Landscapes and Societies in Medieval Europe East of the Elbe—Interactions Between Environmental Settings and Cultural Transformations

Volume 24 in Papers in Medieval Studies from the Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies is an unusual book. It is the result of a conference on the results of an interdisciplanary project to reconstruct a picture of life in medieval Eastern Europe. The project (called Gentes trans Albium) brought together experts on the physical evidence of people, plants, animals, and landscapes (archeologists, paleobotanists, paleozoologists, geologists, soil scientists, geographers) with scholars who specialize in written documents from the same places and times. The book contains fifteen essays, and an introduction by the editors on perceptions, reconstructions, and interdisciplinary research. Part one looks at central Europe in the early middle ages: Odra River basin, the Carolingian Empire, Baltic seaports, and areas affected by livestock diseases 400-1000 CE. Part two looks at Wagria and the Polabian Slavs in the central middle ages: reconstructing settlement history by pollen records; network analysis; evidence of metalworking. Part three looks at Sileasia, Poland, and Hungary in the high medieval transformation period. Part four looks at the Baltic Sea area in the high and late middle ages. The book ends with remarks on the project and thoughts for future research. One essay is in French; the others are in English. There is variable mastery of skilled English writing style but a general determination to keep the information clear and accessible to anyone interested in the topic, regardless of their field. The book will be of interest mostly to scholars of the era, but in a wide range of fields, and to anyone interested in how interdisciplinary and international research can shed new light on the past. Annotation c2013 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)