An Environmental History of the Middle Ages: The Crucible of Nature

This is the first survey of attitudes towards the environment in the Middle Ages, which was a critical and formative time for Western approaches to our natural surroundings. This was a time of fundamentally competing perspectives on the environment, with the belief that natural resources were put on earth for man’s exploitation at war with the view that saw humankind as a steward of God’s creation. Taking the entire medieval period from 500 to 1500 across the whole of Europe, from England and Spain across to the Baltic and Eastern Europe and focusing on the key areas of air, water, earth, wood and animals, John Aberth sheds new light on the medieval mindset which will be essential reading for all those interested in the Middle Ages.