plan of dark age features on glastonbury tor

Not only did communities respond continually to environmental hazards, their effects were also felt sometimes across the whole of Europe in a way that has not been observed in modern times. The roll-call of disasters during the later medieval period was a lengthy one. In this paper, we challenge that analysis through a review of the nature of, and responses to, natural hazards across Christian Europe during the Middle Ages (loosely defined here as 1000–1550 AD). Risks specifically associated with modernity, such as those rooted in chemical, nuclear and information technologies, are considered to be especially powerful and, while the ‘risk society’ concept recognises that communities have also been subject to hazards in the past, these are judged to have been imposed by external forces. The notion of a ‘risk society’ is underpinned by the proposal that contemporary organisational structures are generated by responses to ‘hazards and insecurities induced and introduced by modernization itself’ (Beck 1992, p. We argue instead that the response of society to these threats was frequently complex, considered and, at times, surprisingly modern. Despite their religious perspectives, we find that medieval communities were not helpless in the face of serious environmental hazards. Building upon this, the second part of the paper explores individual outlooks on risk, emphasising the diversity of popular belief and the central importance of Christianity in framing attitudes. Beginning with a review of the many case studies of rapid onset disasters across Europe, we draw upon both historical and archaeological evidence and architectural assessments of structural damage for what is a pre-instrumental period. In this paper, we challenge that hypothesis by examining the ways in which risks associated with environmental hazards were managed and mitigated during the Middle Ages (defined here as the period from 1000 to 1550 AD).

This implies that pre-industrial societies were somehow fundamentally different. Modern society is said to have restructured in reaction to contemporary hazards with the aim of improving its management of risk.

Plan of dark age features on glastonbury tor