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Written in trees

Abstract:
The medieval horticultural manual the Godfridus super Palladium directs its readers in the art of grafting and maintaining trees. The text was translated from Latin into Middle English in the fourteenth century by Nicholas Bollard, whose own treatise on planting and grafting is found alongside the super Palladium in a number of surviving manuscripts. These works seek, at least in part, to codify past practices and accumulated knowledge, rendering a future that is predictable and productive. Yet both the super Palladium and Bollard’s Craft of Grafting and Planting are replete with micronarratives of nonhuman matter that connect them to a range of natural philosophical and literary traditions. Many of these directives are also scalable: initially specific to trees and plants, they also resonate with contemporary and modern philosophical debates on temporality, the potential transformations of matter, and the thresholds and limits of life.
Publication status:
Published
Peer review status:
Peer reviewed

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Publisher copy:
10.1057/s41280-018-0102-6

Authors


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Institution:
University of Oxford
Division:
HUMS
Department:
English Faculty
Role:
Author
ORCID:
0000-0002-9155-5241



Publisher:
Palgrave Macmillan
Journal:
postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies More from this journal
Volume:
9
Issue:
4
Pages:
444–454
Publication date:
2018-12-11
Acceptance date:
2018-06-01
DOI:
ISSN:
2040-5960


Pubs id:
pubs:921396
UUID:
uuid:0c4a9007-947b-4c6a-a1ac-b5e636083666
Local pid:
pubs:921396
Source identifiers:
921396
Deposit date:
2019-02-27

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