B5124 - Agricultural Production and Food in the Middle Ages (1) (LM)

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students will be able to read and critically analyse up-to-date documents and bibliographies on the history of agricultural production and food in the Middle Ages, making appropriate use of the relevant sources. Students will be able to communicate the results of research in writing and/or orally. They will be able to relate to heterogeneous working groups and cultural contexts and to identify specific contributions to problems of general interest.

Course contents

After a necessary framing of the relationship between the history of agrarian production and the history of food, the course provides the tools for understanding and interpreting agrarian contractualism, both on a legal and documentary production level. Attention is given to the relationship between agrarian production and city supply, as well as to the differences and similarities between peasant and city food. The types of sources for the discussion of this topic are varied and emphasis will be placed on their production and the history of their preservation, which is essential to explain their presence and absence in the archives.

The fifteen lessons that constitute the course consist of a theoretical, frontal part and the analysis of one or more sources relevant to the topic. The topics are as follows:

1. Introduction to the course, agricultural and food history. Birth of the disciplines and main lines of research.
2. The organisation of the rural territory from Late Antiquity to the decline of the manorial system.
3. The types of ad laborandum contracts.
4. What remains after the lordly withdrawal? The peasant's diet and his codes of behaviour.
5. The timing of food: fresh or preserved?
6. Time to feast and time to fast: religion and food.
7. Famine time: historiographical courses and recurrences. Human intelligence against famine.
8. Bread as a necessity and as a factor of social differentiation.
9. Meat in the countryside and meat in the cities.
10. For a reading of medieval recipe books: rich cuisine and peasant elements.
11. Food supply of the courts and accounting registers, where the accounts do not always add up.
12. Food supply of cities and the relationship with the territory.
13. Food variety as added value and the 'zero kilometre' paradox.
14. The localisation of foodstuffs.
15. Stories, myths and a bit of literature.

Readings/Bibliography

Accademia dei Georgofili, Storia dell'agricoltura italiana, vol. 2, Il Medioevo e l’Età moderna, a cura di Giuliano Pinto, Carlo Poni, Ugo Tucci, Firenze, Edizioni Polistampa, 2002, pp. 21-168 (in open access, freely downloadable from the Accademia dei Georgofili website at the link https://www.storiaagricoltura.it/).

Antonella Campanini, Il cibo e la storia: il Medioevo europeo, Roma, Carocci, 2016.

Massimo Montanari, Gusti del Medioevo. I prodotti, la cucina, la tavola, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2012, pp. 43-99 [cap. 4 (I tempi del cibo), cap. 5 (Profumo di civiltà: il pane), cap. 6 (Desiderio di carne), cap. 7 (Lo statuto ambiguo del pesce), cap. 8 (Dal latte ai formaggi)] e pp. 155-210 [cap. 12 (Civiltà del vino), cap. 13 (Cucina ricca, cucina povera), cap. 14 (Cucina monastica)].

The contents of these books will be supplemented by materials presented in class and downloadable from Virtuale.

 

Non-attending students are required, in lieu of the materials presented in class, to read a book of their choice from:

Bruno Andreolli, Massimo Montanari, L’azienda curtense in Italia. Proprietà della terra e lavoro contadino nei secoli VIII-XI, Bologna, CLUEB, 2003 (first ed. 1983) (freely available from the online resources that the University provides).

Alfio Cortonesi, Gianfranco Pasquali, Gabriella Piccinni, Uomini e campagne nell’Italia medievale, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2002.

A Cultural History of Food in the Medieval Age, ed. by Massimo Montanari, vol 2 di A cultural History of Food, ed. by Fabio Parasecoli and Peter Scholliers, London-New York, Berg, 2012.

Riccardo Rao, I paesaggi dell’Italia medievale, Roma, Carocci, 2015.

Teaching methods

Lectures, with exposition of topics and readings of documents.

Assessment methods

Students who attend at least 75% of the lessons are considered to be attending.

For attending students, the examination consists of an oral interview on the topics covered in the lectures and bibliography indicated, as well as on the exegesis of the relevant sources.

Non-attending students will need to demonstrate a thorough knowledge of the three texts common to all and the fourth text they have chosen from the list provided.

There are seven examination sessions for all students during the academic year: December, January, February, May, June, July, September.

Are evaluated: the property of language, the understanding of the topics discussed, the ability to propose connections between different themes.

The vote is expressed in 30/30. At discretion of the teacher, a mention of “lode” can be added.

Evaluation criteria and degrees. The achievement by the student of a full critical knowledge of the topics taught in the course and mastery of the specific language will be evaluated with excellence marks. A mnemonic knowledge of the matter and synthesis and analysis skills articulated in a language not always appropriate will lead to discrete evaluations. Inappropriate formative and/or inappropriate language will lead to just sufficient marks. Serious formative errors, inappropriate language, lack of orientation within the bibliographic materials provided by the course will be negatively evaluated.

If the course is a component of an Integrated Course (C.I.) in the student's syllabus, the oral exam of the two courses of the Integrated Course must be taken on a single date and the final mark will be the arithmetic mean of the marks obtained in the two components.

Teaching tools

Reproductions or editions of the sources analysed in class will be made available to the students. At the end of each lesson, the corresponding power point will be uploaded to Virtuale.

Students who require specific services and adaptations to teaching activities due to a disability or specific learning disorders (SLD), must first contact the appropriate office: Service for Students with Disabilities and SLD [https://site.unibo.it/studenti-con-disabilita-e-dsa/en]

Office hours

See the website of Antonella Campanini