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Many Waters: An Environmental History of Valencia, 1300-1500.

紀錄類型:	書目-電子資源 : Monograph/item
正題名/作者:	Many Waters: An Environmental History of Valencia, 1300-1500./
作者:	Agresta, Abigail Newton.
出版者:	Ann Arbor : ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, : 2016,
面頁冊數:	388 p.
附註:	Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 78-04, Section: A.
Contained By:	Dissertations Abstracts International78-04A.
標題:	European history. -
電子資源:	https://pqdd.sinica.edu.tw/twdaoapp/servlet/advanced?query=10150423
ISBN:	9781369053364

Many Waters: An Environmental History of Valencia, 1300-1500.
Agresta, Abigail Newton.

Many Waters: An Environmental History of Valencia, 1300-1500. - Ann Arbor : ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, 2016 - 388 p.

Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 78-04, Section: A.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Yale University, 2016.

This item must not be added to any third party search indexes.

How did medieval people think about the environments in which they lived? In a world shaped by the hand of God, how did they understand their own capacity for action? This dissertation is an analysis of the relationship between God, human beings, and nature, as imagined by the city council of Valencia in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It argues, first, that the landscape of Valencia was understood to be a human construction, shaped primarily by human will. Second, that the ways in which the city council sought to shape this landscape, particularly within the city, reflect their understanding of its religious past and present. And third, that the council's religious responses to natural disaster were not the result of ignorance or helplessness, but rather moves to stake a claim for the city on a special relationship with God. This relationship was best articulated by Dominican preacher and Valencia native Vicent Ferrer, who described Christians as the legitimate children of God, Jews and Muslims as his bastard children, and nature as a surly slave girl charged with their care. Though nature was understood to act independently of her master, her agency was not considered legitimate, and her whims presented opportunities for Christians to claim their status as God's true-born children. The landscape of Valencia had for centuries been shaped by humans to suit human concerns. After its conquest by the Christian king of Aragon in 1238, Valencia was the only kingdom in Europe with a minority Christian population. The kingdom's Islamic past was evident not only in people who remained on the land, but in the very landscape that made it a prize worth conquering: a network of canals that irrigated the arid land around the city, making it one of the richest agricultural areas in the Mediterranean. Starting in the second half of the fourteenth century, the city government began to build on this legacy of landscape control, initiating a series of construction projects intended to restore and reshape the landscape for the health and prosperity of the city. The council's confidence in these projects remained unwavering despite the fact that most were well beyond their capacity to complete. Of these projects, by far the most ideologically charged was the reform of the city itself. The area within the Islamic-era walls was perceived to be marked by an "Islamic" architecture and street plan that stood in sharp contrast to the Christian geography of the heavenly Jerusalem, promoted by Valencian author Francesc Eiximenis in his Regiment de la Cosa Publica . In the later fourteenth century, the council took steps to make the city appear more Christian. These reform projects were the context for the infamous anti-Jewish riots of 1391, in which the entire Jewish population of the city was killed or forcibly converted, and their quarter appropriated as part of the newly Christian city. Only after undertaking these and other projects to reshape the city and countryside did the council begin, in the second quarter of the fifteenth century, to develop a routine of formal appeals for divine aid during the natural disasters that regularly struck the city. Although different types of natural disaster were understood in different ways, by the mid-fifteenth century all shared one main form of response. This form-rogation processions through the newly Christian city streets-emphasized the successful conversion of the city. I argue that these responses were not a cry for help from a desperate population, but rather claims to divine aid from an increasingly confident city government. The changing form of these processions, moreover, shows the intersections and occasional conflicts between material and religious understandings of the environment. The Valencian city council's understanding of the relationship between God, humans and nature was conditioned far less by ignorance than by knowledge, and far less by helplessness than by power. By demonstrating how material control and understanding of the landscape enabled a more intense religious response to natural disaster, this dissertation complicates any notion of a progression from sacred to secular approaches to nature at the dawn of the modern period. In its reassessment of the relationship of God, humans and nature as that of the father, the children, and the slave girl, moreover, it revises our understanding of the relationship between medieval Christianity and the natural world.

ISBN: 9781369053364Subjects--Topical Terms:

1972904
European history.
Subjects--Index Terms:

Environmental History

Many Waters: An Environmental History of Valencia, 1300-1500.
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500 $a Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 78-04, Section: A.
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502 $a Thesis (Ph.D.)--Yale University, 2016.
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520 $a How did medieval people think about the environments in which they lived? In a world shaped by the hand of God, how did they understand their own capacity for action? This dissertation is an analysis of the relationship between God, human beings, and nature, as imagined by the city council of Valencia in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It argues, first, that the landscape of Valencia was understood to be a human construction, shaped primarily by human will. Second, that the ways in which the city council sought to shape this landscape, particularly within the city, reflect their understanding of its religious past and present. And third, that the council's religious responses to natural disaster were not the result of ignorance or helplessness, but rather moves to stake a claim for the city on a special relationship with God. This relationship was best articulated by Dominican preacher and Valencia native Vicent Ferrer, who described Christians as the legitimate children of God, Jews and Muslims as his bastard children, and nature as a surly slave girl charged with their care. Though nature was understood to act independently of her master, her agency was not considered legitimate, and her whims presented opportunities for Christians to claim their status as God's true-born children. The landscape of Valencia had for centuries been shaped by humans to suit human concerns. After its conquest by the Christian king of Aragon in 1238, Valencia was the only kingdom in Europe with a minority Christian population. The kingdom's Islamic past was evident not only in people who remained on the land, but in the very landscape that made it a prize worth conquering: a network of canals that irrigated the arid land around the city, making it one of the richest agricultural areas in the Mediterranean. Starting in the second half of the fourteenth century, the city government began to build on this legacy of landscape control, initiating a series of construction projects intended to restore and reshape the landscape for the health and prosperity of the city. The council's confidence in these projects remained unwavering despite the fact that most were well beyond their capacity to complete. Of these projects, by far the most ideologically charged was the reform of the city itself. The area within the Islamic-era walls was perceived to be marked by an "Islamic" architecture and street plan that stood in sharp contrast to the Christian geography of the heavenly Jerusalem, promoted by Valencian author Francesc Eiximenis in his Regiment de la Cosa Publica . In the later fourteenth century, the council took steps to make the city appear more Christian. These reform projects were the context for the infamous anti-Jewish riots of 1391, in which the entire Jewish population of the city was killed or forcibly converted, and their quarter appropriated as part of the newly Christian city. Only after undertaking these and other projects to reshape the city and countryside did the council begin, in the second quarter of the fifteenth century, to develop a routine of formal appeals for divine aid during the natural disasters that regularly struck the city. Although different types of natural disaster were understood in different ways, by the mid-fifteenth century all shared one main form of response. This form-rogation processions through the newly Christian city streets-emphasized the successful conversion of the city. I argue that these responses were not a cry for help from a desperate population, but rather claims to divine aid from an increasingly confident city government. The changing form of these processions, moreover, shows the intersections and occasional conflicts between material and religious understandings of the environment. The Valencian city council's understanding of the relationship between God, humans and nature was conditioned far less by ignorance than by knowledge, and far less by helplessness than by power. By demonstrating how material control and understanding of the landscape enabled a more intense religious response to natural disaster, this dissertation complicates any notion of a progression from sacred to secular approaches to nature at the dawn of the modern period. In its reassessment of the relationship of God, humans and nature as that of the father, the children, and the slave girl, moreover, it revises our understanding of the relationship between medieval Christianity and the natural world.
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