Travel, leisure, boredom and the Middle Ages

Abstract

The subject of this analysis deals with the concepts of travel, leisure and boredom, with emphasis on the medieval period. What was travel to a man of the Middle Ages, and was there any place in his life for leisure, and especially boredom? Either in opposition to each other or one inside the other, homo faber, homo viator and homo ludens coexist. Entering the medieval imaginarium, we inevitably enter a sphere of three layers of societal stratification (oratores, laboratores, bellatores). The subject of this study is to consider all three layers such that we view them as structures within a system, called Christian humanism: a system of collective identity shaped through ecclesiastical ideology that indoctrinates its own structures.

Keywords

• Middle Ages
• travel
• leisure
• boredom
• system