People on the Move in Late Medieval Europe

Dear Colleagues,

Since the so‑called “mobility turn” in historiography and the social sciences in the 1990s, scholars have increasingly shown that human mobility and migration are not exclusively modern phenomena brought about by industrialisation and urbanisation. Although this perspective developed gradually, research on the late medieval period (12th–15th centuries) has decisively overturned earlier assumptions that these centuries were characterised solely by limited population movement, growing insularity or nascent nationalism. Instead, the late Middle Ages emerge as a pivotal era in the history of mobility—one in which movement played an essential role in many people’s lives and important frameworks for regulating migration first took shape.

Despite significant progress, our understanding of mobility and migration in late medieval Europe remains uneven, shaped in part by the fragmentary nature of surviving sources. Even as scholars work to recover the experiences of ordinary people on the move, research still tends to privilege the lives of social elites such as merchants, diplomats and members of the clergy. Notably, the gendered dimensions of mobility remain insufficiently understood and women’s experiences—both as independent actors and within households—often remain obscured.

There is also a continued tendency to treat permanent relocation as the dominant model of migration. Short-distance, temporary, seasonal, cyclical and other forms of movement are often neglected, underscoring the full spectrum of late medieval mobility. At the same time, studies still tend to frame transnational migration as a primarily intra-European phenomenon, underestimating connections between Europe and other regions. Similarly, the presence and movement of racialised or minority groups, especially in Western Europe, is often assumed to become significant only in the early modern period, although recent research challenges this view.

This Special Issue of Histories seeks to broaden and rebalance our understanding of mobility and migration in late medieval Europe by engaging with a wide range of perspectives and addressing persistent gaps and biases. We seek original contributions that explore, but are not limited to, the following themes:

• Experiences of mobility among non‑elite groups;
• Gendered dimensions of mobility and migration;
• The role of race and racialisation in shaping mobility patterns;
• Forms of mobility beyond permanent migration, including temporary, return, step, transit, cyclical and seasonal movements;
• Agency in migration decisions and various forms of coerced or forced migration;
• Refugee mobility and displacement;
• Internal, domestic and short‑distance migration;
• Human mobility between Europe and other continents;
• Logistics and infrastructures of mobility, including routes, institutions and infrastructures of arrival.

We encourage the submission of papers that draw solely on historical methods, as well as those that integrate insights from other disciplines.

Dr. Bart Lambert
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Histories is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1200 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• late medieval Europe
• medieval mobility
• migration history
• non‑elite migration
• gender and mobility
• race and racialisation in medieval Europe
• short‑distance migration
• temporary migration
• forced migration and displacement
• transregional and intercontinental connections