Fishermen, monks, saints, and dragons met in medieval riverscapes; their interactions reveal a rich and complex world. Using religious narrative sources to evaluate the environmental mentalities of medieval communities, Ellen F. Arnold explores the cultural meanings applied to rivers over a broad span of time, ca. 300-1100 CE. Hagiographical material, poetry, charters, chronicles, and historiographical works are explored to examine the medieval environmental imaginations about rivers, and how storytelling and memory are connected to lived experiences in riverscapes. She argues that rivers provided unique opportunities for medieval communities to understand and respond to ecological and socio-cultural transformations, and to connect their ideas about the shared religious past to hopes about the future.

Focusing on storytelling across centuries, Arnold explores how rivers were imagined c. 300-1100 and reveals a rich, complex medieval world.

"In this expansive history Ellen F. Arnold uses saints' lives and miracle stories, poetry, charters, chronicles, and historical narratives to examine how rivers were imagined and ascribed meaning c. 300 -1100 CE. Focusing on storytelling across centuries, she explores how environmental experiences were incorporated into pre-modern cultural spaces"--

A study of Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman canals and waterways, this book is based on evidence surrounding the nature of water transport in the period. A collection of essays, this study unearths this neglected but important aspect of medieval engineering and economic growth.

The ship loomed large in the medieval world and mind. Whether cruising upriver laden with grain, or cresting the high seas bristling with guns, ships symbolized power and promise, strength and safety, crusade and conquest.

Drawing on the symbolic potential of rivers to represent life and time, the riverscape provided a metaphor for the mythic stream of national history flowing unimpeded out of the past and into the future. Tricia Cusack is a lecturer at the Centre for European Languages and Cultures at the University of Birmingham. She coedited Art, Nation and Gender: Ethnic Landscapes, Myths and Mother-Figures and has published numerous articles in anthologies and journals including National Identities, Nations and Nationalism, and Art History

This is an absorbing and stimulating text for all interested in rivers and river ecology. Combining scholarship with first-hand experience Dr Haslam has brought together a wealth of information and insight into this one volume. The influence of riverine environments on all aspects of life is traced from the earliest time to the present with the help of many examples from the United Kingdom, elsewhere in Europe, and in other locations. The text is supported by numerous illustrations and helpful guides which will encourage the reader to look for evidence and signs of the many links between rivers and man which exist in the local area and when visiting further afield. This book is not only concerned with rivers and the surrounding land as providers of water and resources. Haslam also draws the reader's attention to important conservation matters and the need for a greater understanding of river ecology if these important environments are to be properly managed for the future. She sites cases of falling water tables, pollution and other types of environmental damage occurring through past misuse and abuse. Yet this is also balanced by some very positive and encouraging comments on how the many demands made by man on rivers for water, resources, transport, leisure and recreation may be reconciled. This is a timely and very welcome addition to the limited literature on this important topic. It is a book, which readers will not only enjoy but which will also be an important source of reference.