The Route of the Franks: The Journey of Archbishop Sigeric at the Twilight of the First Millennium AD

Summary

The Route of the Franks presents a scientific study of the journey that Archbishop Sigeric of Canterbury undertook at the end of the first millennium from the British Isles to Rome, focussing on the segment included in the territory of modern France. It not only reconstructs the route that Sigeric followed here but also takes an archaeological snapshot of the urban and architectural developments in the centres crossed by this route at the twilight of the first millennium AD.

Sigeric's journey, undertaken for reasons connected to his office, is framed within the historical context of the contemporary Anglo-Saxon world. The special relationship connecting Rome and Canterbury during the Early Middle Ages is also analysed and an archaeological overview of the archbishop's town is attempted. Sigeric's experience is framed in the historical context of medieval journeys from England to Rome and the Holy Land. Building upon the literature, culture and narratives of travel, the modalities and practicalities of this type of movement in the Middle Ages are reconstructed, reviewing the many other possible routes across France and the reasons which determined Sigeric's choice.

This brings the author to a new conceptualisation of travel in the past and to study how it affected the identity of the traveller, how individuals and groups interacted in the peculiar framework of displacement, introducing sociological and anthropological perspectives. By applying theoretical frameworks developed in the fields of geography, social sciences, anthropology, environmental behavioural studies, phenomenology, spatial analysis, ICTs and cognitive studies, the book reveals how movement affects the perception of landscapes and how mobility patterns socio-cultural phenomena.