Medieval Travel and Travellers, The Voyage from Pietas to Curiositas

Abstract

While early medieval travel might have been allowed or even encouraged because of its spiritual connotations, with emphasis on the uplifting nature of pilgrimage or missionary activity, reports of late medieval travellers suggest that curiosity played a growing part in their wanderings. This raises significant questions since medieval theologians like Augustine and Bernard of Clairvaux argued that curiosity provided the “occasion of sin.” Even if curiosity was not a sin in and of itself, its suspect moral status meant that it was not enough to justify travel, even in the form of pilgrimage. Instead, medieval pilgrims initially turned to concepts of piety to undergird their desire to wander. By the end of the Middle Ages, however, curiosity had been redeemed as an accompaniment, not a challenge, to piety. This article explores that change, focusing especially on how ideas about curiosity, piety, and travel developed during the period between 1100 and 1500. Drawing evidence from a range of representative medieval texts (e.g., the Voyage of St. Brendan, the Divine Comedy, the Canterbury Tales, and the Book of John Mandeville) and travellers (e.g., Godric of Finchale, Othon de Grandson, Henry of Grosmont, and Ghillebert de Lannoy), this article points out some of the influences which first formed the medieval outlook on the relationship between curiosity and travel, and then those which helped to modify it.