[Serious] Is the Past Real?

[Angrboda]

If I were to travel to the time of Chaucer's meal, would I deterministically land in his actual past, or only probabilistically?

Maybe it depends on how you travel. Any ideas?

And what, precisely, does 'actual past' mean in this context?

I would brace myself against the shoulder of Orion, lasso a black hole and swing it 'round the nebulas until it doubled back on itself and slingshotted me there.