A King on the Move: The Place of an Itinerant Court in Charlemagne’s Government
I shall suggest here that we should abandon this assumed correlation, and that once we have done so, a very different picture of Charlemagne’s itinerary between 768 and 814, and consequently of his government, emerges.
Hosting the king: hospitality and the royal iter in tenth-century England
Hosting the king: hospitality and the royal iter in tenth-century England Levi Roach (Trinity College, Cambridge) The Journal of Medieval History, 37.1 (March…
Ibn Jubayr: The Rihla
Abu ‘l-Husayn Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Jubayr (1145-1217) was not an exceptional man. As a relatively ordinary, middle-aged Muslim, Ibn Jubayr was neither the first nor the last to leave Al-Andalus to perform the hajj. Admiring kings only from afar, the closest that Ibn Jubayr came to royalty were encounters with imperial tax collectors. Paradoxically though, it is precisely Ibn Jubayr’s lack of distinction that helped earn him repute throughout the Islamic world in his time. It also makes him the ideal subject of the present study.
Representations of English Women and their Pilgrimages in Twelfth-Century Miracle Collections
Drawing on a survey of sixteen miracle collections compiled in twelfth-century England, the study examines the representation of women as pilgrims, and demonstrates that many modern assumptions about female travel in the Middle Ages are not consistent with the miracle accounts.
Matthew Paris in Norway
It appears that Matthew only ever left England once, when, in 1248-9, he visited Norway to assist in settling a dispute at the Benedictine abbey of Nidarholm near Trondheim. It is on this episode that the following will focus.
‘Fromm thennes faste he gan avyse/This litel spot of erthe’: GIS and the General Prologue
This paper was given at the Canada Chaucer Seminar on April 27, 2013.
Here there be no dragons: Maravilla in Two Fifteenth-Century Spanish libros de viajes
Monsters, anthropomorphs, and marvels are common ingredients in medieval travel literature, and even narratives of real medieval journeys include these creatures, to the delight of the reading audience.
The Legend of the Purgatory of Saint Patrick: From Ireland to Dante and Beyond
“Yes by Saint Patrick …. Touching this vision here It is an honest ghost, that let me tell you” (Hamlet, Act I, Scene 5)
How parasites went on Crusade
The contents of crusader latrines are helping researchers probe the history of parasite infections in humans.
Russian Pilgrims in Constantinople
If one compares the Russian Anthony text with the original Mercati Anonymus text, the longest and most detailed of the three extant contemporary Western descriptions of the shrines of Constantinople, one finds that the Latin text includes only twenty of the seventy-six religious shrines mentioned by the Russian enumeration.
The Cross as Tree: The Wood-of-the-Cross Legends in Middle English and Latin Texts in Medieval England
The wood-of-the-cross legend is actually a group of narratives that trace the pre- history of the wood used to make Christ’s cross back to Old Testament figures, or in some cases back to paradise itself.
Tolling the Rhine in 1254: Complementary Monopoly Revisited
Given a demand for Rhine travel, an Emperor faced a classic complementary monopoly problem: how many toll stations to have, where to site them, and what toll to charge at each.
The Swedish Kings in Progress – and the Centre of Power
Why did the rulers travel! One reason was purely financial: the economy demanded a constant movement of the household. Once the food supplies in one place of abode had been eaten up it was easier to move to a new residence than to transport provisions overlong distances. Mobility contributed to the proper utilization of the produce of manors.
A Peripheral Matter? Oceans in the East in Late Medieval Thought, Report and Cartography
Focusing in particular on the southern and eastern parts of the Ocean Sea, this article traces the broad contours of a representational and conceptual shift brought about, I argue, by the interplay between geographical thought and social (navigational, mercantile) practice.
Mandeville’s Intolerance: The Contest for Souls and Sacred Sites in The Travels of Sir John Mandeville
While Chaucer‟s knight has traveled to and fought in Spain, North Africa, Eastern Europe, and Asia Minor, Sir John claims to have visited the entire known world from Constantinople and the Holy Land to the farthest reaches of Asia.
Sailing with the Mu’allim: The Technical Practiceof Red Sea Sailing during the Medieval Period
The status of the Red Sea as a lane of communication be-tween the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean has beenwidely commented upon…The medieval period was no exception to this. The establishment of Mecca as a centre of pilgrimage and theincreasing importance of Cairo both served to provide further motives for seafaring activity along and across theRed Sea.
In Our Time: Marco Polo
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the celebrated Venetian explorer Marco Polo.
The Quest for Prester John
The legend of Prester John is one of the most fascinating and powerful myths of all time. To say that Medieval Europeans knew little about the world outside of their native continent is truly an understatement. It was an age in which much was assumed rather than ascertained about the exotic lands beyond.
I’m the King of the Castle: Historvius launches social-travel game
Leading history travel website Historvius.com has launched a new social-travel game allowing people to truly become King of the Castle or even Emperor of the Colosseum. Users can rule historic sites they’ve visited, earn points, titles and badges, share with their friends and build their very own virtual empire while they travel.
Marco Polo really did go to China, new study finds
A thorough new study of Chinese sources by University of Tübingen Sinologist Hans Ulrich Vogel dispels claims that Venice’s most famous traveler never truly went as far as China.
Walking in the Shadows of the Past: The Jewish Experience of Rome in the Twelfth Century
During this pivotal century and within the special microcosm of Rome, Jews and Christians experienced unusually robust cultural and social interactions, especially as the Jews increasingly aligned themselves with the protective power of the papacy.
The viaggio in Inghilterra of a viaggio in Oriente: Odorico da Pordenone’s Itinerarium from Italy to England
Odorico da Pordenone was a Franciscan Friar who, in the wake of the thirteenth-century expansion of the Mongolian empire, travelled to the court of the Great Khan at Khanbalik (modern Beijing).
Scandinavian Influences on the English Language
The Viking Age lasted roughly from the eighth century to the eleventh, with the Viking attacks on Europe beginning around 750 AD. The Scandinavians were excellent sailors, and they had impressive ships and navigational skills that carried them as far as North America (‘Vinland’) long before the arrival of Columbus in 1492.
Ohthere’s voyages seen from a nautical angle
But whatever Ohthere and his English hosts exchanged in the way of news and information, the re- corded account keeps closely within ränge of its objective: a geography of unknown and little known areas of Scandinavia and their inhabitants.