Environmental History Network for the Middle Ages (ENFORMA)

Environmental History Network for the Middle Ages (ENFORMA) is a virtual network of historians working on environmental history in medieval times. The network is open to anyone interested in this research and teaching field. Recent news items are posted below. For more news and resources, look on the right menu.

The 2011 meeting of the American Society for Environmental History will be held in Phoenix, Arizona, April 12-16. The organizing committee has set “History and Sustainability: Stories of Progress, Hubris, Decline, and Resilience” as the conference theme, which is seen as welcoming papers on earlier periods and parts of the world outside North America. The committee would especially like to see medieval Europe represented in multi-period panels as well as some entire sessions on ancient/medieval/early modern topics. For the latter such ideas as sustainable or stable human/nature relationships; stipulated populations’ demand for food, fiber, fodder, etc., in relation to the ecological dynamics of their geographical range; scarcities and limits, and social response to over-consumption; means of restricting demand; resulting short- and long-term ecological changes have been mentioned. We have many stories about sustainability or its failure and should consider how to tell others about them.

Another centre of interest for Phoenix (as for the Portland meeting this spring) is the environmental history of war. Several panels were recruited for the Portland meeting but organizers were disappointed to have none but the most recent periods. If you have or want to develop a study on war and environment in early Europe, your interest will be most welcome. For now, contact Richard Tucker (rptucker@umich.edu) for further information, but he may pass you on to another committee member.

The conference is open to various formats of panels and presentations. All proposals will be received on line starting in March 2010. The deadline for submission is June 30, 2010.

Organizers of the Phoenix meeting have already planned extensive field trips to explore the desert in spring as well as other activities. The ASEH web site is www.aseh.net

The European Society for Environmental History next meets in Turku, Finland, 28 June-2 July 2011. Posters, papers, and panels are invited. The main conference theme is “Encounters of Sea and Land”. Organizers have suggested such topics as:

• The emergence of environmental crises of the seas
• Phases of conservation of inland waters, seas, and coasts
• Historical perspectives on marine biodiversity
• History of whaling, fishing and overfishing
• Exploitation of marine resources, such as water, gas, oil, seaweeds, in the past
• History of marine pollution including material flows from land to sea
• History of maritime mobility
• Development of catchment areas as environmental and socio-economic systems
• Environmental history of urban coastal areas
• Landscapes and seascapes: changes in the environment and interpretations
• Islands and archipelagos as natural habitats and social communities

Medievalists might also consider such ideas as a set of papers relating human uses of the medieval Baltic and the medieval Mediterranean. Panels on other themes will of course also be supported.  Organizers have mentioned:

• Reconstruction of historical weather and climate, and adaptation to climate change in the past
• Environmental history of the polar regions
• Development of environmental movements
• Dimensions of forest history
• Urban environmental history
• History of man-animal relationship, food supply and biodiversity
• Industrial environmental history
• Production, consumption and waste: commodity chains in environmental history
• Cultural values and economic interests: retrospective environmental analyses
• Theories and methods in environmental history

Talk to colleagues in the medieval field and people who work on other periods, too. For details on submissions and other matters see the conference web site at http://eseh2011.utu.fi/ The deadline for submission is 2010 May 3, so you will have to make your arrangements before we gather in Kalamazoo. The ESEH web site is http://eseh.org

If anyone interested in organizing a medieval panel for the International Water History Association conference in June (see announcement below), please contact Roberta Magnusson (rmagnusson@ou.edu).

Here’s the CFP:
The International Water History Association organizes a Water History Conference in Delft, The Netherlands, in June 16-19 – 2010. The conference will be a unique opportunity to exchange existing and develop new insights on the history of our most precious resources. The conference is co-organized by IWHA, Delft University of Technology and UNESCO-IHE.

The deadline for sunmitting abstracts is January 15, 2010!!

A link to the online abstract submission page can be found at the website conference www.waterhistory2010.citg.tudelft.nl

The program committee welcomes abstracts for individual papers and proposals for complete sessions. Session proposals can either include three papers and a commentator or four papers. It is encouraged to include chairs in the session proposal as well. Proposals for double sessions are possible as well. The conference does not predefine topics for abstracts and sessions. Subjects and topics can range from rivers to drops, from seas to mountain lakes, from technologies to cultures, as long as the subjects are related to water (are “wet”) and historical.

All abstracts, both individual and from session proposals, will be reviewed by the program committee and should be submitted by the main author through the online submission system. Abstracts should not exceed 300 words. In addition, session proposals (consisting of session title, 100 word description, names and affiliations of presenters and titles of their papers, names and affiliations of commentator and chair), should be send separately to the chair of the program committee Maurits W. Ertsen at m.w.ertsen@tudelft.nl

Decisions on acceptance are foreseen to be available on March 15th 2010. The final conference program will be available on May 15th 2010. To appear on the program, presenters with accepted abstracts need to register before April 30th 2010. Registration will open in January 2010

We’re spreading the word about medieval environmental history!

The website Environmental History Resources has released a podcast of an interview with Dolly Jørgensen, co-founder of ENFORMA. In the interview, Dolly talks about the founding of ENFORMA, medieval environmental history as a field, and her own work on sanitation and resource management. Listen to the podcast.

Ellen Arnold and Richard Hoffmann have put together an exciting series of five sessions for the Kalamazoo meeting in May 2010. Here’s a breakdown of what you can expect to see.

Environmental History I-V:  Kalamazoo 2010

I: Medieval Ecological Thinking?: Ideas, Actions, Impacts

Presider: Ellen Arnold, Macalester College

“Landscape and Imagination in Egil’s Saga” Janet Schrunk Ericksen, University of Minnesota, Morris

“Ecology, Crisis and Religious Violence: The Case of the Crusading Movement, c. 1095-1320” Philip Slavin, Yale University

“Looking for Medieval Environmental Consciousness: Popular Protest and Peasant Moral Ecology in Late Medieval Britain” Vicki Szabo, Western Carolina University

II: Exploiting Wild Nature
Presider: William TeBrake, University of Maine

“The Emergence of Early Fishing Communities in pre-modern Iceland” Stuart Morrison, University of Stirling

“Tails and Tales: Fish in Old English Literature and Anglo-Saxon Culture” Todd Preston, Lycoming College

“Hunting around the Padule. Socio-economic, environmental, and legislative considerations on an Italian wetland area from ca. 1300 to 1600” Cristina Arrigoni Martelli, York University

III. Hopes and Hazards of Agropastoralism

Presider: Vicki Szabo, Western Carolina University

“The Contours of an Early Medieval Livestock Pestilence” Tim Newfield, McGill University

“Moving Sheep Through Molise: Medieval Transhumance as a Shaper of the Medieval Environment in Central Adriatic Italy” Kathy Pearson, Old Dominion University

“Soil Concepts and Soil Amendments in Late Medieval Agricultural Literature”  Verena Winiwarter, Alpen Adria University, Klagenfurt

IV. Practical Aspects of Resource Use and Management

Presider: Kathy Pearson, Old Dominion University

“Looking for Watermills, Finding Windmills as Well” Constance Berman, University of Iowa

“Top Down or Bottom Up? Waste Disposal Concerns in Sixteenth-Century Nottingham” Dolly Jørgensen, Norwegian University of Science and Technology

“Six Broadleaves and a Chimney: Vernacular Structures and Managing Timber Resources in Medieval Scotland” Alasdair Ross, Stirling University

V. Understanding Landscapes on Medieval Frontiers

Presider: Richard Hoffmann, York University

“Wise or Foolish Virgins? Monastic Estates and Environmental Change in Northern Europe c.1100 to c.1250” Richard Oram, Stirling University

“From desertum to silva. Perceptions of the Woodland in Thirteenth-Century Silesian Charters” Sébastien Rossignol, York University

“Black Sea Coastal Environments According to Medieval Navigational Tools” Elisaveta Todorova, University of Cincinnati

Tim Newfield (tim.newfield@mail.mcgill.ca) is considering putting together a panel on medieval food shortages for the 2010 International Rural History Conference. Email Tim if you are interested.

We’re trying to come up with an official name for our network. The current leading suggestion is:

Environmental History Network for the Middle Ages (EHN4MA) which can be pronouned as “enforma”.

We had a few other ideas as well, including Medieval Environmental History Network (MEHN), Network of Medieval Environmental History (NOMEH), Historians of the Medieval Environment (HOME) and The History of the Environment in the Middle Ages (THEMA). The most important thing with the name is that it needs to resonate with both the medieval history community and the environmental history community.

Do you have an opinion about the name? If so, add a comment.

Landscapes and Societies in Ancient and Medieval Europe East of the Elbe

Interactions between Environmental Settings and Cultural Transformations

Fourth International Workshop of the Interdisciplinary Association “Gentes trans Albiam – Europe East of the Elbe in the Middle Ages”

Keele Campus of York University, Toronto, 26-27 March 2010

Medieval Europe east of the Elbe presents an interesting field for the investigation of landscape transformations. The area is characterized by many features that clearly distinguishes it from the Mediterranean regions throughout the Middle Ages – absence of Roman traditions, late appearance of Latin culture, colonization movement, chartered towns.

The workshop will bring together a small group of young scholars (16 papers) from North America and Europe working in the fields of archaeology, history, palaeobotany and palaeozoology. Papers in the fields of history, archaeology and related disciplines are invited. The papers should present a link with parts of Europe outside the borders of the Roman Empire as well as with environmental and/or social history. The main focus will be on the medieval period but papers dealing with Antiquity are invited too. Doctoral students and young scholars will be particularly considered. Invitations will depend upon available funding. A publication following the workshop is considered.

Please send a short abstract (less than one page) and a CV by email to one of the organizers by 20 October 2009:

Sunhild Kleingärtner (skleingaertner@ufg.uni-kiel.de)

Sébastien Rossignol (rossigno@yorku.ca)

Donat Wehner (donatwehner@gshdl.uni-kiel.de)

For more information about the research group, see the website of “Gentes trans Albiam – Europe East of the Elbe in the Middle Ages“

Make plans now to attend the 45th International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, Michigan, May 13-16, 2010.

Ellen Arnold (earnold@macalester.edu) has organized three regular paper sessions and one roundtable on medieval environmental history for the 2010 meeting. For those of you participating in the sessions, note that your participant form and abstract must be submitted to Ellen before September 15, 2009. The form is available online.

Dolly Jørgensen was awarded the European Society for Environmental History 2009 publication prize for her article “Cooperative Sanitation: Managing Streets and Gutters in Late Medieval England and Scandinavia,” Technology and Culture 49 (2008), 547-567. All articles on environmental history, broadly defined, in any European language published in 2007 or 2008 were eligible. The prize included a 500 euro cash award as well as reimbursement of travel expenses to the 1st World Congress of Environmental History in Copenhagen.