Famine in Scotland - the 'Ill Years' of the 1690s

Cullen, Karen J.

doi:10.3366/edinburgh/9780748638871.001.0001

Cited by 30 publications

(26 citation statements)

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“…Famine, epidemic disease, falling birth rates, and migration together reduced the population as Scotland by as much as 15%, and of Finland by some 28%. In the Shetland Islands, meanwhile, a sharp increase in the frequency of storms drove major sand incursions into the township of Broo, and encouraged its abandonment in the early 18th century (Bampton, Kelley, Kelley, Jones, & Bigelow, ; Cullen, ; Lappalainen, ; Seppel, ).…”

Section: Dearth and Disaster In The Late Liamentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate change and society in the 15th to 18th centuries

Degroot

2018

WIREs Climate Change

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Scholars in many disciplines have used diverse methods and sources to establish that, between the 15th and 18th centuries, a “Little Ice Age” considerably cooled Earth's climate. In four particularly chilly periods—the Spörer Minimum, Grindelwald Fluctuation, Maunder Minimum, and Dalton Minimum—falling temperatures both caused and reflected changes in atmospheric circulation that altered regional patterns of precipitation. Many scholars have argued that weather in these cold periods provoked or worsened regional food shortages, famines, rebellions, wars, and outbreaks of epidemic disease, in ways that may have contributed to mass mortality across the early modern world. More recently, some scholars have contrasted the fates of societies or communities that were “vulnerable” to climate change with those that were “resilient” or even consciously or unconsciously adaptive in the face of the Little Ice Age. Overall, research that connects climatic and social histories has suggested that human decisions, political structures, economic arrangements, institutions, and cultures either magnified or mitigated the impact of climate change on the societies of the early modern world. This article is categorized under: Climate, History, Society, Culture > Major Historical Eras

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Section: Dearth and Disaster In The Late Liamentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate change and society in the 15th to 18th centuries

Degroot

2018

WIREs Climate Change

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“…At the beginning of the 1690s there was a slump in trade with the Baltic and France, followed by four Unfortunately there are no surviving parish registers for the period 1685-1705, so it is not clear how great an impact famine made on this area. 9 Regarding dress, the Statistical Account for Wick, Caithness from the late eighteenth century notes that there had been a shift in the attitudes of the local young men and women towards dress, noting that 'some, who before put up with a kelt coat (a kind of coarse flannel dyed black), the housewifes own manufacture, common stuff gowns for the women, are not now satisfied without good English cloth, muslin gowns, white stockings […]'. 10 This suggests that in earlier times, the woollen cloth had been made and sourced more locally.…”

Section: Caithness In the Late Seventeenth Centurymentioning

confidence: 97%

Scottish Late Seventeenth-Century Male Clothing: Some Context for the Barrock Estate Finds

Wilcox¹

2016

Costume

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In 1920 the remains of a body were discovered, buried in peat moss at Quintfall Hill on the Barrock Estate, near Keiss, Caithness, Scotland. The corporeal remains and the clothing were transferred to the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh where they remain to this day. Shortly after the find, an account of the discovery appeared in the Journal of the Antiquaries of Scotland, but apart from passing reference, very little further consideration was given to these clothes. In this article, the first of two dealing with this topic, the clothing finds are described and discussed in the context of other Scottish finds of the period c. 1700 and in relation to contemporary observations and descriptions of dress found across the Scottish mainland and in its outlying Islands. The garments will also be considered in relation to the dominant historical dress narrative, which has been based largely on elite clothing.

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“…In particular, the 1601–1603 famine in northeastern Europe appears to have been closely correlated to the eruption of Huaynaputina (Peru) in 1600 . The famine of the 1690s, which devastated much of Northern Europe, was at the very height of the ‘Maunder Minimum,’ with an unknown volcano erupting in 1695 . The eruption of Laki in Iceland in 1783 was followed by an immediate famine in Iceland and food shortages on virtually a global scale .…”

Section: Does Climate Really Create Famines?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate and famines: a historical reassessment

Slavin

2016

WIREs Climate Change

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This study, dealing with the question of the impact of climate and extreme weather events on famines, has two objectives. The first objective is to review recent literature on the topic, distinguishing between economic and political science papers aimed at addressing contemporary famine events in the Third World countries, and historical research dealing with famines of the past. The former category of literature is characterized by a tendency to take the connection between the two variables for granted. The latter category, however, tends to exercise more analytical caution, but it still exhibits a degree of environmental determinism. The second objective of the article is to reassess the role and impact of climate and short-term weather anomalies on famines in pre-Industrial societies, in both European and non-European history. At first, it appears that famines went invariably hand-in-hand with climatic changes and anomalies. A closer analysis, however, reveals that those climatic events created environmental shocks (harvest failures and blights), which implied shortages, rather than famines. Whether those shortages were bound to transform into fullfledged famines was determined by nonenvironmental factors: primarily, human institutions and demographic trends. Climate alone, it is argued, is incapable of creating famines. The often unquestioned connection between the two variables appears to be an imaginary cultural and political construct of our era, when the fear of global warming and the awareness of climate change dominate the public and scholarly discourse.

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Famine in Scotland - the 'Ill Years' of the 1690s

Cited by 30 publications

References 0 publications

Climate change and society in the 15th to 18th centuries

Climate change and society in the 15th to 18th centuries

Scottish Late Seventeenth-Century Male Clothing: Some Context for the Barrock Estate Finds

Climate and famines: a historical reassessment

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