ABSTRACT
In that delightful book, Le Livre de la description des pays Gilles le Bouvier measures the extent of fifteenth-century France by the number of days required to traverse it. The only extensive investigation into the problem of how far persons could and did travel in the Middle Ages is that of Ludwig into the speed of travel and marching in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In the present investigation the thorny problem of mileage traversed by travellers has been met by taking distances between points on a modern road map. The recommended day's journey within France was fourteen miles from Avignon to Carpentras, thirty-six from Carpentras to Séderon, thirty from Séderon to Tallard, twenty-four from Tallard to Embrun, thirty from Embrun to Briançon, and thirty-two from Briançon to Susa, the average being twenty-eight miles a day. This is a fairly high speed, considering the hilly nature of the terrain.
