Jump to ContentJump to Main Navigation
The Middle Ages in the Modern WorldTwenty-first century perspectives$
Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content.
The Middle Ages in the Modern World: Twenty-first century perspectives

Bettina Bildhauer and Chris Jones

Print publication date: 2017

Print ISBN-13: 9780197266144

Published to British Academy Scholarship Online: January 2018

DOI: 10.5871/bacad/9780197266144.001.0001

Show Summary Details
Page of

PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2022. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use.date: 04 July 2022

Thorkel Farserk Goes for a Swim: Climate Change, the Medieval Optimum, and the Perils of Amateurism

Thorkel Farserk Goes for a Swim: Climate Change, the Medieval Optimum, and the Perils of Amateurism

Chapter:
(p.27) 1 Thorkel Farserk Goes for a Swim: Climate Change, the Medieval Optimum, and the Perils of Amateurism
Source:
The Middle Ages in the Modern World
Author(s):

Bruce Holsinger

Publisher:
British Academy
DOI:10.5871/bacad/9780197266144.003.0002

This chapter examines the role of amateurism in shaping scholarly, popular, and political representations of the Medieval Optimum, a centuries-long warming era prior to the early modern period. Beginning with an Icelandic account in the Landnámabók of a swim by Thorkel Farserk across a frigid fjord, an account that played an important role in Hubert Lamb’s development of the science of paleoclimatology, the chapter goes on to survey a wide variety of materials relating to the use and abuse of the Medieval Warm Period in subsequent decades, from United Nations climate reports and scientific articles to home school curricula and congressional debates.

Keywords:   Medieval Optimum, Medieval Warm Period, Hubert Lamb, amateurism, Landnámabók, Thorkel Farserk, paleoclimatology, medievalism

British Academy Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.

Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.

If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.

To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.