Medieval Urban Environment: Between Mental and Material Practices

Abstract

This article raises the question of how natural conditions and social practices interacted and provided groundbreaking premises for the development of the medieval urban physical environment. The main hypothesis is twofold: (a) that social practices in medieval urban communities are entangled with natural processes, (b) that mentality, knowledge and experience as elements in social practices are fundamental to the comprehension of the development of physical environment in medieval towns. The article introduces elements from social practice theory to outline a theoretical framework. The article also invokes a study of urban ecosystems in which the term ‘social-ecological system’ (SES) places intentions, meaning and symbolic constructions to the forefront of the study of urban environmental development. By using empirical examples from two medieval Norwegian towns, Trondheim and Bergen, I aim to elucidate how the urban population shared norms and concepts which were key prerequisites for how urban physical environment developed through the Middle Ages.