. Climatic variation in historic and prehistoric time. . Introduction. In the last centuries of the middle ages a series of political and economic catastrophes occurred all over the then-known world. They synchronise with occurrences of a st artling and unusual kind in the kingdom of Nature. The coasts of Iceland and Greenland became blocked by Polar ice. Frequent volcanic eruptions occurred in Iceland and the surrounding seas. Violent storm-floods devastated the coast of the North Sea and Baltic. In certain cold winters Ore- sund and the Baltic were frozen over and the lucrative Hanseatic her
. Climatic variation in historic and prehistoric time. . Introduction. In the last centuries of the middle ages a series of political and economic catastrophes occurred all over the then-known world. They synchronise with occurrences of a st artling and unusual kind in the kingdom of Nature. The coasts of Iceland and Greenland became blocked by Polar ice. Frequent volcanic eruptions occurred in Iceland and the surrounding seas. Violent storm-floods devastated the coast of the North Sea and Baltic. In certain cold winters Ore- sund and the Baltic were frozen over and the lucrative Hanseatic herring fishery of the early middle ages which had been carried on in the Baltic and Oresund ceased altogether. All these events are recorded in ancient chronicles which also depict the social and econo- mic state of the communities, which were greatly influenced by these violent climatic variations and their consequences: famine and disease. The ancient Sagas and convent chronicles give no hint of any sup- posed connection between the catastrophes in nature and the human world. The Icelandic chronicles from the 14th and 15teenth cent- uries abound in descriptions of catastrophes, such as »hall9eri micit vm allt land • hafis vmhserfis Island . landskialfte mikill vm allt land . elldz uppkoma j Heklu fialli • elldeyar — myrkr mikit sva at fal sol — bolnasot — mandaudi a. e. o. Simultaneously there occurred violent floods and inundations of the European continent and winters of unexampled severity. Such was that of the year 1322—1333 thus described in the history of Olaus Magnus. »ait Albertus Crantsius diligentissimus omnium regionum scrip- tor: anno MCCCXXIII gelidissimo frigore constringebatur mare ut pedestri itinere per glacie de littore Lubicensi in Daniam in Prussiam mare transiretur, dispositis per loca opportuna in glacie hospicii — —» etc. We are told in the Gronica Guthilandorum that in that winter it was possible to drive over the ice between Sweden an
Size: 2346px × 1066px
Photo credit: © The Book Worm / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcollectionbiodiversity, bookcontributorsmithso, bookyear1914
