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GLOBAL CLIMATES, THE 1257 MEGA-ERUPTION OF SAMALAS VOLCANO, INDONESIA, AND THE ENGLISH FOOD CRISIS OF 1258*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 November 2017

Bruce M. S. Campbell
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Abstract

In 1258, as baronial opposition to Henry III erupted and the government became locked in constitutional conflict, the country found itself in the grip of a serious food crisis. To blame was a run of bad weather and failed harvests. Thousands of famished famine refugees flocked to London in quest of food and charity, where many of them perished and were buried in mass graves. The multiple burials recently discovered and excavated in the cemetery of the hospital of St Mary Spital highlight the plight of the poor at this time of political turmoil. Was their fate part of a global catastrophe precipitated by the VEI7 explosion of Samalas Volcano, Indonesia, the previous year or was powerful solar forcing of global climates responsible for the unusually unstable weather? The answer depends in large measure upon establishing the precise chronology of how the crisis unfolded, drawing upon the surviving documentary record of prices and harvests, the comments of contemporary chroniclers and a range of high-resolution palaeo-climatic proxies. Reexamination of this episode illustrates the potential of environmental history to shed fresh light on familiar historical events and its capacity to place them in a global environmental context.

Type
Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 27 , December 2017 , pp. 87 - 121
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 2017 

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Footnotes

*

This paper is dedicated to Christine Beavon. Christopher Whittick provided invaluable assistance with the Latin chronicles, Richard Cassidy alerted me to relevant entries in the close and patent rolls, Francis Ludlow advised on the 1252 drought and, with Mike Baillie, contributed dendrochronological data.

References

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42 Matthew Paris's year ran from Christmas to Christmas.

43 Matthew Paris's English History: From the Year 1235 to 1273, trans. and ed. J. A. Giles (vols. ii and iii, s.l., 1853 and 1854), ii, 446, 465–7; Matthai Parisiensis, Monachi Sancti Albani, Chronica Majora, ed. H. R. Luard (vols. iv and v, 1872 and 1880) (hereafter Chronica Majora), v, 240, 258, 263–4, 265–6. Paris makes no mention of the severe start to winter 1251 reported in Ireland by the Annals of Lough Ce: Britton, Meteorological Chronology, 99.

44 Annales Monastici, ed. H. R. Luard (5 vols., 1864–9), i, 147 (Annals of Tewkesbury, 1252): ‘In the same year drought prevailed for four months, causing the grass to disappear.’ Brut y Tywysogion or The Chronicle of the Princes of Wales, trans. and ed. J. W. ab Ithel (1860), 337: ‘the heat of the sun was so great that all the earth became so dry therefrom, that no fruit grew on the trees or (crops in) the fields and neither fish of the sea nor of the river was obtained’.

45 Cook et al., ‘Old World Megadroughts’, map for 1252.

46 Annales monastici, i, 189 (Annals of Dunstable, 1253): ‘in many places a quarter of wheat sold for 8 shillings, and more; but at Dunstable for 5 shillings’. On the Winchester estates, the harvest of barley, oats and dredge was down by 10 per cent: calculated from HRO 97097 Titow Research Papers 97M97/B.

47 Paris's English History, ii, 514–15; Chronica Majora, v, 321. Brut y Tywysogion, 337, stresses the extensive and destructive flooding that occurred that autumn in Wales.

48 Paris's English History, iii, 60; Chronica Majora, v, 420.

49 Paris's English History, iii, 96; Chronica Majora, v, 465.

50 Paris's English History, iii, 110–11; Chronica Majora, v, 483. Towards the end of the year, a deadly murrain of horses struck in both England and France: The Flowers of History, especially such as Relate to the Affairs of Britain. From the Beginning of the World to the Year 1307. Collected by Matthew of Westminster, ii: From a.d. 1066 to a.d. 1307, trans. C. D. Yonge (1853), 340.

51 Cook et al., ‘Old World Megadroughts’, map for 1255.

52 Paris's English History, iii, 115, 120; Chronica Majora, v, 488, 495.

53 Paris's English History, iii, 121, 155–6; Chronica Majora, v, 496, 536–7.

54 Cook et al., ‘Old World Megadroughts’, map for 1256.

55 Paris's English History, iii, 175, 212; Chronica Majora, v, 561, 607.

56 Paris's English History, iii, 207; Chronica Majora, v, 600.

57 Paris's English History, iii, 207; Chronica Majora, v, 600. In April the following year, Matthew Paris reports that Earl Richard of Cornwall, while waiting to take ship at Yarmouth, had to pay over the odds for essential provisions: ‘a measure of wheat was sold for fifteen shillings, and the same quantity of oats for six shillings; fowls and ducks were very scarce and extremely dear; and beef and mutton were sold at any price that the venders chose to fix’, Paris's English History, iii, 228–9; Chronica Majora, v, 628; Chronicle of Bury St Edmunds, 21.

58 Paris's English History, iii, 207, 255–6; Chronica Majora, v, 600, 660–1.

59 Paris's English History, iii, 230–1; Chronica Majora, v, 630.

60 Spring-sown barley, oats and dredge on the Winchester estates fared unevenly, with output down by at least 10 per cent on over a third of the bishop's demesnes: calculated from HRO 97097 Titow Research Papers 97M97/B.

61 Rerum Britannicarum medii aevi scriptores or Chronicles and memorials of Great Britain and Ireland during the Middle Ages, xiii: Chronica Johannis de Oxnedes, ed. Sir H. Ellis (1859), 212; Chronicle of Bury St Edmunds, 22.

62 Paris's English History, iii, 242, 255–6; Chronica Majora, v, 644–5, 661.

63 Paris's English History, iii, 255–6; Chronica Majora, v, 661.

64 Paris's English History, iii, 255–6; Chronica Majora, v, 661.

65 Lavigne et al., ‘ad 1257 Mystery Eruption’. A dark total lunar eclipse reported at Genoa on 12 Nov. 1258 bears testimony to the continuing suspension of volcanic aerosols in the atmosphere and implies that the eruption had occurred sometime during the previous eighteen months: Guillet, S., Corona, C., Stoffel, M., Khodri, M., Lavigne, F., Ortega, P., Eckert, N., Sielenou, P. Dkengne, Daux, V., Churakova, O., Davi, N., Edouard, J.-L., Zhang, Y., Luckman, B. H., Myglan, V. S., Guiot, J., Beniston, M., Masson-Delmotte, V. and Oppenheimer, C., ‘Climate Response to the Samalas Volcanic Eruption in 1257 Revealed by Proxy Records’, Nature Geoscience, 10 (2) (2017)Google Scholar, Supplementary information S4.

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67 Paris's English History, iii, 312; Chronica Majora, v, 728.

68 Chronicle of Bury St Edmunds, 22.

69 Ibid.; Keene, ‘Crisis Management’, 51–2.

70 Chronicle of Bury St Edmunds, 22.

71 Close Rolls of the Reign of Henry III Preserved in the Public Record Office, iii: a.d. 1256–1259 (1932), 212: on 16 Apr. 1258, orders were sent to the sheriffs of Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex to bury paupers without the need for a coroner's inquest. The next month, report was made that many vagrants were dying due to famine: Annales Monastici, i, 441–2 (Annals of Burton, 1258).

72 Paris's English History, iii, 266; Chronica Majora, v, 674.

73 Paris's English History, iii, 299–300; Chronica Majora, v, 710–11. Matthew Paris and Matthew of Westminster both report that torrential rain in late June caused the River Severn to burst its banks, resulting in devastating flooding from Shrewsbury to Bristol: Paris's English History, iii, 283–4; Chronica Majora, v, 693–4; Flowers of History, ii, 357.

74 Paris's English History, iii, 265–6; Chronica Majora, v, 673.

75 For the proactive response of the Florentine authorities to the food crises of 1329–30 and 1347–8, see Jansen, K. L., ‘Giovanni Villani on Food Shortages and Famine in Central Italy (1329–30, 1347–48)’, in Medieval Italy: Texts in Translation, ed. Jansen, K. L., Drell, J. and Andrews, F. (Philadelphia, 2009), 20–3Google Scholar.

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77 Paris's English History, iii, 283–4; Chronica Majora, v, 693–4; Annales Monastici, i, 166 (Annals of Tewkesbury, 1258).

78 Bengal Famine of 1943 – A Photographic History – Part 2, www.oldindianphotos.in/2009/12/bengal-famine-of-1943-part-2.html, accessed 6 Sept. 2016; Sen, Poverty and Famines, 52–85; Ó Gráda, Famine, 45–8.

79 Paris's English History, iii, 280, 291; Chronica Majora, v, 690.

80 B. Connell, A. G. Jones, R. Redfern and D. Walker, A Bioarchaeological Study of Medieval Burials on the Site of St Mary Spital: Excavations at Spitalfields Market, London E1, 1991–2007 (2012), 229; Paris's English History, iii, 280; Chronica Majora, v, 690, 701–2.

81 Connell et al., Bioarchaeological Study, 36, 38, 271–2.

82 J. M. Bennett, ‘Women and Poverty: Girls on their Own in England before 1348’, in Peasants and Lords in the Medieval English Economy, ed. Kowaleski, Langdon and Schofield, 299–323.

83 Paris's English History, iii, 280; Chronica Majora, v, 690.

84 Ó Gráda, Famine, 98–102, 178–84, 190–3.

85 Keene, ‘Crisis Management’, 54; MOLA, ‘Cataclysmic Volcano’.

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88 Witze, ‘Volcano Mystery’; Lavigne et al., ‘ad 1257 Mystery Eruption’.

89 Guillet et al., ‘Climatic Impacts’, Supplementary information S4.

90 Oppenheimer, Eruptions, 54–66.

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94 Paris's English History, iii, 312; Chronica Majora, v, 728; Britton, Meteorological Chronology, 108.

95 Calendar of the Patent Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office: Henry III 1258–66 (1910), 73; Close Rolls, iv: a.d. 1259–1261 (1934), 52, 172.

96 Annales monastici, iv (Annals of Oseney), 127. And in spring 1261, the baronial council observed that the kingdom had been impoverished by ‘evil years’: Documents of the Baronial Movement of Reform and Rebellion, 1258–1267 Selected by R. E. (i.e. R. F.) Treharne, ed. I. J. Sanders (Oxford, 1973), 221.

97 Campbell, Great Transition, 38–58.

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99 Keene, ‘Crisis Management’, 55.

100 Treharne, Baronial Plan, 1–63, 64–81.

101 Ibid ., 64–81; D. A. Carpenter, The Reign of Henry III (1996), 183–98.

102 Paris's English History, iii, 265–6; Chronica Majora, v, 673–4.

103 Keene, ‘Crisis Management’, 56.

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107 APPG, Feeding Britain; House of Commons, Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, Oral Evidence: Winter Floods 2015–16, HC 666, 11 Jan. 2016, http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/environment-food-and-rural-affairs-committee/winter-floods-201516/oral/26721.html, accessed 6 Sept. 2016; Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate Change 2014: Synthesis Report (Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), ed. R. K. Pachauri and L. A. Meyer (Geneva, 2014).