Paper short abstract:

This paper aims to explore rapid and short-term socio-environmental consequences as well as long-term changes related to agriculture, livestock farming, forest resources exploitation, etc… induced by adverse effects of the Great European Frost of 1709 in Europe.

Paper long abstract:

Many historical documents and textual archives contain information with more or less detailed data about extremely long and cold winters for historical times. Moreover, nowadays, available temperature reconstructions for different regions, based on instrumental, documentary and natural proxy data, provide useful information to accurately locate particularly cold years/clusters of years or long-lasting frost periods.

Although negative impacts, such as shortages, famines or the emergence of infectious diseases, due to extreme climatic events have already been the subject of several academic works many other environmental aspects still remain overlooked.

The most famous cases in the early 18th century is the Great European Frost of 1709. After massive tree mortality in many European regions, at local and regional scale, wood markets were “glutted” by logs and deeply disrupted for several years; the trade and export of many species of trees, such as walnuts, strongly regulated. In Southern areas, like the South of France, the sudden and unexpected death of almost all olive trees has led to a long-term collapse of regional olive oil production, deep changes into cultivated lands but also a migration of artisans and oil workers – and their know-how - to other South European countries.

This paper aims to explore rapid and short-term socio-environmental consequences as well as long-term changes related to agriculture, livestock farming, forest resources exploitation, etc… induced by adverse effects of this extreme cold event in Europe.