Society and Environment in Early Medieval Europe

During the early Middle Ages the center of European politics shifted from the Mediterranean to the northwest of Europe. The proposed project suggests having a look at environmental factors for explaining this shift. Recent studies made clear that the introduction of new plants like rye and oats into European agriculture took place during the early Middle Ages. These plants grew best in the climate north of the Alps, where they found ideal growing conditions due to humidity and suitable soils. The applicant assumes that the introduction of these cereals combined with the emergence of a land-use system based on small economic units (mansus, colonica ), very often to be detected in the form of the bipartite seigniorial system, created an extremely successful and relatively stable system of farming. The proposed project wants to research land-use strategies in late Merovingian and Carolingian times, ca. 700-900. It is assumed that after the breakup of the Roman empire land-use systems in Europe became more decentralized due to the lack of a central authority. Very specific types of localized agriculture emerged, forming highly sophisticated agro-ecosystems. With the rise of the Carolingians, a lot of former independent European regions like Provence, Bavaria, Saxony and Aquitaine were (re-)conquered and integrated into the Carolingian empire. The proposed project will research how these new territories were integrated by the implementation of the Frankish land-use systems. It is believed that a central system of land-use, the bipartite one, based on the mansus established first in the Paris-Basin led to an agricultural surplus necessary for successful warfare and conquering of land, but also for the cultural development in the Carolingian Renaissance (Renovatio). Land was the interface between man and nature and the most valuable resource in a solar based energy system. The so-called `mansus-system` (`Hufenverfassung) was needed, and therefore pushed, by the central Carolingian authority to provide decision makers with an overview and to recruit people. On the other hand, the mansus seems to have been a very flexible physical, social and ecological unit, to be applied to several natural environments from plains to mountains. Perception of land by early medieval people and institutions on the one hand, and understanding of agricultural practices and production systems on the other hand will be investigated, examining interactions between society and nature as being observable in the establishment and change of agro-ecosystems.

During the early Middle Ages the center of European politics shifted from the Mediterranean to the northwest of Europe. This project aimed at having a look at environmental factors for explaining this shift. During the early Middle Ages an introduction of new plants like rye and oats into European agriculture took place. These plants grew best in the climate north of the Alps, where they found ideal growing conditions due to humidity and suitable soils. In the course of this project an investigation referring to the question was made whether the introduction of these cereals combined with the emergence of a land-use system based on small economic units (mansus, colonica ), very often to be detected in the form of the bipartite seigniorial system, created an extremely successful and relatively stable system of farming. The project researched land-use strategies in Carolingian times, approximately 700-900. It was assumed that after the breakup of the Roman Empire land-use systems in Europe became more decentralized due to the lack of a central authority. Very specific types of localized agriculture emerged, forming highly sophisticated agro- ecosystems. With the rise of the Carolingians, a lot of former independent European regions like Provence, Bavaria, Saxony and Aquitaine were (re-)conquered and integrated into the Carolingian empire. Within this project a research on how these new territories, especially Bavaria and Provence, were integrated by the implementation of the Frankish land-use system, was carried out. It was made likely that a central system of land-use, the bipartite one, based on the mansus established first in the Paris-Basin led to an agricultural surplus necessary for successful warfare and conquering of land, but also for the cultural development in the Carolingian Renaissance (Renovatio). Land was the interface between man and nature and the most valuable resource in a solar based energy system. The so-called `mansus-system` (`Hufenverfassung`) was needed, and therefore pushed, by the central Carolingian authority to provide decision makers with an overview and to recruit people. On the other hand, the mansus seems to have been a very flexible physical, social and ecological unit, to be applied to several natural environments from plains to mountains. Perception of land by early medieval people and institutions on the one hand, and understanding of agricultural practices and production systems on the other hand were examined within the frame of this project.