Dynamics of Medieval Landscape. Measure, Environment, Conversion

Intronduction to the volume Dynamics of Medieval Landscape. This introduction by no means wishes to provide a debate on the notion of landscape and its use in art historical scholarship, nor to systematically present all the possible developments of the notion over the last ten years. Constructed around the concepts of “measure”, “environment”, and “conversion”, I wish to outline new directions in which understandings of the dynamics of medieval landscape in art historical and visual studies can expand. These are, as the notion of landscape is, by essence interdisciplinary. The first axis interrogates the potential of “measure” as a heuristic tool for understanding nature and sacred space in the Middle Ages. The second returns to the notion of the environment within premodern cultures, situating it in tension with agricultural technologies, environmental perception, and landscape symbolism. Finally, the concluding axis questions the complex relationship between nature, human interactions, and religious conversion.