Publications

“Cooperative Sanitation: Managing Streets and Gutters in Late Medieval England and Scandinavia"

Published in Technology and Culture 49 (2008), 547-567. Go to the article in html format in Project Muse (subscription required)

Abstract: This article investigates the workings of sanitation technologies in late medieval English and Scandinavian cities through both written and archeological evidence. It defines the roles of city corporations and individuals in the areas of street maintenance and waste management between the years 1350 and 1550. It argues that although the urban environment was managed through seemingly simple technologies, such as latrines and guttered cobblestone streets, the technologies required a conjunction of city-provided services and individual behavior management to make them work as intended. The late medieval city governments under investigation therefore crafted social relations to create functional sanitation systems. Because responsibility for sanitation was allocated both to individuals and to the city government, the waste-handling and sanitation strategies of the late medieval city were possibly not as ineffective as they appear on the surface.

"Putting Dirt in its Place", a review of Ben Campkin and Rosie Cox, eds. Dirt: New Geographies of Cleanlinessand Contamination

Go to the review on H-Net

“Medieval Latrines and the Law"

Published in Medium Aevum Quotidianum 53 (2006), 5-16. See the MAQ home page for more information about the journal.

Abstract: This article analyzes two types of latrine regulation in far northern Europe during the medieval period: latrine placement and waste disposal. It shows that latrines in the later fourteenth through mid-sixteenth centuries were very much within the public sphere. Public regulation of latrine placement and waste disposal was required to control individual behavior for the larger public good. Making this private matter into a public concern was integral to good city government in the eyes of elite citizens.

“Multi-Use Management of the Medieval Anglo-Norman Forest"

I have published one article with some of the material from my Master's thesis in a peer-reviewed journal: “Multi-Use Management of the Medieval Anglo-Norman Forest,” Journal of the Oxford University History Society 1, no. 1 (2004). see the article as a pdf

Abstract: Despite the commonly held view that medieval man consumed his resources without control, the middle ages was in fact a time of balancing the multiple uses of the forest to obtain the highest feasible short- and long-term economic benefit. A critical look at legal documents of the first three Anglo-Norman kings, who reigned over England and Normandy from 1066 to 1135, reveals that medieval landholders in their kingdom practised conscious forestry management to balance all of the demands on woodland resources, and the practices were not that different from modern ones. The king, nobility, and clergy employed foresters and other forest custodians to manage the multiple demands on the forest resources. They delicately balanced the demands for timber, pastureland, and hunting, in order to accommodate the daily needs of life as well as noble entertainment. The Anglo-Normans followed a mantra of multi-use forest management that is echoed in the modern goal of the United States Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act of 1960 ‘to authorize and direct that the national forests be managed under principles of multiple use and to produce a sustained yield of products and services’.

"On the Margins: Imagination in Gothic Illuminated Manuscripts"

I contributed an article "On the Margins: Imagination in Gothic Illuminated Manuscripts" about Gothic manuscript marginalia to the exhibit "Lustre: Spirtual Treasures and Sensory Pleasures" at the University of Houston Library, October 2005 - March 2006. Click here for the exhibit main page or go directly to my article as a pdf.