A Travel Guide to the Middle Ages

From the medieval bazaars of Tabriz, to the mysterious island of Caldihe, where sheep were said to grow on trees, Anthony Bale brings history alive in A Travel Guide to the Middle Ages, inviting the reader to travel across a medieval world punctuated with miraculous wonders and long-lost landmarks. Journeying alongside scholars, spies and saints, from western Europe to the Far East and the Antipodes, this is no ordinary travel guide, containing everything from profane pilgrim badges and Venetian laxatives to encounters with bandits and trysts with mysterious medieval witches.Using previously untranslated contemporary accounts from as far and wide as Turkey, Iceland, Armenia, north Africa, and Russia, A Travel Guide to the Middle Ages blurs the distinction between real and imagined places, offering the reader a vivid and unforgettable insight into how medieval people understood their world.