Environment and society in Byzantium, 650-1150 : between the oak and the olive / Alexander Olson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Olson, Alexander, author.

Series:

New approaches to Byzantine history and culture

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Environmental conditions.

Forests and forestry.

History.

Nature and civilization.

Europe--History--476-1492.

Europe.

Social history.

Ecology.

Nature and civilization--Greece--History--To 1500.

Forests and forestry--Greece--History--To 1500.

Byzantine Empire--Environmental conditions.

Byzantine Empire.

Greece.

Physical Description:

xi, 258 pages ; 22 cm.

Place of Publication:

Cham : Palgrave Macmillan, 2020.

Summary:

This book illuminates Byzantines' relationship with woodland between the seventh and twelfth centuries. Using the oak and the olive as objects of study, this work explores shifting economic strategies, environmental change, and the transformation of material culture throughout the middle Byzantine period. Drawing from texts, environmental data, and archaeological surveys, this book demonstrates that woodland's makeup was altered after Byzantium's seventh-century metamorphosis, and that people interacted in new ways with this re-worked ecology. Oak obtained prominence after late antiquity, illustrating the shift from that earlier era's intensive agriculture to a more sylvan middle Byzantine economy. Meanwhile, the olive faded into the background, re-emerging in the eleventh and twelfth centuries thanks to the initiative of people adapting yet again to newly changed political and economic circumstances. This book therefore shows that Byzantines' relationship with their ecology was far from static, and that Byzantines' decisions had environmental impacts.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: 1. Introduction

2. Middle Byzantium's Environmental and Economic Antecedents

3. An Evergreen Empire

4. The Decline of the Olive in Middle Byzantium

5. Rearranging Woods and Scrub

6. The Return of the Olive

7. The Devil Chops Wood

8. Conclusion.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 239-254) and index.

ISBN:

9783030599355

3030599353

OCLC:

1220858455

Publisher Number:

99986099115

9783030599355