ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Challenging New Seeds: Scientific and Vernacular Exchanges in the Iberian Peninsula Before the 19th-Century

• In Event: Plants and Knowledge

English Abstract

This paper explores how vernacular and scientific practices interacted to develop the productive capacity of new cultivated seeds brought to the Iberian Peninsula from other continents from the 15th century onwards. In imperial territories, many of these seeds were freely accessible and resilient enough to survive the uncertainties of long sea journeys. This meant that they could be brought by passengers of various social classes and disseminated in different ways upon arrival. It is argued that the Iberian Peninsula became a multi-sited laboratory driven by different protagonists. Through an analysis of written documents of various origins produced between the 15th and 19th centuries, this study explores how local experiences, combined with the circulation of knowledge, enabled uncertainty and ignorance to be overcome. By the 19th century, it was evident that the cultivation of these new seeds had transformed the ecology, society, and economy of numerous Iberian and European regions. Thus, the seeds that were once exotic had become local.

Author

• Dulce Freire, University of Coimbra