Journey alongside scholars, spies and saints. From western Europe to the Far East, the Antipodes, and the ends of the world. This is a living atlas that blurs the distinction between real and imagined places, containing everything from profane pilgrim badges, Venetian laxatives to encounters with bandits and trysts with princesses. Using previously untranslated contemporary accounts from as far and wide as Turkey, Iceland, Armenia, north Africa, and Russia, it offers the reader a vivid and unforgettable insight into how medieval people understood their world - a world of stories, desire and fantasies, of cherished pasts and longed-for futures.