The Sustainability of Settlement and Exploitation of Liminal Coastal Environments in the North Sea Region, c. 1150-1400

英国低洼的沿海湿地面临着气候变化和海平面上升的相关威胁。这些问题在罗姆尼沼泽尤为严重，罗姆尼沼泽是肯特郡西南部覆盖约260平方公里的盐沼和淡水沼泽的混合区。在公元1150年前，罗姆尼·马什的定居在很大程度上仅限于零星的季节性占领。在这一点之后，出现了转向长期的沼泽地开发，这可能部分地导致或完全导致了1250年和1287-88年的一系列毁灭性的洪水事件。我的论文将探讨过去洪灾的经历和随后的社会反应，从而能够评估人为因素在破坏湿地环境稳定中的作用。此外，我将调查机构在改变中世纪景观的位置，其资源的使用，以及这种转变为与沼泽地的新的剥削关系的原因。一种跨学科的方法将利用一系列来源，包括地区性建筑环境、法律文件和土壤学调查，以收集关于土地使用、所有权和定居点模式的量化数据。这将使人们对中世纪时期人类与环境的关系有一个新的概念。由于沼泽地是一种重要的自然资源，因此迫切需要进行这样的研究，以提供对当前生态危机的看法。然而，它所依赖的证据的一部分，罗姆尼·马什的中世纪田地制度，正在迅速被20世纪60年代后区域农业政策从牧场转向耕地的转变所侵蚀。因此，当前的农业实践和沼泽地不稳定的生态使这项研究特别及时。

Britain's low-lying coastal wetlands face the related threats of climatic change andrising sea levels. These problems are particularly acute in Romney Marsh, aregion of combined salt and freshwater marsh covering c. 260 km2 in southwesternKent. Before c. 1150, settlement of Romney Marsh had largely beenlimited to sporadic seasonal occupation. After this point, there was a shift towardsyear-round marshland exploitation which may have partly caused or exacerbateda series of devastating flooding episodes in 1250 and 1287-88. My thesis willexplore this past experience of flooding and the subsequent societal response,enabling an assessment of the anthropogenic role in destabilising marshlandenvironments. Additionally, I will investigate where agency lies in transforming themedieval landscape, use of its resources, and the cause of this shift towards anew exploitative relationship with marshland. An inter-disciplinary approach willutilise a range of sources, including the parochial built environment, legaldocuments, and pedological surveys, to gather quantitative data on land use,ownership and settlement patterns. This will enable a reconceptualisation ofhuman relationships with the environment during the Middle Ages. Such researchis urgently needed to provide perspective on the current ecological crisis becausemarshlands are a critical natural resource. However, part of the evidence uponwhich it relies, Romney Marsh's medieval field system, is fast being eroded by apost-1960s shift in regional farming policy from pastoral to arable methods.Consequently, current agricultural practices and the marshland's unstable ecologymake this research particularly timely.