




































 Humanities and Social Science Research; Vol. 4, No. 3; 2021 
ISSN 2576-3024   E-ISSN 2576-3032 

https://doi.org/10.30560/hssr.v4n3p32 

 32 Published by IDEAS SPREAD 
 

Weather and Natural Catastrophes in Medieval and Early Modern 
Europe: Storms, Floods, Fires, Earthquakes, and Pandemics 

Albrecht Classen1 
1 The University of Arizona, USA 
Correspondence: Albrecht Classen, The University of Arizona, USA. 
 
Received: June 27, 2021; Accepted: July 23, 2021; Published: August 19, 2021 

 
Abstract 
Ecocriticism and Medieval Natural Catastrophes Literary Evidence? 
Ecocriticism in the Humanities has alerted us in the last few years to the considerable potentials of building 
significant bridges between the Sciences (Meteorology, Atmospheric Sciences, Vulcanism, etc.), on the one hand, 
and Literary and Historical Studies on the other, and to draw insights from both sides of the equation for an 
increased understanding of universal phenomena of great importance for all human societies.[1] Climate change, 
for instance, is not something we can understand today by simply looking at samples or data reflecting current 
conditions, as if our current situation had emerged only in the last fifty or so years. Major changes in our natural 
environment are mostly the result of long-term forces impacting our material and cultural world, and weather 
patterns and significant disruptions have had a huge impact on human society throughout time. Nevertheless, we 
can probably agree that the current situation of our physical conditions have dramatically deteriorated over the last 
decades because of human-made factors, if we consider the daunting global warming affecting us all right now in 
the twenty-first century as a result of the Industrial Revolution and the modern consume society which endangers 
the survival of our world (Anthropocene).  
Long-term and short-term processes and phenomena must be taken into account when we want to pursue cultural-
historical ecocriticism, especially within a medieval context. It has thus become mandatory to examine, for 
instance, the history of the forest or the history of water through a variety of lenses, one of which can be fruitfully 
provided by chronicles, especially those dating not only from the twentieth or nineteenth centuries, but also those 
which shed light on medieval and early modern conditions and events. [2] In fact, medieval approaches to 
ecocriticism prove to be eye-opening for the latest scientific investigations and can lay the foundation for a better 
understanding of the relationship between humans and their environment, and this already thousand and more 
years ago. [3] Both weather and natural catastrophes have always been highly impactful on human history and 
culture, but it continues to be a huge challenge to establish the concrete correlations, such as between the rise of 
the Gothic age or the Renaissance of the Twelfth Century with the Medieval Warming Period.  
A late medieval example, however, might shed some light on this phenomenon, though I will not examine it here 
at great length. On July 2, 1505, when Martin Luther, the later famous founder of the Protestant Church, returned 
from his home in Mansfeld to Erfurt, where he was enrolled as a student of law at the university, he was surprised 
by a major thunderstorm in the hamlet of Stotternheim (a short distance north of Erfurt), which frightened him so 
deeply that he immediately changed his entire outlook toward life. He begged St. Anne to save him from the 
lightening, and since that was then the case, he fulfilled his pledge and turned into a monk, joining the Augustinians 
in Erfurt.  As a monk, however, he began to recognize the evils of the Catholic Church and began with his efforts 
to reform it from within. This study will attempt to bring to light some parallel cases in the early and the high 
Middle Ages. 
Keywords: Weather in the Middle Ages, natural catastrophes; flooding, earthquakes, fourteenth century, Medieval 
Warming Period, lessons from the past, history of natural environment 
1. Historical Cases of Natural Catastrophes in the Middle Ages 
In what follows, I intend to examine a larger number of relevant cases of dramatic weather phenomena that led to 
natural catastrophes mostly within the global framework of the Holy Roman Empire from the early to the late 
Middle Ages in order to examine to what extent natural disasters represent recurrent dangers and should be 
considered more closely within the context of significant historical events and developments. Climate history and 
the study of the natural environment have already gained much traction in recent research in a variety of ways. [4] 



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But a group of scholars has now argued that we would have to talk of a particular period determined by a whole 
series of natural catastrophes during the fourteenth century, as if the situation before and after was remarkably 
different because of those dramatic changes. [5] Martin Bauch and Gerrit Jasper Schenk go so far as to articulate 
the thesis that there was “an instable [sic] transition period between the different climate regimes of the Medieval 
Warm Period (about 950‒1250) and the Little Ice Age (about 1450‒1850). . . . [T]his period seems to have been 
characterized by climatic variations with increasingly frequent and dramatic extreme events.” [6] 
There are, certainly, good reasons to recognize the fourteenth century as a period with particularly difficult 
circumstances and challenges, considering the outbreak of the Black Death in 1347, which lasted well into 1351 
and beyond, then the early development of the Hundred Years’ War between England and France in 1337 (until 
1453), the Babylonian Captivity of the Papacy in Avignon in 1309 (until 1377), and the Western Schism (1378‒
1417), plus a number of major problems in agriculture, such as the recurrent cattle plague in England (1318‒1350). 
But can we view all those economic, military, and political events through the same lens? Or were they all 
somehow correlated, especially because the end of the Medieval Warming Period (ca. 950‒ca. 1250) had already 
set in and led over the Little Ice Age (ca. 1450‒ca. 1850), triggering, in its wake, a whole series of political, cultural, 
and medical unrests? [7] There is no doubt that the fourteenth century can be identified as a period when the 
emergence of a major crisis was felt most imminently, which ultimately led to the fundamental paradigm shift 
moving the Middle Ages into the early modern age. [8] Yet, would we be justified in identifying here a century 
with particularly life-threatening weather conditions and natural disasters? Was the time between roughly 1300 
and 1400 more troubled by natural threats than before or after on the European continent? 
To be sure, various scholars have pointed out major disruptions and catastrophic developments already in the 
twelfth and thirteenth centuries, which might move the starting point of this global crisis ca. hundred, if not two 
hundred years backwards despite the Medieval Warming Period. [9] But any climate-based study concerning 
historical developments faces the same problem that the various explanations rely on many different phenomena 
that occurred repeatedly and which do not necessarily allow us to create a consistent picture, if we contrast, for 
instance, western Europe with the eastern Mediterranean. [10]  
There is a general consensus among climate historian who have demonstrated in a myriad of approaches and with 
many different methodologies that the high Middle Ages experienced a warming period, and the late Middle Ages 
fell into the little Ice Age. Both climate patterns had a huge influence, of course, on the cultural and economic 
developments, though the specific consequences remain rather unclear until today. However, if we examine the 
available data from previous or later centuries, we can easily recognize that the experiences with natural 
catastrophes were not at all exclusive to the fourteenth century. Instead, we can certainly confirm that human 
history has always been determined by severe dangers resulting from extreme weather conditions, floods, 
earthquakes, extreme winter or summer temperatures, storms, or fires. 
All of these observations have sensitized us already to the great need to collect more data concerning natural 
disasters, which we subsequently would have to evaluate critically so that we could identify more specific 
conditions and causes of historical changes in human terms. My real purpose in this paper, however, is rather 
modest, and yet ambitious to some extent as well. Drawing on previous research, the intention is to bring to light 
a continuous line of catastrophic weather conditions and natural disasters from the tenth to the fifteenth centuries 
with neither date being necessarily a rigid chronological boundary. [11] 
We would have to take the next step from here and examine more closely the correlation between those natural 
events and political and military history, which might help us to uncover the extent to which climate, weather 
conditions, and a variety of catastrophes impacted human society at large. But at the current moment this seems to 
be a too lofty goal, especially because it would require extensive analysis of the available data of temperatures in 
the air and in the oceans, of average rainfalls, cloud covers, changes in the sun, etc., along with a meticulous 
examination of how those factors might have impacted social and material conditions. [12] 
Instead, following I will discuss representative or exemplary cases of natural catastrophes on the medieval 
Continent in order to illustrate how unstable human existence actually had been already then and that our common 
understanding of that past age suffers from a considerable ignorance of those terrifying and destructive events. 
However, we must always keep in mind several major factors that determine or rather hamper our investigation: 
first, the European continent is very large, and characterized by many different geophysical features; second, the 
communication among the various parts of Europe was not ideal, though many chroniclers obviously were 
informed well enough to report even of events that had taken place far away; third, many times, natural 
catastrophes affected primarily, say, the population of coastal regions, whereas the members of the courts or of the 
major cities inland paid hardly any attention to them, unless they were affected by it in economic terms (refugees, 



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loss of trade and commerce, etc.); fourth, natural disasters that struck primarily villagers might not have concerned 
chroniclers, and especially not poets and artists who produced their works for noble patrons. And fifth, even 
chroniclers could not know everything and yet intended, of course, to dramatize their accounts to attract readers. 
This all means that even though we have a lot of narrative data available for many different regions in pre-modern 
Europe, the impact of bad weather and natural catastrophes was probably very diverse and cannot be described 
automatically as having been of universal consequences, except for the Black Death, for instance. [13] 
2. Case Studies of Natural Catastrophes 
Instead of trying to be comprehensive, which would be impossible in the first place, especially because all reports 
about so-called natural disasters were subject already at that time to individual perspectives, I will examine 
representative cases to gain a better understanding of what we can hope to learn about in medieval chronicles, 
annals, letters, travelogues, and other reports.  
3. Floods 
The All Saints’ Flood (Allerheiligenvloed) which took place on November 1 and 2, 1170 destroyed much of the 
land along the northern Dutch and Frisian coastline. It also created new islands by forming flowing waterways 
between certain areas and the firm land, transforming the entire coastline in dramatic terms. Many of the bodies 
of water changed from fresh water to salt water because of the influx from the sea. The flood was so extensive that 
even cities far south such as Utrecht were inundated, with the high and low tides being clearly noticeable. The 
Frisian island Bant, extending ca. 45 km, was cut into several parts, leaving behind the islands of Borkyn (or 
Borkum), Juist, Buise (which disappeared into the water in the seventeenth century), Oesterende (today 
Norderney), and Bant (which also disappeared in the seventeenth century). [14] 
On Dec. 28, 1248, another major storm hit the western coast of Schleswig and Holstein, which separated the 
western Frisian islands from the mainland and destroyed parts of the newly erected dikes and dams. A large area 
of the so-called Haseldorfer Marsch was affected particularly hard, which created new islands, Altenwerder and 
Finkenwerder. And the struggle between people and the sea continued over the centuries, with chroniclers 
commenting regularly about ever-new catastrophes. Those, however, in turn motivated the local population to 
work intensively to build newer and better dams and to protect themselves against the dangerous sea with technical 
and building inventions. [15] 
Several decades later, on August 10, 1191, after a period of intensive rainfall, in Oisans, part of the valley wall of 
the Romanche river (southeastern France) broke off and blocked ca. 1 km up-stream the natural flow, which created 
a natural barrier for some time. From this resulted a natural lake of ca. 15‒20 km length up to the village Saint-
Laurent (today, Le Bourg-d’Oisans). Twenty years later, during a strong storm on Sept. 14, 1219, the barrier broke, 
and the entire lake emptied out into the valley of the Romanche down to its estuary into the river Drac, and then 
to the river Isère. Grenoble to the east was mostly protected from the first wave because it was not yet extended to 
the Drac. But the water was accidentally damned in the Isère, which prevented people from fleeing to safety, 
leading to a major loss of lives. [16] 
Could we thus claim that the twelfth and thirteenth centuries already witnessed major natural catastrophes? Of 
course, there is no doubt about it. Nevertheless, how impactful were those events along the shores of the North 
Sea and in the river valleys in eastern France on the larger historical and cultural events as they evolved at the 
aristocratic courts and in the urban centers? It might remain impossible to provide succinct and definitive answers 
here, but I propose to question whether the fourteenth century was plagued by more natural problems than other 
periods in the pre-modern world. 
Some of the major natural catastrophes in the fourteenth century were the All Saints’ Flood which hit the 
southwestern coast of the Baltic Sea on Nov. 1, 1304, affecting primarily Pomerania, [17] the Friaul earthquake 
on Jan. 25, 1348 with massive damages also in Carinthia, [18] the Basel earthquakes from Oct. 18, 1356, which 
destroyed much of the city and the wider surrounding territory, though with a fairly limited loss of human lives, 
[19] the two Dionysius floods along the coastline of the North Sea in 1374 (Oct. 9) and 1375 (Oct. 8‒10) badly 
damaging Flanders and the lands up to the Wesel river.  
In the fifteenth century, many more reports about floods along the various sea coasts were written, such as All 
Saints’ Flood along the northwestern coastline of Schleswig and Frisia on Nov. 1, 1436, then the Saint Cecilia 
Flood of the lower river Elbe on Nov. 21, 1412, the Cosmas and Damian Flood of the northwestern coast of 
modern-day Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany on Sept. 27, 1477. In 1480, a very rainy early Summer (May 
and June) was followed by an intensive heat period, which led to a massive melting of snow and ice in the Alps. 
Subsequently many rivers, especially the Aare in Switzerland and the lower Rhine, inundated and caused extensive 



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damage in a wide range along the river valley (St. Magdalen Flood). Virtually all bridges affected by this flood 
were destroyed.  
A catastrophe of a similar origin had occurred already in Middle Europe in July of 1342, and it happened again 
along the Elbe river in Aug. of 2002 and in major parts of Middle Europe at the end of May and early June in 2013. 
[20] The sixteenth century also had its significant share of other catastrophes, which all mirror people’s ongoing 
struggles against the forceful sea and their efforts to gain land by means of building dams. [21] However, many of 
those catastrophes can also be explained by the fact that there was discord among the people as to who was in 
charge of maintaining the dikes and dams, a costly and time-consuming task, that military conflict distracted people 
from the real dangers from their physical environment, and that natural forces increased and caught people unaware.  
4. Earthquakes 
Many earthquakes struck the Pyrenees, such as on Feb. 2, 1373, March 15, 1427, Feb. 2, 1428, Feb. 2, 1429, most 
commonly in the region of Olot at the very eastern point of the mountain range. [22] The medieval and early 
modern annals are actually filled with accounts of other minor and major earthquakes affecting various parts of 
Europe, such as in Verona on Jan. 3, 1117, [23] in Syracuse in 1169, in Katschberg, Austria, on May 4, 1202, [24] 
in Kindberg, Austria, on May 8, 1267, [25] in Gera (Saxony) on May 4, 1346, and so forth. [26] 
5. The Black Death 
In order to expand our database and to incorporate similar or even related catastrophic events, we could also 
incorporate a long list of devastating fires that destroyed farms, villages, towns and cities, castles, churches, and 
cathedrals from the Middle Ages until today, [27] many of them probably caused by people and not necessarily 
natural catastrophes. Major storms commonly disrupted ordinary life and affected many communities in drastic 
fashion. But the most impactful experience was, to be sure, the Black Death from ca. 1347 to 1351, which we can 
also categorize as a ‘natural catastrophe’ because the attack by the bacillus Yersina pestis was a threat to all of 
humanity coming from the natural environment. However, this plague did not simply disappear and actually 
reemerged for a long time in ever new waves far into the late fifteenth century and beyond. Particularly bad periods 
were between 1360 and 1363, 1370 and 1374, 1382 and 1384, 1390 and 1391, 1399 and 1400, 1410 and 1412, 
1422 and 1424, 1429 and 1430, 1338 and 1439, and so on. In fact, although the public focus turned to the syphilis 
since the early sixteenth century, the Black Death lingered on and returned to Marseille and western Europe in 
1722, to Messina, Sicily, in 1743, to Russia in 1771 and 1772, to eastern and southeastern Asia in 1894, and to 
California in 1899. [28] 
6. Was there Literary-Historical Evidence? 
Unfortunately, however, medieval and early modern poets tended to present the events in their narratives as taking 
place in a stable, mostly ordinary natural environment, commonly during Spring (May) or Summer, only 
occasionally, or rather rarely, also including harsh weather conditions, though then without the rain, cold, or snow 
having any major impact on the protagonists. [29] In fact, we barely hear in literary texts about real external 
weather problems, or of natural catastrophes, such as earthquakes, floods, eruptions of volcanoes, forest fires, 
tornadoes or hurricanes, and the like. Those happened many times, of course, as the numerous chronicle accounts 
from throughout the Middle Ages and beyond richly confirm, but they did not enter much, if ever, the mental 
horizon of fictional writers who apparently did not want to pay much attention to weather and climate conditions. 
The common conflicts for the protagonists are, by contrast, war, fights with other knights or heroes, the pursuit of 
love, death, the quest for God, confrontations with monsters, or, on a much more mundane level, marital conflicts, 
the establishment of friendship, and the search for adventures. Nature, by contrast, especially when it threatens to 
disrupt ordinary life, does not seem to figure prominently in the literary context, unless poets observed a need to 
compare their figures with snow, storm, rain, etc. [30] 
Even the experience of winter as an unpleasant and painful season was rarely discussed, if ever, with the late 
Middle High German romance Diu Crône by Heinrich von dem Türlin (ca. 1290), the Middle English alliterative 
romance of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (ca. 1370), and William Dunbar’s poem “In Winter” (ca. 1460) 
being remarkable exceptions. [31] 
Only once, as far as I can tell, do we encounter a truly ‘earth-shaking’ natural catastrophe in a literary text which 
has a major impact on the protagonists, that is, in Marguerite de Navarre’s Heptaméron (1558/1559), where the 
future story tellers are among those visitors of a spa in the Pyrenees who have to flee torrential rains that inundate 
all rivers and make all passages impassable: “But as they were preparing to leave, the rain came. It fell in such 
torrents and with such extraordinary force, you would have thought that God had quite forgotten that once He had 
promised to Noah never again to destroy the world by water.” [32] Many people die in their efforts to escape from 



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that disaster, and only a small group of men and women make it to a monastery where they are safe from the floods. 
There they assemble, waiting for a bridge to be built that can take them across a gorge and allow them to return 
home, so they begin to tell each other stories, similar to the group of storytellers in Boccaccio’s Decameron (ca. 
1350), who had turned their backs to Florence to avoid the danger of the Black Death. [33] 
At times, knights in chivalric romances from the high Middle Ages bring about a devastating storm themselves 
which destroys the entire forest, such as in Chrétien de Troyes’s Yvain (ca. 1170; see also Hartmann von Aue’s 
Iwein, ca. 1190). Early in the account, Calogrenant relates how he experienced a strange adventure in a forest 
where he poured water from a well onto the stones in order to provoke a tempest: 

The moment I sprinkled some water from the basin on the hollowed stone, I would have been glad to 
repent, had I been able. I am afraid I poured too much, for I then saw the sky break open with such force 
that lightning from more than fourteen directions blinded my eyes and the clouds let loose, all at once, 
rain snow, and hail. The storm had such terrible force that a hundred times I thought I would be killed 
by lightning bolts falling about me and trees crashing to the ground. You can be certain that I was 
terrified until the storm abated. But God granted me such comfort that the storm did not last long and 
all the winds died down. As soon as God wished them to cease, they dared not blow. [34] 

The contemporary audience must have well understood the concrete meanings of the words and the image 
conveyed, although Calogrenant caused this terrifying natural catastrophe himself in his quest for adventure, which 
then begins immediately following the storm with the lord of the forest, Ascalon, appearing and challenging the 
intruder.  
Undoubtedly, medieval and early modern literature is also filled with accounts about shipwrecks as a result of 
mighty storms, but those examples do not serve us fully to establish evidence about actual natural catastrophes as 
they happened in the Middle Ages and beyond. [35] However, the literary imagination must have reflected some 
practical experiences. For instance, young Tristan in Gottfried von Straßburg’s eponymous romance (ca. 1210) is 
set free by his kidnappers, the Norwegian merchants only after God has commanded such a strong storm on the 
open sea that  

all the crew together were not able to maintain control. They had to let their ship drift wherever the 
violent winds blew it, and they lost all hope in saving their own limbs and lives . . . . There was nothing 
else they could do except allow themselves to be carried by the waves up to the heavens and then back 
down again as if to hell . . . . None of them could stay on their feet for a moment. This went on for a full 
eight days and night, and they were close to losing all their strength and their minds. [36] 

Although Tristan will later go on several voyages, either alone or in company, he will never encounter any natural 
challenges, which might be typical of medieval literature since most poets or writers were less interested in the 
natural environment and more in the human interactions undisturbed by external, material influences. 
We know also of a report concerning a major earthquake, such as the one on January 25, 1348, which the famous 
humanist Francesco Petrarch (1304‒1374) commented on in a letter to the Archbishop of Genoa, Guido Sette:  

... the day had nearly come to dusk, when vibrations arose so tremendously in large parts of Italy and 
Germany that a lot of people, who did not know about such tremors, thought the end of the world would 
be near. I was just sitting in my library in Verona at this time; although I knew something about such 
things I was dismayed at this sudden and unusual event. The pavement trembled under my feet; when 
the books crashed into each other and fell down I was frightened and hurried to leave the room. Outside 
I saw the servants and many other people running anxiously to and fro. All faces were pale. [37] 

Most other documents, however, which contain reports about this and other earthquakes, or a diverse range of 
natural catastrophes, fall into the category of chronicles and similar accounts. [38] Indeed, Petrarch’s letter belongs 
to a different, non-fictional genre, which explains the inclusion of the earthquake in his comments. We can 
generally affirm that heroic epics, courtly love poetry and courtly romances, entertaining verse narratives such as 
fabliaux, or religious plays usually do not engage with natural disasters or the natural world more than barely 
necessary. [39] 
One entertaining though small exception, however, would be “The Knight with the Hazelnuts,” an early-
fourteenth-century Middle High German verse narrative which in turn was based on a variety of older texts such 
as Petrus Alphonsus’s Disciplina Clericalis or Jean de Condé’s Old French fabliau “Pliçon.” Here, a noble lady 
has a love affair with a man who visits her while her husband is out in the forest hunting. Suddenly, a heavy 
rainstorm forces him to seek shelter, where he encounters a group of children who have collected hazelnuts and 
offer some of them to him for his nourishment. This means that the story takes place in Fall and at a time when 



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inclement weather impacts the events, though again, the cold rain does not amount to anything catastrophic. The 
protagonist then returns home, where he would have almost caught his wife in flagrante, but she manages to 
deceive him and help her lover to escape, while the marital couple consumes the hazelnuts. [40] 
Of course, the first appearance of the Black Death in Italy in 1347, imported from the Black Sea, caused a huge 
shock and had devastating consequences almost all over Europe. Curiously, however, only Boccaccio responded 
more explicitly and extensively to this new pandemic in his literary works, in his famous collection of 100 tales, 
the Decameron, whereas most other contemporaries, such as the Dominican fable author from Bern, Ulrich 
Bonerius, did not seem to have cared that much about the pest. At least in his collection The Gemstone, which 
appeared at virtually the same time as Boccaccio’s work (ca. 1350), Bonerius never comments on this pandemic, 
and he also does not engage much at all with natural phenomena, except, in one case, with the workings of the sun 
and the wind (no. 66; cf. also no. 83). [41] Late medieval literature, whether we think of Langland’s Piers Plowman 
or any of the many religious plays, early prose novels, collections of verse narratives (Heinrich Kaufringer), or 
lyric poetry (Oswald von Wolkenstein) mostly left out the natural environment and concentrated instead on the 
social interactions, as if earthquakes, floods, extreme temperatures, or the Black Death, did not matter much for 
them, maybe because those would have sidetracked them from their central concerns, such as ethics, honor, God, 
friendship, virtues, etc. 
7. Conclusion 
In contrast to the literary sources, historiographical narratives lend themselves much better and extremely well for 
a critical examination of natural disasters throughout the entire pre-modern age. According to many different 
sources, humans were constantly in danger of being struck by floods, thunderstorms, earthquakes, and fires, and 
this throughout the entire Middle Ages both on the British Isles and on the Continent. In fact, we might go so far 
as to identify all history as a continuous struggle between people and their natural environment. However, as a 
side note, we must be clear about the fact that such a general statement should not have any bearing on the situation 
now in the twenty-first century with us facing global warming in most dramatic terms because human impact on 
nature has moved us dangerously from the Holocene to the Anthropocene. [42] Nevertheless, by the same token 
this should not blind us to the fact that the Middle Ages already witnessed many different natural catastrophes, a 
warning for our present and future, alerting us to the precariousness of human existence in an ever-changing natural 
environment, which can be rather hostile to us more often than not. 
We can be certain that horrific changes in weather and natural catastrophes occurred quite frequently throughout 
the entire Middle Ages and the early modern age. The fourteenth century was no exception, though the number of 
reports about dramatic events increased, at least for some regions, while others were rather spared. As Heli 
Huhtamaa now demonstrates, for instance, dendrochronological evidence concerning northeastern Europe from 
the 1310s confirms that the dramatic decline in weather patterns badly affecting western Europe (extended rainfall, 
poor harvest, famines) did not reach the territories of modern-day Finland, the Baltic countries, and western Russia. 
[43]  
We thus face the double challenge of recognizing dangerous changes in climate or the experience of earthquakes 
and storms on the one hand, and of establishing useful patterns based on those data, on the other. The most troubled 
regions were always, as expected, if we consider flood, the shorelines of the North Sea and the Atlantic, but also 
of the Baltic Sea. Both the Pyrenees and various part of the Alps experienced earthquakes throughout the centuries, 
which continues until today and is not surprising considering the fact that the African plate presses onto the 
European plate, causing massive tectonic pressures.  
Considering the wealth of relevant documentation from written sources (chronicles) and now also from scientific 
research (dendrochronology, for instance), we could move on from here and reflect on the possible impacts of 
those natural catastrophes on political and cultural history. It remains, however, rather confounding that literary 
authors rarely, if ever, reflected on those dramatic events. Nevertheless, as we can now conclude, the European 
Middle Ages knew of its shares in natural catastrophes, and this in many of its various parts. The sea was a constant 
challenge of a great magnitude, but earthquakes also deeply scared people, causing vast damage and great losses 
of lives. Neither artists nor literary writers, however, seem to have taken much note of these phenomena.  
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[3] Siewers, A. K. (2000). Strange Beauty: Ecocritical Approaches to Early Medieval Landscape. The New Middle 
Ages. New York: Palgrave Macmillan; Nardizzi, V. (2013). Medieval Ecocriticism. Postmedieval 4.1: 112‒
23; Liedl, G. (2017). Ökologiegeschichte: ein Reader zum interdisziplinären Gebrauch. 4 vols. Vienna and 
Berlin: Verlag Turia + Kant. 

[4] Aberth, J. (2013). An Environmental History of the Middle Ages: The Crucible of Nature. London and New 
York: Routledge; Camenisch, Ch. (2015). Witterung, Getreidepreise und Subsistenzkrisen in den 
Burgundischen Niederlanden im ausgehenden Mittelalter. Wirtschafts-, Sozial- und Umweltgeschichte, 5 
(Basel: Schwabe, 2015); eadem. (2020). Droughts in Bern and Rouen from the 14th to the Beginning of the 
18th Century Derived from Documentary Evidence. Climate of the Past 16.6: 2173‒82. 

[5] Bauch, M., & Schenk, G. J. (Eds.). (2020). The Crisis of the 14th Century: Teleconnections between 
Environmental and Societal Change? Das Mittelalter: Perspektiven mediävistischer Forschung, 13. Berlin 
and Boston: Walter de Gruyter; see my review in Mediaevistik 33 (forthcoming).  

[6] Bauch & Schenk. (2020). Teleconnections, Correlations, Causalities Between Nature and Society? An 
Introductory Comment on the ‘Crisis of the Fourteenth Century. The Crisis of the 14th Century (see note 5), 
1‒23, at 5. 

[7] See, for instance, Campbell, B. M. S. (2010). Nature as Historical Protagonist: Environment and Society in 
Pre-Industrial England. The Economic History Review 63.2: 281‒314; Campbell, B. M. S. (2016). The Great 
Transition: Climate, Disease and Society in the Late-Medieval World. The 2013 Ellen McArthur Lectures. 
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 

[8] Classen, A. (Ed.). (2019). Paradigm Shifts during the Global Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Arizona 
Studies in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, 44 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2019); see also Albrecht Classen, A. 
(2019). “The Crisis of Spirituality in the Late Middle Ages: From the Twelfth Century to the Protestant 
Reformation; with an Emphasis on the Reformatio Sigismundi (1439),” Global Journal of Human-Social 
Science 19.2: 7‒16, online at: https://globaljournals.org/GJHSS_Volume19/2-The-Crisis-of-Spirituality.pdf. 

[9] Lieberman, V. (2003-2009). Strange Parallels: Southest Asia in Global Context, c. 800‒1830. 2 vols. 
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 83‒84.  

[10] Preiser-Kapeller, J., & Mitsiou, E. (2020). The Little Ice Age and Byzantium within the Eastern Mediterranean, 
ca. 1200-1350: An Essay on Old Debates and New Scenarios. The Crisis of the 14th Century (see note 5), 
190-220. 

[11] Bennassar, B. (Ed.) (1996). Les catastrophes naturelles dans l’Europe médiévale et moderne: actes des XVes 
Journées Internationales d’Histoire de l’Abbaye de Flaran, 10, 11 et 12 septembre 1993. Flaran, 15.Toulouse: 
Presses Université du Mirail; Jankrift, K. P. (2003). Brände, Stürme, Hungersnöte: Katastrophen in der 
mittelalterlichen Lebenswelt. Ostfildern: Thorbecke; Fouquet, G. and Zeilinger, G. (2011). Katastrophen im 
Spätmittelalter (Darmstadt and Mainz: Philipp von Zabern. They focus in separate chapters on a variety of 
catastrophes, such as floods in Basel in 1529 and 1530; various floods along the northern seashores; 
earthquakes in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; burning cities; and epidemics. See also the contributions 
to Rohr, Ch., Bieber, U., and Zeppezauer-Wachauer, K. (Eds.). (2018). Krisen, Kriege, Katastrophen: zum 
Umgang mit Angst und Bedrohung im Mittelalter. Interdisziplinäre Beiträge zu Mittelalter und Früher Neuzeit, 
3, Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter. As to the history of famines, see the contributions to Holzem, A. 
(Ed.). (2017). Wenn Hunger droht: Bewältigung und religiöse Deutung (1400‒1980). Bedrohte Ordnungen, 
6. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. 



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[12] I have endeavored in a recent article to correlate the emergence of the phenomenon of courtly love and the 
‘discovery’ of woman as an erotically attractive partner since the twelfth century (‘the Renaissance of the 
Twelfth Century’) with the setting-in of the Medieval Warming Period in Classen, A. (2015). 
Globalerwärmung im Mittelalter als Grundlage für die Entstehung der höfischen Liebe? Dinzelbacher, P. and 
Harrer, F. (Eds.). (2015). Wandlungsprozesse der Mentalitätsgeschichte. Baden-Baden: Deutscher 
Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, 121‒46. See now Dinzelbacher, P. (2017). Structures and Origins of the Twelfth-
Century ‘Renaissance’. Monographien zur Geschichte des Mittelalters, 63. Stuttgart: Alfred Hiersemann, 
161‒76, et passim. 

[13] Rohr, Ch. (2007). Extreme Naturereignisse im Ostalpenraum. Naturerfahrung im Spätmittelalter und am 
Beginn der Neuzeit. Umwelthistorische Forschungen, 4. Cologne, Weimar, and Vienna: Böhlau; Rohr, Ch. 
(Ed.). (2008). Naturkatastrophen in der Geschichte. Wahrnehmung, Deutung und Bewältigung von extremen 
Naturereignissen in Risikokulturen. Historische Sozialkunde, Themenheft 2008/2. Vienna: VGS c/o Institut 
für Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte der Universität. For an excellent survey, see the listing in 
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kategorie:Naturkatastrophe_nach_Jahrhundert (last accessed on Aug. 17, 
2021). 

[14] Kuß, Ch. (1825). Jahrbuch denkwürdiger Naturereignisse in den Herzogthümern Schleswig und Holstein vom 
11. bis 19. Jahrhundert. Vol. 1. Altona: Busch; Itzehoe: Schönfeldt, 9. Online now at: https://dibiki.ub.uni-
kiel.de/viewer/image/PPN67119464X/38/. He also reports about a solar eclipse on Sept. 4, 1186, about a 
tornado on March 12, 1186, and of a major windstorm that flattened entire forests on Oct. 10, 1195. He also 
mentions a significant earthquake in Denmark in 1198. The list of other natural catastrophes continues for the 
subsequent years. 

[15] Buisman, J. (2006). Duizend jaar weer, wind en water in de Lage Landen. 5 Vols. Franeker: Van Wijnen, 
1996–2006; here vol. 5; Elisabeth Gottschalk, M. K. E. (1971‒1977). Stormvloeden en rivieroverstromingen 
in Nederland. 3 Vols. (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1971–1977); Weikinn, C. (Ed.) (1958‒2002). Quellentexte zur 
Witterungsgeschichte Europas von der Zeitwende bis zum Jahre 1850. 6 Vols. Quellensammlung zur 
Hydrographie und Meteorologie, 1‒6 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1958–2002). For a comprehensive listing of 
all major floods, see https://www.bau.uni-siegen.de/fwu/wb/publikationen/sturmflutarchiv/?lang=en%22 
(last accessed on Aug. 17, 2021). 

[16] I have drawn the basic information from https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lac_de_Saint-Laurent (last accessed 
on Aug. 17, 2021). But see also Marche, C. (2008). Barrages: crues de rupture et protection civile. Montréal: 
Presses internationales polytechnique. 

[17] Dwars, F. W. (1958). Der angebliche Landzusammenhang zwischen Rügen und dem Ruden in historischer 
Zeit und die Entstehung der Einfahrten am Ostrand des Greifswalder Boddens. Baltische Studien. Neue Folge, 
45: 9-26; Petzholdt, N. (2014). Der Mönchgraben bei Baabe und die Landverbindung zwischen Rügen und 
dem Ruden. Pommern: Zeitschrift für Kultur und Geschichte 1: 4–8. 

[18] Hammerl, Ch. (1992). Das Erdbeben vom 25. Jänner 1348: Rekonstruktion des Naturereignisses. Ph.D. diss. 
Vienna, then published in 1994 as Neues aus Alt-Villach: Jahrbuch des Museums der Stadt Villach 31 (1994): 
55–94; Rohr, Ch. (2007). Extreme Naturereignisse im Ostalpenraum (see note 13), 131–66. See also the 
scientific report about this earthquake at: https://www.zamg.ac.at/cms/de/geophysik/erdbeben/historische-
erdbeben/historische-erdbebenforschung-oesterreich/erdbeben-in-friaul-freitag-den-25.-jaenner-1348-
gegen-17-uhr-io-10deg (last accessed on Aug. 17, 2021). 

[19] Meyer, W. (1990). Das Basler Erdbeben von 1356 und die angerichteten Schäden. Unsere Kunstdenkmäler 
41: 162-168; Fouquet, G. (2003). Das Erdbeben in Basel 1356 – für eine Kulturgeschichte der Katastrophen. 
Basler Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Altertumskunde, 103, 31-49; Meyer, W. (2006). Da verfiele Basel 
überall: Das Basler Erdbeben von 1356. Mit einem geologischen Beitrag von Hans Peter Laubscher. 
Neujahrsblatt: Gesellschaft für das Gute und Gemeinnützige, 184. Basel: Schwabe.  

[20] Schlütter, A. (2015). Die Wassermühle von Vinnbrück und das Magdalenenhochwasser von 1342. Tönisberger 
Heimatblätter 17: 29‒38; Zbinden, E. (2011). Das Magdalenen-Hochwasser von 1342: der ‘hydrologische 
Gau’ in Mitteleuropa. Wasser, Energie, Luft / Schweizerischer Wasserwirtschaftsverband: Schweizerische 
Vereinigung für Gewässerschutz und Lufthygiene, 103(3), 193-203; 
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalenenhochwasser_1480 (last accessed on Aug. 17, 2021). Further 
information about the subsequent floods can be found by using the relevant links in that article. The 
bibliographical information is extensive. 



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[21] For the early modern age, see Anonymous. 1509-2009: 500 Jahre Cosmas- und Damianflut: Die Entstehung 
des Dollarts. https://web.archive.org/web/20120911022239/http://www.heimatkundlicher-
arbeitskreis.de/Verschiedenes/Dollartfluten/Dollartfluten.htm (last accessed on Aug. 17, 2021). Despite the 
focus on the modern age, this article also covers the previous floods from 1164 to 1477. 

[22] Banda, E., & Correig, A. M. (1984). The Catalan Earthquake of February 2, 1428. Engineering Geology 20.1–
2 (1984): 89–97. For a helpful overview of the various earthquakes in that region, see 
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erdbeben_von_Olot_(15._Jahrhundert) (last accessed on Aug. 17, 2021). 

[23] Galadini, F. P., Molin, D., & Ciurletti, G. (2001). “Searching for the Source of the 1117 Earthquake in Northern 
Italy: A Multidisciplinary Approach,” Glade, Th., Albini, P. and Frances, F. (Eds.). (2001). The Use of 
Historical Data in Natural Hazard Assessments. Advances in Natural and Technological Hazards Research, 
17. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, 3–27. 

[24] https://www.zamg.ac.at/cms/de/geophysik/erdbeben/historische-erdbeben/historische-erdbebenforschung-
oesterreich/erdbeben-im-raum-katschberg-freitag-den-4.-mai-1201-gegen-05-00-uhr-io (last accessed on 
Aug. 17, 2021). 

[25] For a broad overview, see Hammerl, Ch. and Lenhardt, W. (1997). Erdbeben in Österreich. Graz: Leykam. 
[26] Leydecker, G. (2011). Erdbebenkatalog für Deutschland mit Randgebieten für die Jahre 800 bis 2008. 

Geologisches Jahrbuch E 59: 1‒198. He lists ca. 12,700 earthquakes from ca. 800 to 2008. 
[27] Dubler, A. D. (2013). Feuersbrünste. Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz (last updated on Dec. 9, 2013), online 

at: https://hls-dhs-dss.ch/de/articles/007787/2013-12-09/; for a representative list with a global perspective, 
see https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_von_Brandkatastrophen#Antike_bis_1600 (both last accessed on Aug. 
17, 2021). 

[28] Byrne, J. P. (2004). The Black Death. Greenwood Guides to Historic Events of the Medieval World. Westport, 
CT, and London: Greenwood Press, xxvii‒xxx. See also the contributions to Meier, M. (2005). Pest: Die 
Geschichte eines Menschheitstraumas, ed. (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 2005), such as the studies by Mauelshagen, 
F. Pest, Pestangst und Pestbekämpfung in der Neuzeit (237‒265) and Kessel, M. Gebannte Gefahr? Die Pest 
im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (266‒282). See now also the contributions to Green, M. H. (Ed.). (2015). 
Pandemic Disease in the Medieval World: Rethinking the Black Death,The Medieval Globe. Kalamazoo, MI, 
and Bradford: ARC Medieval Press. 

[29] For a solid, though rather traditional approach, see Pearsall, D. and Salter, E. (1973). Landscapes and Seasons 
of the Medieval World. London: Paul Elek. 

[30] For lexicological analysis, see now Oberlin, A. (forthcoming). Weather, Metaphor, and the Lexicon: A Corpus 
Study of Medieval German. Mediaevistik 33. 

[31] Classen, A. (2011). Winter as a Phenomenon in Medieval Literature: A Transgression of the Traditional 
Chronotopos? Mediaevistik 24: 125‒150. While Arthur celebrates Christmas, Gawan later suffers through a 
miserable time while traveling in a wintry landscape of Wales. For William Dunbar’s poem, see Douglas Gray, 
D. (Ed.). (1985). The Oxford Book of Late Medieval Verse and Prose. With a Note on Grammar and Spelling 
in the Fifteenth Century by Norman Davis. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 306-307. 

[32] Marguerite de Navarre (1984). The Heptameron. Trans with an intro. by P. A. Chilton. London: Penguin, 60. 
[33] Giovanni Boccaccio (1972/1997). The Decameron. Trans. with an Intro. and Notes by G. H. McWilliam. Sec. 

ed. London: Penguin. 
[34] Chrétien de Troyes (1990). The Complete Romances of Chrétien de Troyes. Trans. with an intro. by David 

Staines. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 262. Basically, the same story is told by 
Hartmann von Aue in his Middle High German ‘translation,’ Iwein (ca. 1190), but the dramatic effects of the 
storm are even more accentuated: “The storm grew so violent that it leveled the forest. If there was anywhere 
a tree so big that it remained standing, it was bare, as stripped of foliage as if it had gone up in flames. 
Whatever dwelt in the forest perished immediately if it did not make a quick escape.” Hartmann von Aue 
(2001). The Complete Works of Hartmann von Aue, trans. with commentary by Frank Tobin, Kim Vivian, and 
Richard H. Lawson. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 144. 

[35] Classen, A. (2020). Sea Voyages in Medieval Romances as Symbolic Trails Through Life: Existential 
Experiences and Female Suffering on the Water. Critical Literary Studies: Academic Journal (University of 
Kurdistan) 2.2. Series 4: 27-46. http://cls.uok.ac.ir/article_61567.html; or: DOI 10.34785/J014.2020.367. 



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[36] Gottfried von Strassburg (2020). Tristan and Isolde, with Ulrich von Türheim’s Continuation. Ed. and trans. 
with an intro. by William T. Whobrey. Indianapolis, IN, and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing, 37-38. 

[37] Francesco Petrarca (1978). Rerum senilium 9 (10,2), in Francesco Petrarca, F. (1978). Opere, vol. 2: Epistole, 
ed. Ugo Dotti. Turin: Unione Tipografico-Editrice Torinese, 613-889; here quoted from Rohr, Ch. (2003). 
Man[-Made] and Natural Disaster in the Late Middle Ages: The Earthquake in Carinthia and Northern Italy 
on 25 January 1348 and its Perception. Environment and History: Coping with the Unexpected – Natural 
Disasters and their Perception 9.2: 127-149; here 134. 

[38] Berlioz, J. (1998). Catastrophes naturelles et calamités au Moyen Age. Micrologus’ Library, 1. Florence: 
Sismel – Edizioni del Galluzzo. 

[39] For a valuable different perspective, see George, M. W. (2014). Adversarial Relationships between Humans 
and Weather in Medieval English Literature. Essays in Medieval Studies 30: 67‒81; See online: 
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/587613/pdf (last accessed on Dec. 1, 2020). He cites my own previous article: 
Winter as a Phenomenon in Medieval Literature (see note 31), 74, in support of his argument. He points out 
that in Chaucer’s “The Miller’s Tale,” the critical plot development is predicated on the fear of a new flood, 
as a repeat of the biblical flood. I would distinguish more between such topical imagery and real reactions to 
inclement weather, such as in the Wakefield Second Shepherds’ Pageant from ca. 1500. See George:, 
Adversarial, 76‒77. George also suggests that most of Chaucer’s works with their glorification of marvelous 
Spring weather were influenced by the long period of above the norm weather conditions in late fourteenth-
century England (78). 

[40] Quoted from Classen, A. (Ed.). (2009). Erotic Tales of Medieval Germany. Selected and trans. by Albrecht 
Classen. Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 328. Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and 
Renaissance Studies, no. 14, 91‒94. 

[41] Bonerius, U. (2020). The Fables of Ulrich Bonerius (ca. 1350): Masterwork of Late Medieval Didactic 
Literature, trans. Albrecht Classen. Newcastle-Upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 

[42] See, for instance, Schmidt, J. M. (2018). Water and the Anthropocene: Abundance, Scarcity and Security in 
the Age of Humanity (New Delhi: Sage, 2018); Harrison, R. and Sterling, C. (Eds.). (2020). Deterritorializing 
the Future: Heritage in, of and after the Anthropocene (London: Open Humanities Press, 2020). The literature 
on this critical topic is legion, of course. 

[43] Huhtamaa, H. (2020). Climate and the Crisis of the Early Fourteenth Century in Northeastern Europe. The 
Crisis of the 14th Century (see note 5), 80-99. 

 
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