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.
CFP: Landscapes & Societies East of the Elbe
posted August 24th, 2009Landscapes 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“
Kalamazoo 2010
posted August 11th, 2009Make 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.
Article wins prize
posted August 4th, 2009Dolly 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.
Welcome to MEHN
posted July 17th, 2009Welcome to Medieval Environmental History Network, a networking site for those working on the environmental history of the Middle Ages.
Environmental history is a growing subdiscipline within medieval history, but those working on the topic are spread out across the globe. The time has come to bring together some of the diverse knowledge and research in the field in one place. The idea of the site is to provide links to researchers’ pages, articles / books, and conference announcements particularly aimed at medieval environmental historians. The site can also be used to facilitate exchange of teaching resources and research ideas.
WCEH medieval papers
posted July 17th, 2009There will be many sessions with papers on medieval history at the 1st World Congress of Environmental History in Copenhagen, Denmark, 4-8 August 2009. Look for these in your program:
Session 2.5, Mapping global agricultural history 2: Global agricultural systems in Eurasia 1000-1500, Janken Myrdal
Session 2.6, Man’s role in changing the face of a river: (1) From peat river to international trade route. The “birth” of the Western Scheldt estuary as seen from a social-ecological perspective (Belgium-The Netherlands, 12th-16th centuries), Tim Soens; (2) Storm Flooding, Economy and Environment: The Experience of the Tidal Thames 1250-1550, James Galloway
Session 2.7, Climate histories: Connecting Arabic and European medieval documentary data for reconstructing climate, Ruediger Glaser
Session 3.11, Using and abusing wild animals: Cultural Behavior and Animals’ Life: The Relationship between the Tribute and Asiatic Lions’ Crisis (1400-1600), Lei Kang
Session 4.7, Grape & grain: (1) Climatic variations in the Low Countries during the fifteenth century and their impact on economy and society, Chantal Camenisch; (2)The beginning of the grain harvest as a proxy for early summer temperatures, Norfolk c. 1270 AD – 1430 AD, Kathleen Pribyl
Session 4.8, Water management & land use: (1) Historic Ponds in Rural Southern Burgundy: Water management from the Medieval Period through the Present Day, Elizabeth Jones, Scott Madry and Dennis McDaniel; (2) A Multi-Proxy Reconstruction of Environmental and Land Use Changes from Medieval Aged Reservoir and Mill Pond Sediments, Southern Burgundy; Tamara Misner, Marie-Jose Gaillard-Lemdahl, Michael Rosenmeier and Eric Straffin
Session 4.9, In theft and law, life and death: (1) De mortibus animalium: livestock pestilence in Carolingian Europe, c. 750-950 CE, Tim Newfield; (2) Pig Husbandry in Late-Medieval England (1250-1400), Philip Slavin; (3) The Fish of the Sea in Late Medieval law,Tim Sistrunk; (4) Hunting birds to eat in Italy, thirteenth to sixteenth centuries, Cristina Arrigoni Martelli
Session 6.7, Reconstruction of the European climate in the past millennium: (1) Seasonal climate variability and famines in Medieval Europe (1200 to 1499), Christian Pfister; (2) European climate of the past millennium: potential of historical climatology for its understandingand reconstruction, Rudolf Brázdil
Session 7.2, Perspectives on early modern resources: Human effects on landscapes of Bialowieza Primeval Forest in the 14th-18th centuries; Tomasz Samojlik
Session 7.6, The study of modern and pre-modern rivers: Towards a methodology for the study of pre-modern rivers, Robert Babcock
Session 7.12, Eminent domain, sustainability & resistance: (1) Colonized Environments, Rural Resistance, and Moral Ecology in post-Conquest England and Late Medieval Orkney and Shetland, Vicki Szabo; (2) The Roots of Eminent Domain in Natural Resources: Under and Over the Ground in Medieval France, Richard Keyser; (3) Regalian rights in woods as a resource for mining in medieval Serbia, Jelena Mrgic
Session 8.4, Environmental risk & insurance: (1) Managing environmental risks. Society and floods in the Upper Rhine Valley and Tuscany in the Renaissance (ca. 1270-1560), Gerrit Jasper Schenk; (2) Risk Management and Disaster Prevention in the Late Middle Ages. Facing floods in 13th to 16th century Central Europe, Christian Rohr
Session 8.6, Histories of food & the environment: Small is tasteful. Consumption patterns of eel in Northwestern Europe, 1300-1800, Petra J.E.M. van Dam
Session 8.11, Source & resources: (1) Monastic responses to the theft of natural resources in medieval Germany, Ellen Arnold; (2) Is shipbuilding to blame for? Issues for reconstructing local factors affecting the history of medieval Mediterranean forests, Constantin Canavas
Session 9.6 Forests and Energy in northern and central Europe 1400-1850: (1) Woodland Exploitation in Central Europe 1400–1800: Changes vs. Stability, Péter Szabó and Radim Hédl; (2) Holland’s energy economy c. 1400-c. 1600, Charles Cornelisse; (3) Wood and wood products in the English economy, c.1550-1750, Paul Warde
Also look for the following posters:
Beer and Hops in late medieval and early modern Denmark, Stefan Pajung
How extreme where the Floods of River Rhine in the pre-instrumental Period? A novel interdisciplinary approach for reconstructing and quantifying pre-instrumental floods, Oliver Wetter