A Travel Guide to the Middle Ages
The World Through Medieval Eyes
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- $19.99
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
A delightfully captivating journey across the medieval world, seen through the eyes of those who travelled across it.
'Rich and wonderful . . . This is the world as you've never seen it before' Ian Mortimer
'A joyful, erudite book . . . A global Middle Ages for our times' Jerry Brotton
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A delightfully captivating journey across the medieval world, seen through the eyes of those who travelled across it
From the bustling bazaars of Tabriz, to the mysterious island of Caldihe, where sheep were said to grow on trees, Anthony Bale brings history alive in A Travel Guide to the Middle Ages, inviting the reader to travel across a medieval world punctuated with miraculous wonders and long-lost landmarks. Journeying alongside scholars, spies and saints, from western Europe to the Far East, the Antipodes, and the ends of the world, this is no ordinary travel guide, containing everything from profane pilgrim badges, Venetian laxatives and flying coffins to encounters with bandits and trysts with princesses.
Using previously untranslated contemporary accounts from as far and wide as Turkey, Iceland, Armenia, north Africa, and Russia, A Travel Guide to the Middle Ages is a living atlas that blurs the distinction between real and imagined places, offering the reader a vivid and unforgettable insight into how medieval people understood their world.
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‘Masterful, panoramic, beautifully written and vividly imagined . . . a book to be savoured’ Dr Helen Castor, author of Blood and Roses
'An enthralling journey into the past and across the world . . . this book takes us to barely imaginable places – but the most remarkable thing we find may be ourselves’ Seb Falk, author of The Light Ages
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Historian Bale (Margery Kempe) draws on medieval European travel guides and travelogues for an informative and entertaining survey of "the practicalities, the pleasantries and the perils" of travel in the Middle Ages. Travelers who journeyed by foot, ship, and horseback encountered a landscape of monuments and ruins before reaching bustling European cities like London and Rome, or more distant destinations such as Constantinople and Jerusalem. Though the travel guides were not always completely accurate, they included sound advice (always carry a staff and bag, preferably blessed by a priest before departure; travel in groups for safety; bring sufficient coin for tolls, fees, and other expenses; use good manners in taverns; and prepare a last will and testament before leaving) as well as fanciful tales (airborne cats; trees that grow gems for the taking; and repeated warnings about cannibalism). Beyond human curiosity and wanderlust, the medieval traveler was motivated by religious pilgrimages, economic opportunities, and political intrigue, all of which receive attention in Bale's vibrant profiles of various historical travelers, including Rabban Bar Sauma, a Mongol Christian and emissary whose Eastern perspective of Western life presents a welcome departure from the Eurocentric view. Medieval history buffs will relish this.
