Recommendations for secure and sustainable European cultural landscapes

Following its final conference that took place in Brussels on 4 October 2016, the EU HERCULES consortium has provided stakeholders with a detailed set of policy recommendations that will preserve Europe's diverse heritage in cultural landscapes.

Over millennia, we have created and maintained cultural landscapes. They provide us with a variety of values and services that are essential for human societies to function and grow. These include cultural and recreational facilities, tourism opportunities, ecological and environmental knowledge, the ability to grow food, use medicinal resources, and extract raw materials. Cultural landscapes adapt over time, though with the dawn of the modern age, many have changed rapidly through factors such as deforestation and urbanisation. This has impacted their sustainability and raised concerns over the need to effectively preserve cultural heritage.

The three-year HERCULES project was formed to empower public and private actors to protect, manage, and plan for sustainable landscapes of significant cultural, historical, and archaeological value at local, national, and pan-European scales. But what exactly is a cultural landscape? The HERCULES project utilised the definition of landscape within the Council of Europe's European Landscape Convention (ELC): 'An area as perceived by people, whose character is the result of the action and interaction of natural and/or human factors.' At the heart of the ELC therefore is the premise that all places – be they natural, rural, urban and marine – are 'cultural landscapes', and are inherently dynamic.

A landscape approach to governance

Through their research, the HERCULES project team found that Europeans tend to feel that their landscapes are threatened, culturally, economically and environmentally. In Europe there tends to be a natural sense of conservatism with regards to the landscape and how it changes. Even in cases where landscapes were/are more or less stable, the team found that people still tended to believe that their landscape was threatened.

This is one of the key reasons as to why the project recommends a 'landscape approach' to environmental governance, an approach which is participative and transdisciplinary. This avoids the pitfalls of single-sector or single-discipline approaches and encourages the active participation of local citizens in finding the best means to not only protect and preserve their environment but also to help them embrace positive change to their landscapes.

Specifically from a policy perspective, the project recommends that EU policies impacting all land (urban, rural and marine) should be harmonised to avoid the ineffectiveness of policies that concentrate too narrowly on single sectors of economic land use, or that impact on sections of society that are too narrowly defined.

HERCULES also advocates that the landscape approach should be considered at every stage of the policy and decision-making process. This includes the development of policy areas and tools that have a direct or indirect bearing on the natural and/or human factors of the landscape.

A HERCULES Knowledge Hub to inform policymaking

The project team arrived at these recommendations by setting up nine 'study landscapes' that were located across Europe. They were selected to ensure a balanced representation of environmental and land use gradients within Europe and to encompass diverse European cultural landscapes. The data collected was also fed into the HERCULES 'Knowledge Hub', an online two-component system that allows users to view, explore, extrapolate and interact with the data collected from the nine sites.

The Hub also contains a wealth of further information that will be of great benefit to policymakers and other stakeholders, including examples of best practices for cultural landscape management, the lessons learnt from the 'Cultural Landscape Days' organised in five of the study landscapes, and evaluations of the potential threats to European cultural landscapes on a European scale.

With the project due to end in November 2016, HERCULES has been successful in bringing back landscapes to the forefront of the political agenda, arguing that an interdisciplinary and inclusive landscape approach is the best means to preserve Europe's vast cultural heritage and diverse environments.

Indeed the project has acted as a trailblazer, with further calls within the Horizon 2020 programme due in the near future for large demonstration projecting linking heritage and landscape preservation.
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Reference:

Phys.org. 2016. “Recommendations for secure and sustainable European cultural landscapes”. Phys.org. Posted: October 11, 2016. Available online: http://phys.org/news/2016-10-sustainable-european-cultural-landscapes.html

These Are Europe’s Eight Most Endangered Cultural Landmarks

In Europe, cultural heritage—often dating back thousands of years—seems to be around every corner in the guise of well-preserved and beautifully curated landmarks that bring the continent’s history to vivid life. But not every landmark in Europe is in as good of shape as, say, the Eiffel Tower or getting the attention that ancient Pompeii is now receiving. If you look closely enough, you can see places that are crumbling or actively endangered. In a bid to draw attention to those cultural landmarks—and preserve them for future generations—Europa Nostra, a European heritage organization, recently named seven cultural landmarks and a special eighth “most-endangered” location as Europe’s most on-the-brink sites. Europa Nostra's list crosses regions and even millennia. It was put together by a group of international advisors with expertise in everything from history and preservation to finance. Though the organization notes that the list is aimed “to serve as a catalyst for action and promote ‘the power of example’”, it is not a funding program. That doesn’t mean that the sites won’t receive funding and attention, however. Now that the list has been released, Europa Nostra has assembled a board of heritage and financial experts who will undertake what they call “rescue missions” to each of the seven sites. Each mission will result in an action plan to preserve the site for future generations, no matter what its condition now. And organizations like Unesco are taking note as well. For every place that’s nominated for intervention, there are thousands more that go unnoticed and unattended. In a release, Europa Nostra cites everything from funding cuts to a lack of preservation expertise for the gaps that seriously threaten the continent’s rich cultural heritage. Regardless of the reason, the program sheds light on sites that might otherwise be ignored. Here are the sites declared most endangered in 2016: Venice Lagoon (Venice, Italy) Shocked to see one of Europe’s most familiar sights at the top of the most-endangered list? Don’t be. The bridges and buildings of the city of Venice are threatened by rising seas, and the lagoon is in danger, too. The stretch of water doesn’t just contain the famous canals—much of the 212-square-mile lagoon is made up of sand banks and muddy wetlands, indeed, it holds the distinction of being Europe’s largest wetland. The lagoon is under threat from climate change, industrial fishing and a steady traffic of cruise and container ships. Europa Nostra cites a local project to turn the lagoon into a commercial port as a particular threat. It’s so important (and threatened) that the organization gave it a “special nomination,” bringing the count of endangered landmarks to eight instead of its usual seven. Ererouk and Ani Pemza (Armenia) Located near the border of Turkey and Armenia, the basilica of Ererouk dates back to the fourth century and has been in a state of collapse for centuries. The church’s remote location, as well as the devastating earthquakes it has faced has contributed to its current dilapidated condition. According to Europa Nostra, the once-important church is now “at risk of being lost before it has been comprehensively studied and documented.” Also at risk is the village of Ani Pemza a few miles away, which has been completely abandoned since a nearby mine closed in 1994. In 1820, Tsar Nicholas I commissioned a sea fortress that would serve as a brutal prison once Soviet Russia came into being. Both Estonian Jews and Soviet political prisoners were interrogated, tortured and killed. “That is the reason why this building has a particularly sad and horrible reputation and why it is difficult to find a new use for it,” writes an Estonian heritage organization. The prison wasn't closed down until 2005. Rather than find a use for it, it’s simply been abandoned and is now filled with graffiti and crumbling architecture. “If no emergency actions are taken to stop the rapid decay,” writes Europa Nostra, “the buildings will be irreparably lost.” Helsinki-Malmi Airport (Helsinki, Finland) In 1940, Helsinki was scheduled to host the Olympic Games—but World War II got in the way, and the grand airport built to accommodate all of those visitors who never materialized was never used for its intended purpose. These days, the airport is Finland’s second busiest, but a development project that proposes it be shut down and rezoned for residential use threatens its pre-war runways and functionalist architecture. Colbert Swing Bridge (Dieppe, France)  Back in the day, movable “swing” bridges, which pivot to allow water traffic were the height of modern innovation. But they’ve gradually fallen out of fashion, and today the Colbert Bridge, which is Europe’s last and the longest of its kind, has fallen into disrepair. Built in 1886, the bridge still works just fine, but now it is endangered by shoddy maintenance and plans to destroy it. However, the danger doesn’t keep thousands of pedestrians and cars from using the bridge every day—the bridge is a lifeline between central Dieppe and the city’s Le Pollet quarter. Kampos of Chios (Chios, Greece) Think of Kampos as the lavish historic suburb of this lush Greek island. The area, which is within the limits of the island’s main city, was once home to more than 200 fancy estates and fabulous garden orchards packed with citrus fruit. Vineyards, nut orchards and silk trading rounded out the rich economy of Kampos as the area changed hands between Genoese nobles and the Ottomans. But things changed in the 19th century, when a Turkish massacre drove many Chians from the island and a citrus freeze ruined the local economy. More recently, the beautiful area has been in decline due to what Europa Nostra calls “the inability of the owners to maintain the properties” and the gradual disintegration of the area’s historic architecture. Convent of St. Anthony of Padua (Extremadura, Spain)  St. Anthony has a special relationship with Spain—not only is he the patron saint of lost and stolen articles, but his feast day on January 17 is a kind of national holiday when people bring their pets to church to be blessed. It’s not surprising, then, that a convent in western Spain would take the saint’s name. But the once lovely Renaissance building has been on the decline since Spain expelled the Franciscan priests who ran the convent and monastery and sold the building. It’s been repurposed ever since, and is now in danger of simply falling apart. Ancient City of Hasankeyf (Turkey)  Located on the banks of the Tigris River, this ancient city is 12,000 years old. Though to be one of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world, it’s been home to over 20 cultures over the millennia. And it shows: Hasankeyf is so packed with archaeological treasures that Europa Nostra calls it “a living museum of epic proportions.” But that may not be enough to keep the city safe: Despite legal battles, the Turkish government plans to displace Kurdih locals and move forward with a controversial hydroelectric dam project that will flood 74,000 acres of the precious city. br> _________________
Reference:

Blakemore, Erin. 2016. “These Are Europe’s Eight Most Endangered Cultural Landmarks”. Smithsonian Magazine. Posted: March 24, 2016. Available online: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/these-are-europes-eight-most-endangered-cultural-landmarks-180958488/?no-ist

Humans have always been migrants

A short animated film commissioned by two University of Kent historians challenges the concept that migration at current levels is a new phenomenon.

With migration now a major topic of debate across Europe, Professor Ray Laurence and Dr Julie Anderson, working with the University of Reading's Dr Hella Eckardt, created a script and commissioned the film to provide the public, schools and policy makers with a better understanding of its history.

The 75 second animation draws from research on the Roman Empire and the First World War.

This includes recent developments in the chemical analysis of the teeth of skeletons from the Roman Empire period in Britain which has revealed that migrants from North Africa were living in York. The analysis also suggests up to 30% of the population in Britain came from abroad during the Roman period.

Research into the hidden histories of war graves in Britain has also identified migrants who had took part in WWI. The conversion of Brighton Pavilion into a hospital for Indian troops provides further evidence of the important role they played.

With the topic of migration now included within the GCSE History curriculum of exam board, Oxford Cambridge and RSA (OCR) the film is expected to provide children with a far more complex view of Britain's population in the past.
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Reference:

Fleming, Sandy. 2016. “Humans have always been migrants”. Phys.org. Posted: February 9, 2016. Available online: http://phys.org/news/2016-02-humans-migrants.html

Late Antique Little Ice Age 1,500 years ago

Dendroclimatologist Ulf Büntgen and his fellow researchers were able for the first time to precisely reconstruct the summer temperatures in central Asia for the past 2,000 years. This was made possible by new tree-ring measurements from the Altai mountains in Russia. The results complement the climatological history of the European Alps, stretching back 2,500 years, that Büntgen and collaborators published in 2011 in the journal Nature Geoscience. “The course temperatures took in the Altai mountains corresponds remarkably well to what we found for the Alps,” says Büntgen. The combined findings allow for the first time to infer summer temperatures for large parts of Eurasia over the past two millennia.

Cold phase in 6th century

Tree-ring widths in old trees reflect the summer climate in any given year in the past. Looking at these, the researchers were particularly struck by a cold phase in the 6th century. It exhibited even lower temperatures, longer duration and larger expanse than the temperature drops in the Little Ice Age (13th to 19th centuries CE). “This was the most dramatic cooling in the Northern Hemisphere in the past 2,000 years,” explains Büntgen.

Climate and culture

In light of this, the researchers refer to the period from 536 to around 660 CE for the first time as the “Late Antique Little Ice Age” (LALIA). This was triggered by three major volcanic eruptions in 536, 540 and 547 CE, whose climatic impact was prolonged further by the retardant effect of the oceans and a minimum in solar activity.

According to the team of naturalists, historians and linguists, this period bore witness to a whole series of social upheavals. After famine, the Justinian plague established itself between 541 and 543 CE, killing millions of people in the centuries that followed and possibly contributing to the decline of the Eastern Roman Empire.

Migrations

Proto-Slavic-speaking people migrated, supposedly from the Carpathian region, into the eastern areas of modern-day Europe that had been abandoned by the Romans, thereby forming the Slavic language area. According to the researchers, this period of cool temperatures may also have fostered the expansion of the Arab Empire in the Middle East. The Arabian Peninsula received more rain, growing more vegetation, which may have sustained larger herds of camels used by the Arab armies for their campaigns.

In cooler areas, various peoples also migrated east towards China, maybe driven away by a lack of pastureland in central Asia. As a result, hostilities broke out in the steppe regions of northern China between nomadic groups and the local ruling powers. Subsequently, an alliance between these steppe populations and the Eastern Romans conquered the Sasanian Empire in Persia, leading to its collapse.

Strategies for modern-day climate change

While the researchers stress, however, that potential links between this period of cool temperatures and socio-political changes always need to be treated with great caution, they write that “the LALIA fits in well with the main transformative events that occurred in Eurasia during that time“.

Ulf Büntgen points out that their study serves as an example of how sudden climatological shifts can change existing political systems: “We can learn something from the speed and scale of the transformations that took place at that time,” he says. Knowledge about the effects of past climatic fluctuations could maybe contribute to developing strategies how to deal with modern climate change.”
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Reference:

Past Horizons. 2016. “Late Antique Little Ice Age 1,500 years ago”. Past Horizons. Posted: February 8, 2016. Available online: http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/archives/02/2016/late-antique-little-ice-age-1500-years-ago

Plague may have persisted in Europe during 300-year period, including 'Black Death'

The bacteria that causes plague, Y. pestis, may have persisted long-term in Europe from the 14th to 17th century in an unknown reservoir, according to a study published January 13, 2016 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Lisa Seifert from Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany, and colleagues.

Not all researchers agree about the role Yersinia pestis played in the second plague pandemic which occurred from the 14th to 17th century. Some suggest it may have been a result of a viral disease; however, most recent research on ancient plague demonstrates that the deadly disease existed thousands of years earlier than previously thought. In this study researchers recovered and analyzed ancient DNA from 30 plague victims of the second plague pandemic. They were excavated from two different burial sites in Germany, and spanning more than 300 years.

Of 30 skeletons tested, eight were positive for Yersinia pestis-specific nucleic acid. All positive individuals genetic material were highly similar to previously investigated plague victims from other European countries and had identical Y. pestis genotype. The author suggest that in addition to the assumed continuous reintroduction of Y. pestis from central Asia in multiple waves during the second pandemic, it's also possible that Y. pestis persisted long-term in Europe in a yet unknown reservoir host.
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Reference:

EurekAlert. 2016. “Plague may have persisted in Europe during 300-year period, including 'Black Death'”. EurekAlert. Posted: January 13, 2016. Available online: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-01/p-pmh010716.php

Massive migration from the steppe is a source for Indo-European languages in Europe

Abstract

We generated genome-wide data from 69 Europeans who lived between 8,000-3,000 years ago by enriching ancient DNA libraries for a target set of almost four hundred thousand polymorphisms. Enrichment of these positions decreases the sequencing required for genome-wide ancient DNA analysis by a median of around 250-fold, allowing us to study an order of magnitude more individuals than previous studies and to obtain new insights about the past. We show that the populations of western and far eastern Europe followed opposite trajectories between 8,000-5,000 years ago. At the beginning of the Neolithic period in Europe, ~8,000-7,000 years ago, closely related groups of early farmers appeared in Germany, Hungary, and Spain, different from indigenous hunter-gatherers, whereas Russia was inhabited by a distinctive population of hunter-gatherers with high affinity to a ~24,000 year old Siberian6. By ~6,000-5,000 years ago, a resurgence of hunter-gatherer ancestry had occurred throughout much of Europe, but in Russia, the Yamnaya steppe herders of this time were descended not only from the preceding eastern European hunter-gatherers, but from a population of Near Eastern ancestry. Western and Eastern Europe came into contact ~4,500 years ago, as the Late Neolithic Corded Ware people from Germany traced ~3/4 of their ancestry to the Yamnaya, documenting a massive migration into the heartland of Europe from its eastern periphery. This steppe ancestry persisted in all sampled central Europeans until at least ~3,000 years ago, and is ubiquitous in present-day Europeans. These results provide support for the theory of a steppe origin of at least some of the Indo-European languages of Europe.

Read the whole article online.
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Reference:

Haak, Wolfgang, Iosif Lazaridis, Nick Patterson, et al. 2015. “Massive migration from the steppe is a source for Indo-European languages in Europe”. Biorxiv. Posted: February 10, 2015. Available online: http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2015/02/10/013433

Groundbreaking research maps cultural history

New research from Northeastern University has mapped the intellectual migration network in North America and Europe over a 2,000-year span. The team of network scientists used the birth and death locations of more than 150,000 intellectuals to map their mobility patterns in order to identify the major cultural centers on the two continents over two millennia.

In the new paper, to be published Friday in the journal Science, the researchers found how locations such as Rome, London, and Paris have emerged as cultural hubs as more intellectuals died in these cities than elsewhere—regardless of where they were born. Additionally, the findings reveal that the distance between the birth and death locations of notable individuals has not increased much over the span of eight centuries—a remarkable showcase of human mobility patterns—despite the fact that colonization and transportation improvements have increased long-distance travel.

"By tracking the migration of notable individuals for over two millennia, we could for the first time explore the boom and bust of the cultural centers of the world," said Albert-László Barabási, Robert Gray Dodge Professor of Network Science and director of Northeastern's Center for Complex Network Research. "The observed rapid changes offer a fascinating view of the transience of intellectual supremacy."

In their paper, Maximilian Schich, the lead author and former visiting research scientist in the center, Barabási, and their co-authors presented a variety of new findings. For example, despite the arts' dependence on money, the cultural hubs that attracted the most intellectuals were not necessarily economic hubs.

In addition, they found that by the 16th century, Europe appeared to be characterized by two radically different cultural regimes: a "winner-takes-all" regime with countries where an individual city attracts a substantial and constant flow of intellectuals (i.e.: Paris, France) and a "fit-gets-richer" regime with cities within a federal region (i.e.: Germany) competing with each other for their share of intellectuals, only being able to attract a fraction of that population in any given century.

The team also found that there is no such thing as an average cultural center or average attractiveness consistent among locations. In fact, they scale and fluctuate heavily over time due to a variety of factors.

For example, while intellectuals have always flocked to New York City in great numbers, it was an even bigger source of talent in the 1920s, being the birthplace of a significant portion of individuals in the data set.

Additionally, locations like Hollywood, the Alps, and the French Riviera, which have not produced a large number of notable figures, have become, at different points in history, major destinations for intellectuals, perhaps initially emerging for reasons such as the location's beauty or climate.

The research has not only uncovered fascinating aspects of intellectual migration over two millennia, it also broke new ground in terms of its data-driven approach to understanding cultural history. The team used data going back several centuries to quantify qualitative knowledge and consulted vast amounts of literature.

They relied on large data sets, including the curated General Artist Lexicon that consists exclusively of artists and includes more than 150,000 names and Freebase with roughly 120,000 individuals, 2,200 of whom are artists. Through this novel approach, they identified a clear set of geographical patterns that would not be recognized using traditional quantitative historical methods. The third data set, the Getty Union List of Artist Names, was used to validate the results of the other two.

"We're starting out to do something which is called cultural science where we're in a very similar trajectory as systems biology for example," said Schich, now an associate professor in arts and technology at the University of Texas at Dallas. "As data sets about birth and death locations grow, the approach will be able to reveal an even more complete picture of history. In the next five to 10 years, we'll have considerably larger amounts of data and then we can do more and better, address more questions."
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References:

EurekAlert. 2014. “Groundbreaking research maps cultural history”. EurekAlert. Posted: July 31, 2014. Available online: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-07/nu-grm073114.php

Civilization Is Defined by 'the Others'

What does it mean to be a civilized person? A civilized nation? How are these notions changing over time? And from one country to another? In the recently concluded project Civility, Virtue and Emotions in Europe and Asia, researchers from several different countries and disciplines have studied these questions. One of the initiators is Professor Helge Jordheim, Academic Director for the inter-faculty research programme KULTRANS.

Jordheim and his colleagues have studied what was considered to be civilized behaviour in Europe and Asia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

"Western identity and mores were formed by the encounter with non-Western cultures," Jordheim states.

The period studied by the researchers was one characterized by imperialism. In light of this, the relationship between "the West and the rest" is particularly interesting, Jordheim claims.

"In Western Europe, the prevailing notion was 'civilization, that's us.' Even in Asia, the idea that standards were defined by the West tended to prevail. Implicitly, the objective was: how can we catch up with the West?"

A boost in self-confidence

At the same time, there was a clear perception in Asia about not just mimicking the West, Jordheim emphasizes. The Asian countries were concerned with "finding their own path."

"A challenge for the entire project has consisted in avoiding the pitfall of thinking that all influence emanated from Western Europe. It's not as simple as that. For example, we can see that there was a widespread exchange of ideas between the Ottoman Empire and the Arabic and Persian cultures, which also had an impact on the Urdu-speaking population of India. Thus, the influence appears to be far less homogenous than we have previously assumed," Jordheim says.

He believes that the Russo-Japanese War in the early 20th century was a key event for the Asian civilizing process.

"This was the first time that Asia defeated the West. It resulted in a real boost in self-confidence, and had an impact on the kinds of ideas that were nurtured," Jordheim says.

Similarly, the researchers have been interested in how the civilizing influence to some extent also ran in the opposite direction -- from East to West.

The written word shapes our thoughts

Jordheim and his colleagues have mainly studied different types of texts from the countries included in the project.

"We have looked at a lot of self-help literature, such as 'how to become a better person' and literature on 'etiquette.' We have also studied political documents that present ideas of how the nation should be formed. In addition, we have studied texts from encyclopaedias, which help explain concepts."

Jordheim points out that such texts help mould the views of the population in a particular manner.

"They help inculcate and foster certain emotions, while suppressing others. To render a population more civilized, changes must occur at the level of the individual," he says.

Scandinavia: A natural paradox

Jordheim's own research has focused on the concept of civilization in Scandinavia -- a region which is rarely included when processes of civilization are being studied.

"Scandinavia stands apart because civilization is relatively unimportant as a notion. Here, the concept of dannelse (formation) is used to refer to the same," Jordheim states.

Scandinavia is different also in other respects, mainly due to the population's relationship to nature.

"The entire idea of civilization involves abandoning nature and the natural state. This is problematic in Scandinavia, and especially in Norway, since so much of our identity is associated with nature," he says.

Jordheim argues that much of what is traditionally regarded as a development in the right direction in other countries will not be perceived in the same way in Scandinavia.

For example, migration to the cities will not necessarily be regarded as a sign of progress. The Scandinavian discourse fosters ideas and notions of nature as the ideal -- not civilization as such. Viewed thus, the idea of civilization is paradoxical, he says.

Fertile ground for Social Darwinism

Jordheim believes that this notion of nature is also reflected in the kinds of emotions that are regarded as "civilized" in Scandinavia.

"In many other countries, the civilizing process entails that emotions must be curbed. This is not necessarily so in Scandinavia. Emotions that are presumed to be natural, such as courage, anger and maternal instincts, are also regarded as desirable," he says.

In his research, Jordheim has been concerned with how these notions of civilization, nature and emotions helped Social Darwinism gain a firm foothold in Scandinavia, especially in Norway.

"Ideas that were explained on the basis of nature had already gained widespread acceptance. With Social Darwinism, "civilized" ideas could be integrated while nature maintained its position," Jordheim claims.

Private and global

Jordheim says that what makes the project particularly interesting is its wide scope -- from the private realm, to global matters.

"On the one hand, this is about how you behave within your own home. How do you behave towards your wife and children? What is the ideal? At the same time, this is about the nation and the world order.

It is important for all countries to appear civilized. How civilized a country is considered to be determines its position in the 'global pecking order,'" he says.
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References:

Science Daily. 2013. “Civilization Is Defined by 'the Others'”. Science Daily. Posted: October 3, 2013. Available online: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131003095448.htm

Oldest European Medieval Cookbook Found

A 12th-century manuscript contains the oldest known European Medieval food recipes, according to new research.

The recipes, which include both food and medical ointment concoctions, were compiled and written in Latin. Someone jotted them down at Durham Cathedral’s monastery in the year 1140.

It was essentially a health book, so the meals were meant to improve a person’s health or to cure certain afflictions. The other earliest known such recipes dated to 1290.

Many of the dishes sound like they would work on a modern restaurant menu. Faith Wallis, an expert in medical history and science based at McGill University, translated a few for Discovery News:

“For “hen in winter’: heat garlic, pepper and sage with water.”

“For ‘tiny little fish’: juice of coriander and garlic, mixed with pepper and garlic.”

For preserved ginger, it should kept in “pure water” and then “sliced lengthwise into very thin slices, and mixed thoroughly with prepared honey that has been cooked down to a sticky thickness and skimmed. It should be rubbed well in the honey with the hands, and left a whole day and night.”

Re – the “hen in winter” dish, Giles Gasper from Durham University’s Institute of Medieval and Early Modern Studies said, “We believe this recipe is simply a seasonal variation, using ingredients available in the colder months and specifying ‘hen’ rather than ‘chicken,’ meaning it was an older bird as it would be by that time of year.”

Gasper added, “The sauces typically feature parsley, sage, pepper, garlic, mustard and coriander, which I suspect may give them a Mediterranean feel when we recreate them. According to the text, one of the recipes comes from the Poitou region of what is now modern central western France. This shows the extent to which international travel and exchange of ideas took place within the medieval period. And what more evocative example of cultural exchange could there be than food?”

Gaspar and colleagues are recreating some of the dishes for a workshop to be held on April 25 at Blackfriars Restaurant in Newcastle, U.K. A lunch the following Saturday will feature the same dishes. The researchers are also putting together a translation of the cookbook under the title “Zinziber” (Latin for ginger).

While much of the food is still tasty to modern palates, not all of the medical cures would work today.

Gaspar explained, “Some of the medical recipes in this book seem to have stood the test of time, some emphatically haven’t! But we’re looking forward to finding out whether these newly-discovered food recipes have done so and whether they also possess what you might call a certain Je Ne Sais Quoi — or Quidditas, to use the Latin.”
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References:

Viegas, Jennifer. 2013. “Oldest European Medieval Cookbook Found”. Discovery News. Posted: April 17, 2013. Available online: http://news.discovery.com/history/oldest-european-medieval-cookbook-found-130417.htm