| Paper 1316-a | Merchant, Diplomat, Pilgrim, Humanist, Tourist: The Multifaceted Traveller in the 15th Century
(Language: English)
Sharon Michalove, Department of History, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Index terms: Economics - Trade, Education, Politics and Diplomacy, Social History |
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| Abstract | Paper -a:
Motivations for travel in the 15th century could be complex, made up of a variety of intentions that may or may not have been consciously planned by the voyager. Travel had religious, trade, diplomatic, patronage, and educational outcomes that could all come about in the same trip. Travellers like Anselm Adorne, John Tiptoft, and Pietro Casola may have travelled as pilgrims, but their accounts have shown that us that they had a multiplicity of reasons. This paper will use a variety of travellers to elucidate the ways that travel could be used as travellers combined various motives into their itineraries.
Paper -b:
Le chevalier des romans d'aventures pourrait être le paradigme de l'explorateur du XIIe siècle : il parcourt des terres inconnues, découvre des merveilles, et à son retour, livre le récit de ses errances fabuleuses. Mais peut-on souscrire sans réserve à cette vision romantique ? En nous basant sur une étude inédite du vocabulaire de l'aventure et son utilisation dans un contexte élargi (traductions de la Bible, hagiographies, documents légaux), nous voudrions proposer une nouvelle lecture de l'aventure chevaleresque : plus tributaire du nouvel essor du commerce et des enjeux territoriaux que de la quête courtoise, idéale et spirituelle.
Paper -c:
This paper aims at the study of the otherness and the description of the external in Pero Tafur's travel book Andanzas y viajes. By approaching the narrator's voice, I will analyse the evidence of empathy and refusal which Tafur shows when facing the external: other nationalities, different social groups or judgments about gender; as well as the construction of self which the author employs by the description of what he has seen or heard. My paper will conclude by drawing a picture of Tafur between two ages, interested giving a certain image of himself, which is affected by the observation of the other, and which seems to us as a genuine manifest of renovation of the people of his own social class.
Paper -d:
Written to enthrall a courtly audience thirsty for knowledge and titillating entertainment, these two travel narratives actually question both reality and legend. Queen Sibyl, who turns into a snake on Friday nights, and a mischievous demonic oarsman from the Lipari Isles, are folkloric representations of beguiling archetypal figures. La Sale, a squire turned pedagogue and moralist, is sceptical yet fascinated by his brush with the uncanny. This paper investigates how La Sale's stories, posing as geography lessons, reveal a proto-humanist world view and a fresh critical stance, through the use of narrative devices characteristic of the literary mode of the fantastic.
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