Farming, Famine and Plague : The Impact of Climate in Late Medieval England

"This book is situated at the cross-roads of environmental, agricultural and economic history and climate science. It investigates the climatic background for the two most significant risk factors for life in the crisis-prone England of the Later Middle Ages: subsistence crisis and plague. Based on documentary data from eastern England, the late medieval growing season temperature is reconstructed and the late summer precipitation of that period indexed. Using these data, and drawing together various other regional (proxy) data and a wide variety of contemporary documentary sources, the impact of climatic variability and extremes on agriculture, society and health are assessed. Vulnerability and resilience changed over time: before the population loss in the Great Pestilence in the mid-fourteenth century meteorological factors contributing to subsistence crises were the main threat to the English people, after the arrival of Yersinia pestis it was the weather conditions that faciliated the formation of recurrent major plague outbreaks. Agriculture and harvest success in late medieval England were inextricably linked to both short term weather extremes and longer term climatic fluctuations. In this respect the climatic transition period in the Late Middle Ages (c. 1250-1450) is particularly important since the broadly favourable conditions for grain cultivation during the Medieval Climate Optimum gave way to the Little Ice Age, when agriculture was faced with many more challenges; the fourteenth century in particular was marked by high levels of climatic variability"--Back cover Acknowledgements 5 Contents 6 Abbreviations 10 Chapter 1: The Historical Climatology of Late Medieval England 11 Chapter 2: The Keeping of Agricultural Records in Late Medieval England 18 2.1 Late Medieval Agriculture and Manorial Accounts 18 2.2 Norwich Cathedral Priory 22 2.2.1 Norwich Cathedral Priory and Its Temporalities Until c.1300 22 2.2.2 The Making of Manorial Accounts and Their Economic Context 29 2.2.3 Archival History of Norwich Cathedral Priory 42 2.3 Supplementary Series 43 Chapter 3: The Medieval Grain Harvest 50 3.1 Climatological Significance 50 3.2 Management and Accounting Practices 52 3.3 Data Density and Security 57 3.4 Potential Non-climatic Influences on the Harvest Date 58 3.5 Dating the Harvest: Calendar, Work Management and Communication 61 3.5.1 The Ecclesiastical Calendar 62 3.5.2 The Working Week 65 3.5.3 The Harvest Date on Selected Manors of Norwich Cathedral Priory 68 3.5.4 Harvest Date and Calendar 70 Chapter 4: Farming in Norfolk Around 1800 74 4.1 Langham Farm 75 4.1.1 The Working Week 79 4.1.2 The Break in the Langham Series 80 4.2 Fritton Estate 82 4.3 Snettisham 82 4.4 Wymondham 83 4.5 Medieval Versus Early Modern Grain Harvests 83 Chapter 5: A Reconstruction of Medieval April–July Temperatures for East Anglia 85 5.1 Reconstruction Methodology 85 5.2 Reconstructed Medieval April–July Mean Temperatures 90 5.3 Comparison with Other Documentary Reconstructions 93 5.4 Comparison with William Merle’s Weather Diary 1337–1344 97 Chapter 6: Temperature Extremes 1256–1431: Independent Evidence and Context 102 6.1 Temperature Extremes and Agricultural Production 102 6.2 Warm Growing Seasons 1256–1431 104 6.2.1 Weather Conditions in 1267 104 6.2.2 Weather Conditions in 1297 and 1298 104 6.2.3 Weather Conditions in 1304–1307 104 6.2.4 Weather Conditions in 1318 105 6.2.5 Weather Conditions in the Mid-1320s 105 6.2.6 Weather Conditions in the Early 1330s 108 6.2.7 Weather Conditions in 1354 109 6.2.8 Weather Conditions in 1361 109 6.2.9 Weather Conditions in 1365 111 6.2.10 Weather Conditions in 1371 111 6.2.11 Weather Conditions in 1385 111 6.2.12 Weather Conditions in 1390 111 6.2.13 Weather Conditions in 1400 112 6.2.14 Weather Conditions in 1409 113 6.2.15 Weather Conditions in the 1410s 113 6.2.16 Weather Conditions in 1431 114 6.3 Cold Growing Seasons 1256–1431 114 6.3.1 Weather Conditions in 1275 114 6.3.2 Weather Conditions in 1283 115 6.3.3 Weather Conditions in 1294 115 6.3.4 Weather Conditions in 1314–1323 118 6.3.5 Weather Conditions in 1330 118 6.3.6 Weather Conditions in 1335 119 6.3.7 Weather Conditions in 1348–1349 119 6.3.8 Weather Conditions in 1364 120 6.3.9 Weather Conditions in 1368–1370 120 6.3.10 Weather Conditions in 1374 122 6.3.11 Weather Conditions in 1421 124 6.3.12 Weather Conditions in 1428 124 6.4 Weather Conditions During the Agrarian Crisis 1314–1323 125 6.5 Weather Conditions During the Great Pestilence 1348–1349 and the Agricultural Crisis 1348–1352 137 6.6 Summary of Extremely Warm and Cold Growing Seasons 143 6.7 Climate and Viticulture in Medieval England 144 Chapter 7: Harvest Length – An Indicator of Late Summer Precipitation 149 7.1 The Harvest Length and Its Socio-economic Context 149 7.2 The Relationship Between Harvest Date and Harvest Duration 155 7.3 The Norfolk Precipitation Series 156 Chapter 8: Harvest Length and Precipitation Extremes 1256–1448: Independent Evidence and Context 166 8.1 Short Harvests 1256–1347 166 8.1.1 Weather Conditions in the Second Half of the 1280s 166 8.1.2 Weather Conditions in the Mid-1320s 167 8.1.3 Weather Conditions in 1332 167 8.1.4 Weather Conditions in the Second Half of the 1330s 168 8.1.5 Weather Conditions in 1344 169 8.1.6 Weather Conditions in 1347 169 8.2 Long Harvests 1256–1347 169 8.2.1 Weather Conditions in 1258 170 8.2.2 Weather Conditions in 1302 170 8.2.3 Weather Conditions in 1307 170 8.2.4 Weather Conditions in 1314 and 1315 171 8.2.5 Weather Conditions in 1322 171 8.2.6 Weather Conditions in 1330 171 8.3 Short Harvests 1348–1448 171 8.3.1 Dry Conditions in the Mid-1380s 172 8.3.2 Dry Conditions 1409–1420 173 8.3.3 Dry Conditions in the Second Half of the 1420s and the Early 1430s 178 8.3.4 Weather Conditions in 1440 179 8.3.5 Weather Conditions in 1446 179 8.4 Long Harvests 1348–1448 179 8.4.1 Weather Conditions in 1359 180 8.4.2 Weather Conditions in 1361 180 8.4.3 Weather Conditions in 1365 and 1366 180 8.4.4 The Calm 1370s and the Long Harvests Around 1380 183 8.4.5 Weather Conditions in 1387 185 8.4.6 Wet Conditions in the First Decade of the Fifteenth Century 185 8.4.7 Weather Conditions in 1421 187 8.4.8 Weather Conditions in 1423 188 8.4.9 Weather Conditions in 1428 189 8.4.10 Weather Conditions in 1435 189 8.4.11 Weather Conditions in the Second Half of the 1430s 190 Chapter 9: Climate and the Grain Price, 1264–1431 191 Chapter 10: Climate and the Plague, 1348–1500 203 Chapter 11: The Dance of Death – A Synthesis 228 Appendices 237 Appendix 1: Evidence on Weather in East Anglian Manorial Accounts 1256–1431 238 Appendix 2: Administration and Managers of the Manors of Norwich Cathedral Priory with a Focus on Sedgeford and Gnatingdon 260 The Structure of Administration in Sedgeford and Gnatingdon 260 The Recruiting Pool and Career Paths for the Various Offices 261 Prominent Local Families 273 Appendix 3: Labour and Harvest on the Manor of Gnatingdon 273 Appendix 4: Reconstructed East Anglian April–July Mean Temperatures 276 Appendix 5: East Anglian July–September Precipitation Index 277 Appendix 6: Late Medieval English Plague Waves and Weather Conditions, 1348–1500 278 Bibliography 282 Archival Material 282 Bodleian Library, Oxford (BLO) 282 Chicago University Library (CUL) 283 Climatic Research Unit, Norwich (CRU) 283 The National Archives, London (TNA) 283 Norfolk Record Office, Norwich (NRO) 283 Calendar of Documents Relating to Kempstone (WIS) 283 Dean and Chapter Records (DCN) 283 Hare of Stow Bardolph Collection (HARE) 284 Le Strange of Hunstanton (LEST) 284 Minor Collection (MC) 285 Norfolk Record Society (NRS) 285 Records of the City of Norwich (NCR) 285 Records of the Estates of the Bishop of Norwich, I: Records of St Benet’s Abbey (DN/EST) 285 Raynham Hall, Norfolk 285 Published Primary Sources 286 Secondary Literature 288 Index 301 Front Matter....Pages i-xi The Historical Climatology of Late Medieval England....Pages 1-7 The Keeping of Agricultural Records in Late Medieval England....Pages 9-40 The Medieval Grain Harvest....Pages 41-64 Farming in Norfolk Around 1800....Pages 65-75 A Reconstruction of Medieval April–July Temperatures for East Anglia....Pages 77-93 Temperature Extremes 1256–1431: Independent Evidence and Context....Pages 95-141 Harvest Length – An Indicator of Late Summer Precipitation....Pages 143-159 Harvest Length and Precipitation Extremes 1256–1448: Independent Evidence and Context....Pages 161-185 Climate and the Grain Price, 1264–1431....Pages 187-198 Climate and the Plague, 1348–1500....Pages 199-223 The Dance of Death – A Synthesis....Pages 225-233 Back Matter....Pages 235-307