Category Archives: Publications

Politics of Movement: Exploring Passage Points in Responses to COVID-19 and the Plague in the Fifteenth-Century Netherlands

Authors: Janna Coomans, Claire Weeda Abstract Engaging the concepts of flow, circulation and blockage can help us to understand the trajectories of pandemics and the social responses to them. Central to the analysis is the concept of obligatory passage points … Continue reading

Posted in Publications | Comments Off on Politics of Movement: Exploring Passage Points in Responses to COVID-19 and the Plague in the Fifteenth-Century Netherlands

Book Review: “Fumiers! Ordures! Gestion et usage des déchets dans les campagnes de l’Occident médiéval et moderne”

Marc Conesa, Nicolas Poirier (dir.), Fumiers! Ordures! Gestion et usage des déchets dans les campagnes de l’Occident médiéval et moderne. Actes des XXXVIIIes Journées internationales d’histoire de l’abbaye de Flaran, 14 et 15 octobre 2016, Toulouse (Presses universitaires du Midi) … Continue reading

Posted in Publications | Comments Off on Book Review: “Fumiers! Ordures! Gestion et usage des déchets dans les campagnes de l’Occident médiéval et moderne”

Roads to Health wins AAIS Book Awards in Medieval Studies

Roads to Health: Infrastructure and Urban Wellbeing in Later Medieval Italy (University of Pennsylvania Press) wins American Association for Italian Studies Book Awards in Medieval Studies for 2019. In this book, Guy Geltner “proposes to examine public health from an … Continue reading

Posted in Announcements, Publications | Comments Off on Roads to Health wins AAIS Book Awards in Medieval Studies

New Publication: Mapping Health in the Middle Ages

“Public health is often thought of as a by-product of modernity, yet historical evidence shows that numerous stakeholders in Medieval Europe took steps to reduce risks and improve health outcomes.” Guy Geltner, Janna Coomans, and Claire Weeda explain how the … Continue reading

Posted in Publications | Comments Off on New Publication: Mapping Health in the Middle Ages

New Publication: Osteoarchaeology in Historical Context

Osteoarchaeology in Historical Context: Cemetery Research from the Low Countries Edited by Roos van Oosten, Rachel Schats & Kerry Fast Osteoarchaeology is a rich field for reconstructing past lives in that it can provide details on sex, age-at-death, stature, and … Continue reading

Posted in Announcements, Publications | Comments Off on New Publication: Osteoarchaeology in Historical Context

New Article by Guy Geltner: “The Path to Pistoia: Urban Hygiene Before the Black Death”

Abstract: When the Black Death struck Western Europe in late 1347, city dwellers across the region were already practising public health, in part by building, maintaining and monitoring infrastructures whose prophylactic value emerged from the experience of intensified urbanization. The … Continue reading

Posted in Publications | Comments Off on New Article by Guy Geltner: “The Path to Pistoia: Urban Hygiene Before the Black Death”

“Roads to Health” – Now Available from Penn Press

Roads to Health: Infrastructure and Urban Wellbeing in Later Medieval Italy G. Geltner 320 pages | 6 x 9 | 20 illus. 
Cloth Aug 2019 | ISBN 9780812251357 A volume in the Middle Ages Series “G. Geltner’s Roads to Health … Continue reading

Posted in Publications | Comments Off on “Roads to Health” – Now Available from Penn Press

Forthcoming: “Policing the Urban Environment in Premodern Europe” Edited by Claire Weeda & Carole Rawcliffe

Tapping into a combination of court documents, urban statutes, material artefacts, health guides and treatises, Policing the Urban Environment in Premodern Europe offers a unique perspective on how premodern public authorities tried to create a clean, healthy environment. Overturning many … Continue reading

Posted in Announcements, Publications | Comments Off on Forthcoming: “Policing the Urban Environment in Premodern Europe” Edited by Claire Weeda & Carole Rawcliffe

New Article by Guy Geltner: “In the Camp and on the March: Military Manuals as Sources for Studying Premodern Public Health”

Abstract: Historians tend to view public health as a quintessentially modern phenomenon, enabled by the emergence of representative democracies, centralised bureaucracies and advanced biomedicine. While social, urban and religious historians have begun chipping away at the entrenched dichotomy between pre/modernity … Continue reading

Posted in Publications | Comments Off on New Article by Guy Geltner: “In the Camp and on the March: Military Manuals as Sources for Studying Premodern Public Health”

New Article by Guy Geltner: “In the Camp and on the March: Military Manuals as Sources for Studying Premodern Public Health”

Abstract: Historians tend to view public health as a quintessentially modern phenomenon, enabled by the emergence of representative democracies, centralized bureaucracies and advanced biomedicine. While social, urban and religious historians have begun chipping away at the entrenched dichotomy between pre/modernity … Continue reading

Posted in Publications | Comments Off on New Article by Guy Geltner: “In the Camp and on the March: Military Manuals as Sources for Studying Premodern Public Health”