|
|
|
Book Review
| Inventing Medieval Landscapes: Senses of Place in Western Europe. Edited by John Howe and Michael Wolfe. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2002. ix + 237 pp. Illustrations, maps, notes, list of contributors, index. Cloth $59.95.
|
| This volume challenges the widely but erroneously held belief that nature in the Middle Ages meant primeval forests. It demonstrates instead that medieval people created their landscape, and that the distinction between wilderness and cultivation was blurred. The articles encompass a wide range of topics from hunting to literary landscapes, arranged in an order ascending from the material to the spiritual. |
1
|
|
The first section focuses on the management of landscapes. An essay on the English countryside by Oliver Rackham demonstrates that medieval England had no wildwood, but instead different forms of land management even on noncultivated land: heath, fen, moorland, grassland, and woodland. John Cummins studies the development of English deer parks, created for hunting as miniature ideal forests. Petra van Dam analyzes rabbit farming; the establishment of warrens in northern Europe led to the spread of rabbits, and with the promotion of rabbit meat for consumption, eventually rabbit fur also gained in popularity, replacing squirrel fur on the market. Karl Appuhn scrutinizes a report from 1442 on Venice's supply of firewood, which treated forests as part of the Venitian water management system, rather than in their own right. |
2
|
|
The second section addresses the meaning of landscapes. Nicholas Howe shows how Anglo-Saxons described features of the landscape, such as burial mounds or ditches, that they inherited; how their charters enumerated bridges, fences, roads, and so on to trace boundaries; and finally how descriptions of landscape were used to reflect inner moods of crisis. Thomas Glick examines the patterns of land use connected to irrigation, the primacy of a water source in determining settlement, and peasant knowledge of crops and agricultural practices in Islamic Iberia. Janina Safran describes how the literary representation of al-Andalus moved from one of an alien, dangerous land in the ninth century to one reflecting confident Muslim domination in the tenth century. Bridget Henisch explores gardening practices revealed by medieval illuminations; the small formal garden displayed the gardener's skill in taming and controlling nature. |
3
|
|
The third section groups together essays on imaginary landscapes. Lisa Bitel investigates the relationship between women and the success of settlement in Ireland in the Book of the Taking of Ireland: The successful invasion was due to a group who conformed to biblical precepts on the place of women. Laura Howes considers the intertwined nature of narrative time and literary landscapes in Middle English poetry; space was revealed through the movement of the characters in these stories, and narrative itself was often organized through the use of space in journeys or visions. |
4
|
|
Finally, John Howe analyzes the ways in which medieval people related to sacred space: Christian sacred places were not simply Christianized versions of pagan ritual places, but original creations, as the "pleasant place," the "place of horror" and "sacred centers" demonstrate. The book is innovative in its broad approach to medieval landscapes, and will provide interesting case studies for an academic public, including graduate students and scholars. |
5
|
|
Nora Berend is a lecturer in medieval history at the University of Cambridge. Her publications include At the Gate of Christendom: Jews, Muslims and 'Pagans' in Medieval Hungary c. 1000-c. 1300 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). |
Content in the History Cooperative database is intended for personal, noncommercial use only. You may not reproduce, publish, distribute, transmit, participate in the transfer or sale of, modify, create derivative works from, display, or in any way exploit the History Cooperative database in whole or in part without the written permission of the copyright holder.
|