The Medieval Invention of Travel

The Medieval Invention of Travel
Author: Shayne Aaron Legassie
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 317
Release: 2017-04-12
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 022644273X

Over the course of the Middle Ages, the economies of Europe, Asia, and northern Africa became more closely integrated, fostering the international and intercontinental journeys of merchants, pilgrims, diplomats, missionaries, and adventurers. During a time in history when travel was often difficult, expensive, and fraught with danger, these wayfarers composed accounts of their experiences in unprecedented numbers and transformed traditional conceptions of human mobility. Exploring this phenomenon, The Medieval Invention of Travel draws on an impressive array of sources to develop original readings of canonical figures such as Marco Polo, John Mandeville, and Petrarch, as well as a host of lesser-known travel writers. As Shayne Aaron Legassie demonstrates, the Middle Ages inherited a Greco-Roman model of heroic travel, which viewed the ideal journey as a triumph over temptation and bodily travail. Medieval travel writers revolutionized this ancient paradigm by incorporating practices of reading and writing into the ascetic regime of the heroic voyager, fashioning a bold new conception of travel that would endure into modern times. Engaging methods and insights from a range of disciplines, The Medieval Invention of Travel offers a comprehensive account of how medieval travel writers and their audiences reshaped the intellectual and material culture of Europe for centuries to come.

Medieval Travel and Travelers

Medieval Travel and Travelers
Author: John Romano
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 383
Release: 2020-01-29
Genre: History
ISBN: 1487588046

It is widely believed that people living in the Middle Ages seldom traveled. But, as Medieval Travel and Travelers reveals, many medieval people – and not only Marco Polo – were on the move for a variety of different reasons. Assuming no previous knowledge of medieval civilizations, this volume allows readers to experience the excitement of men and women who ventured into new lands. By addressing cross-cultural interaction, religion, and travel literature, the collection sheds light on how travel shaped the way we perceive the world, while also connecting history to the contemporary era of globalization. Including a mix of complete sources, excerpts, and images, Medieval Travel and Travelers provides readers with opportunities for further reflection on what medieval people expected to find in foreign locales, while sparking curiosity about undiscovered spaces and cultures.

Travel, Pilgrimage and Social Interaction from Antiquity to the Middle Ages

Travel, Pilgrimage and Social Interaction from Antiquity to the Middle Ages
Author: Jenni Kuuliala
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2019-10-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 0429647700

Mobility and travel have always been key characteristics of human societies, having various cultural, social and religious aims and purposes. Travels shaped religions and societies and were a way for people to understand themselves, this world and the transcendent. This book analyses travelling in its social context in ancient and medieval societies. Why did people travel, how did they travel and what kind of communal networks and negotiations were inherent in their travels? Travel was not only the privilege of the wealthy or the male, but people from all social groups, genders and physical abilities travelled. Their reasons to travel varied from profane to sacred, but often these two were intermingled in the reasons for travelling. The chapters cover a long chronology from Antiquity to the end of the Middle Ages, offering the reader insights into the developments and continuities of travel and pilgrimage as a phenomenon of vital importance.

The Art, Science, and Technology of Medieval Travel

The Art, Science, and Technology of Medieval Travel
Author: Robert Odell Bork
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
Total Pages: 244
Release: 2008
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780754663072

This sixth volume in the AVISTA series considers medieval travel from a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives, placing the physical practice of transportation in the larger context of medieval thought about the world and its meaning. The papers included cover vehicle design and logistical management, the practicalities of how travellers oriented themselves, and the symbolism of the landscapes and maps created in the Middle Ages.

Routledge Revivals: Trade, Travel and Exploration in the Middle Ages (2000)

Routledge Revivals: Trade, Travel and Exploration in the Middle Ages (2000)
Author: John Block Friedman
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 758
Release: 2017-07-05
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1351661329

First published in 2000, Trade, Travel, and Exploration: An Encyclopedia covers the people, places, technologies, and intellectual concepts that contributed to trade, travel and exploration during the Middle Ages, from the years C.E. 525 to 1492. This comprehensive reference work contains entries on a large number of subjects, including familiar topics such as the voyages of Columbus and Marco Polo, and also information that is more difficult to find, for example, the traditions of travel among Muslim women and the influence of Viking travel on navigation and geographical knowledge. Bringing together more than 175 scholars from a variety of disciplines, it minimizes Eurocentric bias and offers extensive coverage of such topics as travel within Inner Asia, Mongol society, and the spread of Buddhism. Including an extensive map program and more than 125 illustrations, as well as bibliographies, a comprehensive index and "see also" references, Medieval Trade, Travel, and Exploration is a valuable reference guide for undergraduate and graduate students, scholars and also the general reader.

The Medieval Invention of Travel

The Medieval Invention of Travel
Author: Shayne Legassie
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 317
Release: 2017-04-12
Genre: Education
ISBN: 022644662X

Over the course of the Middle Ages, the economies of Europe, Asia, and northern Africa became more closely integrated, fostering the international and intercontinental journeys of merchants, pilgrims, diplomats, missionaries, and adventurers. During a time in history when travel was often difficult, expensive, and fraught with danger, these wayfarers composed accounts of their experiences in unprecedented numbers and transformed traditional conceptions of human mobility. Exploring this phenomenon, The Medieval Invention of Travel draws on an impressive array of sources to develop original readings of canonical figures such as Marco Polo, John Mandeville, and Petrarch, as well as a host of lesser-known travel writers. As Shayne Aaron Legassie demonstrates, the Middle Ages inherited a Greco-Roman model of heroic travel, which viewed the ideal journey as a triumph over temptation and bodily travail. Medieval travel writers revolutionized this ancient paradigm by incorporating practices of reading and writing into the ascetic regime of the heroic voyager, fashioning a bold new conception of travel that would endure into modern times. Engaging methods and insights from a range of disciplines, The Medieval Invention of Travel offers a comprehensive account of how medieval travel writers and their audiences reshaped the intellectual and material culture of Europe for centuries to come.

Islam and Travel in the Middle Ages

Islam and Travel in the Middle Ages
Author: Houari Touati
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2010-08
Genre: History
ISBN: 0226808777

In the Middle Ages, Muslim travelers embarked on a rihla, or world tour, as surveyors, emissaries, and educators. On these journeys, voyagers not only interacted with foreign cultures—touring Greek civilization, exploring the Middle East and North Africa, and seeing parts of Europe—they also established both philosophical and geographic boundaries between the faithful and the heathen. These voyages thus gave the Islamic world, which at the time extended from the Maghreb to the Indus Valley, a coherent identity. Islam and Travel in the Middle Ages assesses both the religious and philosophical aspects of travel, as well as the economic and cultural conditions that made the rihla possible. Houari Touati tracks the compilers of the hadith who culled oral traditions linked to the prophet, the linguists and lexicologists who journeyed to the desert to learn Bedouin Arabic, the geographers who mapped the Muslim world, and the students who ventured to study with holy men and scholars. Travel, with its costs, discomforts, and dangers, emerges in this study as both a means of spiritual growth and a metaphor for progress. Touati’s book will interest a broad range of scholars in history, literature, and anthropology.

The Cambridge History of Travel Writing

The Cambridge History of Travel Writing
Author: Nandini Das
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages:
Release: 2019-01-24
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 110861681X

Bringing together original contributions from scholars across the world, this volume traces the history of travel writing from antiquity to the Internet age. It examines travel texts of several national or linguistic traditions, introducing readers to the global contexts of the genre. From wilderness to the urban, from Nigeria to the polar regions, from mountains to rivers and the desert, this book explores some of the key places and physical features represented in travel writing. Chapters also consider the employment in travel writing of the diary, the letter, visual images, maps and poetry, as well as the relationship of travel writing to fiction, science, translation and tourism. Gender-based and ecocritical approaches are among those surveyed. Together, the thirty-seven chapters here underline the richness and complexity of this genre.

Travel, Time, and Space in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Time

Travel, Time, and Space in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Time
Author: Albrecht Classen
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 811
Release: 2018-10-22
Genre: History
ISBN: 3110609703

Research on medieval and early modern travel literature has made great progress, which now allows us to take the next step and to analyze the correlations between the individual and space throughout time, which contributed essentially to identity formation in many different settings. The contributors to this volume engage with a variety of pre-modern texts, images, and other documents related to travel and the individual's self-orientation in foreign lands and make an effort to determine the concept of identity within a spatial framework often determined by the meeting of various cultures. Moreover, objects, images and words can also travel and connect people from different worlds through books. The volume thus brings together new scholarship focused on the interrelationship of travel, space, time, and individuality, which also includes, of course, women's movement through the larger world, whether in concrete terms or through proxy travel via readings. Travel here is also examined with respect to craftsmen's activities at various sites, artists' employment for many different projects all over Europe and elsewhere, and in terms of metaphysical experiences (catabasis).

Maps and Travel in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period

Maps and Travel in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period
Author: Ingrid Baumgärtner
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 421
Release: 2019-03-04
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 3110588773

The volume discusses the world as it was known in the Medieval and Early Modern periods, focusing on projects concerned with mapping as a conceptual and artistic practice, with visual representations of space, and with destinations of real and fictive travel. Maps were often taken as straightforward, objective configurations. However, they expose deeply subjective frameworks with social, political, and economic significance. Travel narratives, whether illustrated or not, can address similar frameworks. Whereas travelled space is often adventurous, and speaking of hardship, strange encounters and danger, city portraits tell a tale of civilized life and civic pride. The book seeks to address the multiple ways in which maps and travel literature conceive of the world, communicate a 'Weltbild', depict space, and/or define knowledge. The volume challenges academic boundaries in the study of cartography by exploring the links between mapmaking and artistic practices. The contributions discuss individual mapmakers, authors of travelogues, mapmaking as an artistic practice, the relationship between travel literature and mapmaking, illustration in travel literature, and imagination in depictions of newly explored worlds.