User:Maggiep/sandbox

"Little Ice Age" page:

Under the subheading 1, "Europe"

Cultural responses
Cultural responses to the consequences of the Little Ice Age in Europe consisted of violent scapegoating. The prolonged cold, dry periods brought drought upon many European communities, resulting in poor crop growth, poor livestock survival, and increased activity of pathogens and disease vectors. Disease tends to intensify under the same conditions that unemployment and economic difficulties arise: prolonged, cold, dry seasons. Both of these outcomes – disease and unemployment - enhance each other, generating a lethal positive feedback loop. Although these communities had some contingency plans, such as better crop mixes, emergency grain stocks, and international food trade, these did not always prove to be effective. Communities often lashed out via violent crimes, including robbery and murder; sexual offense accusations increased as well, such as adultery, bestiality, and rape. Europeans sought explanations for the famine, disease, and social unrest that they were experiencing, leading to the act of placing blame upon the innocent. Evidence from several studies indicate that increases in violent actions against marginalized groups that were held responsible for the Little Ice Age overlap with years of particularly cold, dry weather.

One example of the violent scapegoating occurring during the Little Ice Age is the resurgence of witchcraft trials, as argued by Oster (2004) and Behringer (1999). Oster and Behringer argue that this resurgence was brought upon by the climatic decline. Prior to the Little Ice Age, "witchcraft" was considered an insignificant crime and victims were rarely accused. But beginning in the 1380s, just as the Little Ice Age began, European populations began to link magic and weather-making. The first systematic witch hunts began in the 1430s, and by the 1480s it was widely believed that witches should be held accountable for poor weather. Witches were blamed for direct and indirect consequences of the Little Ice Age: livestock epidemics, cows that gave too little milk, late frosts, and unknown diseases. In general, as the number of witchcraft trials rose, temperature dropped, and trials decreased when temperature increased. The peaks of witchcraft persecutions overlap with hunger crises that occurred in 1570 and 1580, the latter lasting a decade. These trials primarily targeted poor women, many of which were widows. Not everybody agreed that witches should be persecuted for weather-making, but such arguments primarily focused not upon whether witches existed, but upon whether witches had the capability to control the weather. The Catholic Church in the early medieval period argued that witches could not control the weather because they were mortals, not God, but by the mid-thirteenth century most populations agreed with the idea that witches could control natural forces.

Historians have argued that Jewish populations were blamed for climatic deterioration during the Little Ice Age as well. Christianity was the official religion of Western Europe, and within these populations there was a great degree of anti-Semitism. There was no direct link made between Jews and weather conditions, they were only blamed for indirect consequences such as disease. For example, outbreaks of the plague were often blamed on Jews; in Western European cities during the 1300s Jewish populations were murdered in an attempt to stop the spread of the plague. Rumors were spread that either Jews were poisoning wells themselves, or conspiring against Christians by telling those with leprosy to poison the wells. As a response to such violent scapegoating, Jewish communities sometimes converted to Christianity or migrated to the Ottoman Empire, Italy, or to territories of the Holy Roman Empire.

In addition to blaming marginalized groups and individuals, some populations blamed the cold periods and the resulting famine and disease during the Little Ice Age on general divine displeasure. Oppressed groups, however, took the brunt of the burden in attempts to cure the divine displeasure. For example, in Germany, regulations were imposed upon activities such as gambling and drinking, which disproportionately affected the lower class, and women were forbidden from showing their knees. Other regulations affected the wider population, such as prohibiting dancing and sexual activities, as well as moderating food and drink intake.

"Witchcraft in the early modern Period" Page:

Socio-political turmoil
Various suggestions have been made that the witch trials emerged as a response to socio-political turmoil in the Early Modern world. One form of this is that the prosecution of witches was a reaction to a disaster that had befallen the community, such as crop-failure, war, or disease. For instance, Midelfort suggested that in southwestern Germany, war and famine destabilised local communities, resulting in the witch prosecutions of the 1620s. Behringer also suggests an increase in witch prosecutions due to socio-political destabilization, stressing the Little Ice Age's effects on food shortages and the subsequent use of witches as scapegoats for consequences of climatic changes. The Little Ice Age, lasting from about 1300 to 1850, is characterized by temperatures and precipitation levels lower than the 1901-1960 average. Historians such as such as Wolfgang Behringer, Emily Oster, and Hartmut Lehmann argue that these cooling temperatures brought about crop-failure, war, and disease, and that witches were subsequently blamed for this turmoil. Historical temperature indexes and witch trials data indicate that, generally, as temperature decreased during this period, witch trials increased. Additionally, the peaks of witchcraft persecutions overlap with hunger crises that occurred in 1570 and 1580, the latter lasting a decade. Problematically for these theories, it has been highlighted that, in that region, the witch hunts declined during the 1630s, at a time when the communities living there were facing increased disaster as a result of plague, famine, economic collapse and the Thirty Years' War. Furthermore, this scenario would clearly not offer a universal explanation, for trials also took place in areas which were free from war, famine, or pestilence. Additionally, these theories - particularly Behringer's - have been labeled as oversimplified. Although there is evidence that the Little Ice Age and subsequent famine and disease was likely a contributing factor to increase in witch persecution, Durrant argues that one cannot make a direct link between these problems and witch persecutions in all contexts.

Moreover, the average age at first marriage had gradually risen by late sixteenth century; the population had stabilized after a period of growth and availability of jobs and land had lessened. In the last decades of the century the age at marriage had climbed to averages of 25 for women and 27 for men in England and the Low Countries as more people married later or remained unmarried due to lack of money or resources and a decline in living standards, and these averages remained high for nearly two centuries and averages across Northwestern Europe had done likewise. The convents were closed during the Protestant Reformation, which displaced many nuns. Many communities saw the proportion of unmarried women climb from less than 10% to 20% and in some cases as high as 30%, whom few communities knew how to accommodate economically. Miguel (2003) argues that witch killings may be a process of eliminating the financial burdens of a family or society via elimination of the older women that need to be fed, and an increase in unmarried women would enhance this process.