a while, Barnard ran his
own museum in Manhattan, but when money problems arose again, he offered to
sell his medieval cloisters to some Californians for use in an amusement park.
A cry went up among the Fifth Avenue set in New York, and the call for a white
knight was heard.
    John D. Rockefeller Jr. was
a curious savior from West Coast tastelessness. Among his architectural
achievements, he had spent millions erecting his idea of “colonial America” in Williamsburg, Virginia, where women in Betsy Ross dresses and men in breeches escorted
tourists to the town stockades for a wry photo opportunity.
    With his new cloisters,
Rockefeller ran through a number of plans. At one point he wanted to create a
feeling of lost grandeur he associated with abandoned castles and King Arthur,
but the most sophisticated architects of the day cautiously explained the
logistical difficulty of using religious carvings from France to construct a secular castle from England. Rockefeller caught on and soon realized that what
he had purchased was the emblem of the solitary search, that desire for monkish
isolation, Benedict’s idea. Rockefeller grew obsessed with the Cloisters and
demanded daily briefings. He had notions of his own.
    Across the Fludson River, seen from the parapet of the Cloisters, are the vast cliffs known as the New
Jersey Palisades. This state park extends from the George Washington Bridge all the way upriver to the state border. One might assume that this preservation was the
result of some antidevelopment politician. Actually John D. Rockefeller bought
that thirteen-mile stretch. He wanted to preserve the quiet contemplation of
his Cloisters —to carve out of the thickest clot of American urbanity a bit of
nature that straddled a river and gave almost no hint of the presence of man.
Rockefeller understood the idea of the cloister. He imported that ancient
yearning for the desert, via Benedict, into New York City. I had found my place
in America to begin.
     
    The only duty remaining was
what to wear. I am not being coy. Pilgrim fashion is not a glib subject.
Throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance, the clothes a pilgrim wore became a
style as widely known in its symbolism as a king’s crown. Parliaments met and
debated pilgrim’s clothes. Their sale was licensed and regulated by
bureaucracies. Underground markets for certain pilgrim items flourished at
times. Kings corresponded on the subject. Some legal scholars argue that
pilgrim fashion created its own brand of law. Any person—peasant or
noble—wearing the official pilgrim’s garb was exempt from the laws of the
country through which he was passing and was judged instead under a special
collection of statutes written expressly for pilgrims— the first international
law.
    This outfit became so
recognized that pilgrims en route to Santiago had to wear it if they expected
to receive the benefits of the road—free lodging, food, and respect. Obviously,
with such perks available, the clothing had to be regulated. Four popes issued
decrees, backed up by excommunication, outlining the rules and regulations for
the sale of the pilgrim’s outfit and even its duplication in souvenirs. In 1590
King Philip II issued a decree restricting the donning of this apparel in Spain to a narrow corridor running the length of the road from the Pyrenees to Santiago.
    A pilgrim wore a dashing
full-length black cape to serve as protection from wind by day and to provide a
blanket by night. On his feet were strong boots. To block the sun and rain, he
wore on his head a fetching broad-brimmed black hat. He carried a staff for
protection and tied to it a gourd for carrying water. At the waist was a small
satchel called a crip for carrying money, a knife, and toiletries. On the cape
or hat, or hanging around the neck, or fastened almost anywhere, was at least
one scallop shell, the symbol of the Santiago