Trees as Symbol and Metaphor in the Middle Ages

MICHAEL BINTLEY is Associate Professor in Medieval English Literature at the University of Southampton. He is author of Trees in the Religions of Early Medieval England (2015), and Settlements and Strongholds in Early Medieval England: Texts, Landscapes, and Material Culture (2020), and co-author of Landscapes and Environments of the Middle Ages (2023). PIPPA SALONIUS is a medieval art historian and independent scholar who lives in Christchurch, New Zealand.

This profoundly researched, well written, and clearly composed book has been deemed outstanding for its stimulating contribution to a nuanced and profound understanding of the nexus between nature and human creativity as expressed through various media in the visual arts and literature as well as theology and cosmology.

• Introduction: The Surrounding Forest - Michael D. J. Bintley and Pippa Salonius 1. Mother Earth, Sister Moon and the Great Forest of Tāne - Pippa Salonius 2. Beowulf's Foliate Margins: The Surrounding Forest in Early Medieval England - Michael D. J. Bintley 3. Bone, Stone, Wood: Encountering Material Ecologies in Early Medieval Sculpture - Meg Boulton 4. 'Mervoillous fu li engineres que croix fist de fust, non de pierre': Materiality and Vernacular Theology in the Wood of the Cross Legend - Laura Chuhan Campbell 5. The Evolution of Relational Tree-Diagrams from the Twelfth to Fourteenth Century: Visual Devices and Models of Knowledge - José Higuera Rubio 6. From Forest to Orchard: Arboreal Areas as Mnemotechnic Supports in the Middle Ages - Naïs Virenque7. The Vegetal Imaginary in Exemplary Literature: The Case of the Ci nous dit - Pauline Leplongeon 8. Adam's Sister: Tree Symbolism in Premodern Mystical Islamic Cosmology - Samer Akkach Concluding Reflections