Walking in the Middle Ages: Literary forms, cultural styles

The first book-length study of walking in the Middle Ages, this volume examines philosophy, hagiography, miracle narratives, drama, conduct books, literary texts (including Barbour, Langland, Chaucer, Hoccleve, Lydgate, and Kempe), and manuscript illuminations. Essays question periodised claims and highlight what makes medieval walking distinctive. This book contends that walking in the medieval period is more than mere necessity and a highly regulated form of travel linked to hardship. Across traditions of philosophy, hagiography, miracle narratives, early English drama, conduct books, vernacular poetry and prose, walking instead emerges as both a deliberate cultural act and a stylistic choice.Chapters together demonstrate the ways in which walking was deeply tied to beliefs about embodiment and the human will. Modified and styled by the material environment, landscape and architecture, bodily impairment and physical supports, medieval discourses show the ‘entanglement’ of walking with the human endeavour to live and act in the world.Countering the idea that walking as a conscious cultural act is a modern invention, Walking in the Middle Ages examines its connections not only with travail but also thought, conduct, and pleasure, and with generating literary and dramatic forms. The first book-length treatment of medieval walking, the essays in this collection bring into view short-distance, solitary, and group walks from home to church and along highways, pilgrimage walks to local shrines and to the Holy Land, dramatic walking performed on pageants and choreographed in the streets, walking in and at the margins of the city, and liturgical and processional walking. Treating traditions of philosophy, hagiography and miracle narratives, early English drama, art, conduct books, and vernacular poetry and prose (including by Barbour, Langland, Chaucer, Hoccleve, Lydgate, and Kempe), and drawing on a range of critical lenses (including disability studies, posthumanism, and dance studies), this volume opens to scrutiny periodised claims, contributes to understanding the longer history of the modern English ambulatory tradition, and illuminates what makes medieval walking distinctive.