Trees in the Middle Ages
What did medieval people think of trees? Here are a few observations about the role trees played in the spiritual and cultural life of the Middle Ages.
Ore, Fire, Hammer, Sickle: Iron Production in Viking Age and Early Medieval Iceland
Iron production may be used as a window through which to view, in part, the economic structure of Icelandic society during the Viking Age (c. AD 870-1000) and Early Medieval (AD 1000-1264) periods.
Lightning Strikes in Medieval Florence
Luca Landucci writes about lightning strikes in 15th century Florence.
Environmental Crusading: The Teutonic Knight’s Impact After the Baltic Crusades
Environmental archaeologist and Professor of Archeology at Reading, Dr. Aleks Pluskowski, examined Malbork and several other sites across Eastern and Northern Europe in his recent paper, The Ecology of Crusading: The Environmental Impact of Holy War, Colonisation, and Religious Conversion in the Medieval Baltic. Pluskowski is keenly interested in the impact the Teutonic Knights and Christian colonisation had on the region. His ambitious 4 year project on the ecological changes in this area recently came to a close at the end of 2014.
Local and Traditional on the Millennial Scale: Sustainable Waterfowl Management from Viking Age Iceland
Inhabited by Vikings since approximately 600 AD, the islands hosts an abundant, but terribly fragile resource, puffins, flightless birds that nest on rocky exposed cliffs, in easy range of the islanders other prime food source, pigs.
Tropical fire ants traveled the world on 16th century ships
Thanks to a bit of genetic sleuthing, researchers now know the invasion history of the tropical fire ant, the first ant species known to travel the globe by sea.
The Great Wind of 1362
Some of the most vivid accounts we have from the Middle Ages are those that detail calamities and natural disasters. Such was the case when a massive winter storm struck northwestern Europe on January 15, 1362. In England this event would be called ‘The Great Wind’.
Vikings’ homes would have been very polluted, researchers find
Danish researchers have found that the fires used for cooking and heat in Viking-era houses would have caused significant indoor air pollution.
Winter, snow and cold in the life of the Westviking
The main purpose of this paper is to examine how the Westviking were influenced by winter, snow and cold in their day-to-day life as they were making progress in the West.
Adversus paganos: Disaster, Dragons, and Episcopal Authority in Gregory of Tours
In 589, a great flood of the Tiber river sent a torrent of water rushing through the city of Rome
European Weather Extremes in the Lifetime of Charlemagne (c.742–814 CE)
An army of people, digging for a whole season, yet their efforts end in muddy ruin. Was it a project that was doomed from the start?
Connecting Roman and Medieval Climate and Historical Change: Five Challenges for the 21st Century
Michael McCormick discusses use of latest tools of climate science, human genetics and computer science to better understand the history of Medieval Europe and Rome,
The Contours, Frequency and Causation of Subsistence Crises in Carolingian Europe (750-950)
The Contours, Frequency and Causation of Subsistence Crises in Carolingian Europe (750-950) Timothy P. Newfield Crisis Alimentarias en la Edad Media: Modelos, Explicaciones…
Daily Weather Observations in Sixteenth-Century Europe
Thirty-two weather diaries written in astronomical calendars in central Europe in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries are presented and discussed.
Public Toilets in the Middle Ages
Where should you go to find a public toilet in the medieval city?
Nature Speaks: Expanding Ecocriticism to the Anglo-Saxon World
Ecocroticism is a new, and still emerging, field of literary criticism. Through an interdisciplinary approach, it aims to draw together environmentally focussed work from a wide range of academic fields.
Greenland Norse Knowledge of the North Atlantic
What did the Norse know about climate, and what was the role of driftwood in their lives?
Air Pollution and Fuel Crises in Preindustrial London, 1250-1650
I intend to show in this paper that the occurrence of air pollution in London before the Industrial Revolution was symptomatic of one of these basic environmental problems
Of Fire and Water: The Old Norse Mythical Worldview in an Eco-Mythological Perspective
How do the actions of the gods in these narratives express man’s mythical notions of his relationship with the land and sea in the Scandinavian and North Atlantic ecosystems?
Climatic Change and the North Atlantic Seaways During the Norse Expansion
In order to appreciate how the Norse expansion might have been influenced by climatic fluctuations it is necessary to consider in outline the mechanisms which control weather and climate in the North Atlantic area at the present day, and which also obtained in the past.
The contribution of insect remains to an understanding of the environment of Viking-age and medieval Dublin
This paper examines the important contribution that sub-fossil insect remains can make to an understanding of the environment of Viking-age and medieval Dublin.
First historical evidence of a significant Mt. Etna eruption in 1224
The 1224 Mt. Etna eruption is a significant event both in terms of the mass of erupted materials and because it involved the lower eastern slope of the volcano, reaching down to the sea.
Wax or wane? Insect perspectives on human environmental interactions
The sites discussed in this paper include a range of sites investigated on national road schemes and other development projects across Ireland, covering a long time-span from the Neolithic period through to the medieval period.
Seals and Sea Ice in Medieval Greenland
With a view to placing such developments in the context of changes in the past, the focus of this paper is an interdisciplinary study of the interaction of different seal species in Arctic/North Atlantic regions with sea ice, and, more specifically, the implications for the Norse settlements in Greenland in medieval times.