On May 30, 1431, Joan of Arc died here – on a blazing pyre. We’re in the historical centre of Rouen, taking in the half-timbered houses lining the market square and talking about witches being burnt alive. Why, wonders Chantal Camenisch, were so few – apart from Joan of Arc – burnt at the stake in Rouen, yet so many in Bern? Perhaps this has to do with the Bernese climate historian’s field of work, because in Switzerland, witches were accused of conjuring hail, among other things.
If you’re walking around what used to be France’s second largest city with Chantal Camenisch, you’ll come across many references to the weather and climate of the past – for example, at the Place de la Haute Vieille Tour, where grain, a key product of medieval and early modern times, was once traded. The grain prices used to be at least as important as today’s oil prices – dependent not only on wars, but also on the weather. And a few steps farther along the banks of the Seine, the lifeline of the once important port city, we would have been able to marvel from the quay at a wobbly pontoon bridge in the 17th century. This was built to replace an old, fixed bridge that kept being damaged by floods. However, during the chillingly cold years of the so-called Maunder Minimums, drift ice became a problem with the new bridge.
Tour of the archives with a Postdoc.Mobility fellowship
All of these places and facts are closely linked to the big research project for which the young historian is spending a year each in the archives of Rouen and York, and then several months in Leipzig, Germany, and finally back in Bern. The project is called “Climate and society in pre-modern times: a comparative study on adaptation to extreme weather and climate change in the Swiss midlands, Yorkshire and Normandy from 1315 to 1715”. OCCR researcher Chantal Camenisch wants to find out how the three regions were affected by the natural variability of the climate – and with which strategies society reacted to extreme weather events and the changing climate. Were there parallels, differences or even knowledge transfers?