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Many Google hits refer to mention of an astronomical event in the Saxon chronicles for that year, when a “red crucifix” is seen in the sky. Also to Song of Roland episode when Charlemagne begs God to make the sun stand still so he may pursue his enemies in daylight.
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Duster says:
The entire second half of the first millennium CE is chaotic. It has been suggested that Krakatoa may have erupted on an even greater scale than the 1883 eruption in 535 CE. There is abundant historical evidence of a profound cooling event similar to the effects of the Laki eruption in Iceland in the 18th C. The chill apparently didn’t last long and regionally there are records of both drought and flood. In California the Sierra Nevada are nearly depopulated. Developing cultural patterns are terminated and a near-hiatus in the Sierran archaeological record lasts at least a couple of centuries. Historical documents place the main event at 535 CE, but there is no record of the precise location, unsurprising, since being near enough to know what went up would have been fatal. Following that initial event the plague passes through at least three major cycles. Christian and Muslim shills sell the terrible weather as the punishment of God/Allah and drum up some major business and also blame the bad times on each other. This is followed by the Medieval Warm Period. Interestingly, the first half of the same millennium sees cooling from the Roman Warm period that is comparable to the LIA.
Anyone know of any human perturbations around this time period, Famine, pestilence, etc? Any historians out there that can wade in on this comment?