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Neptune and the Lech: An environmental history of the borders of early modern Augsburg

par Martino, Davide
Référence Postgraduate Conference of the German Historical Institute in London (GHIL) (07/01/2021: online)
Publication Non publié, 2021-01-07

Communication à un colloque

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Résumé :

This paper focuses on two material markers of borders in and around the Free Imperial City of Augsburg in the early modern period. The river Lech, to the east of the city walls, marked the end of the municipal territory and the beginning of the Duchy of Bavaria, Augsburg’s powerful neighbour. Within the city walls, meanwhile, drinking fountains decorated by statues of Neptune marked the boundaries between the City Council’s jurisdiction and two ecclesiastical enclaves. This paper will argue that both of these fluid borders, marked by water, were the product of a mutual relationship of interlocking influences between nature and culture, which might be called ‘co-creation’. Though this phenomenon has been described again and again by environmental historians, their insights are yet to be applied to the history of borders. This paper therefore attempts to write an environmental history of the co-creation of borders in early modern Augsburg.