The Transformation of Traditional Woodland Management
Commercial Sylviculture in Medieval Champagne
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8941140 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Richard Keyser (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2009 |
| Volume | 32 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 353-384 |
| Publication date | 2009-07-16 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | French Historical Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0016-1071 • E-ISSN: 1527-5493 |
| Publisher | Duke University Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1215/00161071-2009-002 |
| OpenAlex | W1994312382 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 10 |
This essay argues that high medieval economic growth in Champagne and elsewhere in northern France encouraged a switch in the primary focus of woodland management from extensive silvo-pastoralism to intensive small wood production. For the first time in the thirteenth century, coppicing, short cycles of cutting and regeneration of trees capable of resprouting from stumps or trunks, came to dominate sylviculture as an intensively managed, market-oriented system, one that lasted for centuries. This essay thus provides a wider context for the late medieval and early modern French state's role in shaping forest exploitation. Royal officials did not so much innovate as respond to new market opportunities by appropriating and generalizing practices that had long existed in many regions. Before the sixteenth century few educated experts ventured into the details of woodland management, which remained largely the preserve of nonelite peasants, foresters, and woodmongers, the bearers of a traditional, orally transmitted ecological knowledge. Cet essai soutient qu'en Champagne et ailleurs dans la France du Nord la croissance économique du Moyen Age classique a encouragé un changement dans l'exploitation forestière du pastoralisme extensif à la production intensive du bois. Pour la première fois au treizième siècle le bois taillis, la coupe rapprochée des arbres capables de rejeter des souches, a dominé la sylviculture en système organisé pour le marché et ce-là persistera pour des siècles. Cet essai donne ainsi un contexte plus large au rôle de l'Etat Français tardo-médiévale et moderne dans le modelage de l'exploitation forestière. Les fonctionnaires royaux ont moins innové que réagi aux nouvelles opportunités commerciales par l'appropriation et la généralisation des pratiques qui existaient depuis longtemps. Jusqu'au seizième siècle, peu de spécialistes formés à l'université ont abordé l'exploitation forestière, qui est restée principalement le domaine des simples paysans, forestiers, et marchands, porteurs d'un savoir écologique populaire
Archaeology · Art · Context (archaeology · Coppicing · Economics · Economy · Ethnology · Geography · Humanities · Political science · Woodland · Woody plant · Ecology · European Political History Analysis · Forestry · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History
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| Citations per year | 0.67 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2011 - 2025 (15) |
| Highly cited | No |