Experiencing Climate: Finding Weather in Eighteenth Century Cumbria

Pillatt, Toby

doi:10.1007/s10816-012-9141-8

Cited by 16 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…The sufferings for Mosser suggest that livestock produce comprised an ever greater proportion of tithe non-payment confiscations from 1750 onwards ( Figure 6), and other tithe records show that sheep and cattle herds were growing -between 1773 and 1775 by approximately 20% (Pillatt 2012c; Ca D/Ben/1/372; Wh YDFCF/1/116). Meanwhile, at Eaglesfield, Elihu Robinson's sufferings show a continuing preference for hardy, weather-tolerant oats over the more fragile crops of wheat and barley.…”

Section: Insert Figures 3 4 5 Andmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Robert Van de Noort (2011) conceives this sense of temporality as archaeology's chief contribution to current debates: 'by offering long-term perspectives … archaeology is well placed to enhance understanding of the socio-ecological resilience of communities and their adaptive capacity.' There is of course much truth in this, but by its nature the 'climate change archaeology' that Van de Noort describes tends to focus on long-term changes to the terrestrial environment, thereby separating land and climate from the immersive, atmospheric experience of daily weather (Pillatt 2012b(Pillatt , 2012c. To couch archaeological discussions of weather in only those terms is highly reductive.…”

Section: Landscape and Weather-worldmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Many of the discrepancies can be attributed to missing entries in the diaries, while other potential explanations of difference range from the positioning of instruments to the Lake District's unique weather patterns. Nevertheless, the existence of some degree of correlation, fragmentary though it is, suggests that the diaries (and the methods used to analyse them) and the instrumental records are indeed of some value in reconstructing the day-to-day experience of weather in a particular place (Pillatt 2012c(Pillatt , 2012b. This being said, there is clearly some difference in the quality and type of inferences afforded by the local focus of the diaries in comparison to the regional instrumental series.…”

Section: Insert Tablementioning

confidence: 99%

“…In taking this ethical position, and as social and economic conditions appeared to be worsening, Robinson's sensitivity to bad weather was heightened (Pillatt 2012c). In 1801, after a several years of turbulent weather, trade blockades across Europe, news of war and high food prices, he was desperately concerned about the prospect of another poor harvest.…”

Section: Insert Figurementioning

confidence: 99%

“…During the eighteenth century, farming transitioned from a predominantly subsistence regime to one focused on supplying the increasingly busy markets at nearby Cockermouth and Whitehaven. An analysis of the Mosser Quakers' sufferings books -lists of farm produce confiscated for non-payment of church tithes -suggests that the lower-lying farms tended to farm more arable land, while the farms in cooler and more exposed positions bordering the open fell were primarily restricted to rearing and fattening livestock (Pillatt 2012c). An archaeological walkover survey has shown that this division is mirrored in the types of field boundaries, with hedges prevalent on the best agricultural land, while stone walls are found on the higher ground and across the wetter land of Mosser Moss (Pillatt 2012d).…”

Section: The Archaeology Of a Weathered Landscapementioning

confidence: 99%

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Life in the weather-world: examining an eighteenth-century ‘ecological perspective’

Pillatt

2016

World Archaeology

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Within archaeology, discussions on climate are usually framed in the broad scale and long term, but by using diaries as rich sources on local environmental and landscape history, it is possible to develop archaeological insights into climate predicated on the everyday human experience of living in the landscape. This article presents a case study of two Quaker diarists, who farmed on the edge of the Lake District in north-west England during the eighteenth century. One of these diarists, Elihu Robinson, had a world view that linked social, natural and religious spheres of action with his compassionate and deeply felt faith. Arguably, this is an example of a Quaker ‘ecological perspective’ which contributed to an eighteenth-century environmental ethic. By thinking in terms of Tim Ingold’s weather-world, it is possible to see how this perspective emerged in relation to the diarists’ interactions with weather and landscape

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Section: Landscape and Weather-worldmentioning

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confidence: 99%

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Section: The Archaeology Of a Weathered Landscapementioning

confidence: 99%

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Life in the weather-world: examining an eighteenth-century ‘ecological perspective’

Pillatt

2016

World Archaeology

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Private diaries as information sources in climate research

Adamson

2015

WIREs Climate Change

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Private diaries constitute a unique set of materials within climate change research in that they provide information both on past climate variability and on the ways that people live within, and interact with, climate. The fact that the observations within diaries are affected as much by personal experience as by physical conditions can render the derivation of robust climatic data problematic, and a number of techniques have been developed to generate quantitative or semiquantitative information from them. These include frequency counts of binary meteorological phenomena such as days with/without precipitation, content analysis techniques, proxies such as grain harvest dates, and statistical techniques that assume of some degree of continuity between the reconstruction period and the present day. The latter approaches can provide the most robust data, but can preclude direct comparison between past and present climates. Some studies attempt to increase reliability through comparison with other contemporaneous reconstructions, but this can create a potential for circular reasoning. As ethnographies, the methodological issues are less challenging. Most were highly personal documents and not intended for publication; diaries can therefore represent 'pure' ethnographies, representing an unbiased account of individuals' interactions with the 'weather world' and, in some cases, the ways that weather informed the character they presented to the world. Diaries can therefore exemplify individuals' highly personal engagement with weather and climate, reflective of a myriad of a number of social, cultural, political, and scientific narratives. Their use in climate research can therefore provide important contributions to current debates.

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Climate and society in European history

Ljungqvist

Seim

Huhtamaa

2020

WIREs Climate Change

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This article evaluates 165 studies from various disciplines, published between 2000 and 2019, which in different ways link past climate variability and change to human history in medieval and early modern Europe (here, c. 700–1815 CE). Within this review, we focus on the identification and interpretation of causal links between changes in climate and in human societies. A revised climate–society impact order model of historical climate–society interactions is presented and applied to structure the findings of the past 20 years' scholarship. Despite considerable progress in research about past climate–society relations, partly expedited by new palaeoclimate data, we identify limitations to knowledge, including geographical biases, a disproportional attention to extremely cold periods, and a focus on crises. Furthermore, recent scholarship shows that the limitations with particular disciplinary approaches can be successfully overcome through interdisciplinary collaborations. We conclude the article by proposing recommendations for future directions of research in the climatic change–human history nexus. This article is categorized under: Climate, History, Society, Culture > Ideas and Knowledge

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Experiencing Climate: Finding Weather in Eighteenth Century Cumbria

Cited by 16 publications

References 33 publications

Life in the weather-world: examining an eighteenth-century ‘ecological perspective’

Life in the weather-world: examining an eighteenth-century ‘ecological perspective’

Private diaries as information sources in climate research

Climate and society in European history

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