Posted on 12/10/2024 8:21:39 AM PST by SeekAndFind
If you’re ever despairing about the state of the world, you can — at least, according to some scholars — be thankful it’s not the year 536 CE. To be fair, it’s medieval scholars, not 21st-century ones, who called 536 CE the worst year to be alive. But hear them out, because it sounds pretty bad. That year, a massive volcano erupted, historians believe, filling the air with volcanic ash. Of course, the majority of people affected by the disaster had no idea what was happening — they just knew it was very suddenly very dark for a very long time. The sun didn’t shine in Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Asia for 18 whole months — or as the Byzantine historian Procopius put it, “The sun gave forth its light without brightness, like the moon, during the whole year.”
That summer, temperatures dropped more than 30 degrees in parts of Europe and Asia (it even snowed in China), so crops failed, leading to widespread famine, starvation, and economic stagnation. Many people who were literate wrote about this at the time — the sun disappeared overnight, after all — but academics didn’t take the accounts seriously until the late 20th century. In 1983, a volcanic eruption was theorized to be the source of the darkness, and researchers examining tree rings in Ireland in the 1990s noted a severe temperature drop occurred in the sixth century. In 2018, researchers published a study pointing to a volcano as the likely culprit after analyzing ice cores drilled from glaciers.
Historian Michael McCormick told Science that 536 CE wasn’t just the worst year up until then, but “the beginning of one of the worst periods to be alive.” The climate still hadn’t recovered five years later when the first bubonic plague broke out, wiping out up to half the population of the Eastern Roman Empire. Two more eruptions in the 540s certainly didn’t help matters, either. The Late Antique Little Ice Age, as the period is known, lasted more than a century, clearing up between 660 CE and 680 CE, depending on the location.
CE and BCE.
Round about then St Marks Basilica was built in Venice so it was a good period for the Christian world
Here I am still wondering how they got the opinion from medieval scholars who are all long dead. Did they do seances? Or did they find really old writings?
The famous eruption of Krakatoa was in the 1880s. It continues to be active.
OK ... looked it up. 1883.
Tambora (in the same general part of the world) blew in 1815.
Both had extended weather effects for a several months.
They’re using our calendar, they can use our terms.
Or they can use their own calendar.
1.) Antichristian bigotry, rife in the academy.
2.) Yes, sadly.
Mine was 2003, followed by 2019. But to each his own.
When Old Faithful finally blows....most of “us” won’t experience much!
“”””The sun didn’t shine in Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Asia for 18 whole months
That summer, temperatures dropped more than 30 degrees in parts of Europe and Asia (it even snowed in China), so crops failed, leading to widespread famine, starvation, and economic stagnation.””””
I have often wondered what madness must have been normal for all the humans of that time, when conversations about European weirdness or religious zealotry arise and are about the period of the dates of the Black Plague I often point out that people’s minds and their culture had to have been greatly affected by the mass of unexplained and sinister death all around them.
We hear about the big ones like Etna in Sicily that has been erupting for centuries. However, every once in awhile one like Mount St Helens or Vesuvius or Krakatoa really blows a billion tons of material into the sky and reminds us we are very insignificant.
Bring out your dead.
Read the whole thing but WHICH VOLCANO DID IT!
The historians discussing it chose 536 as the time it began, not just as a single disastrous year. As the article states, there were two more volcanoes to follow and the plague stuck around for a while. At that point Constantinople took back Northern Africa from the Vandals and began the Gothic Wars. Procopius can be a fun read but I wouldn't want to have been there.
Some trivia from wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter_of_536
The volcanic winter was caused by at least three simultaneous eruptions of uncertain origin, with several possible locations proposed in various continents.
There is evidence of still another volcanic eruption in 547 which would have extended the cool period. The volcanic eruptions caused crop failures, and were accompanied by the Plague of Justinian, famine, and millions of deaths and initiated the Late Antique Little Ice Age, which lasted from 536 to 560.
Things weren’t so bad that they prevented Justinian from prosecuting the Gothic wars in Italy, and building Hagia Sophia in Constantinople.
“…temperatures dropped more than 30 degrees in parts of Europe and Asia”
You’d think a drop like that would wipe out ALL life except for some one-called things.
Yes Anno Domini. The year of our Lord
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