Monsters, Marvels and Miracles

Download or read book Monsters, Marvels and Miracles written by Leif Søndergaard and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: People at all levels of medieval society were extremely fascinated by the strange and unknown in the world around them. They tried in various ways to cope with the unfamiliar mysterious, monstrous, marvellous, and miraculous forces in order to understand them and give them a coherent meaning. Voyages were undertaken to remote parts of Asia. Some journeys were real, while others were mere "armchair travels". Most people took the descriptions in travel accounts to be the ultimate truth about the mysterious places in lands far away from Europe. Scholars formed a general view of the God-created cosmos and its seemingly mysterious character, expressed in encyclopedic works, summae, and in medieval maps. Monsters, Marvels and Miracles examines such journeys and landscapes in the Middle Ages.