Bücher der Reihe Das Mittelalter. Perspektiven mediavistischer Forschung. Beihefte

Societal and environmental change not only coincide during the period 1250¿1380, they interact: What has been long discussed as the ¿Crisis of the 14th Century¿ is happening during a shifting climatic regime, from the Medieval Climate Anomaly to the onset of the Little Ice Age. The volume highlights these ¿teleconnections¿ between environment and society with a set of interdisciplinary and regionally diverse contributions on Europe and beyond.

The volume discusses the world as it was known in the Medieval and Early Modern periods, focusing on projects concerned with mapping as a conceptual and artistic practice, with visual representations of space, and with destinations of real and fictive travel. Maps were often taken as straightforward, objective configurations. However, they expose deeply subjective frameworks with social, political, and economic significance. Travel narratives, whether illustrated or not, can address similar frameworks. Whereas travelled space is often adventurous, and speaking of hardship, strange encounters and danger, city portraits tell a tale of civilized life and civic pride. The book seeks to address the multiple ways in which maps and travel literature conceive of the world, communicate a 'Weltbild', depict space, and/or define knowledge. The volume challenges academic boundaries in the study of cartography by exploring the links between mapmaking and artistic practices. The contributions discuss individual mapmakers, authors of travelogues, mapmaking as an artistic practice, the relationship between travel literature and mapmaking, illustration in travel literature, and imagination in depictions of newly explored worlds.