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Paper short abstract:

The paper discusses the hydroclimate and (other) weather-related extremes of the anomalous late 15th-early 16th century period and its social and economic implications, including the potential causative links with the timing and rapid spread of the Reformation (1517).

Paper long abstract:

Preceded by a decade famous of its drought extremes, in the 1480s-1510s an unusually high number of significant hydroclimatic and weather extremes occurred in Europe. Apart from the long-term wet-shift and European flood-rich period in the central part of the Spörer Solar Minimum, interannual variability was also rather significant in these decades. Droughts, interrupted by wet years with significant floods, and other weather-related extremes (e.g. frequent hard winters, hot or cool summers, late-spring frosts, convective events), were mainly responsible for the increasing unpredictability of agricultural production, reduced crop and hay harvests, and severe food shortages in multiple years. These circumstances, in combination with other socio-economic factors, could be responsible amongst others for the increased social tension of the period, manifesting itself in major peasant uprisings, and might have acted as a catalyst in the timing (e.g. the great drought of 1517 in large part of Europe) and rapid spread of the Reformation.

The first part of the presentation is concentrated on the potential causes and main characteristics of this anomalous period, the reconstruction and spatial-temporal analysis of weather and hydroclimatic extremes based on documentary, tree-ring/multiproxy and sedimentary evidence, and its environmental and landscape implications. The most significant groups of socio-economic consequences are analysed in the second part of the presentation, with special emphasis on discussing the possible cumulative effects of the anomalous weather conditions of this period on the ongoing transformation of the late-medieval society, economy and the Reformation itself.