Overview

Europeans of the Middle Ages were the first to use travel guides to orient their wanderings, as they moved through a world punctuated with miraculous wonders and beguiling encounters. In this vivid and alluring history, medievalist Anthony Bale invites listeners on an odyssey across the medieval world. Journeying alongside scholars, spies, and saints, from Western Europe to the Far East, the Antipodes and the ends of the earth, Bale provides indispensable information on the exchange rate between Bohemian ducats and Venetian groats, medieval cures for seasickness, and how to avoid extortionist tour guides and singing sirens. He takes us from the streets of Rome and tours of the Khan's court in Beijing to Mamluk-controlled Jerusalem. We also learn of rumored fantastical places, like ones where lambs grow on trees and giant canes grow fruit made of gems. And we are offered a glimpse of what non-European travelers thought of the West on their own travels. Using previously untranslated contemporaneous documents from a colorful range of travelers, A Travel Guide to the Middle Ages is a witty and unforgettable exploration of how Europeans understood--and often misunderstood--the larger world.

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Anthony Bale is professor of medieval studies at Birkbeck College, University of London. The author of Margery Kempe: A Mixed Life, he has received research fellowships from Harvard University and the Huntington Library, among others, and was awarded the Philip Leverhulme Prize. He lives in London.

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