Five minutes after leaving a tropical city one of the plane's two engines dies. The plane begins dropping. Rich primeval rainforest awaits on one side, and town-dotted farmland on the other. Someone snaps an instant photograph, carries it to the open cockpit, and the pilot explodes in laughter. The passengers remain petrified until we slip over a ridge and bounce onto an unlighted runway.

The object spread out beneath an airplane window, or on an aerial photograph, is the subject of this book. Indeed, an aerial vantage provides a goldmine of information on the ecology of large land areas, such as landscapes and regions. For example in Fig. 1.1, one can predict with some confidence that the forest has many more interior species than the wooded patches on the right. Animal movement funnels through the lobes or peninsulas of the forest. Wind erosion is high in the corridor gaps on the left. Cool-water fish are probably missing from the stream in the far right. The clearing at the top has been expanding, while the clearing below it is contracting. The ecologically optimum location for a cluster of houses is by the field-forest edge in the upper right. The evidence for interpretations such as these and many more is presented in this book. Of course, dropping from the sky to examine the land closely is also essential.

MOSAICS AND THE PATCH-CORRIDOR-MATRIX MODEL

From an airplane, land almost always appears as a mosaic. The glorious mosaics of St. Mark's in Venice or the University of Mexico appear as a pattern of colored patches and strips, usually with a background matrix. Tiny stones of different colors are aggregated to create the patches, strips, and matrix. The land appears much the same. Individual trees, rocks, houses, and so forth are the tiny stones. Woods, fields, and housing tracts are conspicuous patches. Roads, hedgerows, rivers, and powerlines are equally striking corridors. Grassland, forest, rice culture, or another land use often forms a background matrix. In short, the individual trees, shrubs, rice plants, and small buildings, analogous to the tiny stones in the artist's mosaic, are aggregated to form the pattern of patches, corridors, and matrix on land.

'Think globally, act locally’ is a phrase much in vogue. Yet it has two problems. First, few people will ever give primacy to the globe in decision-making. Second, local considerations overwhelmingly determine actions. Indeed, these are two roots of environmental and societal problems etched widely in the land. Typically, our best soils are thinned by erosion or covered by suburbs; biodiversity and wildlife in large wooded areas are impoverished by dispersed logging; critical riparian and hedgerow corridors are cut or razed by macroagriculture; productive land is desertified by irrigation and overuse; and parks are surrounded by the tightening noose of development.

Can this unraveling of the land, as the primary capital of a nation, be reversed? Land patterns seem logical and ecological in exceptional places within, for example, Britain, Romania, Costa Rica, Australia, and the USA, as well as in certain spatial models. In these cases efforts in design, planning, conservation, and decision-making seem both visionary and practical. They are directed at agricultural landscapes, suburban landscapes, forested landscapes, or regions. At these scales the environment, economics, and society coalesce. The landscape and region are the central linkage between global and local.

The philosophic framework for this chapter therefore might be that we better ‘Think globally, plan regionally, and then act locally .

The perennial challenges in planning, design, and management of an area are not only to take a broad spatial view and a long temporal view, but also to address all major environmental and human issues present. Water, transportation, biodiversity, aesthetics, sense of community, food production, and much more are the essential factors.

The landscape mosaic was presented as a whole in chapter 1. Now we begin dissecting it into its building blocks, beginning with patches. A patch is a wide relatively homogeneous area that differs from its surroundings (see glossary in chapter 1 appendix). Patches have familiar attributes, such as large or small, rounded or elongated, and straight or convoluted boundaries. These attributes in turn have widespread ecological implications for productivity, biodiversity, soil, and water.

Why are these patch characteristics so important? In forestry the size of woods affects road construction and erosion, how many trees are wasted in edge effects, and the success of tree reproduction. In suburbanization planning the size of housing developments and nature reserves are common controversial issues. In aquifer and lake protection water quality depends on a large patch of natural vegetation. In managing stream systems for fish and fishermen, the size and number of natural patches is critical. In nature reserve design, is it better to have one large patch or several small patches? How many large patches are required to maintain the biodiversity of a landscape? In managing game, small patches are frequently created. And in agriculture an optimum field size has both ecologie and economic implications.

Several of the topics included are reviewed by Forman & Godron (1986). Other useful reviews include: patch dynamics1320; the traditional species-area concept; island biogeographic theory1023,1323,302,564,1901,198,1763,1536; remnant patches in landscapes683,1490,1536; and genetics in patches1595.

This chapter begins with the origins and half-life of dynamic patches. Patch size effects are examined for ecosystem processes. Species-area curves and island biogeographic theory lead to evaluating species numbers in remnant and disturbance patches in a terrestrial mosaic. The roles of genetics and minimum viable populations are introduced. Finally we evaluate the importance of number of large patches present.

PATCH DYNAMICS: ORIGIN AND PERSISTENCE

The fortuneteller who predicts change is always right. We may dream of constancy or stability, but change, the universal law, is a key to understanding. Indeed, because change always extends over a limited area, it causes or affects a patch.

A sandbox is an ideal place. Children are protected from the outside, and become engrossed in creating their own micro-landscapes. They draw networks that crisscross and squiggle. They smooth the surface with their hands forming a surrounding matrix. And together they create a mosaic for the whole sandbox. The mosaic is continually changed and molded, and usually punctuated by big disturbances.

Everyone should have a sandbox, even a tiny one for fingers. The soothing effect, the manifest creativity, and the modeling for landscape and regional ecology are rich benefits. Metaphorically we are the children and the world is our sandbox. To get along and still have a nice sandbox, we need to find land designs that make sustainable sense. Networks and the matrix, analogous to those molded by the children, are the subject at hand.

This chapter moves to a new level. Preceding chapters have explored the attributes of patches and corridors, the building blocks of landscapes. Movements and flows to and from adjacent land have been included as patch-matrix or corridor-matrix interactions. Now we explore the matrix, and hook building blocks together to form mosaics. Patches, corridors, and matrix are combined in distinctive ways to create the finite number of common mosaics on land.

The primary importance of this subject is planning. One may sculpt an individual patch or corridor to attain desired objectives. But sculpting a matrix or network of several spatial elements on a farm, park, forest, refuge, or town requires planning by the owner or manager. And creating a logical mosaic for a whole landscape or region requires regional and government planning.

Perhaps the only overview of the subject is by Forman & Godron (1986). However, useful reviews of portions include: transportation networks1670,995,646,1518; hedgerow networks1337,948,1114,1116; windbreaks174; and the matrix.501

The chapter begins with the development of networks, and how to measure them. Dendritic and rectilinear networks are contrasted, and the functioning of networks is explored. Next the structure of a matrix is presented. And we conclude with matrix dynamics.

Vertebrates are often marked and followed to determine their habitat requirements, and the locations of their encounters with other animals. Suppose we try this on a suburban family using radiotracking techniques. Miniature radio transmitters are worn as fancy belt buckles or earrings, and you have a high-tech antenna to locate family members at any time. You record the cluster of workplaces, food stores, roads, schools, local parks, night spots, and so forth visited. Each person's 'home range’ is then mapped using the spatial arrangement of locations and routes taken. The amazingly different mosaics would help planners design better suburbs, based on the cluster of locations that people use, and perhaps need (S. B. Warner, Jr., pers. commun.).

In previous chapters we considered patches, corridors, and matrix by themselves. Now we begin hooking these building blocks together to form mosaics. Mosaics are evident at all scales. Here, we focus on the neighborhood clusters of ecosystems or land uses, plus whole landscape and regional mosaics. On land there may be a limited number of common mosaics to understand.

In landscapes and regions context is usually more important than content. That is, the surrounding mosaic has a greater effect on patch functioning and change than do the present characteristics within the patch. Context here includes three components: adjacency, neighborhood, and location within a landscape. ‘Adjacencies are the spatial elements in contact with the patch or site of interest (chapter 2). ‘Neighborhood’ is the encompassing local mosaic linked by active interactions. Neighborhoods and locations within a landscape will be the emphasis here in understanding context.

The name of the book

Reading Medieval Latin is designed to follow on from Reading Latin (P. V. Jones and K. C. Sidwell, Cambridge University Press, 1986). But it can be used by any student who has learned the basic morphology and syntax of Classical Latin taught in Reading Latin sections 1–5.

How the book is arranged

The book is in four parts, each part being divided into five sections. Part one presents texts to illustrate the culture in which Medieval Latin (ML) developed and the sources on which its writers were nurtured. Part two presents selections of Latin written between c.500 and 1000. Parts three and four give fuller treatment of the Latin writing of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. A list of sources can be found on pp. xi–xvi.

Each part, section and text has introductory material, with suggestions for further reading. Each text has a commentary with help on language and content. In most cases, reference to text is by line number. However, reference is sometimes by numbered paragraph (e.g. in section 3). The linguistic help is keyed in to two brief appendices on Orthography and Grammar, which are referred to by O.0 etc. and G.1 etc. respectively. Other grammar references are to Reading Latin: Grammar, Vocabulary and Exercises (RLGVE) or Reading Latin: Reference Grammar (RLRGr), found at RLGVE pp. 448–56.

It would be perfectly reasonable to characterize the twelfth century as an age of religious fervour and theological controversy. New monastic orders sprang up regularly, in response to the ideal of the truly simple Christian life of prayer and poverty as opposed to the wealth and worldliness of older foundations. Female visionaries were encouraged to let the world hear the voice of God directly from their lips. New crusades were preached and instituted. But ever present was the danger of straying beyond the bounds of orthodoxy. Sects such as the Cathars and the Waldensians were branded as heretics. Even within the Church, the zeal of reformers could corner a great teacher and force him to rewrite what he had thought out. The crusades brought home for almost the first time the relationship of Islam to Christianity, so that this too was now fought as a heresy. In both these tendencies we can see the seeds of important innovations of the next century, the inauguration of the mendicant orders on the one side and the Inquisition on the other.

On the practical side, the liturgy was invigorated by new musical advances and by the increasing use of drama. Church building received a boost from the more prosperous economic conditions and the self-aggrandizement of prelates. For the great dignitaries of the Church were also great landlords and, as such, men with considerable political power and often the will to use it.

Unlike Ireland, Britain had been incorporated into the Roman Empire (by Claudius in ad 43). From then until the effective detachment from Rome in the middle of the fifth century, Latin had been the official language of the province as of other provinces, and a certain amount of written evidence survives to confirm its use (graffiti, inscriptions and the Vindolanda writing tablets). However, the native population, the Britons (Brettones), spoke Celtic languages, the ancestors of Welsh and Cornish. As the Saxon pirate raids of the third century turned into permanent settlements in the fifth, the native populations were pushed to the peripheries and the Church and the remnants of Latin learning with them. There is still British Latin writing in the sixth century. Gildas' De excidio et conquaestu Britanniae (‘On the destruction and conquest of Britain’) contains a review of the province's history from the Roman invasion to his own day and a complaint against abandonment in the face of the Saxon invasions.

The Church in England, established after the time of Constantine, finally lost contact with the continent after 455, when it accepted (unlike the Celtic Church) the new calculation of the date of Easter. But it did not survive the pagan incursions. It was the Irish foundations – Malmesbury, Iona, Lindisfarne – which preserved the tradition of ecclesiastical Latin on the island. The work of conversion in the areas settled by the Germanic peoples had to be done again.

By the turn of the millennium, the boundaries of Western Christendom were largely established. There would still be some temporary expansion in the East, due to the Crusades: the Norman Conquest of Sicily and South Italy would reclaim the one from Islam and the other from the Eastern Church; and there would be modest expansions in Scandinavia, the Baltic and the Balkans, due to the movement eastwards of the Christian states Denmark, Poland/Lithuania and of the Teutonic Knights. Within Christendom three major themes dominate the history and the Latin writing of the eleventh and early twelfth centuries. First is the expansion of the Normans, into South Italy and Sicily (1091) in one branch (Robert Guiscard) and from Normandy into England (1066) in another (William of Normandy). Second is the struggle for power between the German Emperor and the Papacy fuelled by the strengthened Church reform movement and usually called the ‘Investiture Contest’, which reached a temporary conclusion with the Concordat of Worms (1122). Third is the First Crusade, preached by Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont in 1095 and crowned by the capture of Jerusalem on 15 July 1099.

The term ‘Christian Latin’ has no linguistic validity. There was no ‘special language’ which only Christians used, distinguished clearly from that employed by pagans. The various registers of Latin, from ‘vulgar’ at the lowest end to the sophisticated and complex language of high literary products at the other, were always clearly distinguished from each other as far as their function was concerned, whether used by pagans or Christians. The only linguistic feature which united the registers as employed specifically by Christians was the specialized Christian vocabulary (e.g. baptizo ‘I baptize’; sinaxis ‘Divine Office’). This was also the only feature which distinguished pagan writings in the various registers from Christian. The possibility of making such a distinction soon vanishes anyway, since the decree of the emperor Theodosius in 394 which made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire also led inexorably to the Christianization of all Latin writing.

The usefulness of the term lies in its definition of a cultural phenomenon. After the final dissolution of its centralized secular power structure in the fifth century, the Western Roman Empire was supplanted as the ‘universal empire’ by the Catholic Church. As an expression of this continuing universality, the Church adopted and retained Latin. This, then, was the language of its sacred texts, its liturgy, its ecclesiastical administration, and therefore of its education system.

The schools are at the centre of the intellectual life of the period. There was as yet no fully formal organization of institutions of higher education, such as would come about with the organization of universitates (‘guilds of students/masters’) in the thirteenth century. But by the later part of the century, Paris at least, with its three schools, the cathedral school of Notre-Dame, those of the canons regular at St Victor and on the Montagne Ste-Geneviève, was moving towards faculties and the grouping of students by nationes (countries of origin). Even at this date, Paris is of European importance, drawing students from far afield and producing an old-boy network as well as an intellectual diaspora. Magistri (‘masters’) seem to have been free to set up schools, set their own fees, and to move on when they encountered problems or were not earning enough. Students would attach themselves to magistri according to their reputation and what they wished to study. The teaching method was the lecture, by which was meant lectura, reading a text with the magister supplying a commentary. Around 1200, Alexander of Neckam lists some of the texts so studied: for grammar and rhetoric, Priscian and Donatus; for dialectic, the Logica nova of Aristotle (Prior and Posterior Analytics, Topics and Elenchi, which began to be known from about 1128 onwards); for arithmetic and music, Boethius; for geometry, Euclid (known from the early twelfth century); for astronomy, Ptolemy's Almagest (known from around 1160); for law, the Corpus iuris civilis of Justinian (rediscovered in the eleventh century) and Gratian's Decretum (see section 16.3 below); for Medicine, Galen and Hippocrates (recovered by Spanish translators); for theology, the Vulgate and Peter Lombard's Sententiae.

Education was in the first instance a by-product of the Church's central purpose, to celebrate the Eucharist and to keep up a constant stream of prayer to God. These two functions were fulfilled by the Mass and the Divine Office respectively. In the Western Church from the latter part of the fourth century, these were conducted in Latin. In the early period, two distinct types of liturgy were used in different areas, the Roman, which ultimately became standard, and the Gallican, which probably originated in the East.

The chants used in the Ordinary of the Mass consisted of Kyrie eleison, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus and Agnus Dei, and those of the Proper of Introit, Gradual, Alleluia (or Tract), Offertory and Communion. From the tenth century onwards, various items appear in mss. with additional texts plus music. Two important types are the ‘sequence’ (prosa; see section 10.2 Intro.) and the ‘trope’ (tropus), a composition of new music and text used as an introduction to or insert into an introit, offertory or communion chant. One of these (the Quem quaeritis in sepulchro dialogue), which was performed before the introit for the Mass on Easter morning, probably led eventually to the development of the liturgical drama.