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When Europe Was Burning: The Multi-season Mega-drought of 1540 and Arsonist Paranoia

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Historical Disaster Experiences

Abstract

The year 1540 is known in German cultural history for the persecution of alleged arsonists (Mordbrenner) blamed for starting frequent town, village, and forest fires . Most fires were related to a ten-month long and Europe-wide record-breaking heat wave and drought . Proceeding from the blaze of the German town in Einbeck which resulted in a confessional conflict fought out on the level of the Reich, the article outlines the arsonist paranoia from the literature and puts it into the larger context of the mega-drought . The physical reality of this event and its multi-faceted impact upon humans and the natural environment (such as the mass death of cattle and devastating forest fires ) are reconstructed from coherent narratives laid down by chroniclers from France , Switzerland , Germany , Poland , and Italy . The author concludes from their reports that palaeo-climatic evidence such as tree-rings and grape harvest dates are no longer valid indicators of the earlier climate due to the severe impact of droughts (untimely leaf-fall of trees, and the dried out grapes at the time of maturity). The arsonist paranoia is finally placed in a larger cultural historical context. Fire-raising was a gender-specific crime attributed to males, whereas witchcraft arising from cold and wet extremes such as frost, hailstorms, and cold rains since the 1430s was mainly attributed to women.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Christian Pfister , Professor emeritus of Economic, Social and Environmental History at Bern University, is a Senior Researcher at the Oeschger Center for Climatic Change Studies. Acknowledgments are due to Dr. Antonio Contino (Palermo), Prof. Dr. Mariano Barriendos (Barcelona), Prof. Dr. Rüdiger Glaser (Freiburg i. Br.), Dr. Thomas Labbé (Dijon), Dr. Laurent Litzenburger (Nancy), Dr. Adriaan Kraker (Utrecht), Dr. Franz Mauelshagen (Potsdam), and Dr. Kathleen Pribyl (Brighton) for providing valuable sources on the year 1540. Thanks also to Prof. Dr. Reinhold Reith (Salzburg), Dr. Eleonora Rohland (Bielefeld), Prof. Dr. Christian Rohr (Bern), Prof. Dr. Gerrit Jasper Schenk (Darmstadt), and Dr. Cornel Zwierlein (Bochum) for providing helpful amendments and suggestions. Gerrit J. Schenk read the manuscript, and Dr. phil. Daniel Krämer and Dr. Martin Bauch invested a great deal of skillful work in formatting and correcting the footnotes. This work was supported by the Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.

  2. 2.

    Cornel Zwierlein, Der gezähmte Prometheus: Feuer und Sicherheit zwischen Früher Neuzeit und Moderne (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011), 104.

  3. 3.

    Cathy A. Frierson, All Russia is Burning: A Cultural History of Fire and Arson in Late Imperial Russia Seattle and London (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2002), 53, Although this statement is about about Russia, it is also true for sixteenth-century central Europe.

  4. 4.

    Frierson, All Russia is Burning, 66–67.

  5. 5.

    Mark Tebeaud, Eating Smoke: Fire in Urban America, 1800–1950 (Baltimore: John Hopkins, 2003), 4.

  6. 6.

    Zwierlein, Der gezähmte Prometheus, 23.

  7. 7.

    Monika Spicker-Beck, Räuber, Mordbrenner, umschweifendes Gesind: Zur Kriminalität im 16. Jahrhundert (Freiburg i. Br.: Rombach Historiae, 1995), 46.

  8. 8.

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  11. 11.

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  12. 12.

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  13. 13.

    Zwierlein, Der gezähmte Prometheus, 24–39.

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  15. 15.

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  16. 16.

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  17. 17.

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  18. 18.

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  19. 19.

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  21. 21.

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  22. 22.

    Zwierlein, Der gezähmte Prometheus, 106.

  23. 23.

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  24. 24.

    Zwierlein, Der gezähmte Prometheus, 105.

  25. 25.

    Spicker-Beck, Räuber Mordbrenner, umschweifendes Gesind, 100–113, 169–70; Dillinger, Arson, 101.

  26. 26.

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  27. 27.

    Scribner, “The ‘Mordbrenner’ Fear in Sixteenth Century Germany ,” 42.

  28. 28.

    Spicker-Beck, Räuber, Mordbrenner, Umschweifendes Gesind, 19.

  29. 29.

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  30. 30.

    Dillinger, “Organized Arson as a Political Crime,” 111.

  31. 31.

    Dillinger, “Organized Arson as a Political Crime,” 104.

  32. 32.

    Scribner, “The ‘Mordbrenner’ Fear in Sixteenth Century Germany ,” 34.

  33. 33.

    Helleiner, “Brandstiftung als Kriegsmittel,” 330.

  34. 34.

    Dillinger, “Organized Arson as a Political Crime,” 111.

  35. 35.

    Nikolaus Thomann, “Weissenhorner Historie”, in F.L. Baumann (ed), Quellen zur Geschichte des Bauernkrieges in Oberschwaben (Tübingen: H. Laupp, 1876), 225, translated in Scribner, “The ‘Mordbrenner’ Fear in Sixteenth Century Germany ,” 32.

  36. 36.

    Zedel an alle Zünfte gegeben [Warnung wegen der Mordbrenner], 2 July 1540, StdA A 3680, fol. 283, in Reichsstädte 3: Ulm, ed. Susanne Kremmer and Hans Eugen Specker, in Repertorium der Policeyordnungen der Frühen Neuzeit, ed. Karl Härter and Michael Stolleis, vol. 8, Studien zur europäischen Rechtsgeschichte 218 (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 2007), 42.

  37. 37.

    Spicker-Beck, Räuber, Mordbrenner, umschweifendes Gesind, 192.

  38. 38.

    Ibid., 198.

  39. 39.

    Ibid., 192.

  40. 40.

    Dillinger, “Organized Arson as a Political Crime,” 112.

  41. 41.

    Ibid.

  42. 42.

    Ibid.

  43. 43.

    “Baden. 1540, 23rd Aug/2nd Sep 1540,” Die Eidgenössischen Abschiede aus dem Zeitraume von 1533 bis 1540, ed. Karl Deschwanden, Amtlichen Sammlung der älteren eidgenössischen Abschiede 4.1c, part 2 (Luzern: Meyer’sche Buchdruckerei, 1878), 1251.

  44. 44.

    Deschwanden, Die Eidgenössischen Abschiede, 7/17th June 1540, 1210.

  45. 45.

    Deschwanden, Die Eidgenössischen Abschiede, 13/23th Dec. 1540, 1280.

  46. 46.

    Scribner, “The ‘Mordbrenner’ Fear in Sixteenth Century Germany ,” 33.

  47. 47.

    Merriam-Webster OnLine, s.v. “paranoia,” accessed December 12, 2011.

  48. 48.

    Wikipedia, s.v. “paranoia,” accessed December 12, 2011, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoia#References

  49. 49.

    Franz Ludwig Baumann, quoted and translated by Scribner, “The ‘Mordbrenner’ Fear in Sixteenth Century Germany,” 32.

  50. 50.

    Scribner, “The ‘Mordbrenner’ Fear in Sixteenth Century Germany,” 49.

  51. 51.

    Spicker-Beck, Räuber, Mordbrenner, umschweifendes Gesind, 256–259.

  52. 52.

    Dillinger, “Organized Arson as a Political Crime,” 104.

  53. 53.

    Scribner, “The ‘Mordbrenner’ Fear in Sixteenth Century Germany ,” 42.

  54. 54.

    Spicker-Beck, Räuber Mordbrenner, umschweifendes Gesind, 322–330.

  55. 55.

    Dillinger, “Organized Arson as a Political Crime,” 105.

  56. 56.

    Scribner, “The ‘Mordbrenner’ Fear in Sixteenth Century Germany,” 42.

  57. 57.

    Oliver-Smith, “Theorizing Disasters,” 24.

  58. 58.

    Woolgar and Tester, quoted in Oliver Smith, “Theorizing Disasters,” 39.

  59. 59.

    Oliver-Smith, “Theorizing Disasters,” 23.

  60. 60.

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  61. 61.

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  62. 62.

    Quoted in Rohland, Sharing the Risk, 16.

  63. 63.

    Frierson, All Russia is Burning, 33.

  64. 64.

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  65. 65.

    Rohland, “Wood to Stone,” 159–161.

  66. 66.

    Eleonora Rohland, Sharing the Risk: Fire, climate and disaster. Swiss Re 1864–1906 (Lancaster: Crucible Books, 2011). 125.

  67. 67.

    Nilsson, “The End of a Pre-industrial Pattern,” 280.

  68. 68.

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  69. 69.

    Rohland, Sharing the Risk, 126.

  70. 70.

    Zwierlein, Der gezähmte Prometheus, 103–104.

  71. 71.

    Spicker-Beck, Räuber Mordbrenner, umschweifendes Gesind, 19. The years 1536 and 1556 also had unusually warm and dry springs and/or summers. See Christian Pfister , Wetternachhersage: 500 Jahre Klimavariationen und Naturkatastrophen, 1496–1995 (Bern: Paul Haupt, 1999), 290.

  72. 72.

    Scribner, “The ‘Mordbrenner’ Fear in Sixteenth Century Germany ,” 42.

  73. 73.

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  74. 74.

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  75. 75.

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  89. 89.

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  99. 99.

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  100. 100.

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  110. 110.

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  111. 111.

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  126. 126.

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  127. 127.

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  128. 128.

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  129. 129.

    Stolz, Gebweiler, 371.

  130. 130.

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  139. 139.

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  140. 140.

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    Gabriel Walser, Neue Appenzeller Chronik oder Geschichte des Landes Appenzell der Innern und Äussern Rhoden (St.Gallen: self-published, 1740), 484.

  142. 142.

    “Wurde den Badern nur noch wöchentlich «drü malen Bad zu halten» erlaubt.” Eduard Im Thurn, Chronik der Stadt Schaffhausen, vol. 3, Von Wiedererlangung der Reichsfreiheit bis zum Eintritt in den Bund der Eidgenossen, 1415–1501, Historische Gesellschaft zu Basel 223 (Basel, 1844), 68.

  143. 143.

    “In Folge der grossen Hize des vorigen Jahres entstand in diesem eine höchst mörderische Krankheit, welche der grosse Tod genannt wurde und nach unverbürgten Nachrichten an 3000 Personen in unserer Stadt, sowie zwei Fünftheile der Bewohner unserer Landschaft wegraffte.” Wetter et al., “The Year-long Unprecedented European Heat and Drought,” supplement, table S1, Switzerland , source 2c.

  144. 144.

    “Anno 1541 hat die sterbde an der pestilenz zitlich im jar gruwlich iren fortgank gewonnen, dan wiewol im jar zuvor 40 vil folks gestorben war , so hat doch diss jar seir weit ubertroffen, das fil tausent menschen gestorben sint, nit allein in Coln, dan allenthalben in Dutzlande starb es schrecklich.” Weinsberg, Gedenkbücher, 1:150.

  145. 145.

    “In y latter ende of this moneth, was vniuersally through the realme greate death , by reason of newe hote agues and Flixes, and some Pestilence .” Raphael Holinshed et al., Chronicles, comprising the Description and Historie of England , Ireland, and Scotland, augmented and continued John Hooker (London, 1587), 841. “Many people fell ill,” we read in a chronicle from Ghent (Belgium), “[…] and there was red melisoen [illness] which in particular affected people’s defecation very much, because many people died from mid-August until December which was caused by the great vehement heat .” MS 2543, fol. 16, University Library, Ghent. Kindly provided by Adriaan de Kraker, Utrecht University).

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    David Boyd Haycock, “Exterminated by the Bloody Flux,” Journal for Maritime Research 4, no. 1 (2002): 18.

  147. 147.

    Marcel Lachiver, Les années de misère: La famine au temps du Grand Roi, 1680–1720 (Paris: Fayard), 414–417.

  148. 148.

    Population in Germany France , The Low Countries, Switzerland , (Southern) England and (Northern) Italy may have been about 40 million in 1550. Jean-Pierre Bardet and Jacques Dupâquier, Histoire des Populations de l’Europe, vol. 1. Des origines aux prémices de la révolution démographique (Paris: Fayard 1997), 369.

  149. 149.

    “Das Baursvolck muoßt an etlichen enden weit her […] mit dem Viehe zuo trencken / fahren” (Christian Wurstisen, Basler Chronik, Basel: Henricpetri, 1580, 79). “In divers partes of this realme the people caried their cattle six or seven miles to watter them.” Wriothesley, Chronicle, 123.

  150. 150.

    “Und ward das heuw thur, und das veche fast wolfeill.”August Bernoulli, ed., “Die Anonyme Chronik bei Schnitt sammt Fortsetzung 1495–1541”, Basler Chroniken vol. 6, 187–235, here 220.

  151. 151.

    For England: “Muche cattell died for lacke of water.” Grafton, Richard, A chronicle at large: and meere history of the affayres of Englande, and kinges of the same […] vol. 2 (London : J. Johnson et al, 1809), 74. For Alsace : Stolz, Gebweiler, 376. For Cologne: “Vil beisten storben.” Weinsberg, Gedenkbücher, 1:150. For Modena (Northern Italy ): “Dominica a di 25 Questo dì […] è stato et excessivessivo caldo […] fu uno secho antiquamente tanto grande che li poci [pozzi] se seccono per tutto el modeneso e moriva bestie assai de fame e de sete” [Sunday 25 July/4 August was an unbearable heat and a drought of such extent that the wells fell dry in the entire region and animal s died from hunger and thirst.] Borghi, Cronica Modenense, 56.

  152. 152.

    Hirzel, Ryff, 86.

  153. 153.

    Glaser et al., Seasonal, 192.

  154. 154.

    “Die Flössen/Mühlen und Hammer=Hütten [near Meissen, Germany ] stunden müssig/die Hammer=Arbeiter liessen betteln.” Wetter et al., “The Year-long Unprecedented European Heat and Drought,” supplement, table S1, Germany, source 86.

  155. 155.

    Erich Maria Weber, Untiefen, Flut und Flauten: Der Güterverkehr auf dem Rhein zwischen 1750 und 1850; Die Modernisierung der vorindustriellen Rheinschifffahrt aus einer wirtschafts-, sozial- und umweltgeschichtlichen Perspektive betrachtet (Bern: self-published, 2005,) 501.

  156. 156.

    Weber, Untiefen, Flut und Flauten, 429.

  157. 157.

    Weber, Untiefen, Flut und Flauten, 457.

  158. 158.

    “Der Rhein war so klein und dünn, dass die schiff nicht halb geladen mochten herab kommen.” Huber, Chronik, 96, Wetter and Pfister , “An Underestimated Record Breaking Event,” supplementary material Sc3.

  159. 159.

    “Uff diese Baszler mesz diesz fierzigisten jorsz alle gutter über lant und mit wegen musten obenherab gfurt werden.” Hirzel, Ryff 86.

  160. 160.

    “Il fiume Po è in secca proprio nel periodo autunnale [che generalmente è caratterizzato da piene, legate alla piovosità degli Appennini e della Pianura Padana]” [TheRiver Po was dry in autumn, whereas usually it reaches flood levels due to rainfalls in the Appenine Mountains and in the Po valley.] Borghi, Cronica, 58.

  161. 161.

    “Der Häwmonat war so häiss, dass die Jfer und Escher im Rhein ans land schwummen, kalt wasser zusuochen, und ehe sie wider recht ins wasser kommen mochten, fielen sie für grosser hitz an den ruggen, dass die fischer die in grosser menge mit den händen fiengen, waren faisst und guot.” Huber, Chronik, 96.

  162. 162.

    Stephan Bader, Daniel Dévanthery, Auswirkungen des Hitzesommers 2003 auf die Gewässer. Dokumentation. Schriftenreihe Umwelt 369 (Bern: BUWAL, 2004), 74, 137.

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    Tschamser, Thann, 65.

  164. 164.

    Spicker-Beck, Räuber Mordbrenner, umschweifendes Gesind, 231.

  165. 165.

    Wetter et al., “The Year-long Unprecedented European Heat and Drought,” supplement, table S1, Germany , source 2.

  166. 166.

    Glaser, Seasonal, 193.

  167. 167.

    On 26 July/4 August Martin Luther wrote to his wife: “ist ym Düringer walt mehr denn tausent acker holtz abgebrand vnd brennet noch, dazü sind heüte zeitung, das der wald bey werda aüch angangen sey. Vnd an vil orten mehr, hilfft kein lesschen.wills wil theür holtz machen.” Wetter et al., “The Year-long Unprecedented European Heat and Drought,” supplement, table S1, Germany , source 92.

  168. 168.

    “Um M. Magdalene [31 July n. st] gieng ich gen Soloturn […] [es war ] unbillich heiss, clagt sich all welt fast um wasser, und, und was am uf- und nidergang sunn und man bluot rot; schinendn ouch ganz bleich, dann der himel was tunkel von itel hitznebel. Es brunnend die weld an vil orten, […] an eim morgen was es uf der wyti nit anders von rouh und hitz, als im herbst mit nebel, dass man Pilatusberg kum sehen moht.” Bächtold, Salat. 56.

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    Christian Meltzer, Bergkläufftige Beschreibung Der Churfürstl. Sächß. freyen und im Meißnischen Ober-Ertz-Geburge löbl. Bergk-Stadt Schneebergk (Schneeberg: Meißner/Pfützner, 1684).

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    Glaser, Seasonal, 193.

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    Zwierlein, Der gezähmte Prometheus,104.

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    Nilsson, “The End of a Pre-industrial Pattern,” 280.

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    Eric Lionel Jones , The European Miracle: Environments, Economies, and Geopolitics in the History of Europe and Asia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 39.

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    E.g. “Dorauff im Sommer eine gewaltige Hitze und Dürre erfolget, daß die Wälde um die Stadt [Annaberg, Saxony] allenthalben zu brennen angefangen.” Georg Arnold, Chronicon Annabergense continuatum (Annaberg: Hasper,1812). “Dann es seindt an vill ortten durch vberschwenckhliche hitz die meder angezundt worden vnd außbrunen.” Chronik von A.P. Gasser, 2° Cod. Aug. 40., Stadtbibliothek Augsburg. “Jm dürren Sommer war ein solche Hitz / daß es viel Brunsten [town and village fires ] / so von der Sonnen angiengen” Johann Ginschopf, Chronica Oder Eygentliche Beschreibung vieler Denckhwürdigen Geschichten die sich im Fürstenthumb Württemberg sonderlichen vmb Stutgart her zugetragen und beschrieben worden (Tübingen: Brunn,1630), 48. Michael Kleinlawel writes for 1534 in his Strasbourg Rime Chronicle: “Eine solche Hitz ist dazumal/ [1534] in dem sommer entstanden / das Häuser von der Sonnenstral/ angiengen und verbrandten,” quoted in Spicker-Beck, Räuber, Mordbrenner, umschweifendes Gesind, 224. Spontaneous ignition is mentioned in the case of Nossen (Kreis Meissen, Saxony) on 22/31 July 1540. Zwierlein, Der gezähmte Prometheus, 104.

  175. 175.

    Scribner, “The ‘Mordbrenner’ Fear in Sixteenth Century Germany ,” 47. “Und es waren auch uiel beser [böser] brenner im Landt hin und wider, allenthalben, die gelt namen, und branten dörfer holtz und weid.” Villinger Chronik, quoted in Spicker-Beck, Räuber Mordbrenner, umschweifendes Gesind, 231.

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    Helleiner, “Brandstiftung als Kriegsmittel,” 331.

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    Helleiner, “Brandstiftung als Kriegsmittel,” 338.

  178. 178.

    ‘[L]e 31.07 [n. s. 9.08], nouvelle procession pour la pluie. On renforce le guet contre les incendiaries.’ Sign. B 181, fol. 6, Registre des délibérations de la ville de Dijon, Les Archives Municipales de Dijon, Dijon.

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    Andreas Heege, Einbeck 1540: Brandstiftung! Der Einbecker Stadtbrand von 26. Juli 1540; Archäologischer Befund und politische Hintergründe (Einbeck: Einbecker Geschichtsverein, 2005).

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    For example, villagers from the Schaffhausen region asked the town authorities for fire -fighting equipment which they got with the warning not to house foreign vagrants overnight. Wetter et al., “The Year-long Unprecedented European Heat and Drought,” supplement, table S1, Switzerland , source 139.

  181. 181.

    Coward and Swann, introduction to Conspiracies and Conspiracy Theory in Early Modern Europe, 2.

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    Scribner, “The ‘Mordbrenner’ Fear in Sixteenth Century Germany ,” 43.

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    Dillinger, “Organized Arson as a Political Crime,” 112.

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    Klaus Graf, review of Die Hexen und ihr Prozeß: Die Hexenverfolgung in der Reichsstadt Esslingen, by Günter Jerouschek, Zeitschrift für die Geschichte des Oberrheins 141 (1993): 438.

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    Dillinger, “Organized Arson as a Political Crime,” 110.

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    Wolfgang Behringer, “Climatic Change and Witch-Hunting: The Impact of the Little Ice Age on Mentalities,” Climatic Change 43, no. 1 (1999): 335, 339.

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    Cohen, “Inquiring Once More after the Inquisitorial Process,” 51.

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    Walter Rummel and Rita Voltmer, Hexen und Hexenverfolgung in der Frühen Neuzeit (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2008), 238–240.

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    Behringer, “Climatic Change and Witch–Hunting;” Christian Pfister , “Climatic Extremes, Recurrent Crises and Witch Hunts: Strategies of European Societies in Coping with Exogenous Shocks in the Late Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries,” The Medieval History Journal 10, no. 1–2 (2007), 1–41.

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    Data from Dobrovolný et al., “Precipitation Reconstruction for the Czech Lands,” see also Oliver Wetter and Christian Pfister, “Spring–Summer Temperatures Reconstructed for Northern Switzerland and South-Western Germany from Winter Rye Harvest Dates, 1454–1970,” Climate of the Past 7, no. 4 (2011): 1307–1326.

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    Spicker-Beck, Räuber, Mordbrenner, umschweifendes Gesind, 12; Dillinger, “Organized Arson as a Political Crime,” 112.

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    David Barriopedro et al., “The Hot Summer of 2010: Redrawing the Temperature Record Map of Europe,” Science 332 (2011): 220–224.

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    Dillinger, “Organized Arson as a Political Crime,” 110.

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    Johann Jakob Goldschmid, “Varia mixta: Geschichtliche Collectaneen,” Ms fol. 29, Stadtbibliothek Winterthur, Winterthur.

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    Glaser et al., Seasonal, 192.

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    Christian Pfister

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    Gerrit Jasper Schenk

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Pfister, C. (2017). When Europe Was Burning: The Multi-season Mega-drought of 1540 and Arsonist Paranoia. In: Schenk, G. (eds) Historical Disaster Experiences. Transcultural Research – Heidelberg Studies on Asia and Europe in a Global Context. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49163-9_8

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