An environmental history of the Middle Ages : the crucible of nature / / John Aberth

• Record Nr.: UNINA9910810786403321
• Autore: Aberth John <1963-, >
• Pubbl/distr/stampa: London ; ; New York : , : Routledge, , 2013
• ISBN: 1-136-26302-0; 1-283-91932-X; 0-203-10769-1; 1-136-26303-9
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (345 p.)
• Disciplina: 304.2094/0902
• Soggetti: Human ecology - Europe - History - To 1500; Nature - Effect of human beings on - Europe - History - To 1500; Four elements (Philosophy) - Social aspects - Europe - History - To 1500; Forests and forestry - Europe - History - To 1500; Animals - Europe - History - To 1500; Human-animal relationships - Europe - History - To 1500; Middle Ages; Europe Environmental conditions; Europe Social conditions To 1492; Europe History 476-1492
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Note generali: "Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada"--T.p. verso.
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references (p. [235]-307) and index.
• Nota di contenuto: Part I. Air, Water, Earth -- In the Beginning ... -- Worshipping the Elements -- The Medieval Warm Period -- Harnessing the Elements -- Collaboration, or Exploitation? -- The Little Ice Age -- Earth, Wind, and Death -- Environmental Causes of the Plague -- Man-Made Pollution of the Environment -- The Poison Thesis -- Weather Magic -- Part II. Forest -- Pre-Christian Tree Cults -- Surviving Wildwood at the Start of the Middle Ages -- The Early Medieval Woodland -- An Era of Great Clearances? -- A Brief History of the Royal Forest of England -- The Evidence of the Eyre Rolls -- Managing the King's Woods -- ; Disafforestment and the Rise of Private Woodland -- The Management of Woods Elsewhere -- Shaping the Idea of Wilderness -- A Renaissance in Regrowth of the Forest? -- Part III. Beast -- Animals on the Farm : The Early Middle Ages -- Animals on the Farm : The High and Late Middle Ages -- Animals as Pets and Companions -- Animals of the Hunt : Origins of Medieval Hunting -- Animals of the Hunt : Deer and Other Game -- Animals of the Hunt : Romance vs. Reality -- Animals of the Hunt : Falconry and Fishing -- Animals and Disease -- Animals on Trial -- Animals in the Bed -- Animals and Magic -- Afterword.
• Sommario/riassunto: The Middle Ages was a critical and formative time for Western approaches to our natural surroundings.?An Environmental History of the Middle Ages is a unique and unprecedented cultural survey of attitudes towards the environment during this period. Humankind's relationship with the environment shifted gradually over time from a predominantly adversarial approach to something more overtly collaborative, until a series of ecological crises in the late Middle Ages. With the advent of shattering events such as the Great Famine and the Black Death, considered efflorescences of the clima