A Brief History of Saints

Cunningham, Lawrence S.

doi:10.1002/9780470776353

Cited by 14 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 6 publications

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“…Other symbolic and ritual responses related to droughts also included the adjustment of local symbols, such as the patron saint. In the Roman Catholic tradition, a patron saint is a holy person who protects a certain group of faithful (in our case, the community), interceding, advising, and tutoring them (Cunningham 2005). After the drought of 1659 and during a postwar period, the local council decided to adopt St. Eudald, the protector against bad waters ("males aigües"), as the local patron (ACVOC-AHT, "Llibre de Consells de la Universitat de la vila," exp.…”

Section: Symbolic and Ritual Responses: Pilgrimages And Saint Patronsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Long-term community responses to droughts in the early modern period: the case study of Terrassa, Spain

Grau-Satorras¹,

Otero²,

Gómez-Baggethun³

et al. 2016

E&S

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New challenges posed by global environmental change have motivated scholars to pay growing attention to historical long-term strategies to deal with climate extremes. We aim to understand long-term trends in community responses to cope with droughts, to explain how many preindustrial societies coevolved with local hydro-climatic dynamics and coped with climate extremes over time. The specific goals of this work are: (1) to analyze how local communities experienced droughts over long periods of time and (2) to document the spectrum of recorded community responses to drought. Our research covers over one century (1605-1710) of responses to drought in the community of Terrassa, Barcelona, Spain. Data were collected through archival research. We reviewed and coded 2076 village council minutes. Our results show that the local community adopted a mixture of symbolic, institutional, and infrastructural responses to drought and that drought-related decisions varied through time. We discuss adaptation strategies on the basis of the distinct physical signals of drought propagation and the role of nonclimatic historical factors, such as warfare and public debt, in shaping responses. We conclude that long-term perspectives on premodern history and comparable empirical studies are fundamental to advance our understanding of past social responses to hydro-climatic extremes.

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Section: Symbolic and Ritual Responses: Pilgrimages And Saint Patronsmentioning

confidence: 99%