Abstract
In this paper, the potential is explored for climatological information on winter weather in a hitherto largely neglected category of historical documentary sources (correspondence letters) covering two decades of the less studied intermediate stages between the proposed warm High Middle Ages and what has been termed `the Little Ice Age'. A discussion concerning some problems of interpretation is presented from a historical methodological point of view. Content analysis, with special attention paid to contemporary terms and expressions linked to transport and travel, shows that winters in Sweden during the first decades of the sixteenth century, in comparison with the average of the late twentieth century, were on the whole somewhat shorter in duration. Two of the winters studied can be said to display some extreme characteristics; one exceptionally mild, and one with an unusually early onset. On the whole, the result diverges slightly from previously published winter severity indices and confirms regional disparities in the middle phase between a possible warm High Middle Ages and the so-called `Little Ice Age'.
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RETSÖ, D. A Contribution to the History of European Winters: Some Climatological Proxy Data from Early-Sixteenth Century Swedish Documentary Sources. Climatic Change 52, 137–173 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1013093410975
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1013093410975