Environmental History Network for the Middle Ages (ENFORMA)

Ellen Arnold, Visiting assistant professor, Macalester College (USA)

I am working on a book manuscript based on my dissertation, “Environment and the Shaping of Monastic Identity.”

Constance Berman, Professor, University of Iowa (USA)

I’m interested in water and wind-powered mills and women’s work in medieval Europe.

Brian Fagan, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Barbara (USA)

Not really a medieval environmental historian, but some of my work has involved the subject, including two books on the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period, also Fish on Friday. I am currently working on a book about humans and water from a global perspective, 10,000 B.C. to A.D. 1860, in which medieval times will pay a significant role.

James Galloway, Researcher, Centre for Metropolitan History, Institute of Historical Research, University of London(UK)

I am currently working on the environmental and economic history of flooding around the tidal river Thames and its estuary in SE England during the later middle ages. My previous research and publications looked at medieval urban hinterlands and provisioning systems – particularly those of London – and the commercial exploitation of woodlands in southern England.

Ruthy Gertwagen, Prof. Dr. for Byzantine, Medieval and early modern history maritime history and marine archaeology, Oranim Academic College and Haifa University (Israel)

Since 2005 I have been occupied with marine environmental history in the framework of Marine Animal Population (HMAP), in which I am the coordinator and teams leader of the Mediterranean and Black Sea.I personally coordinate the project of the Venetian Laguna and the Northern Adriatic (VeLNA), from the 12th century until the 19th. I am currently editing a volume titled When Humanities Meet Ecology. Historic changes in  Mediterranean and Black Sea marine biodiversity and ecosystems since Roman period until nowadays. Languages, methodologies and perspectives, which is the outcome of the HMAP 2009 International Summer School.

Richard Hoffmann, Professor, York University (Canada)

My semi-retirement  from full-time teaching at York U is supposed to free time to complete two book projects, namely:

1) the very long overdue The Catch, an environmental history of medieval European fisheries seen in context of the present-day global fisheries crisis.

2) an interpretive survey An Environmental History of Medieval Europe.

Additional interests include deeper investigation of ecological and economic connections of medieval herring on a pan-European scale, development of state regulation of natural resource use, and the operation of medieval and early modern fish culture enterprises.  The latter includes work with the oldest published and unpublished handbooks on carp culture and reconstructing the metabolic connections of traditional artificial and natural aquatic systems with surrounding agroecosystems.

Dolly Jørgensen, Post-doctoral researcher, Norwegian University of Science & Technology (Norway)

I have written on urban sanitation problems in late medieval towns of England and Scandinavia (based on my dissertation work) and forestry resource management in Anglo-Norman England and Normandy.

Rick Keyser, Assistant professor, Western Kentucky University (USA)

I am working on a book entitled “From Gift to Contract: The Transformation of Medieval Property Dealings, 1100-1350,” which examines a dramatic shift from the cultural and religious values of an informal gift economy to those of a commercial economy subject to formal legal rules.

Roberta Magnusson, Associate professor, Dept. of History, University of Oklahoma (USA)

I have publications on medieval water supplies and technology, with an emphasis on England and Italy. I am currently working on a book on public works in medieval English towns (provisional title: Urbanization and Infrastructure in Medieval England) which will examine bridges, town walls, streets, and water management from the 13th to 16th century.

Tim Newfield, PhD student, Dept. of History, McGill University (Canada)

I am primarily interested in late antique and early medieval outbreaks of disease (human and livestock), subsistence crises and weather/climate. However, I find anything to do with sick animals interesting. My work also addresses how and why we retrospectively diagnose past pestilences and what palaeomicrobiology lends to our knowledge of pre-modern disease.

Aleks Pluskowski, Lecturer, Dept. of Archeology, University of Reading (UK)

I am working on human responses to animals (especially large carnivores) and the construction of human ecological niches across medieval Europe, particularly in the Baltic region in relation to colonisation, crusading and religious conversion.

Tim Sistrunk, Lecturer, Dept. of History, California State University – Chico (USA)

I am interested in Medieval European Environmental Law and am currently writing a monograph that treats changing legal ideas about the natural world from the 12th to the 14th centuries.

Philip Slavin, Economic Growth Center, Yale University (USA)

My two main fields of research are: (1) Agrarian, economic and environmental history of late-medieval Northern Europe, primarily the British Isles; (2) Connection between environmental and economic shocks, on the one hand, and religious fanaticism and popular violence, on the other.

Christoph Sonnlechner, Municipal Archives of Vienna (Austria)

I have publications on the genesis and change of cultural landscapes in Austria (Lower and Upper Austria, Salzburg), Germany and France (Frankish Empire and Cistercian Monasteries). Since 2005 my focus is on towns and their environments. Currently I am working on the consequences of urbanization in the case of Vienna, 12th to 16th centuries: How did the becoming of the medieval town influence the surrounding environments? What sort of interactions between nature and society do we see?

Paolo Squatriti, Associate prof., Dept. of History, U. of Michigan (USA)

Currently I’m working on the history of the diffusion of European chestnut tree in the western Mediterranean region during the Middle Ages. I tend to be most interested in the early medieval end of environmental things, especially in southern Europe.

Péter Szabó, Researcher, Institute of Botany, Czech Academy of Sciences, Brno (Czech Republic)

My main research area is woodland historical ecology. Originally trained as a medievalist, I have published a book on Woodland and Forests in medieval Hungary. Currently I work on Czech woodland history as part of an interdisciplinary team.

Vicki Szabo, Associate professor, Western Carolina University (USA)

I published a book on medieval whaling in the North Sea in 2008. Check out an interview about the book. I will be a Fulbright Scholar in Environmental History at Cardiff University in fall 2009.

Verena Winiwarter, Professor of Environmental History, Alpen-Adria University, Klagenfurt at the IFF, Institute of Social Ecology, Vienna (Austria)

For the past decade I have studied the environmental history of soils, starting in Classical Antiquity and moving up to Liebig, obviously with quite a lot on the Middle Ages to cover. I also teach medieval environmental history in my survey course .

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