TY  - JOUR
AU  - Albrecht Classen
PY  - 2025
CY  - Berlin, Germany
PB  - Peter Lang Verlag
JF  - Mediaevistik
IS  - 1
VL  - 38
SN  - 2199-806X
TI  - Trees as Symbol and Metaphor in the Middle Ages: Comparative Contexts, ed. Michael D. J. Bintley and Pippa Salonius. Nature and Environment in the Middle Ages, 8. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2024, xvi, 290 pp.
DO  - 10.3726/med.2025.01.25
UR  - https://www.peterlang.com/document/1673052
N2  - Ecocritical approaches to the history and culture of the Middle Ages centrally entail that we take seriously the symbolic investment of all natural matters as addressed by artists, philosophers, theologians, and writers. Trees, above all, attracted much attention, and we today have re-learned to appreciate those mighty living structures and creatures that have a life of their own, communicate with each other through their rhizome, and connect the past with the future. Much of traditional religious discourse from the Old and New Testament to the Qu’ran, including Old Norse mythology, was predicated on the symbolic tree. Early medieval Christian missionaries such as Saint Boniface fought with all their might against the pagan belief in certain trees such as the oak, a topic which is not covered here. The contributors to the present volume, based on sessions at the International Medieval Congress in Leeds (2018) and a symposium at Birbeck College, University of London (2019), address the tree in its myriad appearances in a large variety of texts, images, and art works and analyze its critical function for medieval epistemology. The two editors provide a seminal introduction regarding the importance of trees and forests both today and in the Middle Ages in terms of their semiotic function, communicating with each other and us humans. This aspect is then not picked up by the contributors, as much as they address symbolic trees. Instead, some of the authors expand the focus to gardens, meadows, and orchards, allowing us to recognize the fundamental insight shared by most medieval thinkers that all natural objects have a symbolic meaning and constitute metaphors of a spiritual message. Although it is not easy to tease out those in specific terms, the impressive efforts by all contributors confirm the great value of the tree symbolism in the pre-modern world.
KW  - trees, symbol, metaphor, middle, ages, comparative, contexts, michael, bintley, pippa, salonius, nature, environment, cambridge, brewer
ER  -