This sixth volume in the AVISTA series considers medieval travel from a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives, placing the physical practice of transportation in the larger context of medieval thought about the world and its meaning. The papers included cover vehicle design and logistical management, the practicalities of how travellers oriented themselves, and the symbolism of the landscapes and maps created in the Middle Ages.

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.

This book charts the past, present, and future of studies on medieval technology, art, and craft practices. Inspired by Villard’s enigmatic portfolio of artistic and engineering drawings, this collection explores the multiple facets of medieval building represented in this manuscript (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Fr 19093). The book’s eighteen essays and two introductions showcase traditional and emergent methods for the study of medieval craft, demonstrating how these diverse approaches collectively amplify our understanding about how medieval people built, engineered, and represented their world. Contributions range from the analysis of words and images in Villard’s portfolio, to the close analysis of masonry, technological marvels, and gothic architecture, pointing the way toward new avenues for future scholarship to explore. Contributors are: Mickey Abel, Carl F. Barnes Jr., Robert Bork, George Brooks, Michael T. Davis, Amy Gillette, Erik Gustafson, Maile S. Hutterer, John James, William Sayers, Ellen Shortell, Alice Isabella Sullivan, Richard Alfred Sundt, Sarah Thompson, Steven A. Walton, Maggie M. Williams, Kathleen Wilson Ruffo, and Nancy Wu.

Mobility and travel have always been key characteristics of human societies, having various cultural, social and religious aims and purposes. Travels shaped religions and societies and were a way for people to understand themselves, this world and the transcendent. This book analyses travelling in its social context in ancient and medieval societies. Why did people travel, how did they travel and what kind of communal networks and negotiations were inherent in their travels? Travel was not only the privilege of the wealthy or the male, but people from all social groups, genders and physical abilities travelled. Their reasons to travel varied from profane to sacred, but often these two were intermingled in the reasons for travelling. The chapters cover a long chronology from Antiquity to the end of the Middle Ages, offering the reader insights into the developments and continuities of travel and pilgrimage as a phenomenon of vital importance.

Much of our understanding of the world is framed from the perspective of a dominant power center, or from standard readings of historical events. The architecture of international information distribution, academic centers, and the lingua franca of international scholarly discourse also shape these stories. Remoteness Reconsidered employs the idea of remoteness as an analytical tool for viewing international law's encounter with the Americas from the unusual, peripheral perspective of the Atacama Desert. The Atacama is one of the most remote places on Earth, although that less-than-accurate perspective comes from standard historical accounts of the region, accounts that originate from the “center.” Changing the usual frame of reference leads to a reconsideration of the idea of remoteness and of the subsequent marginalization of historical narratives that influence hemispheric international relations in important ways today. Lessons about international law's encounters with neoliberalism, indigenous and human rights, and the management and extraction of mineral resources take on new significance by following a spatial turn toward the idea of remoteness as applied to the Atacama Desert.

The touchstones of Gothic monumental art in France - the abbey church of Saint-Denis and the cathedrals of Chartres, Reims, and Bourges - form the core of this collection dedicated to the memory of Anne Prache. The essays reflect the impact of Prache’s career, both as a scholar of wide-ranging interests and as a builder of bridges between the French and American academic communities. Thus the authors include scholars in France and the United States, both academics and museum professionals, while the thematic matrix of the book, divided into architecture, stained glass, and sculpture, reflects the multiple media explored by Prache during her long career. The essays employ a varied range of methodologies to explore Gothic monuments. The chapters in the architectural section include an intensive archeological analysis of the foundations of Reims Cathedral, the close reading of a late medieval literary text for a symbolic understanding of Paris, and essays that explore the medieval use of practical geometry in designing entire buildings and their components. Saint-Denis, Reims, and Chartres, all monuments studied by Prache, are discussed in the next part, on stained glass. These chapters demonstrate how old problems can be clarified by new evidence, whether from the accessibility of previously unknown archival information, for Reims, or through revelations that arise from restoration, at Chartres. These essays also include a study showing the complexity of making attributions for the storied glass of Saint-Denis. The final set of essays likewise takes different approaches to sculpture, whether constructing links to the liturgy at Reims, or discussing the meaning of a sculptural ensemble studied by Prache early in her career, the cloister of Notre-Dame-en-Vaux in Châlons-en-Champagne, or scrupulously examining the façade sculpture at Bourges Cathedral for insights into the design process. As a whole, the volume provides a window onto key directions in the study of

This volume offers unparalleled coverage of all aspects of art and architecture from medieval Western Europe, from the 6th century to the early 16th century. Drawing upon the expansive scholarship in the celebrated 'Grove Dictionary of Art' and adding hundreds of new entries, it offers students, researchers and the general public a reliable, up-to-date, and convenient resource covering this field of major importance in the development of Western history and international art and architecture.