Travel by water had its own set of drawbacks.
Cramped and unhygienic conditions were unavoidable on
the tiny ships, even for those who could afford to buy
space in a cabin. Adverse weather conditions could cause
lengthy delays and diversions, and the onset of winter
generally meant that no commercial shipping left harbor
for several months. Shipwreck was an ever-present possi-
bility, and it even spawned a subgenre of Portuguese liter-
ature known as história trágico-marítima after the title of
the collection of 16th-century pamphlets on such disas-
ters published in Lisbon in 1735. During the 16th century
pirates operating in the Adriatic and out of the ports of
Muslim North Africa became an increasing hazard for
Mediterranean mariners.
Arterial rivers such as the Po and Danube had a lim-
ited usefulness. Although progress downstream was easy,
the return journey against the current was slow and labo-
rious. On some rivers, such as the Rhine, rapids and nar-
rows made matters even worse, and river traffic was also
vulnerable to the predations of the bishops and feudal
lords whose territories bordered the river, enabling them
to set up toll points, particularly at places where chains
could be slung from tower to tower across the stream to
halt the boats.
Obtaining funds abroad was a problem that was grad-
ually eased as banks and the larger trading companies de-
veloped networks of branches and agents across Europe.
In the early 14th century, for example, the bank run by the
Florentine BARDI FAMILYhad branches from Palermo to
Bruges and London to Jerusalem. Since carrying a large
amount of gold or silver was both impractical and unwise,
travelers before setting out had to organize letters of credit
that could be presented at places along their route. From
the 15th century onward states often insisted that their
citizens obtain letters of passport from a competent au-
thority, giving permission to travel abroad, and these
could also act as a safe-conduct.
With the advent of printing, local and informal
sources of advice for travelers were supplemented by writ-
ten texts. The market for information in the vernacular on
pilgrimage routes is shown by a number of 15th- and
16th-century publications to meet this demand: Die Wal-
fahrt und Strass zu sant Jacob (Strasbourg, 1495) on the
Santiago de Compostela route and the London printer/
publisher Wynkyn de Worde’s Information for Pilgrims into
the Holy Land (1498) are two early examples of this proto-
guidebook genre. La Guide des Chemins de France
(1552–53), a brainchild of Charles ESTIENNE, appeared
under varying titles in a number of editions in the second
half of the 16th century and into the 17th. The availabil-
ity of such practical publications by the early 17th century
is assumed in BACON’s advice in his essay “Of Travel,” that
the traveler should “carry with him...some card or book
describing the country where he travelleth.”
More generalized guidance was made available to
English travelers in Certaine briefe and speciall instructions
for Gentlemen, merchants, students, Souldiers, marriners ...
employed in service abrode or anie way occasioned to con-
verse in the kingdomes and governements of forren Princes
(1589), the translation by clergyman Philip Jones of a
Latin tract by Albertus Meierus, and in Sir Robert Dalling-
ton’s A Method for Travell: Shewed by Taking the View of
France. As it Stoode in ... 1598 (1605). An indication of the
growing tendency to regard travel as an educational expe-
rience is the “De Ratione cum fructu peregrinandi” (1578)
by Justus LIPSIUS, translated and augmented by Sir John
Stradling as A Direction for Travailers (1592) for the bene-
fit of the young Earl of Bedford who was about to embark
on a tour abroad. The sour Elizabethan Puritan comments
on young gentlemen who went abroad and came back
dandified, their heads filled with affectation or Roman
Catholicism, indicate that not all youthful travelers
heeded sage advice.
Although there had always been travelers, such as
CYRIAC OF ANCONA, who used their journeys on other
business to observe matters that interested them, the con-
cept of travel for intellectual stimulus and personal grati-
fication is best exemplified toward the end of the
Renaissance period. Expanding horizons had created a
readership for travel narratives, and some early 17th-cen-
tury British travelers, notably Thomas CORYATE, seem to
have embarked on their journeys mainly out of a sense of
adventure—and the idea that their experiences could be
turned into good copy. In his Totall Discourse of the Rare
Adventures and Painfull Peregrinations of Long Nineteene
Yeares Travayles from Scotland to the most Famous King-
domes in Europe, Asia and Affrica (1632), William Lithgow
(1582–1645), another eccentric traveler, claims to have
walked 36,000 miles, while the Itinerary (1617) of Fynes
MORYSONis an entertaining assemblage of observations,
anecdotes, and vigorously expressed opinions masquerad-
ing as a guidebook.
Further reading: Frans C. Amelinckx and Joyce N.
Megay (eds), Travel, Quest, and Pilgrimage as a Literary
Theme: Studies in Honor of Reino Virtanen (Ann Arbor,
Mich.: Society of Spanish and Spanish American Studies,
1978); Daniel Carey (ed.), Asian Travel in the Renaissance
(Oxford, U.K.: Blackwell, 2003); Andrew Hadfield, Litera-
ture, Travel, and Colonial Writing in the English Renaissance
(Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon Press, 1999); Antoni Maçzak,
Travel in Early Modern Europe, transl. Ursula Phillips
(Cambridge, U.K.: Polity Press and Cambridge, Mass.:
Blackwell, 1995); Christian K. Zacher, Curiosity and Pil-
grimage: The Literature of Discovery in Fourteenth-Century
England (Baltimore, Md: Johns Hopkins University Press,
1976).ttrraavveell 4 47711