Introduction. Rural Space in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times: A Significant Domain Ignored For Too Long by Modern Research? -- 1. Critical Inquiry: The Relevance of Rural Space -- 2. Natural Space and the Medieval Encyclopedia -- 3. The Spatial Turn in Medieval and Premodern Studies -- 4. Rural Space and Ecocriticism -- 5. Space and Historical-Literary Investigations -- 6. Perception of Rural Space in The Voyage of St. Brendan: An Early-Medieval Voice -- 7. Nature in a Spanish Medieval Epic Poem: El Poema de Mío Cid: Human Drama in the Wilderness -- 8. The Mountain in the Art and Literature of the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Age: The Most Massive Challenge in Nature -- 9. Climbing the Mountain, or Ascending to the Renaissance? Franceso Petrarca's Reflections on Nature -- 10. Oswald von Wolkenstein: The Aristocrat versus the Peasant. Secret Longing for Life in Rural Space? -- 11. The Perception of the Natural World: The Testimony of Medieval Courtly Literature -- 12. Growing up in the Wilderness: Youthful Experiences in the Forest: Perceval/Parzival in the Romances by Chrétien de Troye and Wolfram von Eschenbach -- 13. Ominous Approaches: Wolfram von Eschenbach's Titurel: Seeking Refuge from Society in the Forest -- 14. Nature and the Courtly World: Literary Reflections on Rural Space in High Medieval Literature -- 15. The Protagonist's Existential Test in Nature: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight -- 16. Love (?) in the Mountains: Juan Ruiz's Libro de buen amor. Late-Medieval Spanish Reflections on Rural Space -- 17. Rural Space in Late-Medieval Short Verse Narratives -- 18. The Court, the City, and the Rural Space in Boccaccio's Decameron.

19. William Langland's Piers the Plowman: Late-Medieval English Religious and Social Reflections -- 20. Johannes von Tepl's Ackermann: A German-Czech Writer's Reference to the Metaphorical Peasant -- 21. Hugo von Trimberg's Renner: A Thirteenth-Century Didactic Perspective Toward Peasants -- 22. Wernher der Gartenære's Helmbrecht: The Attempted Break. Out of the Social Order -- 23. The Testimony of Medieval and Late-Medieval Art -- 24. Peasants, Rural Existence, the Protestant Reformation and Farmer's Self-Expression Until the Seventeenth Century -- 25. Economic Aspects Pertaining to Rural Space -- 26. Heinrich Wittenwiler's Ring -- 27. Rural Space and the Supportive Peasant Figure in Queen Sibille (Elisabeth von Nassau-Saarbrücken) -- 28. Collaboration of the Good Peasant with the Noble Lady -- 29. Exploration of Rural Space in Sixteenth-Century Literature: Till Eulenspiegel and Marguerite de Navarre's Heptaméron -- 30. The Testimony of Late-Medieval Art Once Again -- 31. Acknowledgment and Summaries of All Contributions in this Volume -- 32. Conclusion -- Chapter 1. Reforming the Monastic Landscape: Peter Damian's Design for Personal and Communal Devotion -- Chapter 2. Women's Place and Women's Space in the Medieval Village -- Chapter 3. "Gebrochen bluomen unde gras": Medieval Ecological Consciousness in Selected Poems by Walther von der Vogelweide -- Chapter 4. Utopian Space in the Countryside: Love and Marriage between a Knight and a Peasant Girl in Medieval German Literature. Hartmann von Aue's Der arme Heinrich, Anonymous, "Dis ist von dem Heselin," Walther von der Vogelweide, Oswald von Wolkenstein, and Late-Medieval Popular Poetry -- Chapter 5. Rural Space and Agricultural Space in the Old French Fabliaux and the Roman de Renart.

Chapter 6. Wood, Court, and River in the Four Branches of the Mabinogi -- Chapter 7. Rural Space and Transgressive Space in Bérenger au lonc cul -- Chapter 8. Life on the Manor and in Rural Space: Answering the Challenges of Social Decay in William Langland's Piers Plowman -- Chapter 9. Landscape of Luxuries: Mahaut d'Artois's (1302-1329) Management and Use of the Park at Hesdin -- Chapter 10. Hunting or Gardening: Parks and Royal Rural Space -- Chapter 11. The Significance of Rural Space in Guillaume de Palerne -- Chapter 12. The Forest as Locus of Transition and Transformation in the Epic Romance Berte aus grans pies -- Chapter 13. Juan Manuel's Libro de la caza (ca. 1325) -- Chapter 14. Hunting as Salvation in Gaston Phebus's Livre de chasse -- Chapter 15. Rural Space in Late Medieval Books of Hours: Book Illustrations as a Looking-Glass Into Medieval Mentality and Mirrors of Ecocriticism -- Chapter 16. The Tame Wilderness of Princes: Images of Nature in Exemplars of Books of Hours and in the Livre du Cœur d'amour épris of King René of Anjou -- Chapter 17. Marshy Spaces in the Middle English Awntyrs off Arthure at the Terne Wathelyne: Physical and Spiritual Territory -- Chapter 18. Peasant Authors and Peasant Haters: Matazone da Caligano and the Ambiguity of the Satira del villano in High and Late Medieval Italy -- Chapter 19. "Lazarus and Abraham, our Jews of Eggenburg": Jews in the Austrian Countryside in the Fourteenth Century -- Chapter 20. Small Town, Big Business: A Wealthy Jewish Moneylender in the Austrian Countryside -- Chapter 21. Usos rerum rusticarum: Malae consuetudines, male usos lege and Peasant Rebellion as Resistance or Adaptation to Legal Change -- Chapter 22. Village People: The Presence of the Rural in Late Medieval French Comedies.

Chapter 23. Uprooted Trees and Slaughtered Peasants: The Savaging of Rural Space in Ariosto's Orlando Furioso (1532) -- Chapter 24. Representations of the Plowman and the Prostitute in Puritan and Anti-Puritan Satire: Or the Rhetoric of Plainness and the Reformation of the Popular in the Harvey Nashe Quarrel -- Chapter 25. The Poet in Exile: Robert Herrick and the "loathed Country-life" -- Chapter 26. Women at the Hunt: Developing a Gendered Logic of Rural Space in the Netherlandish Visual Tradition -- Chapter 27. "The free Enjoyment of the Earth": Gerrard Winstanley on Land Reform -- List of Illustrations -- Contributors -- Index.