How did European road travellers in the later Middle Ages find their way from one part of a country to another? from one town to another? and within unfamiliar towns and cities? How did they plan their journeys? What aids did they use for...
moreHow did European road travellers in the later Middle Ages find their way from one part of a country to another? from one town to another? and within unfamiliar towns and cities? How did they plan their journeys? What aids did they use for getting to their destinations? Such questions seem obvious, yet there has been very little systematic attempt by road historians to answer them. Information about this topic is hard to come by because wayfinding is a practice that of its nature is not likely to leave any traces. The aim of this paper is to survey some of the evidence for medieval wayfinding and to provide some initial answers to these questions. 1 I will draw on a number of different disciplines, including urban studies and space studies, in order to understand the cultural and cognitive aspects of medieval wayfinding practices. 2 I will argue that in the absence of the technological and material aids that we now take for granted medieval travel presumed a culture of human cooperation that is very different from that of today. This paper is also a contribution to the neglected social history of the everyday in the European premodern era. 3 Medieval wayfinding is seldom, if ever, seen as worthy of comment, either by historical travellers or by modern commentators on those travellers. 4 J. J. Jusserand, for example, in his classic study of medieval wayfarers, never refers to the subject. 5 Nor does G.
