Between about 1050 and 1150, Europe underwent one of the most transformative periods in its environmental and social history. Forests, marshes and wilderness were rapidly reshaped into fields, villages and monastic estates. This sweeping “Age of Clearance” altered landscapes, power structures and daily life in ways still visible today and provided for the establishment of both new monasteries and preceptories. But what forces drove the major actors in this dramatic rural reshaping of medieval Europe?
