Papers by Richard Hoffmann
Fishers' Craft and Lettered Art, 1997
Land, Liberties, and Lordship in a Late Medieval Countryside, 1989
Land, Liberties, and Lordship in a Late Medieval Countryside, 1989
Land, Liberties, and Lordship in a Late Medieval Countryside, 1989
Land, Liberties, and Lordship in a Late Medieval Countryside, 1989
Fishers' Craft and Lettered Art, 1997
Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 2013
The potential for pandemic disaster in an overpopulated, overglobalized, and overexploitive human... more The potential for pandemic disaster in an overpopulated, overglobalized, and overexploitive human world has provided inspiration for popular science writers since the early 1990s. Such works typically combine microbiology with storytelling and may also, as in Wolfe's The Viral Storm, draw on such relevant disciplines as anthropology, entomology, zoology, and history to enrich their doomsday scenarios. 1 In these accounts, the interdisciplinary components are clearly visible. Contagion takes a different approach. Praised by William J. Bernstein on the jacket for its seamless synthesis of "pathophysiology, propulsion technology and political economy," Contagion offers a methodology that is less evidently pluralistic and more that of a historian using accepted historical approaches-principally political and economic-to answer the questions that he raises: How has long-distance trade spread epidemic disease (in humans, animals, and plants) in the past, and what measures have been taken to prevent such spread? In Harrison's accounts of most diseases, however, the pathophysiology is lightly in evidence, and "propulsion technology" might better be understood as an economic historian's normal alertness to the effects of changing methods of transport. Unlike the popular science writers, Harrison has no interest in the genesis of new diseases or of virulent disease strains, and so no need to make use of anthropology, biology, or even epidemiology in constructing his analysis. His aim is less to shock popular awareness of danger than to provide a historically rich analysis that will act as a wake up call to politicians and planners. Harrison's story begins with the Black Death in the 1340s and continues through to sars and avian inºuenza in the twenty-ªrst century. Between the Plague of Justinian (541-762 a.d.) and the Black Death, he reminds us, the world was notably free from pandemic infections. Not until the thirteenth century did populations and trade networks recover sufªciently from Dark Age depression to provide transport and fodder for opportunistic pathogens. Quarantine-the historical approach to wildªre infections-is a central player around which Harrison traces the shifting political and economic repercussions of policy. Plague dominates the earlier centuries; successive cholera epidemics in the later nineteenth century, and the resurgence of pandemic yellow fever and plague, mark the points at which both disease and commerce became "truly global" (xv). Indeed, the ªrst remotely coherent international response to plague was devised in response to the third plague pandemic of the 1890s, which caused signiªcant commercial disruption and political disagreement. Surveillance and containment were the essence of this response. Harrison meticulously charts the political and economic pressures that enmeshed such disease episodes. Self-interest,
Land, Liberties, and Lordship in a Late Medieval Countryside, 1989
Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales, Oct 1, 1971
L'agriculture portugaise a connu incontestablement un certain type de crise pendant le de... more L'agriculture portugaise a connu incontestablement un certain type de crise pendant le dernier quart du XIVe siècle. Le dernier roi de la dynastie bourguignonne, Fernando 1°, publia sa Lei de sesmarias en 1375, pour faire face au « grand manque de blé et d'orge et autres produits » : il prescrivait l'utilisation de toutes les terres, le recensement des terrains incultes, et le retour des paysans qui avaient abandonné leurs terres. Deux ans plus tard, les Cortès portugaises se plaignaient de paysans et d'éleveurs qui avaient émigré des campagnes vers les villes. Les insuffisances locales en fournitures de grain stimulaient apparemment l'augmentation des importations de céréales. Celles-ci avaient débuté sporadiquement au XIIIe siècle, mais devinrent régulières à la fin du XIVe. Ainsi, le traité de Windsor (1386) considérait-il les exportations de céréales d'Angleterre en Portugal comme une branche normale du commerce entre les deux Etats.
Aquatic Sciences, Jun 12, 2015
Across the western and northern European range of diadromous Salmo salar (Atlantic salmon) during... more Across the western and northern European range of diadromous Salmo salar (Atlantic salmon) during the Middle Ages (ca.500–ca.1500 CE), this fish was a highly prized object of elite human consumption, of intense seasonal fishing, of human competition, and, by the 1200s, a victim of evident depletion. What, then, enabled long traditional riverine fisheries in Scotland to become a major export producer in late medieval centuries? Provisional survey of published written records, some archival collections, and archaeological evidence establishes the great value Scottish kings and landowners placed on salmon fishing sites and their product. Knowledgeable workers for the holders of fishing rights caught salmon especially with beach seines and fixed weirs. Their catch went to elite households and urban markets for domestic consumption and was especially from the late 1300s packed in barrels for export to regions around the North Sea where diminished native runs failed to meet rising demand. Medieval Scots competed for the right to catch their salmon but did not complain that those catches were shrinking. From about 1200 royal judgments and by the early 1300s parliamentary legislation placed Scottish salmon fisheries under public regulation, prohibiting fishing at certain times and seasons and requiring all gear to permit passage of pre-migrant juveniles. Early imposition in Scotland of these limits to private fishing rights as well as an agrarian regime that (unintentionally) minimized barriers to migrants and preserved headwater spawning habitats may help explain the apparently greater sustainability of salmon stocks in Scotland than elsewhere in late medieval Europe.
Environmental History, 2009
Śląski Kwartalnik Historyczny Sobótka, 1974
Śląski Kwartalnik Historyczny Sobótka, 1978
Environmental Histories of the North Atlantic World, 2023
Uploads
Papers by Richard Hoffmann
we reconstruct the timeline of human impacts and the history of ecological changes in the Wadden Sea. We then discuss the ecosystem and societal consequences of observed changes, and conclude with management implications. Human influences have intensified and multiplied over time. Large-scale habitat transformation over the last 1,000 years has eliminated diverse terrestrial, freshwater, brackish and marine habitats. Intensive
exploitation of everything from oysters to whales has depleted most large predators and habitat-building species since medieval times. In the twentieth century, pollution, eutrophication, species invasions and, presumably, climate change have had marked impacts on the Wadden Sea flora and fauna. Yet habitat loss and overexploitation were the two main causes for the
extinction or severe depletion of 144 species (20% of total macrobiota). The loss of biodiversity, large predators, special habitats, filter and storage capacity, and degradation in water quality have led to a simplification
and homogenisation of the food web structure and ecosystem functioning that has affected the Wadden Sea ecosystem and coastal societies alike. Recent conservation efforts have reversed some negative trends by enabling some birds and mammals to recover and by creating new economic options for society. The Wadden Sea history provides a unique long-term perspective on ecological change, new objectives for conservation, restoration and management, and an ecological baseline that allows us to envision a rich, productive and diverse Wadden Sea ecosystem and coastal society."
-----------------------
Study on the subject of fish and fishing over the last 2000 years in Northwestern Switzerland – from the Roman period to the 21st century - by various specialists on archaeozoology. The contributions cover three general areas: man’s intervention in nature; the ‘management’ of fishing; and fish consumption by the ‘end user’. The following chapters highlight the different aspects of this food source as well as its harvest through the centuries: taming nature, protecting the natural water system, the management of fishing, fishing as a profession, fishing as a hobby, fish consumption and fish and health.