Pilgrims could go and come back, still being a Frank or a Lombard or a Saxon. This wasn't required, and sometimes it wasn't possible. That power (at least in theory) moved with the people into different geographic spaces and lasted until those subjects attached themselves to another person in power. The Latin word imperium, for example, is often translated as 'empire' but it's more accurate to say it means 'authority' or 'power.' In other words, 'empire' in the Middle Ages was simply the people over whom the emperor exerted power. (Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images)Ĭommunities throughout pre-modern Europe were predominantly defined by people, not geography. fresco, Byzantine style, late 11th century, Chapel of Saint Eldrad and Saint Nicholas, Novalesa Abbey, Piedmont, Italy. Saint Nicholas saving pilgrims from shipwreck, detail from the Stories of Saint Nicholas, Romanesque. It's just that those 'things' travelers moved between were temporary, sometimes even ephemeral, and often simply didn't seem to matter a whole lot. None of this, of course, means that these travelers weren't moving between things. To accommodate these travelers, elaborate systems of hospitality developed (held over, in some ways, from the ancient world) to welcome new arrivals and shepherd them safely on their way to their final destination. Monks became refugees from Viking attacks, sometimes permanently settling in new locations for centuries.Įven on a more local level, it was not terribly uncommon for commoners throughout Europe to travel dozens of miles to visit churches thought to perform healing miracles or to celebrate feasts in honor of favored saints. Pilgrims, such as the Iberian Muslim Ibn Jubayr and the Frankish Christian Bernard the Monk, traveled thousands of miles back and forth between Islamic and Christian lands. Merchants, such as the Jewish author Benjamin of Tudela, carried goods throughout the Mediterranean. Their mental world was large and was always more than just their locality. People traveled constantly throughout the Middle Ages.

Map of a feudal kingdoms