Maize on the Move: The Diffusion of a Tropical Cultivar across Europe

Abstract

This article examines the transfer and reception of maize into Europe in the wake of the Columbian Exchange. Treating maize as a plant - and reviewing familiar historical sources through the lens of the plant's likes and dislikes, its requirements and inherent traits - provides us with a novel source of information about how maize might have moved through European spaces, even in cases where the traditional historical record is silent. This article will make use of such data, employing current genetic research to interpret art and textual sources. I will show that all maize originally transported to Europe hailed from one slim gene pool. I will argue that the unique characteristics of those seeds impacted on the way maize fit into European ecosystems, and consequently into European cultures.