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Evidence from the Archives of Societies: Personal Documentary Sources

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The Palgrave Handbook of Climate History

Abstract

A wide variety of personal documentary sources, including chronicles, (weather) diaries, and account books, may serve as evidence of historical climate and weather. These sources are highly diverse, often fragmentary, and inherently limited by the lifetime of the author. Some provide more or less objective weather narratives while others offer phenological observations suitable as climate proxies. Grasping their full meaning demands familiarity with their context and the nuances of their language. Knowing the personal background of the observers and their motivations aids in understanding which climatic elements they would have highlighted or disregarded and therefore how particular sources may be used for historical climatology.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Endfield and Morris, 2012.

  2. 2.

    After all, as Bell and Ogilvie (1978) long ago demonstrated, one should strictly differentiate between contemporary and non-contemporary information, as names are often misspelled and numbers miscopied. For example, the Italian eighteenth-century astronomer Giuseppe Toaldo understood from a sixteenth-century source that the artillery of Pope Julius II, fighting against France’s King Louis XII, crossed the frozen River Po in 1503. However, he misread the Roman numeral MDXI (1511), thus duplicating the event. Camuffo and Enzi, 1995.

  3. 3.

    Alexandre, 1987.

  4. 4.

    http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ (accessed January 15, 2015).

  5. 5.

    Pertz, 1829.

  6. 6.

    Ge et al., 2008.

  7. 7.

    Alexandre, 1987, 373.

  8. 8.

    Pfister et al., 2006.

  9. 9.

    Munzar et al., 2006.

  10. 10.

    Stolz, 1979.

  11. 11.

    Pfister, 2015.

  12. 12.

    Bradley, 2015.

  13. 13.

    E.g., D. Sterrie, Briefe Sonet Declaring the Lamentation of Beckles, a Market Towne in Suffolke Which Was in the Great Winde upon S. Andrewes Pitifully Burned with Fire … (London: Nicholas Colman, 1586). On German pamphlets, see Bellingradt, 2008.

  14. 14.

    (Anon.), 1607. A True Report of Certaine Wonderfull Overflowings of Waters … (London: Edward White, 1607); (Anon.), Een Warachtich Verhael van de Schrickelicke Springh-Vloedt in het Landtschap van Summerset (Amsterdam: C. Claesz., 1607); (Anon.), God’s Warning to His People of England … by the Late Overflowing of the Waters … (London: W. Barley and J. Bayly, 1607); (Anon.), Miracle upon Miracle or A True Relation of the Great Floods … (London: Nathanael Fosbrook and John Wright, 1607); Discours veritable et tres-piteux, de l’inondation et debordement de mer, survenu en six diverses provinces d’Angleterre, sur la fin de janvier passé, 1607 (Paris: Fleury Bourriquant, 1607).

  15. 15.

    Dekker, 1608; Janković, 2001.

  16. 16.

    Schwarz-Zanetti, 1998.

  17. 17.

    Manley, 1953.

  18. 18.

    Adamson, 2015.

  19. 19.

    Lamb, 1995.

  20. 20.

    Maejima, 1966.

  21. 21.

    Long, 1974.

  22. 22.

    Lawrence, 1972.

  23. 23.

    Frederick et al., 1966.

  24. 24.

    Bepler and Bürger, 1994.

  25. 25.

    Pfister et al., 1999.

  26. 26.

    Pfister et al., 1999.

  27. 27.

    Schwarz-Zanetti, 1998.

  28. 28.

    Pfister et al., 1999.

  29. 29.

    Domínguez-Castro et al., 2014.

  30. 30.

    Herbst, 2016.

  31. 31.

    Pfister et al., 1999.

  32. 32.

    Flohn, 1949.

  33. 33.

    Pfister, 1985.

  34. 34.

    Camuffo and Bertolin, 2012.

  35. 35.

    Chernavskaya, 1994; Heidorn, 2012; Druckenbrod et al., 2003.

  36. 36.

    LeGrand and LeGoff, 1992.

  37. 37.

    Pfister and Bareiss, 1994.

  38. 38.

    Meier et al., 2009.

  39. 39.

    Tables are available at http://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov/julian_calendar.shtml (last accessed January 21, 2016).

  40. 40.

    Ge et al., 2008.

  41. 41.

    Ge et al., 2008; Wegmann, 2005.

  42. 42.

    Pfister et al., 1999.

  43. 43.

    Pfister, 1984.

  44. 44.

    Margary, 2007.

  45. 45.

    Tarand and Kuiv, 1994.

  46. 46.

    Nordli, 2001.

  47. 47.

    Brázdil et al., 2010.

  48. 48.

    Hudson and Keatley, 2010.

  49. 49.

    Pfister, 1992.

  50. 50.

    Ge et al., 2008; Pfister, 1998.

  51. 51.

    https://www.tambora.org/ (accessed October 10, 2016); Koslowski and Glaser, 1999; Camuffo et al., 2017.

  52. 52.

    Pfister, 1984, 65–66.

  53. 53.

    Brázdil et al., 2010.

  54. 54.

    Jansen, 1983.

  55. 55.

    Blackbourn, 2006.

  56. 56.

    Vesajoki and Tornberg, 1994.

  57. 57.

    Nordli et al., 2007.

  58. 58.

    Oerlemans, 2001.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of History, Oeschger Centre for Climate Change, Bern, Switzerland

    Christian Pfister

  2. Department of History, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA

    Sam White

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  1. Christian Pfister
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  1. Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA

    Sam White

  2. Institute of History, Oeschger Centre for Climate Change, Bern, Switzerland

    Christian Pfister

  3. Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany

    Franz Mauelshagen

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Pfister, C., White, S. (2018). Evidence from the Archives of Societies: Personal Documentary Sources. In: White, S., Pfister, C., Mauelshagen, F. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Climate History. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-43020-5_5

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