In the Middle Ages people lived more sustainably than now, you should know that

The Middle Ages have a miserable image. It is considered an era when noble authorities ruled with an iron fist, the Church ruled dogmatically, and both the plague and the (Crusaders) raged. But the Middle Ages have more to offer. A wealth of sustainability knowledge, for example. The German historian Annette Kehnel tracked it down and compiled it in the book ‘We could do it differently’. This also applies to the fishing regulations on Lake Constance.

Fish was a staple food in the region. Anyone could catch him. Apart from some parts of the coast it was more of a communal land. The fishermen sold their goods at the markets in Konstanz or Lindau. Demand was high, Kehnel writes, and this created an incentive to maximize one’s own profits.

In fact, this would be the typical starting point for overfishing the water. What worked differently on the shores of Lake Constance? Annette Kehnel refers to the studies of the historian Michael Zeheter. He concludes: the destruction of the basis of life could be averted because partnerships emerged around Lake Constance. Fishermen decided together with the authorities how they wanted to protect fish stocks and species. And this has been the case since the 14th century.

The involvement of fishermen was crucial for the success of the measures taken. On regular fishing days they could participate and adjust the fishing rules to the circumstances. They decided: anyone who wants to fish should only use nets or fishing rods made of certain materials and must take into account closed seasons and catch limits.

If someone did not comply, they risked confiscation of the material, a fine or even imprisonment. The measures have paid off. Kehnel writes:

The medieval researcher emphasizes: It was not environmental protection or ecological thinking that motivated people, but rather long-term returns. Or simply the survival of their industry. “Sustainability was the survival strategy of these people,” writes Annette Kehnel. This allowed them to work together and protect supplies.

A survival strategy that threatens to fail in the present. Kehnel sees the problem in the fact that our thinking and actions are stuck in the 19th century. Progress, growth, prosperity: this led to a unique drive for modernization at the time. And to unprecedented overexploitation of resources.

It is common knowledge that it will not last long. But so far there has been no change in thinking. It is often said that people are too selfish, too greedy and too focused on short-term gains. With her foray into economics from the past, Annette Kehnel refutes such statements with models that show the opposite.

For example, there were the pawn shops in Italy, the so-called Monti di Pietà. Rich city dwellers founded them and injected the capital so that poorer people could take out small loans. Like a farmer. In the spring he put down his winter coat to buy seeds with the borrowed money. After he had sold his crops, he took off his cloak again.

The creation of these small credit institutions dates back to the late Middle Ages, when a huge economic boom took place in Northern Italy. A few traders, merchants and bankers amassed enormous fortunes. Members of this elite each ran the small credit institutions for a year – free of charge.

The institutes emphatically did not work for profit, but for cost recovery. A sustainable social idea that Muhammad Yunus relaunched centuries later with microcredit and won the Nobel Prize.

It is not the only example that shows: the motivation and starting point of machines and technologies are different, but the ideas for sustainable entrepreneurship are centuries old. Recycling of building materials was widespread in the Middle Ages, the sharing economy brought great wealth to monasteries, bridges were built through crowdfunding and second-hand markets flourished. But then no one spoke in Anglicisms. Annette Kehnel builds bridges. Linguistically and with impressive examples. For example, the excursion about waste.

It was not until the 1970s that the term “waste” appeared in dictionaries in the sense commonly used today: as remains that are unusable. Previously, the emphasis was on its further use. Kehnel quotes from a dissertation from 1914. It says:

The less waste, the further the culture develops. More than a hundred years later, the waste catches fire, piles up in the mountains, swims in the sea or orbits in space.

Swiss historian Christian Pfister coined the term 1950s syndrome to describe the world’s litter. At the time, cheap oil flooded the world market. This also made the extraction of other raw materials cheaper. Their prices also plummeted. So much so that nowadays it is often cheaper to buy a new sofa or a new vacuum cleaner than to repair the broken appliance.

However, for our ancestors, recycling and upcycling were the norm. “Repair shops and second-hand markets were central areas of the pre-modern urban economy, and stores selling second-hand goods were not the domain of the poor,” Kehnel writes.

This circular economy – just like cooperative economic forms outside the failed planned economy and the credit transactions of the so-called small people – has received little attention in historical research for a long time. Rather, the focus of the investigation was on the affairs of merchants and bankers.

In her work, Annette Kehnel focuses on the sustainable economy that has worked. This is the power of the book. And at the same time his weakness. The massive deforestation in the Middle Ages, the resulting soil erosion and flooding are virtually non-existent. There are also no polluted rivers or heavily polluted air caused by the processing of ores or glass.

Although the historian does not romanticize the past, she also does not discuss its enormous ecological problems. Nevertheless, your examples surprise, inspire and give hope. I hope that sustainable, resource-saving ways of thinking will return. Like the fishermen on Lake Constance.

Book: Annette Kehnel “We could do things differently”, Blessing Verlag, 488 pages, fr. 37.90.

(aargauerzeitung.ch)