The Green Ages: Medieval Innovations in Sustainability

by Annette Kehnel, Gesche Ipsen (Translator)

Fishing quotas on Lake Constance. Common lands in the UK. The medieval answer to Depop in the middle of Frankfurt.These are all just some of the sustainability initiatives from the Middle Ages that Annette Kehnel illuminates in her astounding new book, The Green Ages. From the mythical-sounding City of Ladies and their garden economy to early microcredit banks and rent-a-cow schemes, Kehnel uncovers a world at odds with what we might think of as the typical medieval existence.Pre-modern history is full of inspiring examples and concepts that open up new horizons. And we urgently need them as today's challenges - finite resources, the twilight of consumerism, growing inequality - threaten what we have come to think of as a modern way of living sustainably.This is a revelatory look at the past that has the power to change our future.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Medieval, Nature, Medieval History, Environment, Science

352 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2024

Reviews

[Adam · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was pulled in by a great premise - that we urgently must broaden our imaginative horizons and that looking towards the past offers glimpses of different ways of constructing society and relating to nature - but completely disappointed by the content and writing style.

Firstly, the book is stylistically very grating, with a similar smarmy snake-oil tone that you'll find in self-help books. Clearly Kehnel is thinking this will make it more readable than a dry academic tone, but I personally find it quite repulsive and utterly unconvincing. It also causes chapters to be shallow and deeply repetitive; I hoped for some academic analysis, no spark-notes summaries that simplify complicated and contradictory historical movements.

Secondly, before I get to this shallow content, is the organisation. I don't think the chapters are well chosen AT ALL, and the fact that the content within them meanders so loosely about the ill-defined themes doesn't help. The chapter "Minimalism" is a particular offender here, having no real structure and with most of the content having no connection.

Thirdly, content. I studied both medieval European history (specifically through lens of age, gender, and sexuality) and environmental history (specifically through the lenses of colonialism and animals), and there's such rich veins that could have been mined in a book with this focus. There's equally vast depths to explore in related fields - anthropology, economics, political science, etc - that can illuminate when revealed alongside these histories. I was unimpressed with how Kehnel approaches the former, and she doesn't even try approaching the latter. The movements chosen to illuminate the medieval world (besides the fact that cases from a narrow geography is being forced to represent Europe as a whole) are simply not explored in any real depths. We're told the Benedictines are to be admired for self-sufficiency - and indeed work was a virtue and produce a beauty to a Benedictine monk, but what of the contradictions? The fact their self-sufficiency actually comes from tithes and rent? What of the huge wealth that they accumulated while vowing poverty? We're told Cistercians harness the natural world effectively - true enough, but what of the contentions? What of their squabbles with others that need to use the land? Did their position as landowners, like the Cistercians they detested, put them at odds with others who needed the land, who would use it differently, who had different concepts of natural and good?

The issue of content can't really be separated from the issue of form, so I'll repeat how much I think the writing style was a huge barrier to depth, nuance, and, for me, enjoyability.

Fourth, I alluded to it above, but Kehnel seemingly does not have any cohesive political or economic framework with which to analyse or understand the present and thus to compare it to the pasts she researches. Numerous comments throughout highlight that she has the same vacuous pro-status quo mentality of the self-help books her style takes after. She states that there's "no alternative system" to capitalism (a line that nearly made me spit out my drink, considering the thesis of the book, and the whole reason I picked it up, is that we need to imagine alternative ways of living that won't destroy the environment). In fact she says capitalism needs checking in the same way that a "brilliantly working" pharmaceutical drug needs checking; to better understand the good it does while mitigating any adverse effects. Ironically, she doesn't actually want to analyse capitalism in any way shape or form (that might dampen the glib self-help tone perhaps), just state that it's inevitable, unavoidable, and superior. It's this willful ignorance that lets her declare that the harm is actually "unintended" and not, in fact, exactly how the system is supposed to work. She says the idea of a universal basic income is bad (she in fact brings this up multiple times for no reason, a bizarre obsession).

In summary, it's a meandering collection of shallow historical explorations with a slightly nauseating liberal gloss that renders the very intent of the book meaningless.

[volatilisanguis · Rating 2 out of 5]

As a professional historian and expert in medieval environmental history (resources and sustainability, in particular), it grieves me to say this book is BAD. Like... historically inaccurate, bad. She cherry picks her examples and provides no context. Sure, the Benedictines shared their tasks and food and were successful. They were literally one of the largest and richest landowners on the continent and the isles. To suggest that they were self sufficient is laughable. Self-sufficient if you count all the money they made from their tenants and tithes. The Cistercians staged a doctrinal coup and gave up basically all wealth and ostentation partly because they believed the Benedictine wealth was inappropriate. The Cistercians, also, she mentions are a good example of the way they worked with nature. Sure, they did. But they still exploited it, and they, too, made a lot of money from their agriculture (which is why they built all the water infrastructure -- because where they were growing needed it). And ah, the Beguines, this idyllic girl powered commune...that is literally in an urban area and supported the wealth that the rich members bring to the party. It pains me to see the general public hoodwinked by this romanticized view of medieval resource management. What medieval people have over us is a long term plan for sustainability. But not because they're somehow more in tune or less destructive or more communal. It's risk. We have mitigated a lot of environmental risks, and so we don't plan for the long term. Medieval people were more communal, true, but don't mistake their communal activities as anything other than self and familial preservation.

P.s. 80% of the examples are from German lands, and you cannot make a universal argument from regional data.

P.P.S terrible title translation. Should be "We used to do it differently."

[Quinlan Couri · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had high hopes for this book because I was excited to read about what we can learn about sustainability from the Middle Ages. I gave it a lot of chances but… I stopped reading it after she started kindof going down a rabbit hole with St. Francis and minimizing his gospel poverty to simple minimalism. Idk it felt a bit far reaching to put the ideas that we have now onto the Middle Ages.

[Oliver · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointing. The translation was strangely awkward and patronising, and the subject veered often away from the medieval. The whole chapter about 'microfinance' went right over my head. Not nearly as engaging and enjoyable as I was expecting.

[Maya Tsingos · Rating 5 out of 5]

quite scholarly but persuasive and frankly refreshing. i love reading about medieval monks.

[Rebecca Fell · Rating 3 out of 5]

“There is much disagreement about whether or not we can learn from history. In my experience, this much is clear: the past may not be able to provide tailor-made solutions for the future- because each epoch has to work things out for itself - but what it can do is expand our imaginative horizon and provide fresh stimuli as we search for sustainable economic models and attempt to reinterpret the status quo through the prism of new ideas.” (p.7)

From MFIs in 15th century monty di pietà to female communal living in Dutch beguinages, Koehler explores how sustainability can be found in (mostly) medieval Northern Europe.

Whilst I appreciate the sentiment- I too believe that there is merit in looking to the past to inspire solutions for the future-, I felt that Kehler’s selection of examples and articulation of argument was unbalanced, failing to acknowledge the limitations within each example to the point where she frames the high and late medieval period through rose-tinted glasses. The use of Benedictine and Cistercian monasteries as examples of self-sustained communal living in as the most glaringly obvious instance to me— these monastic communities heavily relied on external tithes which defeats the notion of “self-sustained” living she was trying to promote.

However, this text had a lovely premise, and as a medievalist, it was it was exciting to see someone argue that we should look to the pre-modern to inspire and innovate modern solutions.

[Markmehrer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is actually a good, well written book, contrary to the judgment of many other reviewers. Generally, they seem to be disappointed by what they expected to be a typical, academic, historian's treatment of the medieval age.
In my ignorant opinion, Dr. Kehnel did not intend this book to be any such thing. Not withstanding my ignorance, she does explain quite clearly her intentions in the front matter and the first chapter.
If I may try to put it in a nutshell, I think she intended to stimulate the imaginations of 'modern' thinkers now living in our post-industrial times. That's you.
Our modern vision is blinkered by a great many assumptions about what we see as absolutely unchallengable truths. We assume that there is a natural process of progress inherent in our civilization and that it predetermines our future. We assume that our economy must continually be growing and expanding. There are many others.
During medieval times, merchantilism had just begun to expand beyond the limiting boundaries of the countless small fuedal landlordships that filled Western Europe. Money exchange had begun to augment the ancient barter-and-tax system that had evolved since the fall of the Western Roman Empire. These were just a couple of the numerous wide-ranging shocks of change that were remodeling the early medieval lifeways of all.
These medieval centuries witnessed a great range of massive, fundamental, unpredictable changes to the way that Western Europeans thought the world worked.
Dr. Kehnel has lifted a great many examples of how medieval people coped with this. She emphasizes examples that resonate with our modern notions of sustainability. And she organized them within chapters, too.
Dr. Kehnel seems to know that our current rush to global doom will not be diverted by any of our current plans. What we need is some folks who can think out of the modernist box we're trapped in. There were medieval people who addressed the problems they encountered. They were not blinded by modernist assumptions. Neither should we.
I recommend that you read the book. Start at the beginning to get squared away with the book's purpose and method so you'll know what to expect. Try to imagine how some of these old solutions might be modified to tackle current threats.
Don't pretend to be an expert. An expert sees only one solution. A novice sees a hundred. Your freed imagination might just save humankind. Seriously.

[Iulia · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5
I didn't particulary enjoy the microfinance chapter. The first half of the book was better than the last chapters.

[Felix Böhme · Rating 4 out of 5]

We are still stuck in the nineteenth century, approaching problem-solving using a system of coordinates that is nearly two hundred years old. Admittedly, that system was perfect for devising things like revenue optimisation models, returns on investment and ways to squeeze the last drop out of our resources, but when it comes to matters not related to profit maximisation it is getting us nowhere.

----

What we need are stories that help us to overcome the challenges of the twenty-first century, not the nineteenth. It is high time that Homo economicus passed the baton to Planet Earth. It is time for nature to re-enter our grand narratives, time for flesh-and-blood humans instead of models. We need markets where not only supply and demand can meet, but people too; we need ideas that do more than reduce shortages and distribute goods. It's time we took all that we have learnt from dealing with crises and challenges in the past and used it to shape the future. The history of sustainability is at heart a story of resilience. Perhaps more than anything else, it is about our capacity to learn from our mistakes.

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There will always be people like paper miller Keferstein, who don't see the need to take action. As so often, though, history has made the decision for them. In 1766, Keferstein could not imagine that paper would ever be made from anything other than rags; similarly, when the first mainframe computer was developed in 1943, Thomas Watson, chair of IBM, miscalculated gravely when he declared that 'I think there's a world market for maybe five computers.' 

How did Keferstein and Watson get it so wrong? Certainly not because they didn't know enough, or weren't experts in their field. No: the reason they got it so wrong is that too much self-confidence and sticking stubbornly to tried-and-tested methods can make you blind to new developments, and the needs of both current and future generations.

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Many memorable sayings have been attributed to Diogenes; one is that 'wealth is the vomit of fortune'. For him, greed was the root of all evil. He allegedly once explained the true nature of happiness to Alexander the Great thus: 'Not having any money', he told the king, 'is not poverty. There is nothing wrong with begging. But to want everything, and to be willing to use violence to get it as you do, Alexander, that is poverty.' 

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If you let go, your hands are free. [...] What has motivated us humans across the millennia is not only the desire for more expansion, profit, power: no, what has also driven us is the desire for simplicity and freedom. The question, then, is this: might the pendulum now, after the twentieth century's continuous high of untrammelled consumption, finally swing in the other direction? What happens if more and more of us discover, like Diogenes, the joy of the simple life, and politely beg all those great commanders coming up to us, trying to sell us power and riches, to please move out of our sun? What happens if more and more of us want less and less?

[History Today]

ust over 800 years ago, in the autumn of 1224, a small band of strangely dressed men landed at Dover. They were the first ambassadors in England of a new religious movement that was sweeping across Europe, inspired by the preaching and example of Francis of Assisi. These first Franciscans dressed, ate and lived with ostentatious simplicity: a contemporary chronicler marvelled that they walked barefoot, even in the snow, and drank nothing but the thick dregs of beer. Though they sometimes met with derision and hostility, their order would come to have a profound influence on medieval society.

The Franciscans, with their commitment to radical poverty, are one of the case studies chosen by Annette Kehnel in The Green Ages as an example of ‘medieval innovations in sustainability’. ‘There were times when we humans knew the limitations of our planet better than we do now’, she says, arguing that we should look to the past for ways of sharing and conserving the Earth’s resources more sustainably. If capitalism has driven us to the brink of ecological catastrophe, premodern economies may offer useful alternative models. Though she does not propose a wholesale return to a medieval economy, Kehnel suggests that history can provide inspiration, ‘to awaken our sense of the possibilities out there, and to help us to think outside now defunct thought patterns’.

To this end, she discusses how premodern European societies dealt with issues such as the fair distribution of natural resources, experiments in communal living, and recycling. From fisheries in Lake Constance to forestry management in Alsace and pasture lands in the Alps, she skilfully describes how the communities which relied on these resources developed collective methods of handling them sustainably, since it was in everyone’s interest to ensure they remained productive in the long term.

Read the rest of the review at https://www.historytoday.com/archive/...

Eleanor Parker is a columnist at History Today.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book to be a very interesting read that was also written well. Examining the medieval times for glimpses of sustainable practices and relating them to our failure to live sustainably in present times was an innovative way to approach sustainability. In the end she invokes the need for us to examine how and why we live our lives the way we do, and challenges us to recognize change is possible when we recognize our common humanity’s dependence upon the environment that supports our existence. But, while the books explorations might remove some fear, it won’t be an easy task to do better. Market-based systems can work but devising appropriate constraints upon them and fixing their failures will continually be problematic when it involves not just limiting others but also making changes that adversely affect ourselves for the benefit of future generations.

[A.L · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really liked it. Apparently people who expected an academic book were disappointed. But me who just wanted to read some fun stories about monks and shepherds and feel cozy on an October afternoon, it was perfect for that. Also learned a bit of new things here and there. For someone not super well versed in the field, a very enjoyable and inspiring read (and like.. I don't think its marketed as a super scholarly read.. like look at the cover). Gave me some thoughts on my own consumption habits and that I should recycle more. Skipped some of the bits that didn't really interest me so was never bored. All in all a great book!

[Karl · Rating 4 out of 5]

--- "What happens if more and more of us discover, like Diogenes, the joy of the simple life, and politely beg all those great commanders coming up to us, trying to sell us power and riches, to please move out of our sun? What happens if more and more of us want less and less?" (Kehnel: 275)
--- "we forget the important role played by payment in goods or services rather than cash" (Kehnel: 198)

This book shows how the Middle Ages can inspire us to live a better life. However, the examples in the book weren't always from the Middle Ages, which contradicts the subtitle on the cover. I loved all references to tailors and some parts were too negatively descriptive in my opinion, like the biography of Olivi in the penultimate chapter.

[DW Rowlands · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was really excited by this book, but it honestly disappointed me: much of what it covered, I was already familiar with, and it felt like the author tended to look at the past with rose-colored (or green-colored?) glasses. Also, the final chapter, on the Franciscans, didn't really seem...relevant exactly?

[Louise · Rating 3 out of 5]

A 3.5. I loved the premise and elements were interesting, it wasn't so very long that it isn't worth a read. But I felt the author didn't go into the depth I would have wanted, it felt like quite a surface level treatment of a few examples.

[Megan S · Rating 2 out of 5]

Loved the premise but was disappointed by the actual book. Very anecdote-y, didn't really read like substantial analysis but more picking an example or two, no matter how obscure, and suggesting a theme was therefore apparent.

[legolasik · Rating 2 out of 5]

great idea, underdone

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting and thought provoking but I found the writing confusing.

[Kurt Scillitoe]

A hugely frustrating book.

[K · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant! What a fascinating look at medieval history--through a prism of sustainability, recycling, reusing, microfinancing, and so on. It seems that all these ideas are not modern--but simply practices that were discarded over time as capitalism and consumerism dug their claws into us. Chapter Six "A Tailwind From the Past" is particularly brilliant. Well done, Dr. Kehnel!

[Cormac O'Neill]

I enjoyed this book, even if it doesn't always do exactly what it says on the tin.

Firstly, I loved the writing. It had a slightly unusual style that straddled the learned and the conversational and that overall was really enjoyable to read - I was impressed when I realised that this unusual style was probably due to the fact that the (German) author had translated her own work. So that was nice! The only thing I didn't like was the use of modern parlance for historical phenomena, for example referring to Medieval Italian 'MFIs' or calling a 13th Century fransican philosopher and theologan an 'economist', but I can see why Kehnel chose to do so as she is rightly pointing out that although expressed differently instiutions like finance and the study of economics have effectively been around for much longer than we imagine.

The examples that are given of more sustainable pre-modern living are often interesting and well described. I particularly enjoyed learning about beguinages, Italian medieval financial insturments available to the lower classes and Peter John Olivi, the forementioned 'economist', who was writing about theories of value, capital and markets centuries before Adam Smit or Karl Marx, and from a moral perspective. Not all examples were medieval, making the thrust of the book slightly misleading but I didn't mind as many of the early modern examples were fascinating - like the development of 'sustaibnable business practices' in early modern forrestry and mining in central Europe.

I didn't always agree with Kehnel's modern social analysis - that we continue to hurtle towards climate catastrophe becuse of normal people's inertia - because I think that ignores the concerted efforts big business and the rih and powerful have gone to to preserve the economic status quo at the expense of the planet - but that is my political opinions coming out and perhaps an argument for another time. However I think without adressing the fact that we live in a society were, for all our talk of democracy, certian people weild much more power than others, all talk of these alternatives is a little moot as they don't suit the ends of powerful vested interests.

However, generally, a really interesting book that shines light on lots of aspects of medieval and early modern history that I had simply no idea about, and written in a lovely engaging way.