Highlights human encounters with the forest and its trees at the time of the European Middle Ages, when their lofty boughs were weighted with meaning.

Introduction: The Surrounding Forest - Michael D. J. Bintley and Pippa Salonius1. Mother Earth, Sister Moon and the Great Forest of T¿ne - Pippa Salonius2. Beowulf's Foliate Margins: The Surrounding Forest in Early Medieval England - Michael D. J. Bintley3. Bone, Stone, Wood: Encountering Material Ecologies in Early Medieval Sculpture - Meg Boulton4. 'Mervoillous fu li engineres que croix fist de fust, non de pierre': Materiality and Vernacular Theology in the Wood of the Cross Legend - Laura Chuhan Campbell5. The Evolution of Relational Tree-Diagrams from the Twelfth to Fourteenth Century: Visual Devices and Models of Knowledge - José Higuera Rubio6. From Forest to Orchard: Arboreal Areas as Mnemotechnic Supports in the Middle Ages - Naïs Virenque7. The Vegetal Imaginary in Exemplary Literature: The Case of the Ci nous dit - Pauline Leplongeon8. Adam's Sister: Tree Symbolism in Premodern Mystical Islamic Cosmology - Samer AkkachConcluding Reflections