The charisma of distant places : travel and religion in the early Middle Ages /

Luckhardt (Univ. of Southern Mississippi) here focuses on early medieval travel originating from a religious impulse (e.g., holy wandering, missionary work, pilgrimage, relic hunting, the foundation of monasteries/nunneries, captive redemption, and ecclesiastical business). Although the term early medieval is not defined, the chronological terminus is the Carolingian era, albeit absent any mention of the ecclesiastical members of the missi dominici. The source discussions are well grounded in hagiographic texts and gesta (deeds) and further supplemented by material (archaeological, numismatic, architectural) and visual (iconographic) sources as a way of understanding human movement. The breadth of the analysis--discussing both the physical as opposed to just the spiritual aspects of travel--makes the book a valuable contribution to understanding the period. The presentation of the argument occasionally suffers from repetitiveness and jargon ("mediating both horizontal and vertical distances"), wholly unnecessary for the book's intended audience of scholars. Additionally, it is unfortunate that the text is marred by so many (43) egregious typographical and grammatical mistakes. Thankfully, however, these mistakes do not detract from the value of this book as a whole. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Graduate students and faculty. --Robert T. Ingoglia, St.Thomas Aquinas College