Co-sponsored by the Center for European Studies (CES), the Center for Culture, History, and the Environment (CHE), the Holtz Center for Science and Technology, the Department of History, the Anonymous Fund, and the Jay and Ruth Halls Visiting Scholar Fund.
The “cerealization” of Europe was pretty much complete by the eleventh century. In the process, a vast reduction in the biodiversity of agrarian landscapes and ecosystems and a simplification of foodways took place, as Europeans came to rely on a handful of staple crops for most of their sustenance. Among these, soft or bread wheat (Triticum aestivum) was particularly popular. This paper investigates why early medieval Europeans were willing to undertake this massive change in their environments and economies. It proposes that there are several reasons why wheat, an exotic plant in most of Europe in 500, by 1000 had outcompeted its rivals, many of them natives with a long history of cultivation in the region. The triumph of Triticum did not occur simply because Christian culture and Christian ritual preferred this cereal to all others.