6 - The Cosmologies of Early Modern Mining Landscapes

Summary

Abstract

Sixteenth-century rural mining landscapes redefined conceptualizations of “nature” from the perspective of resource exploitation. These mining activities present an early form of large-scale landscape transformation with wide-ranging consequences. Early modern extractive industries differed from modern practices, yet they are often seen as the origins of a mentality that values nature as little more than a passive container of resources that had irreversible consequences for the environment. This chapter questions this linear narrative of increasing exploitation of nature while historicizing the meaning of mineral resources. The textual and visual sources of European ore mining illuminate the necessity of situating mining practices within a sacred cosmology.

Keywords: metals; mineral resources; mining; resource landscape; cosmology

The remote northern European mountain landscapes of the Erzgebirge (Ore Mountains), the Harz Mountains, the Vosges, and the Tyrolean Alps share a long history of mineral resource extraction. The large-scale mining activities that began during the second half of the fifteenth century had a profound impact on the natural environment. Subterranean shafts and tunnels hollowed out and perforated miles of soil. Above ground, forests were cleared to provide timber and fuel. Rivers and streams were redirected to power machines, dams were built, and reservoirs were created to increase water pressure. Mining infrastructure necessitated the construction of roads and waterways, machines, hammer works, foundries, and mints, maintained by countless workers who themselves lived in newly constructed settlements and mining boomtowns. Even today, a hiking tour through the Harz and Ore Mountains shows the transformative impact that early modern mining exerted on the landscape in a very tangible way.

I refer to these historical mining sites as “resource landscapes,” defined as the past extractive actions and infrastructures created by an interplay of nature, manual labor, and technology. Traditionally, mining history analyzed the early modern extractive industries mainly through the lens of economic actions and technological innovation. Mining was perceived as an essential driving force towards a mechanical and rational understanding of nature that paved the way for capitalism. This narrative was additionally supported by the belief in a paradigm shift in the wake of the “Scientific Revolution,” that led to a detached and rationalized view of nature.