About the ECOMEDS project
Spanning 2500 miles, encompassing over 3000 islands, and connecting the worlds of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, in the Middle Ages the Mediterranean was a place of tremendous traffic in people, goods and ideas. The Mediterranean was home to Muslims, Jews, Christians, to diverse ethnicities, languages, and political entities spread across innumerable landscapes and seascapes - on land inhabiting a shared biome defined by fire and resistance to it, and encompassing a sea of enormous biodiversity, in a complex and dynamic ecosystem. The later Middle Ages were also a period of population pressure, settlement expansion and intense resource extraction, set against a background of significant climate change.
This is the first large-scale study to use commodity trade to understand the relationships between economy, environment and culture within the Mediterranean biome, c.1250-1550. It brings together three distinct strands of research: that of the medieval economy and the development of networks of exchange; environmental history and the impact of ecological instabilities and communal resiliencies on commodity production; and the religions of Christianity, Judaism and Islam, which shaped worldviews and set the contexts for many forms of contact, demand and consumption.
Four commodities will be examined: coral, honey, citrus, and cheese, each representing a different facet of this environment, each embedded in the cultural and economic life of the Mediterranean, and each drawing together networks of producers, merchants, and consumers from different communities. Together, the project will shed light on the long-term genesis and management of the land- and seascapes we inhabit today.
Our objectives
Over five years the project will combine intensive archival research focusing on records of local and long-distance trade, notarial records and institutional accounts, analysed alongside historical climate data, examination of rabbinic responsa and fatwas, and evidence of material and visual culture. We are especially interested in opportunities for cross-disciplinary conversation and collaboration, opening further avenues of inquiry.
To assess environmental change in the medieval Mediterranean in terms of its impact on the production, trade, and consumption of commodities which were the product of particular ecological contexts, and the impact of human intervention within medieval land- and seascapes.
To analyze trade flows of commodities across the Mediterranean and their entry into other trading circuits, both local and trans-regional.
To examine cross-cultural exchange and sites of contact between different communities (particularly different religions), and the ways in which often opposing cultural factors impacted economic decisions.
To investigate how value was created among different communities and in different places over time.
To develop a methodology to achieve these aims through a systematic, holistic analysis of quantitative, qualitative and palaeoclimatological data.