Abigail Agresta’s book delves into the political management of environmental issues in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Valencia, drawing on the extensive records from the municipal archives of Valencia. While the documentation is well-known and the issues have been partially explored by Valencian historians, particularly Agustín Rubio Vela, Agresta’s work stands out for its comprehensive examination of the topic. She skillfully conducts an analysis that effectively combines the treatment of three fundamental dimensions: the environmental, the political, and the ideological.
A brilliant opening explains the book’s title. The “keys to bread and wine” come from a sermon by the Valencian saint Vicent Ferrer, in which he presents nature as an enslaved woman to whom the father--God--has entrusted these keys, but who lacks power over the children--the Christians. Considering that in the context of early fifteenth-century Valencia, it was very possible that the captive was Muslim, the message was particularly appropriate for the descendants of the conquerors, who saw in the surrounding landscape “the triumph of their forefathers’ conquest.” The ideology of late medieval Valencian society was thus founded on a very clear awareness of its colonial character, in the historical memory of the city’s seizure in 1238. This fundamental realization is not only repeatedly confirmed throughout the study but also illuminates key aspects of the behaviors analyzed by the author.
The first part of the book (chapters 1-4) presents in somewhat chronological order the actions of the Consell--the urban government of Valencia--in terms of environmental management, showing how their criteria changed according to their priorities. In Agresta’s view, the Consell’s policy was the result of the personal aspirations of its members, the religious contradictions of Valencian society, and the characteristics of the landscape itself. The account begins with an appropriate synthesis of the creation of the irrigated landscape--the horta--from the Muslim period, paying attention to the decisive modifications after the conquest, identified thanks to the works of Enric Guinot and Ferran Esquilache (although the important thesis of the latter on the genesis of the horta, published in 2018, could not be considered).
The second chapter deals with the new infrastructures promoted by the government. Although the transformation of the irrigated landscape had begun with colonization immediately after the conquest, the Consell’s actions during the fourteenth century were limited to maintaining roads, preventing the movement of animals, and combating the expansion of crops (rice, flax) associated with water stagnation. It was not until the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries that the Consell promoted ambitious interventions in the cultivated environment of the city, taking advantage of the recovery context from the mid-fourteenth-century crisis (plague, Union war, and Castilian invasion). These were mainly hydraulic projects aimed at both bringing in and evacuating water. In the first case, the goal was to increase the flow available for irrigation through transfers beyond the channels derived from the Turia River. Great plans were devised to transport water to the Valencian horta from distant rivers (Cabriol, Xúquer) and lakes (Moya, Tortajada)--a true “canal fever” that emerged in times of drought--but none of the projects were carried out. On the other hand, drainage works were undertaken, restoring the drainage channels of the wetlands between the city and the Albufera lake, an action justified by the need to avoid the threat of hunger and disease.
The third chapter shows how, during the same period of hydraulic projects, efforts were made to reinforce the city’s Christian identity by eliminating Islamic urban features. The Consell promoted the closure of atzucacs (dead-end alleys), considered places that favored the accumulation of filth and criminal behavior, as well as the expansion and rectification of some urban streets. This was done not so much to improve circulation--cart traffic was not very frequent on the affected streets--but to enhance Christian civic rituals, particularly the Corpus Christi processions. Indeed, the fourth chapter highlights the impetus given by the city government to rogation processions starting in 1428-1429, significantly after abandoning plans for hydraulic infrastructure construction. According to Agresta, the Consell’s urban planning aimed primarily at exalting triumphant Christianity and erasing religious minorities, as evidenced by the fact that the reconstruction of the (closed) Jewish quarter was not allowed after its destruction in the pogrom of 1391.
The second part of the book (chapters 5-7) is thematic. It addresses the three types of natural disasters the Consell faced: droughts, plague, and river floods, the latter analyzed alongside locust plagues, which were similarly considered by the urban government. The author clearly shows how the Valencian government perceived the specific characteristics of each crisis to modulate its response accordingly. Thus, in the fifth chapter, which deals with droughts--the most frequent natural disaster--Agresta describes practical responses, both short-term ones, which involved grain supplies and regulated sales at the public granary (almodí), and long-term ones, in the form of the hydraulic transfer projects. Additionally, she pays special attention to ritual responses, primarily public alms, sidelined by the rise of rogation processions, whose number multiplied from the second quarter of the fifteenth century.
The sixth chapter deals with the plague. The Consell presented epidemic outbreaks as consequences of both material and moral corruption. Initially, the focus was on purification in both senses, but from around 1475, attention shifted to protection. To this end, processions around the walls, the use of relics, and recourse to guardian angels and patron saints were promoted. In stark contrast, hardly any religious responses were developed to the impact of floods and locust plagues, the subject of the final chapter. Here, an apparent paradox is evident: despite being natural calamities easily recognizable in biblical texts, the Consell completely ignored such precedents in its consideration of these crises. In fact, it addressed them with the “least religious” responses recorded in its environmental policy. Floods were not attributed a divine origin until the mid-fifteenth century, but rogation processions promoted for this purpose emerged more as a simple analogy to those conducted during droughts and epidemics. In the case of locusts, limited to a few episodes, the physical elimination of the insect was combined with processions, but there was always some concern and uncertainty about the phenomenon’s natural or divine causes. Ultimately, was it legitimate to kill what could be the instruments of divine will?
Throughout her meticulous analysis, Agresta highlights relevant aspects of the urban government’s technical management of environmental problems. It becomes clear how inadequate the historiographic discourse is that tends to associate the planning of large hydraulic projects with the emergence of the so-called modern state. At the same time, the absence of a stable environmental management policy by the Consell and the discontinuous nature of its actions in this line are evident. This latter aspect is noteworthy, as, contrary to the vision of continuous “progress,” the commitment to technological solutions to environmental problems or limits was not inexorable and was perfectly reversible. Regarding the other facet of the study, the ritual management of crises, a similar conclusion is reached. Unlike what is often believed, religious rituals to request divine help are not a constant phenomenon, of dispensable explanation, in the medieval city. The author precisely demonstrates that the development and normalization of rogation processions can be chronologically fixed to specific decades.
Agresta’s book compellingly demonstrates the connection between the material-technical and ideological-ritual dimensions in urban government policy. This connection is evident not only in practical interactions but also in the conceptualization of problems and their solutions. Religious discourses exhibit a remarkable consistency with rational perceptions of crises. For instance, the plague was associated with sinners because, according to Galenic medical theory, epidemics were seen as the result of organic corruption producing miasmas. This principle was extended analogously to moral corruption embodied by gamblers and pimps, equating the sins of urban life with the decay of filth or stagnant water. The congruity of material and ideological considerations is especially clear in quarantine policies introduced in the late fifteenth century. Contrary to popular belief, Agresta convincingly argues that quarantine should not be viewed as a “secularization” of responses to the plague but as part of a shift in the medical-religious approach from purification to protection against external threats--in other words, from corruption to contagion. Thus, medical knowledge aligns with the Consell’s governance concerns, initially targeting gamblers and pimps (corruption) and later immigrants (contagion).
In a completely different way, droughts, floods, and locust plagues were understood in both religious and material terms as problems of collective responsibility and were treated accordingly. Agresta’s book fundamentally observes that the interpretation and approach to these issues did not adhere to rigid principles. The explanation of natural disasters and their connection to divine causation evolved over time, and the Consell did not always require religious justifications. The important point, in any case, is that, regarding the interests of the dominant social group--which is what truly matters--a ritual could be just as practical and functional as a technical project.
In this sense, it would have been interesting if the author had paid more attention to the social characterization of the group monopolizing urban government positions, a topic studied by Rafael Narbona and other authors. A more explicit exposition of their interests might have better revealed some of the ideological traps in their discourse. For example, did the Consell really consider drought as “a natural disaster” or rather found it convenient to present it that way to justify their policies? Was it necessary to promote only the cultivation and supply of wheat to fight hunger? It is worth noting that the recurring link between stagnant water and unhealthiness responded more to a representation with political objectives than to a real problem perception. As highlighted by Pau Viciano, the aim was to limit rice cultivation, which was expanding among small peasant farms due to its high yield, while favoring wheat was driven by its higher market price and speculative potential. Furthermore, if rogation processions, as the author rightly observes, were organized by the Consell with civic-political aims, can they be considered a “response”? The fact that they were masked as a response does not obligate us to analyze them as such. By doing so, the author is forced to contrast technique and ritual on the same plane, which entails some problems: technical proposals must be aimed at concrete material solutions, which does not affect rituals, “not transformative,” but “more achievable and immediately visible.”
However, on a more general level, one could discuss Agresta’s “catastrophist” approach to environmental management. This perspective presents irrigation strictly as a technical solution to compensate for “the absence of rainfall” and avoid disastrous droughts, rather than considering it a social choice. Although at some points the author acknowledges that the Consell’s actions aimed not only to respond to environmental crises but also to “improve the landscape,” and that, as Tim Soens points out, “premodern infrastructural investment was never merely a reaction to natural disaster,” her approach tends to view the initiatives of the urban government as responses. This may be influenced by the justificatory discourse used in the sources.
In any case, it should be questioned whether hydraulic works served solely to mitigate uncertainty and risk in production, or if they also aimed at increasing productivity and rents. Before the conquest, Andalusi society engaged in agricultural practices aligned with what Richard Hoffmann calls “awareness of limits,” restricting irrigation and maintaining a more diversified landscape around the city than the one resulting from the transformation carried out by Christian colonists. The dominant groups emerging from the conquest did not seem overly concerned about the effects of extensive irrigation, favoring a productive simplification centered on wheat. The promotion of hydraulic projects after drought episodes did not so much aim to avert those dangers--something quite doubtful--but rather to justify ventures primarily intended to increase agricultural rents, even if they also pushed the limits of risk.
These critical observations are not intended to detract from this excellent book’s merits. On the contrary, they are reflections prompted by the fertility of a study whose implications go beyond the strict Valencian case. Abigail Agresta conducts an innovative analysis, breaks commonplaces, opens perspectives, and provides fundamental keys for understanding the policies exercised by medieval urban governments in environmental matters.