[TOPIC] Climate As a Force in History: The Medieval Warm Period

Oringinally posted 10/13/08.

No one would question that climate impacts our lives in both trivial and devastating ways. But did you know that many of the dramatic themes in historywere caused by an event called the Medieval Warm Period (MWP)?

Much like most scientific or historical theories there is some controversy, climate may be the answer to a number of question about movements and events between the ninth and thirteenth centuries. Why did the Danes and Norse suddenly abandon their societies and lands to raid throughout the British Isles and into Normandy? Why did they settle in Greenland and Labrador in North America but leave these settlements never to return? Why did the Black Death happen when it did?

Many scientists and historians believe that two periods of climatic change explain all. The MWP brought warmer weather and as a result better and longer growing periods for agriculture. As food became less scarce, more children survived to adulthood. In places like Scandinavia more children meant more sons to inherit land. When land became scarcer than food, the landless had to go looking for new places to settle. Thus the Danes raided and then settled parts of the northern and eastern coasts of Britain, and the Norse made their way to Iceland and west to Greenland and Labrador.

One indication of the more favorable climate is the fact that during the MWP wine grapes were grown as far north as southern England!

When the sea was relatively free of icebergs, the Norse who settled the eastern shores of Greenland were able to send ships back and forth from Greenland to Norway and Iceland. While children are still taught that "Columbus discovered America" the fact is that the Norse settlements in what would become the Maritime Provinces of Canada were established and shipssailed back and forth between Labroador and Greenland.

So why did the Norse not make a permanent mark on North America? And why did Greenlanders completely abndon the hometeads they built and maintained in the ingospitable land? The weather grew colder and the iceberhs returned, making the trips between the new world and Norway and Iceland too perilous to continue. They could not subsist without trade with the lands of their heritage, nor did they wish to disconnect from their homelands. So they up and left.

After the centuries of a better life in the North Atlantic, the temperatures suddenly dipped. What had been plenty became over-population and scarcity. The famines of the early fourteenth century made the coming of the Black Death devastating. Whole billages were left unpopulated. Then the lack of cheap labor meant that social conditions for the poorer folks had to improve. What is often called The Little Ice Age brought a change in the social fabric of Europe.

But that's a tale for another blog entry.