Travel and Encounters in the Middle Ages

3 credits · Undergraduate

(3 hrs Lecture/Seminar) This lecture/seminar course examines the geographical horizon of medieval Europeans and their knowledge of the world through the travel accounts of merchants, explorers, pilgrims, and missionaries. The period under scrutiny encompasses the 11th to the 15th centuries, a time when this horizon was considerably broadened, for instance, by the Crusades and the Mongol invasions. Attention is given to the development of trade routes and networks across Europe and Asia, the encounters with other peoples, and the development of a medieval imagination of the world.