Mythical Components of Medieval Travel Literature

From the Paper:

"To the modern person many of the claims made by the writers of medieval travel literature seem completely outlandish and impossible to believe. The truth is, however, we have a society that has been pretty much isolated from contact with the majority of the world for a fairly long period of time. The peasants of these small hamlets would never venture outside their village for their entire life. Generation after generation of these people tilled the same soil and lived in the same home for hundreds of years and never saw anything even the slightest bit out of the ordinary for these incredibly prolonged periods of time. Therefore, when the first crusaders returned from the east describing things such as camels or travelers to India describing elephants and other such animals that are not normally found in Europe, we have the medieval persons idea of their world being changed dramatically. If such incredible creatures can exist, then why not the people with one gigantic foot that they use to shade themselves from the sun, as represented in the most important Travel literature of the period, the writings of Sir John Mandeville."

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