What is best when considering Europe's abandoned farmland? Should it be returned to more extensive - traditional and even Medieval - ways of sylvo-pastoral forms of cultivation? Or should it be rewilded with large grazers? Or left to its own devices?
New method overlaying old and modern maps reveals what the medieval landscape in Denmark might have looked like
This summer, 2023, wildfires have once again laid waste large areas of Southern Europe. A tenth-century conflagration provides a fascinating comparison between medieval and present times.
Bislich, where the grave of Bodi was discovered more than fifty years ago, lies in the middle of a protected river landscape well worth visiting
In Andalusia, the dehesa landscape dominates. The question is whether the protection of the dehesas serves to safeguard the cultural heritage or the biodiversity?
Rewilding can’t alleviate all the climate challenges we face. However, it does offer a precious contribution, namely a decisive upgrade of carbon sequestration in forests, grassland and tundras. With biodiversity as an added bonus.
The essence of the medieval Christian landscape was encapsulated in the idea of the beloved place of pleasure, Paradise
During the first millennium, northern and eastern Europe was sparsely populated and devoid of anything but wilderness. How did it feel to live in this medieval world?
Turning the map of Europe upside down, we see a peculiar peninsula on either side surrounded by the Mediterranean and the Baltic, from where it struts into the Atlantic Ocean.
How did people in the Middle Ages view their surroundings? What was their idea of a livable world? Which part was sacred? What profane? And what was wilderness? Did they even think of their world inside these dichotomies?
The history of medieval landscapes tells us of forests, groves and meadows sourced for wild edible plants and other fauna, which might help to survive despite fragile economic situations
The history behind the castle-building on hilltops in the medieval Mediterranean landscape – the incastellamento or incastellation – is nuanced
Between Jülich and Düren in Northern Rhineland lies a bleak landscape scarred by lignite mining. Beneath lies a precious time warp of a medieval landscape