Metaphors of travel and journeying are everywhere in medieval literature, from Augustine, Bonaventure, and Dante to concepts of mental pilgrimage and the homo viator motif. This project more specifically focuses on texts that connect monastic pedagogy/didactics and liturgy through travel imagery and more generally through temporal-spatial movement and mental navigation and orientation. Two central treatises on didactics and the liberal arts in the 12th century, Honorius Augustodunensis’ De exilio et patria animae and Hugo of St. Victor’s Didascalicon, present the path to wisdom (sapientia) as a path from exile to homeland, to salvation and God. I will show that this temporal-spatial movement mirrors the structure and dynamics of the liturgy and that this mirroring is by no means accidental but rather points to how the liberal arts and liturgy are integrated through wayfinding as a cognitive and didactic concept.
The concept of wayfinding is in dialogue with the medieval travel topos and specifically with the primary sources for this project, but it is first and foremost a theoretical term that refers to the process of navigating into the future, through physical, social and conceptual surroundings. Wayfinding is linked to the concept of prospection: the generation and evaluation of mental representations of possible futures that result in actions and choices.
The project is connected to two research collaborations – “Eco-emotions” and “Translatio – Medieval Temporalities” – and links theoretical perspectives from temporality studies, emotion studies, environmental studies, and cognitive studies. The project will result in a monograph titled Wayfinding with Monks.
Presentations of the project
2026
- Engh, Line Cecilie (July 2026): The paper “Wayfinding with Monks,” presented at Cognitive Futures Conference on "Stories in Mind. Narrative in Cognition and Culture", Lisbon.
- Engh, Line Cecilie (September 2026): Eco-Emotions seminar, presenting forthcoming publication: Wayfinding with Monks (Cambridge University Press in the series Elements on Histories of Emotions and the Senses).
2025
- Engh, Line Cecilie (June 2025): The paper “Wayfinding with Honorius,” presented at the workshop “Prospection: Navigating Possible Futures in the Middle Ages” (co-organizer), Cork University College and Dublin Institute for Advanced Study, Ireland.
- Engh, Line Cecilie (Nov 2025): Evening Lecture at the Norwegian Institute in Rome: “Wayfinding with Monks”.
2024
- Engh, Line Cecilie (June 2024): The paper “Emotions in memory. A historical inquiry into ancient and medieval theories of cognition,” presented at the conference “Cognitive Futures in the Arts and the Humanities,” University of Catania, Italy.