WILDERNESS IN THE MEDIEVAL ENGLISH MIND: 1066 - 1400

Abstract

This thesis considers the relationship people in post-Conquest medieval England had to wilderness in the form of largely wooded areas. Three different kinds of literary primary sources are analysed for indications of the nature such relationships. They are forest laws, bestiaries, and romances. They all reflect fragments or traces of the relationships to people’s wilderness surroundings at the time. Of these sources are asked two questions: (1) Which aspects of people’s relationship with wilderness are reflected? (2) And which social groups’ relationships to the wilderness do they reflect? The second question addresses the problematic term ‘people’ in the first question. It is the aim of the thesis that analysis of a selection of these literary sources will contribute to a construction of the relationship people in medieval England had with their surrounding natural landscape. It is reflected in these sources that to the medieval English mind, the wilderness could carry a combination of a range of different meanings. For some, the wilderness as a hunting ground were most prevalent, while for others, the material resources that could be extracted would be the essential function of the forest. For those choosing to take it seriously, the forest could also carry mystical and religious meaning: it could be enchanted as in the romances; it could be used as cover for things unwanted in society; and it could be a place in which great adventures were possible.