Old English Ecotheology

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Courtney Catherine Barajas
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Exeter Book ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
The Earth ◽  
First Millennium ◽  
The Impact

This book examines the impact of environmental crises on early medieval English theology and poetry. Like their modern counterparts, theologians at the turn of the first millennium understood the interconnectedness of the Earth community, and affirmed the independent subjectivity of other-than-humans. The author argues for the existence of a specific Old English ecotheology, and demonstrates the influence of that theology on contemporaneous poetry. Taking the Exeter Book as a microcosm of the poetic corpus, she explores the impact of early medieval apocalypticism and environmental anxiety on Old English wisdom poems, riddles, elegies, and saints' lives.

Old English Ecotheology

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Courtney Catherine Barajas
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Exeter Book ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
The Earth ◽  
First Millennium ◽  
The Impact

Old English Ecotheology examines the impact of environmental crises on early medieval English theology and poetry. Like their modern counterparts, theologians at the turn of the first millennium understood the interconnectedness of the Earth community, and affirmed the independent subjectivity of other-than-humans. The author argues for the existence of a specific Old English ecotheology, and demonstrates the influence of that theology on contemporaneous poetry. Taking the Exeter Book as a microcosm of the poetic corpus, she explores the impact of early medieval apocalypticism and environmental anxiety on Old English wisdom poems, riddles, elegies, and saints' lives.

Writing the Welsh Borderlands in Anglo-Saxon England

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lindy Brady
Keyword(s):  
Mixed Culture ◽  
Old English ◽  
Border Region ◽  
Exeter Book ◽  
Distinct Region ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Norman Conquest ◽  
Historia Ecclesiastica ◽  
The Impact

Writing the Welsh borderlands in Anglo-Saxon England is the first study of the Anglo-Welsh border region in the period before the Norman arrival in England, from the fifth to the twelfth centuries. Its conclusions significantly alter our current picture of Anglo/Welsh relations before the Norman Conquest by overturning the longstanding critical belief that relations between these two peoples during this period were predominately contentious. Writing the Welsh borderlands in Anglo-Saxon England demonstrates that the region which would later become the March of Wales was not a military frontier in Anglo-Saxon England, but a distinctively mixed Anglo-Welsh cultural zone which was depicted as a singular place in contemporary Welsh and Anglo-Saxon texts. This book studies how the region of the Welsh borderlands before 1066 was depicted in a group of texts from early medieval Britain which have traditionally been interpreted as reflecting a clear and adversarial Anglo/Welsh divide. Chapters focus on some of the most central literary and historical works from Anglo-Saxon England, including Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, Latin and Old English Lives of St. Guthlac, the Old English Exeter Book Riddles, and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. These texts depict the Welsh borderlands region differently than the rest of Wales — not as the site of Anglo/Welsh conflict, but as a distinct region with a mixed culture. Writing the Welsh borderlands in Anglo-Saxon England alters our understanding of how the Anglo-Saxons and Welsh interacted with one another in the centuries before the Norman arrival. It demonstrates that the region of the Welsh borderlands was much more culturally coherent, and the impact of the Norman Conquest on it much greater, than has been previously realised.

Introduction: Early Medieval Earth Consciousness

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Courtney Catherine Barajas
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Exeter Book ◽  
English Poetry ◽  
Turn Of The Millennium ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Old English Poetry ◽  
Religious Lyrics ◽  
Broad Audience ◽  
Aelfric Of Eynsham

The existential threat of environmental collapse loomed large in the early medieval English imagination. In particular, the work of Wulfstan, Archbishop of York and Ælfric of Eynsham pointed to the imminence of the apocalypse. Wulfstan explicitly attributed environmental collapse to human sin, while Ælfric urged the faithful to look hopefully to the post-apocalyptic establishment of a new Earth. The broad audience and didactic intent of these prolific and well-connected theologians makes their work a useful representation of English theology at the turn of the millennium. Similarly, the 10th-century manuscript called the Exeter Book—the largest, most diverse extant collection of Old English poetry, including religious lyrics, obscene riddles, and elegies—may serve as a representative of the contemporaneous poetic corpus.

Old English Ecotheology

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Courtney Catherine Barajas
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Current Climate ◽  
First Millennium ◽  
Climate Crisis

The work of Ælfric and Wulfstan, produced in the shadow of the first millennium, in many ways anticipates the modern field of ecotheology, born in the years preceding the second. Like their modern counterparts, Ælfric and Wulfstan affirmed the interconnectedness of human and other-than-human beings as members of an increasingly fragile Earth community. They affirmed the intrinsic worth of the other-than-human, and the ability of the Earth community to cry against injustice and resist human domination. Crucially, Ælfric and Wulfstan also explicitly condemn humanity’s failure to be faithful custodians of creation. Reading the medieval texts against the modern demonstrates the existence of an Old English ecotheology which anticipates many of the questions raised by the current climate crisis.

The Web of Creation in Wisdom Poems

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Courtney Catherine Barajas
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
The Other ◽  
Active Engagement ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Important Goal ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The World ◽  
The Web

Active engagement with the mysteries of creation was an important goal of Old English wisdom poetry; these poems require audience understanding of the interconnectedness of the Earth community. Exploring kinship connections between human and other-than-human beings, they anticipate modern ideas about the importance of exchange within ecosystems. The Order of the World encourages active engagement with the other-than-human as a means of praising the Creator. Maxims I, in turn, serves as an example of one such poetic attempt, imagining a world in which non-human forces act in familiar, rather than entirely threatening, ways. The Order of the World and Maxims I suggests that early medieval English thinkers understood and affirmed the interconnectedness of the Earth community.

scholarly journals Exploring Roman and early-medieval habitation of the Rhine–Meuse delta: modelling large-scale demographic changes and corresponding land-use impact

2018 ◽  
Vol 97 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 45-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rowin J. van Lanen ◽  
Maurice T.M. de Kleijn ◽  
Marjolein T.I.J. Gouw-Bouman ◽  
Harm Jan Pierik
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Population Growth ◽  
Simulation Modelling ◽  
Roman Period ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Natural Landscape ◽  
First Millennium ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Past Land Use ◽  
Population Numbers

AbstractIn this study we apply an evidence-based approach to model population-size fluctuations and their corresponding impact on land use during the Roman and early-medieval periods in the Rhine–Meuse delta in the present-day Netherlands. Past-population numbers are reconstructed based on Roman and early-medieval settlement patterns. Corresponding impacts of these demographic fluctuations on potential land use are calculated by integrating the newly developed demographic overviews with archaeological and geoscientific data using a new land-use model termed ‘Past Land-Use Scanner’ (PLUS). The primary aims are to reconstruct first-millennium palaeodemographics and to explore the potential of simulation modelling for testing the feasibility of archaeological hypotheses regarding past land use. Results show that in the study area the first millennium AD was characterised by two periods during which major population growth occurred: the middle-Roman period (AD 70–270) and early-medieval period C (AD 725–950). A major demographic decline of 78–85% occurred during the late-Roman period (AD 270–450), after which first-millennium population numbers never again reached middle-Roman period levels. The modelling outcomes demonstrate that the impact of population fluctuations (growth vs decline) on the limits of the natural landscape during the first millennium in general was low. During these thousand years, the natural landscape almost without exception (only scenario D deviates) provided sufficient options for arable farming, meadows and pastures and was not a limiting factor for population growth. These results underline the added value of simulation modelling for testing the feasibility of archaeological hypotheses and analysing human–landscape interactions in the past.

Coda: Old English Ecotheology

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Courtney Catherine Barajas
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Environmental Movement ◽  
Exeter Book ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Earth

The descriptor “medieval” is often used disparagingly to suggest a lack of scientific awareness or curiosity. However, the poetry of the Exeter Book reflects a specific Old English ecotheology, which anticipates by nearly a millennium the modern environmental movement. Indeed, there are lessons to be learned from these Old English ecotheologians. The poetry of the Exeter Book suggests modern earth consciousness and activism can be facilitated by acknowledging the interconnectedness of human and other-than-human beings on Earth; rejecting binaries which see humanity as distinct from (and superior to) nature in favor of a worldview which sees humanity as a part of nature; and finally, recognizing that, environmental crises are an opportunity to grow our relationships with the Earth community.

Formation of Lunar Craters and Bright Rays as a Result of Meteorite Impacts

1962 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 415-418
Author(s):  
K. P. Stanyukovich ◽  
V. A. Bronshten
Keyword(s):  
Explosive Charge ◽  
The Moon ◽  
Meteorite Impacts ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Lunar Craters ◽  
The Impact

The phenomena accompanying the impact of large meteorites on the surface of the Moon or of the Earth can be examined on the basis of the theory of explosive phenomena if we assume that, instead of an exploding meteorite moving inside the rock, we have an explosive charge (equivalent in energy), situated at a certain distance under the surface.

scholarly journals China in medieval Indian imagination: “China”-inspired images in medieval South Asia

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
Jinah Kim
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
Cultural Exchanges ◽  
Imperial Power ◽  
Physical Presence ◽  
Different Types ◽  
First Millennium ◽  
Chinese Buddhists ◽  
Medieval India ◽  
The Impact ◽  
India And China

Abstract Cross-cultural exchanges between India and China during the first millennium are often understood through a Buddhist lens; by investigating the impact of Indian Buddhist sources, be they literary, doctrinal, or artistic, to receiving Chinese communities. In these cultural transactions, instigated by traveling pilgrim-monks and enacted by imperial power players in China, India emerges as a remote, idealized, and perhaps “hollow” center. Imagined or real, the importance of images of India in medieval Chinese Buddhist landscape has been established beyond doubt. What seems to be missing in this unidirectional looking is the impact of these cultural communications in India. What were the Indian responses to Chinese Buddhists' demands and their physical presence? How was China imagined and translated in medieval India? This essay proposes to locate the activities of Chinese monks in India and the iconographies of China-inspired Indian Buddhist images within the larger historical context of shifting cultural and political geography of the medieval Buddhist world. By exploring different types of evidence from borderlands, vis-à-vis the monolithic concepts of China and India, the essay also complicates the China–India studies' comparative model.

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