Limping to the holy presence

A 12th-century eyewitness at Sant- iago de Compostela described his fellow pilgrims:

Some, such as the Greeks, hold the image of the cross in their hands; others distribute their possessions to the poor; some carry iron or lead for the construction of the basilica of the Apostle James; and others, who have been liberated by the Apostle from the prisons of the wicked, bear their shackles and manacles upon their shoulders.

Conrad Rudolph bore neither iron nor shackles on his 1,000-mile walk from Le Puy through the Pyrenees to Santiago. His 20lb-pack held a light sleeping-bag, a bottle of water, a towel, soap, lip-balm, nail-clippers, a first-aid item called Second Skin for blisters, a pocket knife and plastic spoon. He wore a baseball cap, dark glasses, shorts, a Gore-Tex wind-cheater and well-made boots. And still he suffered horribly.

What did this American professor of mediaeval art, who had put himself in training, lack in his pedal extremities that St Paul, who was forever walking across the breadth of Asia Minor, had, let alone the mediaeval pilgrim in his ill-suited shoes? (Mediaeval clothes were much better made than ours, but their shoe technology was sadly wanting.)