Description
Book SynopsisHow did medieval Europeans use and change their environments, think about the natural world, and handle the natural forces affecting their lives? This is a pioneering survey of medieval relations with the natural world which integrates approaches from social and economic history and environmental studies.
Trade Review'Contains the wisdom, and embodies the experience, gained from a career spent presenting this most interdisciplinary of subjects to classes of humanities students shy of science and nervous of numbers. The result is an accessible, readable and thought-provoking book with which any historian, environmental or otherwise, ought to be able to engage.' Bruce M. S. Campbell, The English Historical Review
'… [Richard Hoffman] has provided a rich overview of medieval daily life and thought with regard to the natural environment. He does not only focus on the interaction between nature and humans, but also contextualizes his findings in a larger framework of economic and social history, and the histories of law and mentalities. The book will serve as a readable introduction for students and scholars of medieval history, as well as enable specialists in environmental history to build on his work … an essential book and a work to use as a reference for all medievalists and environmental historians.' Christian Rohr, Speculum
Table of ContentsIntroduction: thinking about medieval Europeans in their natural world; 1. Long no wilderness; 2. Intersecting instabilities: culture and nature at medieval beginnings (c.400–900); 3. Humankind and God's creation in medieval minds; 4. Medieval land use and the formation of traditional European landscapes; 5. Medieval use, management, and sustainability of local ecosystems 1: primary biological production sectors; 6. Medieval use, management, and sustainability of local ecosystems 2: interactions with the non-living environment; 7. 'This belongs to me …'; 8. Suffering the uncomprehended: disease as a natural agent; 9. An inconstant planet, seen and unseen, under foot and overhead; 10. A slow end of medieval environmental relations; Afterword.
