Droughts and heatwaves are both dangerous natural hazards with a potential significant impact on human societies. In order to understand these hazards, it is important to examine such extreme events ...in the past. During the years 1471 to 1474, warm and dry weather conditions are described in most parts of Europe. Until now, these extraordinary years have not been examined in depth. Moreover, in spring 1473, a great drought and heat occurred in Europe. This heatwave facilitated a fast phenological development. During the summer and the autumn, temperatures were unusually high, and extremely dry weather conditions continued. In many places, the harvest began remarkably early, and there was abundant wine of a good quality. Fruit trees even bloomed for the second time in autumn. The heat and drought had a considerable impact on the environment and also caused damage to agriculture and society, including water shortages, harvest failures and rising food prices. The weather conditions of the years from 1471 to 1474 were outstanding during the fifteenth century and the heatwave and drought, as well as impacts on environment, economy, and society in the year 1473, were comparable to—if not more severe—than those in the year 1540. Learning from past climate anomalies like the 1473 drought in Europe is important for evaluating more recent and future climate extremes under increasing anthropogenic pressure.
The article explores the issue of Nordic emigration to Brazil in the period of global mass migration between 1880–1914, based on Brazilian immigration sources, something that has not hitherto been ...done. An analysis of different available figures for total Swedish emigration in 1885–1891 shows that the figures recorded in Brazilian sources should be revised upwards, with perhaps as much as 60%, which may be valid also for total Nordic emigration. A demographical, social and economic analysis against the background of the Brazilian agrarian structure shows that Nordic migration between 1880 and 1914 was dominated by young Swedish families who arrived in two major waves, 1890–1891 and 1910–1911. Structurally, the immigrants were predominantly agrarian, more specifically farmers (agricultores) who migrated to southern Brazil to establish family farms within the domestic sector. However, the analysis also shows that a surprisingly large proportion of total migration, including a great number of families, went to the export sector in the coffee zone in São Paulo.
Historical documentary sources, reflecting different port activities in Stockholm, are utilised to derive a 500-year winter/spring temperature reconstruction for the region. These documentary sources ...reflect sea ice conditions in the harbour inlet and those series that overlap with the instrumental data correlate well with winter/spring temperatures. By refining dendroclimatological methods, the time-series were composited to a mean series and calibrated (1756-1841; r ² = 66%) against Stockholm January-April temperatures. Strong verification was confirmed (1842-1892; r ² = 60%; RE/CE = 0.55). By including the instrumental data, the quantified (QUAN) reconstruction indicates that recent two decades have been the warmest period for the last 500 years. Coldest conditions occurred during the 16th/17th and early 19th centuries. An independent qualitative (QUAL) historical index was also derived for the Stockholm region. Comparison between QUAN and QUAL shows good coherence at inter-annual time-scales, but QUAL distinctly appears to lack low frequency information. Comparison is also made to other winter temperature based annually resolved records for the Baltic region. Between proxy coherence is generally good although it decreases going back in time with the 1500-1550 period being the weakest period—possibly reflecting data quality issues in the different reconstructions.
This article explores documentary evidence of droughts in Sweden in the
pre-instrumental period (1400–1800 CE). A database has been developed using
contemporary sources, such as private and official ...correspondence letters,
diaries, almanac notes, manorial accounts, and weather data compilations.
The primary purpose is to utilize hitherto unused documentary data as an
input for an index that can be useful for comparisons on a larger European
scale. The survey shows that eight subperiods can be considered as having been particularly
struck by summer droughts, causing concomitant harvest failures and having great social
impacts in Sweden. This is the case with 1634–1639, 1652–1657, 1665–1670,
1677–1684, 1746–1750, 1757–1767, 1771–1776, and 1780–1783 CE. Within these
subperiods, 1652 and 1657 stand out as particularly troublesome years. A
number of data for dry summers are also found for the middle decades of the
15th century, the first decade of the 1500s, and the 1550s.
There are concerns that recent climate change is altering the frequency and magnitude of river floods in an unprecedented way
. Historical studies have identified flood-rich periods in the past half ...millennium in various regions of Europe
. However, because of the low temporal resolution of existing datasets and the relatively low number of series, it has remained unclear whether Europe is currently in a flood-rich period from a long-term perspective. Here we analyse how recent decades compare with the flood history of Europe, using a new database composed of more than 100 high-resolution (sub-annual) historical flood series based on documentary evidence covering all major regions of Europe. We show that the past three decades were among the most flood-rich periods in Europe in the past 500 years, and that this period differs from other flood-rich periods in terms of its extent, air temperatures and flood seasonality. We identified nine flood-rich periods and associated regions. Among the periods richest in floods are 1560-1580 (western and central Europe), 1760-1800 (most of Europe), 1840-1870 (western and southern Europe) and 1990-2016 (western and central Europe). In most parts of Europe, previous flood-rich periods occurred during cooler-than-usual phases, but the current flood-rich period has been much warmer. Flood seasonality is also more pronounced in the recent period. For example, during previous flood and interflood periods, 41 per cent and 42 per cent of central European floods occurred in summer, respectively, compared with 55 per cent of floods in the recent period. The exceptional nature of the present-day flood-rich period calls for process-based tools for flood-risk assessment that capture the physical mechanisms involved, and management strategies that can incorporate the recent changes in risk.
When, how and why was the Sture archive brought to Denmark?This article explores the issue of when, how and why the Sture archive, the single largest Swedish letter collection from the Middle Ages, ...disappeared from Sweden and ended up in Denmark, where it was preserved until 1929. Hitherto, it has been believed that the archive was carried by Swedish archbishop Gustav Trolle and Danish bishop Jens Andersen (Beldenak) in September 1521, as they fled from the approaching rebel forces of Gustav Eriksson (Vasa). However, this view is based on the dubious assumptions that the modern archive constitutes one organic archive entity and that it was under the custody of the chancellor of the Swedish realm, a function held by Jens Andersen at the time.It is shown that the Sture archive, as it is found in the Swedish National Archives today, is comprised of several parts that were brought to Denmark in different ways and at different times, beginning in 1508 and possibly continuing until1523. The core of the letter collection, i. e., the archives of the national regents Svante Nilsson (1504–1512) and Sten Sture the younger (1512–1520), was probably taken out of Sweden on two different occasions. One group of letters from Sten Sture’s archive, predominantly documents concerning the accolade of Kristian II as the king of Sweden and Sweden’s relations to towns of the Hanseatic League, was separated from the rest of the collection in the autumn of 1520 and taken to Denmark a year later on direct order from the king by his trustee Didrik Slagheck, and subsequently disappeared. The remainder, the larger part of the regents’ archives, followed the same way on a later occasion, most probably not on the king’s order or even with his knowledge, but through the private initiative of an unknown person shortly before the accession of Gustav Vasa as the king of Sweden. Gustav Trolle and Jens Andersen had probably nothing to do with it.The fact that nothing at all is known about the archive in Denmark during the first centuries after the 1520s indicates that it has not been in possession of the keepers of the royal archives there. Instead, it is more likely that it had been kept by a private person until sometime before the 1750s, which probably explains why it still exists today.
This article provides an overview of the evolution of territorial fiscal systems in medieval Sweden. It is shown that persistent financial strains forced the Crown to implement a whole range of ...fiscal strategies. A rough five-stage chronology of different territorial and fiscal policies is presented. It demonstrates that a budget balance was never really achieved except for short periods, but also that the combined challenge of budget deficits and political pressures from the nobility and the peasantry were handled quite diligently. That was especially the case during the low-tax regime established by the Engelbrekt uprising in 1434–1436. No attempt was made in the article to assess the level of income of the Swedish Crown in quantitative terms.
No Taxation Without Negotiation Retsö, Dag
Scandinavian journal of history,
09/2017, Letnik:
42, Številka:
4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
The article aims at assessing the impact of extra taxes on the Swedish peasantry in the early 16th century in qualitative terms, as reflected in contemporary correspondence letters. While the total ...tax pressure without doubt rose in the period, the resilience of Swedish peasants was remarkably high. Despite harvest failures, they managed to endure the hardships, largely thanks to their diligent use of the instrument of negotiations over terms and levels of extra taxes and the delicacy with which the Crown exacted them. This can be seen as a reflection of adjustments within the framework of the prevalent medieval system, and an acceptance on both sides of the principle of mutuality.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
BFBNIB, DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
This article explores documentary evidence of floods and extreme rainfall events in Sweden in the pre-instrumental period (1400–1800). The survey shows that two sub-periods can be considered as ...flood-rich, 1590–1670 and the early 18th century. The result related to a low degree of human impact on hydrology during the period, suggests that climatic factors, such as lower temperatures and increased precipitation connected to the so-called Little Ice Age rather than large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns, should be considered as the main driver behind flood frequency and magnitude.
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