Were Medieval Pilgrimages Actually Vacations? | Anthony Bale on Medieval Travel

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This long-form conversation explores medieval travel, pilgrimage, and imagination with Professor Anthony Bale (University of Cambridge). We examine how people in the Middle Ages understood a world they knew to be vast, real, and inhabited—yet only partially accessible, navigable, or comprehensible.

A central theme is the tension between knowledge and uncertainty. Medieval travellers were often moving through spaces that were both physically real and imaginatively constructed: Jerusalem as both a city and a spiritual landscape; distant regions like Ethiopia or India as places shaped as much by myth as by experience. Travel writing reflects this duality—combining observation, theology, hearsay, and invention in ways that resist modern distinctions between fact and fiction.

We also explore:

* The difference between migration and “travel” as a chosen, meaningful journey

* Pilgrimage as both spiritual discipline and early form of tourism

* The role of Venice, the Franciscans, and the Mamluks in structuring routes to the Holy Land

* The economics of travel: currencies, credit, and material goods

* Language barriers, miscommunication, and strategies for getting by

* Figures such as Margery Kempe and the limits of medieval curiosity

* The persistence of myths like Prester John and their explanatory function

Throughout, the discussion returns to a broader question: how do people make sense of a world that exceeds their knowledge? Medieval travel offers one answer—not through systematic understanding, but through narrative, belief, and selective attention.

Whether you are interested in medieval history, literature, religion, or the philosophy of travel, this conversation provides a detailed and nuanced introduction to how movement shaped the medieval imagination.

00:00:00 Medieval world, mystery, and Prester John

00:01:01 Introduction

00:06:26 Anthony Bale

00:08:40 Becoming a medievalist

00:14:08 Medieval travel and modern tourism

00:23:09 Margery Kempe and pilgrimage inwardness

00:28:57 Jerusalem routes, Mamluks, and pilgrimage structure

00:38:14 Venice, money, and travel logistics

00:46:57 Language, misunderstanding, and communication

00:57:26 Beyond Europe: India, Ethiopia, China

01:00:50 Prester John and the unknown world

01:02:08 Conclusion