Space, Body, Action: The Significance of Perceptions in the Study of the Environmental History of Early Medieval Europe

Abstract

The study of ecological history tends to centre on long-term changes in the physical environment and in the patterns of interconnections between the environment and humans. Little work has been done on the history of perceptions of the environment and the attitudes that may result from them. In this essay, I argue that these perceptions are culture specific and change con comitantly with its transformations. I use early medieval European attitudes towards the physical environment as a case study which I pursue in three directions: changing conceptions of space; modes of behaviour as attitudes towards the human body; and categories of action. Together, the three form a pattern which has determined attitudes towards the physical environment.