Shabby Sightseeing and Naive Newcomers

After hearing Dr. Jenstad's presentations on the Map of Early Modern London site, I was intrigued to learn more about its many capabilities, especially those beyond the map itself. By exploring the website, I stumbled upon an article by Benjamin Barber entitled "London's Early Modern Tourists". This topic piqued my interest because of Helen's participation in travel in All's Well that Ends Well. When I first read the play, I was bothered by the fact that we learned very little of Helen's travels to Florence and what it took to get her there. Traveling alone in this time period, particularly for a woman, would have been exceedingly difficult, especially given that her destination was a major city. This train of thought led to me to the question that I explored using this article, namely, how feasible would it have been in early modern times for a woman to travel into a major city alone?

Using intuition and common sense, I assumed that I would find a traveling horror story in Barber's article; and, using London for a basis, I was not too far off. The article draws from the poem "A Strange Sighted Traveler" and the ballad "The Great Boobee" in order to explain the hardships of early modern travelers. In both stories, a foreigner to London comes to the city and is duped and subsequently robbed by the "nips" and "foists" that frequent tourist destinations. Both of these contemporary sources served to warn travelers about the dangers of visiting a city unaccompanied while scolding London for its lack of control over its criminals. Clearly, traveling alone to London, or any major city for that matter, was no easy feat for any foreigner, though the danger and troubles faced would likely have increased two-fold for an unescorted woman. It seems impossible that a purportedly beautiful young woman such as Helena would have been able to travel by herself from France to Florence without incident.

I feel that this line of inquiry could lead to an argument about the negative aspects of social networking for women in early modern times, namely, the fact that a lone woman had very limited capabilities according to the social constructs of the time. Drawing from this topic, further inquiry could be made into women's social independence and how women's networking abilities often depended on the men that they were acquainted with.