A delightfully captivating journey across the medieval world, from Europe to the Antipodes, seen through the eyes of those who travelled across it

From the medieval bazaars of Tabriz, to the mysterious island of Caldihe, where sheep were said to grow on trees, Anthony Bale brings history alive in A Travel Guide to the Middle Ages, inviting the reader to travel across a medieval world punctuated with miraculous wonders and long-lost landmarks. Journeying alongside scholars, spies and saints, from western Europe to the Far East, the Antipodes, and the ends of the world, this is no ordinary travel guide, containing everything from profane pilgrim badges, Venetian laxatives and flying coffins to encounters with bandits and trysts with princesses.

Using previously untranslated contemporary accounts from as far and wide as Turkey, Iceland, Armenia, north Africa, and Russia, A Travel Guide to the Middle Ages is a living atlas that blurs the distinction between real and imagined places, offering the reader a vivid and unforgettable insight into how medieval people understood their world.

'Rich and wonderful. This is the world as you have never seen it before - and as it will never be seen again. And it's more surprising, extraordinary and bizarre than anything you can possibly imagine' - IAN MORTIMER, AUTHOR OF THE TIME-TRAVELLER’S GUIDE TO MEDIEVAL ENGLAND