Knowra Medieval travel literature Medieval travel literature Written accounts of journeys produced in the Middle Ages, combining observation, report, and inherited knowledge. They range from pilgrimage narratives and diplomatic reports to descriptions of distant lands.
The Travels of Marco Polo : A late thirteenth-century account of Marco Polo’s travels and of regions across Asia, dictated to Rustichello da Pisa. Its mixture of reported experience and marvels became a defining example of the genre.
Pilgrimage : A journey to a sacred place undertaken for religious reasons. Religious journeys generated a major body of medieval itineraries and narratives.
Herodotus : A fifth-century BCE Greek historian whose Histories include descriptions of peoples and lands beyond Greece. His ethnographic model helped establish a tradition of writing about distant places.
Itinerary : A description of a route that lists stages, distances, and places along a journey. Its practical sequence gives many travel accounts their underlying structure.
Pilgrim's guide : A practical guide that identifies routes, shrines, and services for religious travelers. Its instructions prioritize what travelers need over a narrator’s extended account of experience.
Itinerarium of William of Rubruck : A report by Franciscan friar William of Rubruck on his 1253–1255 mission to the Mongol court. Its close observations of Mongol society contrast with more legendary travel accounts.
Medieval map : A map made in the Middle Ages, often organized around religious, political, or practical purposes. Maps offered frameworks for describing places even when they were not navigational charts.
Egeria : A late fourth-century Christian pilgrim whose surviving travel account describes journeys to biblical sites. Her account predates the Middle Ages but models pilgrimage writing that continued afterward.
Travelogue : A written account of journeys that describes places, events, and experiences encountered along the way. Medieval travel literature is an early and diverse body of travelogues.
Travel fiction : Fiction whose plot centers on journeys or encounters in distant places. Medieval travel narratives could include marvels, but generally presented themselves as accounts of journeys.
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