Connecting pathways are essential for cultural and economic exchange. Commonly, historians investigate the role of routes for cultural development, whereas the environmental impacts of historical routes attract less attention. Here, we present a high-resolution reconstruction of the impact of the major trade route via Marchionis in the southern Baltic lowlands on landscape evolution since more than 800 years. We combine precisely dated annually laminated sediments from Lake Czechowskie alongside via Marchionis and pollen data at 5-year resolution together with historical data. The transformation from a quasi-natural to a cultural landscape occurred in three phases (1) an early phase until the mid-fourteenth century with slowly increasing human impact. (2) an intensification of environmental disturbance until (3) the mid-nineteenth century when via Marchionis became a modern traffic route with strong environmental impacts. Superimposed on the long-term development were repeated interruptions by short-term downturns related to societal crisis and political decisions.

Connecting pathways are essential for cultural and economic exchange and play an important role in human life. Commonly, historians investigate the role of routes for cultural development, whereas the environmental consequences of historical route construction attract less attention. Here we present, for the first time, a high-resolution reconstruction of the impact of the major trade route via Marchionis in the southern Baltic lowlands on landscape evolution since its construction more than 800 years ago. We utilize precisely dated annually laminated lake sediments from Lake Czechowskie located alongside Via Marchionis to establish multiproxy data at 5-year resolution for an integrated interpretation with historical data. The transformation from a quasi-natural to a cultural landscape was promoted by the operation of Via Marchionis and occurred in three main phases. Superimposed on the long-term development were repeated interruptions by short-term downturns related to societal crisis caused by wars and partly overlapping with climatic deterioration.

Abstract. The period from around 1450 to 1550 in Europe is extremely interesting from the perspective of research on extreme weather events. It was a period of events that strongly influenced the societies and economies of the Old Continent. So far, the literature has been more focused on western and northern Europe. Concerning the region of central Europe, the greatest attention was paid to the Czech Republic or Hungary. This article revolves around the Polish lands, which experienced their greatest economic boom in the 16th century. We consider whether and how the droughts of the decade from 1531 to 1540 might have affected the country's economic development. We analyse a number of written sources which are the product of the treasury apparatus of the time (tax registers, data from water customs, tax exemptions, inventories of land estates etc.), but also information on fluctuations in product prices in the most important cities in this part of Europe. The work not only provides a detailed account of economic data, but also attempts to reflect on the relevance of linking information on fires in urban centres in the period characterized by weather extremes.

Ever since the beginnings of the modern historiography, the court books have posed a challenge for editors in Poland, both due to their number and variety. They constitute one of the richest sources enabling a variety of historical research. The publication of the sources’ content can be shared owing to new approaches stemming from constant development of IT tools and their application in the humanities. The solution proposed in our article is a digital indexing based on a relational database enabling access to the sources’ scans. The characterization of the method is preceded by a description of the theoretical foundations of the presented method. The assumed principals are implemented by the use of a dedicated to this project online INDXR application which functionalities is thoroughly described. Using the INDXR application, the data acquired from the sources are collected and stored in the database which structure is also illustrated along with its theoretical foundations. The database is established in order to better reflect the typical elements comprising the court books as well as to store the acquired information. The issues stemming from the process of indexing the court books, such as categorizing of the entries, their spatial context, and the problem of how to describe the persons appearing in the manuscript are also presented.