Letters are the most pertinent and abundant source for understanding physical mobility in the Middle Ages. They connect individuals who, due to spatial distance, would not have been able to communicate otherwise. Apart from the implicit attestation of messengers who must have carried these letters to the respective recipients’ locations, letters often contain clues as to the further mobility of individuals in the authors’ vicinity at the time of writing. This lecture presents a new project that investigates mobility within medieval societies by analysing a selection of particularly extensive letter collections spanning the period from 800 to 1500. It addresses, using a primarily quantitative approach, questions related to those who travelled, their motives for doing so, and their travelling conditions, in order to gain new insights into medieval exchange processes and their underlying dynamics.
Laury Sarti is a senior lecturer in Medieval History at the University of Freiburg. Her monograph Orbis Romanus: Byzantium and the Legacy of Rome in the Carolingian World is forthcoming with Oxford University Press, and her student handbook Westeuropa zwischen Antike und Mittelalter was published last year. Her field of expertise includes the transition from Antiquity to the Middle Ages, physical mobility, Mediterranean connectivity, the military, and the Roman legacy in the medieval West.
This lecture will take place as a hybrid event at the GHIL and online via Zoom. In order to attend this event, please register via Eventbrite to take part in person or online.