The Ecology of Medieval Militarized Landscapes

Conférence de Sander Govaerts (Universiteit Amsterdam), The Ecology of Medieval Militarized Landscapes.

Dans le cadre du cycle de conférences 2018-19, Topographies : représentations et transformation de l’espace.

Armies and warfare are rarely associated with nature conservation. Yet centuries before the rise of modern environmentalism armed forces made conscious and concerted efforts to protect ecological systems because it served military needs. This presentation considers fortifications and frontiers in the late medieval Meuse Region, the basin of the Meuse River, from an environmental perspective. It emphasizes the key role of armies in constructing and preserving unique landscapes, but also recognises that many actors (animals, plants, and humans; nobles, citizens, and villagers) contributed to landscape diversity. In order to demonstrate the complexity of medieval militarized landscapes a variety of sources will be taken into account (fiscal accounts, charters, literary works, and maps, as well as archeozoological and archeobotanical research).