The Ruralia, Volume 10, includes 27 papers dealing with agrarian technologies in the medieval landscape as seen in different European countries. The subject areas included cultivation, livestock husbandry, gardening, viticulture and woodland management--interpreting the concept of agrarian production in a broad sense--studied mainly on the basis of archaeology, but also using iconography, documentary evidence and archaeo-environmental approaches. The Ruralia, Volume 10, marks an important step on the way towards interpreting innovation, as well as understanding the varieties of agrarian activity from a Europe-wide perspective. The authors from 14 countries provide a broad overview of the current issues, complemented by extensive bibliographies. The Ruralia, Volume 10, represents one of the current fields of European archaeological research and offers a solid foundation for further comparative studies.

This is the first of three planned volumes which deal with the techniques and technology of agriculture in Europe in the period from 600 A.D. down to the 17th century. The focus of this first volume is Scandinavia, the British Isles, Northern Germany, the Low Countries and Northern France. The volume discusses methodological approaches and their limitations, the development of medieval agriculture in terms of the transmission of technological ideas, improvements in productivity, regional variations, social responses to agricultural technology, and those common trends that unite the Northwest European region.The volume integrates material derived from the great advances made in medieval archaeology and the historical study of landscapes during the past 30 years and has a supranational character. It will be of interest to all those working on the social, economic and political history of Northwest Europe in the medieval and early modern periods as well as to those undertaking research in the specific field of the history of technology.Technology and Change in HistoryThis new series of scholarly surveys is intended to offer an updating of the discussion of questions regarding the nature of technology and technological change first broached in the nine-volume survey by R. Forbes: Studies in Ancient Technology. The series will however take in not only the original scope of Forbes' work, namely the Ancient Near East and the Greco-Roman world, but will extend beyond this to cover the medieval and early modern periods.7The volumes in the series will be in English, of 300-800 pp., divided into 10-15 topical chapters and aim to present to scholars, graduate students and to non-specialist scholars the current state of knowledge in the various fields in the history of technology. They collect, assimilate and present facts, opinion, sources, and literature in the accessible way that Forbes did, but will also identify issues that have not been plainly addressed and will in doing so indicate where the field might profitably be going.Including notes and numerous illustrations, the volumes address questions of a primarily historical nature, such as: 1. what technological options were open to peoples at different times and different places? 2. what options did they choose and why? 3. what impact did this have on their contemporaries and successors (and on their technological choices)?Questions and problems more proper to political, social and economic history will also be touched upon, but the starting point and focus of this new series is the history of technology.Volumes planned in the series include:R.J. Curtis: Food Technology in Antiquity (1999)M.-C. Deprez-Masson and N.J. Mayhew (eds.): Metal Technology: 600-1800 A.D. (2001)P. Squatriti (ed.): Medieval Hydrotechnology (2001)O. Wikander (ed.): Ancient Water Technology (1998)G.R.H. Wright: Ancient Building Technology (1999)J. Langdon and G. Astill (eds.): Agrarian Technology in the Middle Ages: Northwest Europe (1996)

The 'Ruralia', Volume 10, includes 27 papers dealing with agrarian technologies in the medieval landscape as seen in different European countries. The subject areas included cultivation, livestock husbandry, gardening, viticulture and woodland management - interpreting the concept of agrarian production in a broad sense - studied mainly on the basis of archaeology, but also using iconography, documentary evidence and archaeo-environmental approaches. The 'Ruralia', Volume 10, marks an important step on the way towards interpreting innovation, as well as understanding the varieties of agrarian activity from a Europe-wide perspective. The authors from 14 countries provide a broad overview of the current issues, complemented by extensive bibliographies. The 'Ruralia', Volume 10, represents one of the current fields of European archaeological research and offers a solid foundation for further comparative studies."--Back cover.

Explores the cultural framework within which changes in agricultural technology and economic organization occur and the ways in which changes in the social fabric influence attitudes toward rural work and the peasantry.

David Stone uses contemporary sources to reconstruct the world of the medieval farmer, and argues against the traditional interpretation of the Middle Ages as economically backward.

Innovations, transmissions and transformations had profound spatial, economic and social impacts on the environments, landscapes and habitats evident at micro- and macro-levels. This volume explores how these changes affected how land was worked, how it was organized, and the nature of buildings and rural complexes.

This is the first of three planned volumes which deal with the techniques and technology of agriculture in Europe in the period from 600 A.D. down to the 17th century. The focus of this first volume is Scandinavia, the British Isles, Northern Germany, the Low Countries and Northern France. The volume discusses methodological approaches and their limitations, the development of medieval agriculture in terms of the transmission of technological ideas, improvements in productivity, regional variations, social responses to agricultural technology, and those common trends that unite the Northwest European region. The volume integrates material derived from the great advances made in medieval archaeology and the historical study of landscapes during the past 30 years and has a supranational character. It will be of interest to all those working on the social, economic and political history of Northwest Europe in the medieval and early modern periods as well as to those undertaking research in the specific field of the history of technology.

This fascinating and important book uses a wealth of contemporary sources to reconstruct the mental world of medieval farmers and, by doing so, argues that these key figures in the Middle Ages have been unfairly stereotyped. David Stone overturns the traditional view of medieval countrymen as economically backward and instead reveals that agricultural decision-making was as rational in the fouteenth century as in modern times. Investigating agricultural mentalities first at a local level and then for England as a whole, Dr Stone argues that human action shaped the course of the rural economy to a much greater extent than has hitherto been appreciated, and challenges the commonly held view that the medieval period was dominated by ecological and economic crises. Focusing in particular on responses to commercial forces and the adoption of agricultural technology, this book has significant implications for our understanding of agricultural development throughout the last thousand years.

Pre-modern critical interactions of nature and society can best be studied during the so-called "Crisis of the 14th Century". While historiography has long ignored the environmental framing of historcial processes and scientists have over-emphasized nature's impact on the course of human history, this volume tries to describe the at times complex modes of the late-medieval relationship of man and nature. The idea of 'teleconnection', borrowed from the geosciences, describes the influence of atmospheric circulation patterns often over long distances. It seems that there were 'teleconnections' in society, too. So this volumes aims to examine man-environment interactions mainly in the 14th century from all over Europe and beyond. It integrates contributions from different disciplines on impact, perception and reaction of environmental change and natural extreme events on late Medieval societies. For humanists from all historical disciplines it offers an approach how to integrate written and even scientific evidence on environmental change in established and new fields of historical research. For scientists it demonstrates the contributions scholars from the humanities can provide for discussion on past environmental changes.