ACADEMIC TALK
Watch the lecture by Professor Hannah Skoda below and don’t forget to take a look at the extra resources and have a go at the activity at the end.
Medieval journeys
Prof Hannah Skoda
What drove people in Medieval times to journey from their homes? During this lecture you will see examples of the travel people undertook for a variety of reasons. Many people travelled for trade or for diplomatic reasons, although, representatives who also brought back stories of the places they had visited may have been more well received. You will learn how historical sources can be used to understand the journeys people undertook, their purpose, their outcomes and the impact they had on societies (or individuals, such as merchants) during Medieval times.
Further reading
Have a look at the National Gallery website for the chance to see the Arnolfini Marriage portrait up close.
Here is an account of the travels of Marco Polo.
If you’d like to read some of Chaucer’s Canterbury tales, this useful resource gives the original Middle English and a modern translation side-by-side.
As we have seen, archival work can involve a tactile as well as analytical understanding of an object – even the old cheese on a Medieval manuscript!
Pick any object in your house and create a map or write a description tracking the journey it has travelled to get where it is today.
Is it damaged or changed in some way?
How might this have happened?
Think not only about how it may have been bought, or passed down in your family, but also where its materials have come from. If you have a pencil, is it possible to find out where the wood it is made of has come from? What about the paint and lead?
Ask friends and family, look online, or in books to research possible origins for your object.
