# D — Climate, harvest, grain prices, famine and disease around Strasbourg, 1515–1519

Data in `../data/`, code in `../code/`, downloaded sources and index in `../sources/climate/` (`D_SOURCES.md`).

**Why this matters.** The ergot hypothesis for the July–September 1518 dancing episode needs a cool, wet spring/early summer at rye flowering (late May–June, Julian) in the harvest year whose grain was being eaten — essentially the 1517 harvest for the onset (c. 13–20 July 1518), with the 1518 harvest only reaching the market from about the end of July 1518. Waller's alternative ("mass psychogenic illness in a starving, frightened city") needs demonstrable dearth and misery in 1517–1518. This note assembles the climate, harvest, price, famine and disease record for 1515–1519 from data I retrieved and read, and states what each hypothesis gets from it.

**Verification legend.** **[DATA]** number computed by the scripts in `../code/` from a downloaded dataset (re-runnable; dataset named in § 1); **[OCR]** read in the OCR text of a digitised edition saved in `../sources/climate/` — quoted as printed, spelling untouched, only obvious OCR errors corrected (e.g. "fiei tel" → "fiertel"); I did not check page images; **[PDF]** read in the text extracted from a downloaded PDF/XML; **[2ND]** known only through a secondary work; **[UNVERIFIED (from memory)]** not retrieved. Dates are Julian; weekday equivalences were computed (Easter 1517 = 12 April, Easter 1518 = 4 April; St George 23 April 1518 = Friday; Pentecost 1518 = 23 May; Martinmas = 11 November). Anomalies: OWDA scPDSI is dimensionless (negative = dry); Pauling precipitation anomalies are mm per season vs the 1500–1600 cell mean; Luterbacher/Xoplaki anomalies are °C vs the 1500–1600 cell mean; Dobrovolný anomalies are °C vs 1961–1990 (Central Europe); Glaser indices are −3…+3 per month, summed per season.

---

## 0. Bottom line

1. **1515** was cold and extremely wet (wettest summer and second-wettest spring of 1500–1600 at Strasbourg; cold spring and summer everywhere) — the one season in the window that fits the classic ergot weather. **1516** had a hot, dry summer (very early vintage; Swiss summer index at its maximum; France in drought). **Winter 1516/17** was severe (Dobrovolný −3.7 °C; European mean −3.5 °C, 2.2 sd below the century mean). **1517** had a dry spring (10th driest of 101), a warm May–June and the third-most-extreme summer drought of the sixteenth century in the tree-ring scPDSI (Strasbourg cell −6.8; every Upper-Rhine cell below −3; 96 % of France, 91 % of Germany). **1518**: winter cold and dry with (by the Wencker notice, if it belongs to 1518) no rain until 7 April and a great frost on 16 April that damaged fields, vines and fruit; a slightly warm spring with median rainfall; a **cold June** (−2.2 °C; German index −2), a cool July–August, median summer rainfall, soil moisture still in deficit. **1519**: warm spring, cold late summer, very late vintage.
2. **Ergot (task 7b).** The 1517 growing season — the source of the bread eaten when the dancing began — is ergot-*unfavourable* on every indicator (dry spring, warm dry flowering period, extreme summer drought). The 1518 season is mixed: a cold June at flowering time is the only favourable sign, moisture is unknown-to-deficient, and the 1518 crop was not yet eaten when the outbreak began. Only the 1515 harvest had ergot-favourable weather; its grain could have survived only as old granary stock — a route nothing in the record documents.
3. **Dearth and misery (task 7c).** Waller's premise is substantially right for 1516–1518: three failed harvests and vintages in a row (Trausch 3008), the highest grain prices in a generation in 1516–17 (Hanauer's series; Buszello; Sheik), a Strasbourg hospital "full of starved and sick" needing 30 Viertel of grain a week, municipal granary sales at 7 sch. against a market at 17–18 sch., 450 needy strangers fed through the winter 1517/18, 2,200 alms recipients plus 500 hospital sick and 300 orphans in 1518, an epidemic with c. 2,000 dead at Basel in 1517 and plague at Strasbourg in 1519. Several of his specifics are wrong or unsupported: the "English sweat" of 1517 is almost certainly a misdating of 1529; his "smallpox hospital" is the Blatterhaus, i.e. the syphilis house; no "surge in leprosy" is visible in the leper-house accounts; the 1517 Bundschuh "rebellions" were a conspiracy scare whose substance modern scholarship doubts. For July 1518 specifically, the annual price series say the crisis was ending (1518 prices normal, Basel exports high), but July is the pre-harvest gap after two bad years, and the 1518 notices describe subsidised grain "from Pentecost to Martinmas" — so "a city at the tail of a two-year dearth with crowded charities and an unusual mass of immigrant poor" is accurate; mass starvation deaths in Strasbourg itself are not documented.
4. The one **unresolved discrepancy**: Hanauer's annual Strasbourg prices show 1518 back to normal (rye 54 d/Viertel vs 160 d in 1516), while the chronicle notice assigned to 1518 by Friese/Dacheux gives a market price of 17–18 sch. (204–216 d) from Pentecost to Martinmas. Either that notice belongs to 1517 (Reuss's dating — which the climatic fingerprint of the notice fits better) or Hanauer's yearly figure does not capture the pre-harvest peak. Hanauer t. II itself was inaccessible (Gallica 403, HathiTrust bot-gate, Google Books quota).

---

## 1. Reproducibility — data, code, how to re-run

Environment: Python 3 with `numpy pandas netCDF4 xarray scipy matplotlib openpyxl xlrd pypdf` (installed with `pip install --ignore-installed packaging` first, because the sandbox's `packaging` package had no RECORD file). Every script reads only files in `../sources/climate/` and writes only into `../data/`; run each with `python3 <script>` from any directory (paths are absolute).

| Script (`../code/`) | Input (`../sources/climate/`) | Output (`../data/`) | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| `extract_owda_strasbourg.py` | `owda.nc` (Cook et al. 2015, NOAA study 19419) | `owda_strasbourg_1500-1600.csv`, `owda_strasbourg_1515-1519_summary.csv` | nearest 0.5° cell to 48.58 N 7.75 E (= 48.75 N, 7.75 E), 3×3 and 5×5 means, 8 neighbours, reference cells (Basel, Colmar, Freiburg, Karlsruhe, Nancy, Stuttgart), ranks within 1500–1600, percentile within 1000–2012 |
| `owda_1517_extent_and_map.py` | `owda.nc` | `owda_regional_means_1510-1525.csv`, `owda_map_1515-1519.png` | regional means and fraction of cells < −3 (Upper Rhine 47.5–49.5 N/7–8.5 E; Central Europe 46–52 N/5–15 E; France 43–50 N/−4–7 E; Germany 47.5–54 N/6–15 E; all Europe); five-panel map 1515–1519 |
| `extract_pauling_precip_strasbourg.py` | `prec-pauling-sp.txt.gz`, `prec-pauling-su.txt.gz` (Pauling et al. 2006) | `pauling2006_precip_strasbourg.csv` | parses the 82×140 seasonal grids (NA-safe), cell 48.75 N/7.75 E and 3×3, anomalies/z/ranks vs 1500–1600 and vs 1901–2000 |
| `extract_luterbacher_temp_strasbourg.py` | `temp_luterbacher_su.txt.gz`, `temp_xoplaki_sp.txt.gz` (CRU SO&P mirror), cross-check `noaa_1517-su.txt` | `luterbacher2004_xoplaki2005_temp_strasbourg.csv` | parses the 70×130 grids; the 1517 summer value at the cell (18.42 °C) is identical in the CRU and NOAA files |
| `extract_documentary_indices.py` | `dobrovolny2010temperature-*-noaa.txt`, `glaser2009temperature.txt`, `europe-seasonal-luterbacher2004.txt`, `europe2012ghd.txt`, `burgundy2004.txt` | `documentary_temperature_1510-1525.csv` | Dobrovolný seasonal/monthly anomalies and DE/CH/CZ indices, Glaser monthly indices, Luterbacher European means, grape-harvest dates (Daux; Chuine) |
| `extract_prices.py` | `gpih_Allen_Strasbourg_1313-1875.xlsx` (Allen's transcription of Hanauer t. II), `gpih_Frankfurt_1500-1800.xls` (Elsas) | `prices_strasbourg_frankfurt_1500-1530.csv` | prices, wages, index vs the 1500–1530 median |
| `make_summary_table.py` | the CSVs above | `summary_by_year_1512-1521.csv` | one row per year with the key columns |

Datasets actually used (all downloaded, see `D_SOURCES.md` for URLs): OWDA (Cook et al. 2015, doi:10.1126/sciadv.1500561; NOAA study 19419); Pauling et al. 2006 (NOAA contribution 2007-054); Luterbacher et al. 2004 / Xoplaki et al. 2005 (NOAA 2006-060; CRU SO&P mirror); Dobrovolný et al. 2010 (NOAA study 9970); Glaser & Riemann 2009 (NOAA 2010-040); Daux et al. 2012 (NOAA 2012-129); Chuine et al. 2004; Allen/GPIH and Lindert-Jacks/GPIH price files. Checked and found empty for 1515–1519: Meier et al. 2007 Swiss GHD (NA before 1520s), Pfister Swiss monthly indices (begin 1525), Daux Alsace GHD (begins 18th c.), Wetter et al. 2011 list of the 78 largest Rhine floods at Basel (entries 1480, 1506, 1526 — none in 1515–1519).

---

## 2. Table (a) — the years 1515–1519 (with 1514 and 1520 for context)

### 2.1 Numeric reconstructions [DATA]

Ranks are within 1500–1600 (101 years). "rank driest 1" for OWDA; "rank wettest 1" for precipitation; "rank warmest 1" for temperature.

| Year | OWDA JJA scPDSI, Strasbourg cell (rank driest) | OWDA 3×3 mean | OWDA Upper-Rhine mean (share of cells < −3) | Pauling MAM precip. anom. mm (rank wettest) | Pauling JJA precip. anom. mm (rank wettest) | Xoplaki MAM T anom. °C (rank warmest) | Luterbacher JJA T anom. °C (rank warmest) | Dobrovolný DJF (winter ending in this year) | Dobrovolný MAM | Dobrovolný JJA (DE / CH / CZ index) | Dobrovolný June | Glaser MAM / JJA index sums | Burgundy grape harvest, days after 31 Aug (Chuine Apr–Aug T anom. vs 1960–89) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1514 | −0.09 (54) | −0.06 | −0.30 (0 %) | +17.1 (28) | −48.6 (88) | −0.35 (70) | +0.08 (42) | −4.57 | −1.64 | −0.62 (−1 / – / –) | −2.58 | −3 / −1 | 33 (−1.02) |
| **1515** | **+2.59 (97 = 5th wettest)** | +2.71 | +2.48 (0 %) | **+46.8 (2)** | **+138.8 (1)** | **−1.41 (95)** | **−1.30 (92)** | +0.33 | −1.99 (DE −4, CH −4) | −1.72 (−2 / −6 / −3) | −1.73 | −4 / −2 | 35 (−0.89) |
| **1516** | −0.47 (45) | −2.11 | −1.93 (33 %) | −1.4 (57) | **−73.2 (91)** | +0.61 (25) | **+0.85 (17)** | +1.95 | +0.37 | **+1.93 (+2 / +9 / +5)** | +1.93 | 0 / +2 | **12 (+1.29)** |
| **1517** | **−6.79 (3)** | **−6.89** | **−6.81 (100 %)** | **−31.9 (92)** | −0.4 (46) | +0.28 (40) | −0.03 (52) | **−3.68** | +0.03 (DE +1, CH −3) | +0.20 (+1 / – / –) | +1.22 (May +2.14) | +1 / +1 | 26 (−0.07) |
| **1518** | **−4.59 (4)** | −3.10 | −3.45 (67 %) | −7.2 (62) | −11.2 (55) | +0.51 (29) | −0.49 (73) | −1.14 | +0.49 (DE +1, CZ −1) | −1.10 (−2 / – / −2) | **−2.17** (Jul −0.44, Aug −1.30) | +1 / −2 | 22 (−0.62) |
| **1519** | −1.32 (31) | −0.49 | −0.80 (0 %) | +13.0 (31) | +24.0 (36) | +0.61 (25) | −0.24 (59) | −0.50 | +1.15 | −0.55 (+1 / −3 / –) | +1.48 (Aug −1.30) | 0 / +1 | **40 (−1.22)** |
| 1520 | −1.71 (26) | −1.22 | −1.36 (0 %) | +17.1 (27) | −13.7 (58) | −0.66 (79) | +0.12 (41) | +0.54 | −1.64 | +0.61 (+2 / – / +2) | +1.29 | −3 / +2 | – (−0.96) |

Additional [DATA] points: OWDA cell statistics 1500–1600: mean −0.45, sd 2.29, minimum −8.80 (1504), maximum +4.50 (1529); the 1517 value lies at the 1.3rd percentile of the cell's 1000–2012 distribution; the neighbouring cell 48.75 N/7.25 E (Vosges foot) has −8.02 in 1517 and the Nancy cell −8.33. Regional OWDA means 1517: Central Europe −4.38 (80 % of cells < −3), France −6.33 (96 %), Germany −4.79 (91 %); 1516: France −3.60 (69 %), Upper Rhine −1.93 (33 %); 1518: Upper Rhine −3.45 (67 %), Germany −2.37 (33 %), France −0.98 (12 %). Luterbacher European land-mean winter (DJF) temperature: 1516/17 −3.52 °C (1500–1600 mean −1.13, sd 1.10; i.e. −2.4 °C, 2.2 sd); 1517/18 −1.15 °C (average); summer 1516 European mean 18.08 °C (+0.52, 1.2 sd). Pauling absolute cell values: MAM 1517 119.9 mm (mean 151.8), JJA 1516 159.0 mm (mean 232.2), JJA 1515 371.1 mm. Xoplaki/Luterbacher absolute cell values: MAM 1517 9.94 °C, 1518 10.17 °C; JJA 1516 19.30 °C, 1517 18.42 °C, 1518 17.96 °C.

Note on independence: the Pauling precipitation and Luterbacher/Xoplaki temperature grids are statistical reconstructions with low skill in the sixteenth century (their predictors before 1659 are a few documentary indices and proxies); the Dobrovolný/Glaser indices are documentary; OWDA is tree-ring based. For summer 1517 the tree rings say "extreme drought" while Pauling's JJA rainfall is median — the two are not contradictory (scPDSI integrates the dry spring and the soil-moisture memory), but the seasonal precipitation numbers should be taken as weak evidence.

### 2.2 Narrative, harvest, prices, famine and disease by year

| Year | Weather in the narrative sources | Harvest and vintage | Strasbourg grain prices (Hanauer, d per Viertel: wheat / rye / barley / oats [PDF, Holzwart Table VI]; Allen's transcription of Hanauer in cent per kg: wheat / rye / white bread [DATA]) | Dearth, relief, disease | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1515 | Specklin: New Year's Day heavy snow, then lightning strikes the cathedral [OCR]. Reconstructions: cold wet spring and summer (above). | Late Burgundy vintage (5 Oct). First of "drey Jahre hinter einander" of failed harvest and vintage (Trausch 3008). Basel Martinmas rye price high (18.97 g Ag/hl, up from 10.43 in 1514). | Hanauer: no 1515 figures ("das Jahr 1515 fehlt", Holzwart fn. 408). Frankfurt rye 81 pf/Achtel (below the 108 median). | Buszello lists 1515 as a dear year by narrative sources only. Indulgence preached at Strasbourg (Trausch 3005). | Reuss/Specklin no. 2208; Dacheux/Trausch 3005, 3008; Holzwart Tables VI, IX; Buszello p. 130 |
| 1516 | Hot dry summer in all reconstructions; Swiss summer index +9 (maximum). Holzwart's table of the Basler Chroniken lists "Hochwasser" at Basel in 1516 [PDF, not checked in the chronicle]. Specklin: the "wütend heer" (wild host) heard by day and night in Alsace and Breisgau this year and for years before [OCR]. | Very early Burgundy vintage (12 Sept) = hot season. Second failed year (Trausch 3008). | **118 / 160 / 67 / 54** — rye above wheat, "ausnahmsweise" (Holzwart fn. 408; 1514: 63 / 50 / 24 / 36). Allen: 4.92 / 4.20 / 9.33 (rye index 190 % of the 1500–1530 median; wheat 158 %). Strasbourg rye in silver 29.9 g Ag per Viertel (1514: 9.4) [Holzwart Table VIII]. Frankfurt rye 108 (median). | Buszello: dear by Strasbourg and Basel prices and by chronicles ("1516sb"). Kleine Chronik: the city moat from the Fischerthor was dug in 12 weeks by 1,200 persons at 1 sch. a day [OCR] — a large public work in a dearth year. Villingen bought "good rye from Strasbourg" at 10 kreuzer per Viertel (Hug via Holzwart). | Holzwart pp. 65, 78–80, fn. 408, Tables VI, VIII; Reuss/Specklin 2211; Kleine Strassburger Chronik s.a. 1516; Buszello p. 130 |
| 1517 | Very cold winter 1516/17 (reconstructions). If Reuss's dating of Wencker 3237d is right: "auf den vorigen dürren sommer [1516] … ein druckener kalter winder, das es von anfang des jahres bis auf den mittwoch in den Ostern [15 April 1517] nicht geregnet, seind die alten rebstöck erfroren, am freytag vor Georgii [17 April 1517] gabs ein grossen reyffen, thete viel schaden im feld, reben und obst" [OCR]. Dry spring, warm May–June, extreme summer drought (tree rings); cold autumn (SON −1.4). | Third failed year (Trausch 3008); Basel's Martinmas rye price reaches its peak **after** the 1517 harvest (23.24 g Ag/hl, highest since 1501) [PDF, Holzwart Table IX]; Strasbourg wine: "weil wenig wein gewachsen, kam das fuder auf 26 bis 30 gulden" (Wencker). Burgundy vintage average (26 Sept). | **113 / 72 / 57 / 48**. Allen: 4.71 / 3.00 / 10.00 (wheat 151 %, rye 136 %, white bread 130 % — bread at its 1500–1530 maximum, equal to 1511). Brant's council notes, late 1517: "Fruchttax theurung halb, viertel korns um 10 sch. [120 d], ein sester um 20 d und ein sester mehls um 16 d" [OCR]. Wencker: subsidised granary rye at 7 sch., market "17 auch 18 schillig" (204–216 d), meal for the very poor at 17 d the sester. A labourer's day wage (0.77 fr) bought 25.7 kg of rye (1514: 37 kg). Frankfurt: no data 1517–1519. | Trausch 3006: "In diesem jahre eine grosse hungersnoth" [OCR]. Wencker: "Im Spital waren so viel erhungerte und krancke, dass man wochenlich haben musste 30 fiertel frucht, 4 fuder wein und in die küchen 60 gulden" (also Specklin 2214, s.a. 1517). Basel: "Anno 1517 was gar ein grosse thury und galt ein viertzel korn zu Basel 3½ lb. Do thetten die von Straszburg ein kasten uff; sunst were es den armen lutten übel gangen" (editor: Basel council decision of 14 Oct 1517) [OCR]. Basel epidemic: "ein groser sterben mit grosem houptwe … und kam die pestilentz dormit … by zweytusent menschen woren gestorben", lasting nearly a year (Ryff) [OCR]; "ein kranckheit, die brüny genant" with white tongue and throat and great headache (Bd. 6; the editor glosses brüny = Bräune, diphtheria) [OCR]. Specklin: "kam die kranckheit, der englische schweyss" [OCR] — see § 5. Strasbourg petitions Rome for an indulgence for the orphanage and the Blatterhaus (Winckelmann). Bundschuh scare Aug–Sept 1517 (§ 5). Sheik/Buszello: 1491 and 1517 the extreme years of the period; prices rose from 1511 to a peak in 1517, "derartige Teuerungen kannte man in Straßburg seit den frühen 1480ern nicht mehr" [PDF]. | Dacheux/Wencker 3237d (pp. 202–203), Trausch 3006; Dacheux/Brant 3436***; Reuss/Specklin 2214; Basler Chroniken 1, p. 23 and 6, pp. 83, 193–194; Winckelmann pp. 49, 73; Sheik p. 166; Buszello p. 130 |
| 1518 | If Friese's/Dacheux's dating of Wencker 3237d is right: "auf den vorigen dürren sommer [1517] … ein druckener kalter winder, das es von anfang des jahres bis auf den mittwoch in den Ostern [7 April 1518] nicht geregnet … am freytag vor Georgii [16 April 1518] gabs ein grossen reyffen, thete viel schaden im feld, reben und obst" [OCR]. Reconstructions: average winter (−1.1 °C), slightly warm spring with median rain, **cold June (−2.2 °C)**, cool July–August, median summer rain, persisting soil-moisture deficit. | Burgundy vintage early-ish (22 Sept). Basel Martinmas rye price falls by a third (14.94 g Ag/hl) and Basel's grain-export tax revenue is high in 1518 ("nach Hoch von 1518", Holzwart Table 15) — i.e. grain available after the 1518 harvest. Wine dear: Allen 0.16 fr/l (1516: 0.06). | **56 / 54 / 35 / 36** — back to the 1512–1514 level. Allen: 2.33 / 2.25 / 6.00 (wheat 75 %, rye 102 %, bread 78 %). Labourer's wage buys 34 kg rye. But Wencker (if 1518): "gab man von Pfingsten bis Martini [23 May–11 Nov] den becken und burgern vom speicher frucht, das fiertel rocken um 7 sch., musste aber ein jeder handtreu geben dass er keinen vorrath … den gar armen gab man meel den sester um 17 pfenninge, sonsten zalte das korn 17 auch 18 schillig … Was den burgern gegeben belief sich auf 50,000 fiertel, und wurde sonst innerhalb zwei jahren aus der Statt geführt 362,962 fiertel" [OCR]. | Trausch 3008 (s.a. 1518): "Nachdem schon drey Jahre hinter einander die Ernte und der Herbst missrathen und daher eine grosse Theurung entstanden war … öfnete (der Magistrat) die reichen Vorrathskammern der Stadt … Was die Stadt in zwey Jahren an Fremde, das Fiertel zu 18 Gulden [sic; read schilling] verkaufte, soll … 362962 Fiertel ausgemacht haben. — Friese, II, S. 138" [OCR]. Winckelmann: "in dem bösen Teuerungs- und Hungerjahre 1517/18 … Hieronymus Gebwiler erzählt, daß damals 450 notleidende Fremde den ganzen Winter über in der Anstalt [Elendenherberge] verpflegt worden seien"; "Mißernte und anschließende große Teuerung führten damals eine ungewöhnliche Menge fremder Bettler nach Straßburg, obwohl schon die Einheimischen von der Hungersnot stark bedroht wurden … Peter Wickgram … für 1518 die Zahl der Almosenempfänger auf 2200 [fn.: 'Neben 500 im Spital verpflegten Kranken und 300 Waisen (Jung, Beitr. II 23)'], während Hieronymus Gebweiler sagt, es seien 1000 gesunde, d. h. arbeitsfähige Bettler vorhanden gewesen … Die Stadt ließ … ihre reichen Getreidevorräte zu billigen Preisen an die armen Bürger ab" [OCR]. Specklin 2217 (after the dance entry): the poor citizens asked the clergy, who held much grain, to sell at a fair price; the clergy demanded 2 sch. more, "nemlichen 1 pfund" (20 sch.), "do hatte ein oberkeit noch frucht, die theilten sie ausz und gabens den burgern um 7 schilling" [OCR]. Papal indulgence 1518 for the hospital, orphanage and Blatterhaus (Winckelmann p. 49). Leper house (Gutleuthaus) accounts 1518/19: eight prebendaries at the start, two died (Winckelmann p. 40). **The dancing begins "um Margarethen" (c. 13–20 July) — before the 1518 harvest.** | Dacheux/Wencker 3237d, Trausch 3008; Reuss/Specklin 2217; Winckelmann pp. 43, 49, 73 with fn. 3–5; Holzwart Tables VI, IX, 15; Allen |
| 1519 | Warm spring, cold late summer; very late vintage (10 Oct). Holzwart's Basel table: "Hochwasser", "Pest". | Poor season (GHD); Basel Martinmas rye up again (17.40). | 57 / 41 / 30 / 38. Allen: 2.38 / 1.70 / 6.00 (rye 77 %). Labourer's wage (0.87 fr) buys 51 kg rye. | "Anno 1519 was ein grosse pestenlents zu Strassburg und den Rin uff, bitz für Basel heruff" (Basler Chroniken 6, p. 194) [OCR]. | Basler Chroniken 6; Holzwart Tables VI, IX, 15; Allen |

---

## 3. The narrative weather record 1516–1518 and the dating of the Wencker notice

All the Strasbourg narrative weather for these years that I could find comes from three seventeenth/eighteenth-century compilations printed by Dacheux and Reuss in the *Bulletin de la Société pour la conservation des monuments historiques d'Alsace*: the *Chronique de Wencker* (1637; "Trausch" numbers 3005–3009), the *Extractus* of Jacob Wencker from the lost XXI protocols (the so-called "Annales de Brant", nos. 3436***–3443 and 3237d) and Daniel Specklin's *Collectanea* (c. 1580; nos. 2208–2217). Büheler's chronicle (Bulletin XIII) and Bulletin XIX contain nothing on weather or famine for 1516–1518 (checked by grep). The Kleine Strassburger Chronik has only the 1516 moat-digging and the 1518 dance. I did not obtain Gebwiler's own text, Weikinn's *Quellentexte* (paywalled; the FreiDok copy is one 64.8 GB zip), Glaser's *Klimageschichte Mitteleuropas* (no digital text), tambora.org (HTTP 504 throughout) or Euro-Climhist (login). No Colmar or Sélestat chronicle entry for these years was found in the material retrieved.

**The one dated weather notice** (Wencker 3237d, Dacheux 1892, pp. 202–203 [OCR, checked in both scans]):

> (Schlechtes Jahr.) — Auf den vorigen dürren sommer ist erfolgt ein druckener kalter winder, das es von anfang des jahres bis auf den mittwoch in den Ostern nicht geregnet, seind die alten rebstöck erfroren, am freytag vor Georgii gabs ein grossen reyffen, thete viel schaden im feld, reben und obst, gab man von Pfingsten bis Martini den becken und burgern vom speicher frucht, das fiertel rocken um 7 sch., musste aber ein jeder handtreu geben dass er keinen vorrath, und dass er solches in seiner haushaltung mit den seinigen essen wolte; den gar armen gab man meel den sester um 17 pfenninge, sonsten zalte das korn 17 auch 18 schillig. Im Spital waren so viel erhungerte und krancke, dass man wochenlich haben musste 30 fiertel frucht, 4 fuder wein und in die küchen 60 gulden, war das pfund rindfleisch taxirt 1½ pfennig. Was den burgern gegeben belief sich auf 50,000 fiertel, und wurde sonst innerhalb zwei jahren aus der Statt geführt 362,962 fiertel, ohn was der Bruderhof, Unser Frauenhaus, der Spital, die Ellende herberg, das Gutleuthaus und andere pflegereyen hingeben und sonsten heimlich hinweg geführt worden. Weil wenig wein gewachsen, kam das fuder auf 26 bis 30 gulden, die mass 7 oder 8 pfenninge.

Dacheux prints "1517" in the margin against the first line and "1518" against the rest, and notes: "Cette famine que Wencker plaçait, selon M. Reuss [Alsatia 1868–72, pp. 153–154], en 1517, est placée en 1518 par Friese (Th. II, S. 136), qui s'appuie sur le même passage de Wencker. De là dans le texte de Wencker que nous avons publié, les nos 3006 et 3008 qui paraissent se rapporter au même fait." So the compilers themselves had the same notice under two years.

Which year does the climate record favour? The notice's fingerprint is: dry summer → dry, cold winter → no rain from New Year to the Wednesday of Easter week → great frost on the Friday before St George → subsidised grain from Pentecost to Martinmas → hospital full of the starved → small vintage. Against the reconstructions [DATA]:

| Element | as 1516 → 1517 | as 1517 → 1518 |
|---|---|---|
| "vorigen dürren sommer" | summer 1516: hot, Pauling JJA −73 mm (11th driest), OWDA 3×3 −2.1, France in drought — fits | summer 1517: OWDA −6.8 (3rd driest), Pauling JJA median — fits (better in tree rings) |
| "druckener kalter winder" | winter 1516/17: Dobrovolný −3.68 °C; European mean −3.52 °C (2.2 sd below the century mean) — fits well | winter 1517/18: Dobrovolný −1.14 °C; European mean −1.15 °C (average) — weak fit |
| no rain to Easter Wednesday | spring 1517: Pauling MAM −32 mm, 10th driest of 101 — fits | spring 1518: Pauling MAM −7 mm, median — weak fit (but a dry Jan–early April can hide in a median MAM) |
| frost "freytag vor Georgii" | 17 April 1517; Dobrovolný April 1517 +0.89 (warm) — a late frost is possible in any April | 16 April 1518; April 1518 +0.55 — likewise |
| small vintage, dear wine | Burgundy GHD 1517 average; Allen's Strasbourg wine price 1517 missing | GHD 1518 early-ish; Strasbourg wine 1518 0.16 fr/l, highest with 1513 in 1500–1530 — fits |
| granary sales at 7 sch., market 17–18 sch. | Hanauer 1517 annual: rye 72 d (6 sch.), wheat 113 d (9.4 sch.); Brant's Fruchttax late 1517 10 sch. — the 17–18 sch. would be the pre-harvest peak of the 1516 crop year | Hanauer 1518 annual: rye 54 d (4.5 sch.) — irreconcilable with 17–18 sch. for half the year unless Hanauer's figure is a post-harvest price |
| "innerhalb zwei jahren … 362,962 fiertel" | two years = 1516–17 | two years = 1517–18 (Trausch 3008, s.a. 1518, says the same) |

On climate the 1516→1517 reading (Reuss) fits better on the two elements that discriminate (severity of the winter, dryness of the spring); on prices the notice fits neither Hanauer year, which suggests Hanauer's annual figures for these years are not pre-harvest market prices. My working conclusion: the dearth peaked between the failed harvest of 1516 and the harvest of 1517, prices stayed roughly double the 1514 level after the 1517 harvest (Fruchttax 10 sch. against 4–5 sch. in normal years), the winter 1517/18 was a hunger winter for the poor and for immigrant beggars (Gebwiler's 450 strangers; Winckelmann's "Teuerungs- und Hungerjahr 1517/18"), and the crisis ended with the 1518 harvest. The subsidised distributions "from Pentecost to Martinmas" could belong to either year; Trausch 3008 and Specklin 2217 (which mentions Luther's articles, i.e. after October 1517) put granary sales at 7 sch. in 1518 or later, so distributions were probably repeated in 1518.

Other narrative weather items: Specklin 2208 (1515, New Year's Day snow and lightning on the cathedral) [OCR]; Specklin 2214 (1517): "Eodem wuchsen die reben so gross dass 5 ein centner wogen" [OCR] (vines/grapes of extraordinary size — I cannot interpret this reliably); Holzwart's Table 15 (from the Basler Chroniken): 1516 "Hochwasser", 1517 "große Teuerung", "Epidemie", "Kornkäufe in Straßburg", 1519 "Hochwasser", "Pest" [PDF]. Waller (Endeavour 2008): "In the summer of 1516, the sun beat down mercilessly upon ripening crops … They were then hit with a ferocious winter. In the New Year, famine struck with terrible force" — this matches the reconstructions for 1516 and 1516/17 exactly.

---

## 4. Grain prices

**Series obtained.** (1) Hanauer, *Études économiques sur l'Alsace*, t. II (1878), p. 94, in two transcriptions: Allen's (GPIH/Nuffield spreadsheets; converted by Hanauer/Allen to centimes per kg of a silver franc) and Holzwart's Table VI (nominal Strasbourg pfennig per Viertel; a Strasbourg Viertel ≈ 116 l by the ratio of his Tables VIII and IX). (2) Frankfurt (Elsas 1940 via GPIH): rye/oats/wheat in pfennig per Achtel — no rye values for 1517–1519, so uninformative for the crisis. (3) Basel Martinmas rye prices in g Ag per hl (Holzwart Table IX, from Tscharner-Aue/Fouquet). (4) Chronicle prices (Brant 3436***, Wencker 3237d, Specklin 2217, Basler Chroniken 6). Hanauer t. II itself could not be opened (Gallica "403 Access Interdit" on every endpoint; HathiTrust and Google Books bot-gated) — see `D_SOURCES.md` § B and D.

**Strasbourg, nominal d per Viertel (Holzwart Table VI = Hanauer II, 94) [PDF]:**

| Year | Wheat | Rye | Barley | Oats | Rye in g Ag per Viertel (Table VIII) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1512 | 63 | 48 | 28 | 30 | 8.98 |
| 1513 | 62 | 48 | 32 | 30 | 8.98 |
| 1514 | 63 | 50 | 24 | 36 | 9.35 |
| 1515 | – | – | – | – | – |
| 1516 | 118 | **160** | 67 | 54 | **29.92** |
| 1517 | 113 | 72 | 57 | 48 | 13.46 |
| 1518 | 56 | 54 | 35 | 36 | 10.10 |
| 1519 | 57 | 41 | 30 | 38 | 7.67 |
| 1520 | 63 | 53 | 33 | 36 | 9.91 |

In the part of Table VI I read (1437–1521) the 1516 rye price (160 d) exceeds every earlier value, including the crisis years 1481–82 (110–120 d) and 1491 (102 d); this is the quantitative basis of "the highest prices in a generation" (Sheik p. 166, citing Buszello 2007: "Ab 1501 stiegen die Lebensmittelpreise jährlich bis 1503 an, um dann ab 1511 ähnlich schnell bis zum Höhepunkt 1517 zu steigen. Derartige Teuerungen kannte man in Straßburg seit den frühen 1480ern nicht mehr und davor hatte es eine solche Krise zuletzt in den 1430ern gegeben" [PDF]).

**Allen's transcription (cent per kg; `../data/prices_strasbourg_frankfurt_1500-1530.csv`) [DATA]:** wheat 1514 3.12, 1516 4.92, 1517 4.71, 1518 2.33, 1519 2.38; rye 1514 2.08, 1516 4.20, 1517 3.00, 1518 2.25, 1519 1.70 (index vs the 1500–1530 median 2.21: 94 / 190 / 136 / 102 / 77); white bread 7.67 / 9.33 / 10.00 / 6.00 / 6.00; barley 1.00 / 2.79 / 2.38 / 1.46 / 1.26; oats 1.29 / 1.95 / 1.71 / 1.29 / 1.37; wine (fr per l) 1516 0.06, 1518 0.16; labourer 0.77 fr per day (1519: 0.87), so a day's wage bought 37 kg rye in 1514, 25.7 kg in 1517, 34 kg in 1518, 51 kg in 1519. Caveat: Allen's and Holzwart's transcriptions of the same Hanauer page do not scale identically — rye 1517 and 1518 agree (ratios to 1514: 1.44 and 1.08 in both), but Allen's 1516 rye (×2.02) is far below Holzwart's (×3.2), and the wheat ratios differ in every year. I could not resolve this without Hanauer's own page; the ranking of years is the same in both.

**Basel Martinmas rye, g Ag per hl (Holzwart Table IX; Basel | Strasbourg) [PDF]:** 1512 12.80 | 7.73; 1513 12.09 | 7.73; 1514 10.43 | 8.05; 1515 18.97 | –; 1516 17.43 | 25.75; 1517 **23.24** | 11.59; 1518 14.94 | 8.69; 1519 17.40 | 6.60. The Basel price is fixed after the harvest ("Schlag um Martini", Buszello p. 130), so Basel's 1517 peak measures the 1517 harvest — poor, as the tree-ring drought predicts — whereas Hanauer's Strasbourg series peaks in 1516 and is nearly normal in 1518.

**Chronicle prices (Strasbourg; 1 sch. = 12 d) [OCR]:** late 1517 official Fruchttax 10 sch. per Viertel of korn (Brant 3436***); 1517/1518 granary rye 7 sch., market 17–18 sch., meal 17 d per sester, beef 1½ d per lb, wine 26–30 gulden per fuder (Wencker 3237d); the clergy asked 20 sch. (Specklin 2217); Basel 1517 "ein viertzel korn 3½ lb" (Basler Chroniken 6). Trausch's "18 Gulden" per Fiertel (3008) must be a corruption of 18 schilling.

**Crisis chronology (Buszello 2011/12, p. 130 and p. 137) [PDF]:** dear years by Strasbourg (s) and Basel (b) prices and by narrative sources: "1480, 1481s, 1482s, 1491s, 1501sb, 1502sb, 1503sb, 1511, 1512b, 1515, 1516sb, 1517sb, 1518, 1528sb…" — 1515 and 1518 are flagged by narrative sources only, 1516 and 1517 by both price series. Buszello's summary sequence of dearths: "1480–1482, 1491, 1501–1503, 1511/12, 1515–1518, 1528–1533" (p. 137), "das Vorspiel der großen Ernährungskrise von 1528 bis 1533" (Sheik p. 166). Abel's *Massenarmut und Hungerkrisen* was not available; Buszello builds on Abel.

---

## 5. Famine and disease — Waller's claims checked

| Waller's claim (Endeavour 2008 pp. 117–118; Psychologist 2009) | What the sources retrieved say | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| Famines in and around Strasbourg in 1492, 1502 and 1511 | Buszello's list: 1491s, 1501–1503sb, 1511 (p. 130) [PDF] | supported (dates off by a year in two cases) |
| "In the summer of 1516, the sun beat down mercilessly upon ripening crops. Few people … had ever had to pay such high prices for their bread" | Summer 1516 hot and dry in every reconstruction [DATA]; rye 160 d in 1516, the highest in the table since at least 1437 [PDF]; Sheik/Buszello: unprecedented since the early 1480s [PDF] | supported |
| "a ferocious winter" (1516/17) | Dobrovolný DJF −3.68 °C; European mean −3.52 °C (2.2 sd) [DATA]; Wencker "druckener kalter winder" (if 1516/17) [OCR] | supported |
| "In the New Year [1517], famine struck with terrible force. Waves of deaths followed from malnutrition … the great mortality of 1517 … 'the bad year'" | Trausch 3006 "In diesem jahre eine grosse hungersnoth" [OCR]; Wencker: hospital full of "erhungerte und krancke" [OCR]; Basel 1517: c. 2,000 dead in an epidemic with severe headache, "pestilentz" (Ryff) and the "brüny" [OCR]; no Strasbourg death toll found; the phrase "the bad year" not found in any source retrieved (Waller cites his own book) | dearth supported; "waves of deaths from malnutrition" in Strasbourg unverified; 1517 mortality documented for Basel, and there as an epidemic |
| "old killers like leprosy, smallpox and the plague" resurging; "in August 1517 hundreds attended a holy procession 'contra pestilentiam'" | The procession is cited from Rapp 1974 [2ND, not retrieved]; plague at Strasbourg is documented for 1519 ("grosse pestenlents zu Strassburg und den Rin uff", Basler Chroniken 6, p. 194) [OCR] | plausible; not verified for 1517 |
| "the 'English sweat'. Arriving in Strasbourg for the first time in 1517 … Many sufferers died" | Specklin 2214 (c. 1580): "Eodem anno [1517] kam die kranckheit, der englische schweyss" [OCR]. But the epidemiological chronology (Flamm 2020, doi:10.1007/s10354-019-0701-3 [PDF]): the 1516–1518 epidemic "erreichte außerhalb Englands die Nordküste Frankreichs, wo sie nur Engländer befiel und dort auch erlosch"; the continental epidemic is that of 1529 (Hamburg 25 July 1529, then all Germany; Bern in December 1529), and the Strasbourg printers Egenolph and Schott issued sweating-sickness *Regimente* in 1529 (Flamm's refs 11 and 14) | almost certainly a misdating of 1529 by a compiler writing sixty years later; should not be used for 1517 |
| "In 1516, word spread of a woman … who claimed that she'd seen the ghost of her dead soldier-husband … Thousands imagined their dead relations to have escaped from Purgatory" | Specklin 2211 (1516): the "wütend heer" heard by day and night in Alsace and Breisgau, running over the fields and through the town with drums and pipes [OCR] | partly supported (the collective-apparition motif is there; the widow's story not found) |
| "dozens of angry young men plotted bloody revenge. A series of foiled rebellions" (the 1517 Bundschuh) | Sheik 2023 [PDF]: Freiburg's first measures 7 and 12 August 1517; Michel von Dinkelsbühl captured at Rötteln (letter of 4 Sept), confession c. 6 Sept naming more than 300 alleged Bundschuher; the Strasbourg envoy who re-examined him on 12 Sept "äußerte sich … eher skeptisch"; unlike 1502 and 1513 the Alsatian authorities held no consultations, "dass die Gefahr im Jahr 1517 zumindest linksrheinisch weit geringer eingeschätzt wurde"; the confession "sehr fragwürdig"; the assemblies it named (Mittelbergheim 10 Sept, Kniebis 26 Sept) "allem Anschein nach nie stattgefunden haben"; cf. R. Köhn, "Der Bundschuh von 1517 – kein Aufstandsversuch des Gemeinen Mannes auf dem Lande?", in: Bundschuh. Untergrombach 1502 (conference volume), pp. 122–139, cited by Sheik fn. 13 | a conspiracy scare in Aug–Oct 1517 is documented; "rebellions" is an overstatement, and the substance of the 1517 plot is doubted by recent scholarship. Sheik does confirm that the authorities linked the scare to the dearth ("Krisenjahre am Oberrhein") |
| "early in 1518 … hospitals and shelters utterly overwhelmed, … an orphanage crowded with 300 beleaguered orphans, … a smallpox hospital heaving with fresh admissions, and a surge in cases of leprosy" | Winckelmann 1922 p. 73 with fn. 3: Wickgram gives 2,200 alms recipients for 1518 "neben 500 im Spital verpflegten Kranken und 300 Waisen (Jung, Beitr. II 23)"; Gebwiler: 1,000 able-bodied beggars; 450 needy strangers fed all winter in the Elendenherberge (p. 43) [OCR]. The "Blatterhaus" is the house for the "bösen Blattern" = "Franzosenkrankheit" (syphilis), § 6 [OCR]; the 1517 indulgence petition for orphanage and Blatterhaus and the papal indulgence of 1518 (p. 49) show these institutions in financial need. Gutleuthaus (leper house) accounts 1518/19: eight prebendaries at the start, two died; the number of poor lepers in the Snelling is not recorded for that year (c. 12 in 1522/23) (p. 40) [OCR] | the 300 orphans and the crowded hospital/shelters are supported (Wickgram via Jung; Gebwiler); "smallpox hospital" is a mistranslation of Blatterhaus (syphilis); "surge in leprosy" unsupported by the surviving accounts |
| "Bread prices reached their highest levels for a generation, thousands of starving farmers and vine growers arrived at the city gates" (2009) | Prices: see § 4. Immigration: Winckelmann "eine ungewöhnliche Menge fremder Bettler"; Gebwiler's 450 strangers in one shelter; Trausch/Wencker: 362,962 Viertel sold "an Fremde" in two years [OCR] | supported in substance; "thousands" is Wickgram's 2,200 alms recipients (not all strangers) |

Not found at all in the material retrieved: any Strasbourg mortality figure for 1517–1518; any mention of smallpox in 1517–1518; any Strasbourg chronicle entry on the English sweat other than Specklin's. Waller's book (2008) and Rapp 1974 were not accessible.

---

## 6. Ergot and weather; the bread of Strasbourg; Alsatian ergotism

**Agronomy (Miedaner & Geiger 2015, Toxins 7:659–678 [PDF]; AHDB life-cycle page [PDF]; Barger 1931 pp. 98–99 [OCR]).**
- Sclerotia harvested with the grain or left on the field need "temperatures at 0 °C–10 °C for at least 25 days … for vernalization", then "germinate in the spring, just prior to flowering of grasses" (Miedaner & Geiger § 3). The winters of 1516/17 and 1517/18 satisfy this trivially.
- Infection happens only through open, unfertilised florets: "In all crops, rainy weather at flowering time reduces pollen shedding and pollen movement. The wet pollen agglutinates and is distributed over short distances only. Thus, many florets remain open longer because they are not readily fertilized. In rye, unfertilized florets can re-open for several days … Cool and rainy conditions also favor the spread of honeydew by insects or wind promoting the proliferation of the pathogen and increasing infection frequency. Warm and sunny conditions, in contrast, thicken the honeydew and lead to a short time of stigma receptivity thus reducing ergot infections." The fungus "can grow over a wide temperature range, but the optimum is between 20 °C and 30 °C … Below 10 °C germination and subsequent mycelium development are highly retarded … Consequently, low temperatures at flowering may reduce infection frequency and retard fungal growth" (ibid.). AHDB: "Cool and wet conditions promote spore production and prolong the flowering period (making infection more likely)"; susceptibility "rye, triticale, wheat, barley and oats – infection of oats is rare"; "ergots remain viable in the soil for one to three years; ergots can survive for over a year in stored grain".
- Barger (p. 98): "It has long been known that the chief factor is a wet season … There must be enough moisture in the spring for the germination of the sclerotia and the development of ascospores, but the dissemination of the latter is favoured by dry and windy weather. The atmospheric conditions during the flowering period of the rye are doubtless of the greatest importance; normally this period lasts only for a week, but it may be much prolonged by cold and rain. When infection has once taken place, the growth of the sclerotium is favoured by heat … Rojdestvensky [1927] considers that a rainy spring, a dry sunny interval just before and at the beginning of the flowering period of the rye, and rainy weather during the rest of this period are the conditions most favourable"; and (chapter 'Ergot: historical') Thalius saw ergot in 1575 "in a hot summer after a wet spring, optimal conditions for its production". Barger pp. 211–212: entire ergot kept dry "deteriorates only very slowly" (Meulenhoff: hardly any loss after two years; a fourteen-year-old sample still above pharmacopoeial strength), whereas ground ergot in a moist container lost most of its alkaloid in two years; Dodart (1676) reported the belief that ergot "was said to be most poisonous when fresh, and to lose its toxicity on keeping".
- EFSA 2012 (doi:10.2903/j.efsa.2012.2798) could not be downloaded (HTTP 403 at Wiley and EFSA; PMC has only the abstract) — nothing above depends on it.

**Timing in Alsace.** Rye in the Upper-Rhine plain flowers in late May–June and is cut in July (Gregorian); in Julian dates of the 1510s, with a somewhat cooler climate, flowering falls roughly in the last third of May and the first half of June and the harvest in July [general agronomy; UNVERIFIED for sixteenth-century Alsace specifically — no Alsatian phenological record for the 1510s exists; the Alsace grape-harvest series begins only in the eighteenth century]. The dancing began "um Margarethen" (13 or 20 July, both Tuesdays in 1518) — before or at the very start of the 1518 rye harvest; new grain could have entered the bread of the poor from about the end of July, i.e. during the outbreak's growth (Kleine Chronik: 34 dancers in four days, "in vier wochen über 200") but not at its onset.

**Bread grains of Strasbourg (Holzwart 2000 [PDF]).** Rye and mixed corn were the dominant winter grains of medieval Alsace, with wheat gaining from the thirteenth century and spelt from the fourteenth (pp. 13–15); around Strasbourg (Kochersberg) wheat was grown early and preferred, while the Upper Alsace and Sundgau used spelt as the better bread grain (fn. 54–55). The Strasbourg grain census of autumn 1444 (Table 9) shows the townspeople's stocks 69 % wheat and 26 % rye, the peasants' 88 % rye and 8 % wheat — "daß in Straßburg viel Brot mit hohem Weizenanteil gegessen wurde, im Umland dagegen überwiegend Roggenbrot" (fn. 237). The 1517–18 relief grain, however, was rye ("das fiertel rocken um 7 sch.") and meal for the very poor; Hanauer's series distinguishes white (wheat) and brown (rye) bread. So the poor of Strasbourg and the immigrant country poor of 1517–18 ate rye, the crop most exposed to ergot; the better-off ate wheat bread, which is rarely ergotised. Holzwart fn. 56: "Ein Indiz für das Vorherrschen des Roggenbaus ist das häufige Auftreten des Ergotismus im Elsaß vom Mittelalter bis ins 19. Jahrhundert … Der Antoniterorden, der sich der Pflege von Ergotismusopfern widmete, hatte mehrere Niederlassungen im Elsaß und in Basel. Auch eines der wichtigsten mittelalterlichen Bildzeugnisse für den Ergotismus, der Isenheimer Altar, entstand im Elsaß (Ficker)".

**Documented sixteenth-century ergotism.** Barger's chapter on convulsive ergotism in Germany lists for the sixteenth century only Lüneburg (August 1581), Silesia (c. 1587/1592), a doubtful Heidelberg episode (1589) and Hesse/Westphalia 1596–97 (the Marburg faculty's description) [OCR]; nothing in Alsace or on the Upper Rhine, and nothing before 1581 anywhere. Miedaner & Geiger's history section (§ 2) lists the early medieval epidemics (857 Xanten, 944–945 Limoges) and nothing for the 1510s [PDF]. I found no Alsatian ergotism epidemic for the sixteenth century in any source retrieved; Holzwart's fn. 56 is a general statement resting on Ficker.

---

## 7. Assessments

### 7 (b). Were the 1517 and 1518 growing seasons ergot-favourable?

**1517 — no.** The crop that fed Strasbourg from August 1517 to July 1518 grew through a severe winter (fine for the fungus), a dry spring (MAM the 10th driest of 1500–1600; if the Wencker notice is 1517, no rain from New Year to 15 April), a warm May (+2.1 °C) and June (+1.2 °C), and the third-most-extreme summer drought of the century in the tree-ring record, with every cell of the Upper Rhine below −3. Dry weather at flowering shortens flowering and keeps pollen moving; warmth and sun thicken the honeydew; a dry spring starves sclerotial germination and ascospore production. Barger's "chief factor … a wet season" and Rojdestvensky's rainy-spring/rainy-flowering sequence are both absent. The 1517 harvest was small — that is what the price and relief records show — but small from drought, which is the opposite of ergot weather. The only reservation is resolution: no reconstruction sees a wet fortnight; but nothing in any series or narrative source hints at one, and the Basel price peak after the 1517 harvest is what a drought harvest produces.

**1518 — mixed, and too late for the onset.** The 1518 crop grew through a dry, cold winter and (per the notice, if 1518) a rainless first quarter and a hard frost on 16 April; spring temperatures a little above the century mean with median rainfall; then a distinctly cold June (Dobrovolný −2.2 °C, German index −2, Glaser −2) at the time of rye flowering, a cool July–August (−0.4, −1.3 °C) and median summer rainfall, on soils still in deficit from 1517 (OWDA −4.6, 4th driest — partly the memory of 1517). A cold June prolongs flowering and is the one genuinely ergot-favourable feature of the window; but the record gives no sign of the wet spring that seeds the infection, and cold retards the fungus as much as it opens the florets. I would call 1518 "weakly permissive, not diagnostic". It also cannot explain the beginning: the first dancers (mid-July) were eating 1517 grain, or old granary stocks.

**The 1515 loophole.** The only season with the full ergot signature is 1515 (second-wettest spring, wettest and one of the coldest summers of the century). Its rye was normally consumed by 1516; ergot survives "over a year in stored grain" (AHDB) and dry whole sclerotia lose potency only slowly (Barger), and the city's granary held multi-year stocks (Holzwart Table 2 documents inventories for 1577/1610/1623 [PDF]; the composition of the 1517–18 stock is unknown). A 1515-harvest contamination reaching the poor through the 1517–18 granary distributions is therefore logically possible but rests on nothing in the record, and the dearth of 1516–17 would have drawn down old stocks first.

**Net.** The climate record does not support an ergot explanation resting on the bread available in July 1518, and gives only weak, non-specific support to one resting on the 1518 harvest, which arrived after the outbreak began.

### 7 (c). Waller's "starving city" premise for July 1518

What is solidly documented (§ 2–5): three successive failed harvests and vintages (1515 wet-cold, 1516 hot-dry, 1517 drought); the highest grain prices in a generation in 1516–17 (rye 160 d in 1516 against 50 d in 1514; the 1517 Fruchttax at 10 sch. still about double the normal price); the city opening its granaries (Basel's chronicle and council decision of 14 Oct 1517: "do thetten die von Straszburg ein kasten uff; sunst were es den armen lutten übel gangen"); subsidised rye at 7 sch. against a market of 17–18 sch., meal for the very poor, 50,000 Viertel given to citizens and 362,962 Viertel sold to outsiders over two years; a hospital "full of starved and sick" consuming 30 Viertel of grain, 4 fuder of wine and 60 gulden a week; 450 needy strangers fed through the winter 1517/18 in the Elendenherberge; 2,200 alms recipients, 500 hospital sick and 300 orphans in 1518 and 1,000 able-bodied beggars (Wickgram, Gebwiler); a papal indulgence of 1518 to fund the hospital, orphanage and Blatterhaus; an epidemic at Basel in 1517 with c. 2,000 dead; plague at Strasbourg and along the Rhine in 1519; and a Bundschuh scare in August–October 1517 that the authorities explicitly connected with the dearth. Waller's picture of a frightened, impoverished city in 1517–18 is therefore well founded, and is in fact the standard reading of the Strasbourg historians (Winckelmann 1922: "in dem bösen Teuerungs- und Hungerjahre 1517/18"; Buszello; Sheik).

What is wrong or unsupported: the English sweat of 1517 (a misdated 1529 event); the "smallpox hospital" (the Blatterhaus was the syphilis house); the "surge in leprosy" (eight prebendaries, two deaths, in the 1518/19 leper-house accounts); "foiled rebellions" (a doubted conspiracy); "waves of deaths from malnutrition" in Strasbourg (no figure anywhere; the documented 1517 mortality is Basel's and epidemic); the phrase "the bad year" (not found).

What the timing says about July 1518 specifically: the annual series say the crisis was over with the 1518 harvest — Hanauer's 1518 prices are at the 1512–14 level, Basel's post-harvest price fell by a third and Basel's grain exports were high in 1518 — but July is the last month before that harvest, at the end of the second bad crop year, when stocks and prices are at their worst in any pre-modern dearth; the 1518 relief notices (Trausch 3008; Wencker 3237d in the Friese/Dacheux dating; Specklin 2217) describe subsidised grain "from Pentecost to Martinmas" and a hospital full of the starved; and the 16 April 1518 frost had just destroyed vines and fruit. So the premise "a city in dearth, crowded with immigrant poor and dependent on subsidised bread" holds for July 1518; the stronger phrase "starving city", implying mass starvation deaths in Strasbourg, is not documented. Whether hunger and fear produce dancing is a question for the medical note (`C_medical.md`); the climate and price record only shows that the hunger was real, that it peaked in 1517, and that it was ending in the weeks the dancing spread.

---

## 8. Limits of this note

- No Strasbourg archival series (Stadtrechnungen, hospital accounts, Fruchtschlag lists) was reachable; every Strasbourg number here is from seventeenth-century compilations printed in the 1890s, from Winckelmann's 1922 use of Gebwiler/Wickgram/Jung, or from Hanauer through two later transcriptions. Hanauer t. II, Weikinn, Glaser's *Klimageschichte*, tambora.org, Euro-Climhist, Abel 1974, Rapp 1974, Waller's book, the EFSA opinion, Gebwiler's *Panegyris* and the Alsatia 1868–72 volume (unreadable OCR) were not read.
- The gridded reconstructions have low skill in the sixteenth century; the OWDA cell value for 1517 is robust (it is regional and extreme), the seasonal precipitation numbers are not.
- I could not settle the 1517/1518 dating of Wencker 3237d; the note gives both readings and what each implies.
- Calendar computations (Easter 1517/1518, weekdays) are mine; they agree with the day-dates Dacheux prints elsewhere for 1518 as reported in `A1_council_record.md`.

---

## 9. Sources — plain list (file in `../sources/climate/` → URL → what I read)

Climate data
- owda.nc (+ owda-readme.txt, owda-xy.txt) → https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/treering/reconstructions/europe/ (NOAA study 19419; Cook et al. 2015, Sci. Adv. 1:e1500561, doi:10.1126/sciadv.1500561; dataset doi:10.25921/rjm6-mq74) → whole netCDF read by script; readme read.
- prec-pauling-sp.txt.gz, prec-pauling-su.txt.gz, readme-pauling2006.txt → https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/historical/europe/pauling2006precip/ (Pauling et al. 2006, Clim. Dyn. 26:387–405) → readme read; grids parsed for the Strasbourg cell.
- temp_luterbacher_su.txt.gz, temp_xoplaki_sp.txt.gz → https://crudata.uea.ac.uk/cru/projects/soap/pw/data/recon/luter04/ ; noaa_1517-su.txt → https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/historical/europe-seasonal-files/ (Luterbacher et al. 2004, Science 303:1499–1503; Xoplaki et al. 2005, GRL 32:L15713) → grids parsed; 1517 cross-checked.
- europe-seasonal-luterbacher2004.txt → https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/historical/europe-seasonal.txt → header and rows 1500–1600 read.
- dobrovolny2010temperature-{djf,mam,jja,son,apr,may,jun,jul,aug,ann}-noaa.txt, dobrovolny2010temperature.txt/.xls → https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/historical/europe/ (NOAA study 9970; Dobrovolný et al. 2010, Climatic Change 101:69–107) → headers read; rows 1510–1525 extracted.
- glaser2009temperature.txt → https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/historical/europe/glaser2009temperature/glaser2009temperature.txt (Glaser & Riemann 2009, J. Quat. Sci. 24:437–449) → header read; monthly indices 1510–1525 extracted. glaser_riemann2009_jqs.pdf/.txt → https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~rjsw/PalaeoPDFs/GlaserRiemann2009.pdf → method section skimmed.
- europe2012ghd.txt → https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/historical/europe/europe2012ghd.txt (Daux et al. 2012, Clim. Past 8:1403–1418) → Burgundy, Switzerland, Alsace columns 1510–1525.
- burgundy2004.txt → https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/historical/europe/france/burgundy2004.txt (Chuine et al. 2004, Nature 432:289–290) → GHD and Apr–Aug anomaly 1510–1525.
- meier2007grape.txt, readme_swissindices.txt, clinddef.txt, rhine2011flood.txt → https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/historical/europe/switzerland/ → checked for 1515–1519 (nothing usable; no major Rhine flood).

Prices and economic history
- gpih_Allen_Strasbourg_1313-1875.xlsx → https://gpih.ucdavis.edu/files/Allen_Strasbourg_1313-1875.xlsx ; nuffield_allen_strasbourg.xls → https://www.nuffield.ox.ac.uk/media/2126/strasbourg.xls (Allen's transcription of Hanauer 1878) → sheets Prices, Wages, Sources & Comments; rows 1500–1530.
- gpih_Frankfurt_1500-1800.xls → https://gpih.ucdavis.edu/files/Frankfurt_1500-1800.xls (Elsas 1940 via Lindert/Jacks) → sheet Grains 1500–1530.
- hanauer_etudesconomique00hanagoog_djvu.txt → https://archive.org/download/etudesconomique00hanagoog/etudesconomique00hanagoog_djvu.txt → found to be tome I (Les monnaies), not used. hanauer_t2_gallica_bpt6k1153437.txt → https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k1153437/texteBrut → "403 Access Interdit" (also HathiTrust umn.31951002281552r and Google Books blocked).
- buszello_mangeljahre_oberrhein.pdf/.txt → https://regionalia.blb-karlsruhe.de/frontdoor/deliver/index/docId/18372/file/BLB_Buszello_Mangeljahre_Oberrhein.pdf (Buszello, Alemannisches Jahrbuch 59/60, 2011/12, 113–145, doi:10.57962/regionalia-18372) → pp. 129–131 (method and statistics of dear years), p. 137 (sequence 1480–1533).
- holzwart_getreideanbau_elsass_magisterarbeit.pdf/.txt → https://publikationen.uni-tuebingen.de/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10900/47146/pdf/Holzwart_Magisterarbeit.pdf (Holzwart-Schäfer, Getreideanbau im Elsaß …, Tübingen 2000) → ch. 2.2.3 (pp. 13–15, fn. 54–57), Table 9 (1444 grain shares) and fn. 237, pp. 78–80 with fn. 406–411 (Hug's Villingen chronicle; 1516 prices), Table 15 (Basel export tax vs Basler Chroniken, pp. 64–66), Tables VI, VIII, IX (appendix, pp. c. 104–112).
- sheik2023_aufstandspraevention_oberrhein_bundschuh.pdf/.txt → https://regionalia.blb-karlsruhe.de/frontdoor/deliver/index/docId/26281/file/BLB_Sheik_Aufstandspraevention_Oberrhein.pdf (Sheik, Alemannisches Jahrbuch 69/70, 2021/22, 161–199, doi:10.57962/regionalia-26281) → § 1.1 (research history), § 1.4 Krisenjahre am Oberrhein (p. 166), § 2.1 (pp. 171–172, the 1517 chronology with fn. 52–60).

Narrative sources
- bulletin_scmha_1892_trausch_wencker_brant_djvu.txt (Google scan) and bulletin_scmha_pourlaconser2v15soci_djvu.txt → https://archive.org/download/BulletinDeLaSocietePourLaConservationDesMonumentsHistoriquesDalsace/ … _djvu.txt ; https://archive.org/download/pourlaconser2v15soci/pourlaconser2v15soci_djvu.txt (Dacheux, Fragments des anciennes chroniques d'Alsace III, Bulletin SCMHA 2e sér. XV, 1892) → Trausch 3005–3009 (pp. 148–149), Wencker 3237d with Dacheux's note (pp. 202–203), Brant 3436–3437 and 3443 (pp. 239–240).
- bulletin_scmha_pourlaconser2v14soci_djvu.txt → https://archive.org/download/pourlaconser2v14soci/pourlaconser2v14soci_djvu.txt (Reuss, Les Collectanées de Daniel Specklin, Bulletin SCMHA 2e sér. XIV) → nos. 2208–2218 (pp. 305–309).
- bulletin_scmha_pourlaconser2v13soci_djvu.txt (Büheler) and bulletin_scmha_pourlaconser2v19soci_djvu.txt (Bulletin XIX) → https://archive.org/download/pourlaconser2v13soci/… ; …/pourlaconser2v19soci/… → grep for 1516–1519 only (nothing on weather/famine).
- kleine_strassburger_chronik_1424-1615_djvu.txt → https://archive.org/download/bub_gb_9FQoAAAAYAAJ/bub_gb_9FQoAAAAYAAJ_djvu.txt → entries 1516, 1518, 1519.
- baslerchroniken03basegoog_djvu.txt (= Basler Chroniken 1, 1872, Ryff), baslerchroniken04basegoog_djvu.txt (= Bd. 6, 1902), baslerchroniken05basegoog_djvu.txt (= Bd. 5) → https://archive.org/download/baslerchroniken03basegoog/… etc. → Bd. 1 p. 23; Bd. 6 pp. 83, 193–194 and glossary (brüny); Bd. 5 grep only.
- winckelmann1922_fuersorgewesen_strassburg_djvu.txt → https://archive.org/download/winckelmanndasfuersorgewesenderstadtstrassburg/Winckelmann_Das%20Fuersorgewesen%20der%20Stadt%20Strassburg_djvu.txt (Winckelmann 1922) → § 3 Gutleuthaus (p. 40), § 4 Elendenherberge (p. 43), § 5–6 Waisenhaus and Blatterhaus (pp. 49 ff.), ch. II close (p. 73 with fn. 3–5).
- waller2008_in_a_spin_endeavour.pdf/.txt → https://sarabethbuckley.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/in-a-spin-the-mysterious-dancing-epidemic-of-1518.pdf (Waller, Endeavour 32, 2008, 117–121) → whole paper. waller2009_bps_psychologist.html/.txt → https://www.bps.org.uk/psychologist/dancing-plagues-and-mass-hysteria (Waller, The Psychologist 22, 2009) → famine/ergot paragraphs.
- pmc7088414_sweating_sickness.html/.txt → https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7088414/ (Flamm, Wien. Med. Wochenschr. 170, 2020, 59–70) → chronology of the epidemics 1485–1551.

Ergot
- barger1931_biusante_djvu.txt → https://archive.org/download/BIUSante_pharma_042461/BIUSante_pharma_042461_djvu.txt ; barger_absentis_ch2.html → http://ergotism.absentis.org/en/1931_barger_ergotism.htm (Barger, Ergot and Ergotism, 1931) → pp. 98–99 (conditions favouring ergot), Thalius 1575 passage, chapter on convulsive ergotism in Germany (16th-c. epidemics), pp. 211–212 (deterioration on keeping).
- miedaner_geiger2015_toxins_europepmc.xml/.txt → https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/PMC4379517/fullTextXML (Miedaner & Geiger, Toxins 7, 2015, 659–678, doi:10.3390/toxins7030659) → §§ 2–3.
- ahdb_ergot.html/.txt, ahdb_ergot_life_cycle.html/.txt → https://ahdb.org.uk/ergot ; https://ahdb.org.uk/knowledge-library/the-life-cycle-of-ergot-and-its-impact-on-cereals-and-grasses → whole pages.
- Not obtained: EFSA 2012 (doi:10.2903/j.efsa.2012.2798; HTTP 403), APS "Ergot of rye" lesson (403), Weikinn, Glaser 2001/2008/2013, tambora.org (504), Euro-Climhist (login), Abel 1974, Rapp 1974, Waller 2008 (book), Alsatia 1868–72 (unreadable OCR).