Ecological Entanglements and Biodiversity in Late Medieval Northern Europe, 1400-1600

forthcoming

ECOLENT develops a new conceptual-methodological framework to study the impact of ecological entanglements, interconnections between different regions, on biodiversity in a historical context. It will do so by using the late medieval Hanseatic League as a case study. This merchant association bought food products and raw materials in Scandinavia and the Baltic, and exchanged them for manufactured goods in the urbanised Low Countries and England. In this way, they created both economic and ecological connections between different regions of Northern Europe. Humans' modification of ecosystems in one part of the trade network can only be understood by considering it in tandem with interventions in the network's other regions. The project studies the impact of the socio-economic pressures the Hanseatic trade network generated on animal and plant diversity in six regions (Flanders, Guelders, Schleswig, Brunswick-Lüneburg, East Prussia, and Kraków) from 1400 to 1600. It thus draws attention to the history of biodiversity, a subject that has been overlooked in both historical and archaeological studies so far, but whose study has become particularly urgent in the context of current ecological challenges. The methodology developed on the basis of the Hanseatic League's exceptionally rich source material — historical and archaeological — can later be adapted to examine biodiversity in other geographical and chronological contexts. Many scholars have analysed humans' relationship with nature, but none have placed relationships within animal and plant communities at the centre of attention. The main focus has always been on their use as trade commodities. The project proposes a new interpretation of non-human agency that acknowledges both animals' and plants' capacity to respond to environmental stimuli. They did not remain passive towards human attempts to commodify the natural world, even though only few of them were truly agents in their own right. This is their story.