Riding with Chaucer: An Immersive Pilgrimage

Riding with Chaucer: an Immersive Pilgrimage (RWCIP), a new concept being developed by primary investigator Joanne Findon at Trent University and a team of interdisciplinary scholars, will recreate a digital version of fourteenth-century London and Kent, building on the work of archaeologists and historians, in order to permit those who enter to accompany the various pilgrims on the road from central London toward Canterbury Cathedral. Through RWCIP, users will be transported through this immersive vehicle to a fascinating past world, scarred by the trauma of the Great Plague but also marked by rapid cultural change and social mobility, increasing resistance to older hierarchies, and the emergence of our modern notions about romantic love. RWCIP will thus build knowledge and understanding about these people and their society among twenty-first-century users, who will be better able to appreciate its abiding connections with their lives today. The importance of this project also extends beyond knowledge mobilization and into potential avenues of research. Visualizing the past permits scholars also to become immersed in a complete past world, and this can lead to new conclusions and paradigms as specialists are able to have an embodied experience within the virtual space. The exigencies of recreating the past through a digital medium requires new archival approaches and collaborative, interdisciplinary effort, and can permit scholars to develop new conclusions due to new perspectives.