Binding: Paperback
Description: 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.
Title: The Medieval Invention Of Travel
Author(s): Legassie Shayne Aaron
Publisher: The University Of Chicago Press
Barcode: 9780226446622
Pages: 304 Pages
Publication Date: 4/12/2017
Category: Literary Studies: Classical, Early & Medieval