Description
Book SynopsisBy bringing human-nature interactions to the centre of medieval history, Richard C. Hoffmann provides a reassessment of European life from c. 500 to 1500 CE. This rich study deepens understanding of long and short-term changes in Europe's human society, aquatic organisms, and ecosystems under pressures of natural and human origin.
Trade Review'The Catch represents a landmark contribution to pre-modern environmental history. Its multi-disciplinary approach to the ecosystems, habitats, consumers, and exploiters of medieval fisheries convincingly tracks historic changes in fisheries caused not only by human contact but also by climatic conditions that affected hydrology, biology, and ecology. Supported with numerous charts, maps, and data drawn from research on a wide variety of source material across Europe, Hoffman's study will be the standard work in the field for years to come.' Maryanne Kowaleski, Fordham University
'Richard Hoffman's book is a marvellous synthesis of his lifetime of research into fish, fishing, and fish consumption in the Middle Ages. He has seamlessly integrated historic records, archaeology, fish ecology and biology. The case studies that document the decline of certain species make it crucial reading for fishery biologists as well as historians and archaeologists.' Dale Serjeantson, University of Southampton
Table of ContentsIntroduction; Considering fisheries: medieval Europe and its legacies; 1. 'Natural' aquatic ecosystems around Late Holocene Europe; 2. Protein, penance, and prestige: medieval demand for fish; 3. Take and eat: subsistence fishing in and beyond the Early Middle Ages; 4. Master artisans and local markets; 5. Aquatic systems under stress, ca. 1000–1350; 6. Cultural responses to scarcities of fish; 7. Going beyond natural local ecosystems I: carp aquaculture as ecological revolution; 8. Going beyond natural local ecosystems II: over the horizon toward abundance and 'tragedy'; 9. Last casts: two perspectives on past environmental relations.
