The climate of England has been characterized as generally
damp and relatively sunless but, as every native knows, the weather is as
various as the land. In the south-east the summers are warm and the winters are
cold, while in the north-west the winters are mild and the summers are cool. In
the north-west four and a half hours of sunshine light up an average July day,
while on the south coast six and a half hours can be anticipated; the western
seaboard attracts 40 per cent more rainfall than the eastern. The predominant
wind of autumn and of winter is from the south-west; in the spring it is the
east. This was the weather that created a land of damp forests of oak and ash, of
marshes and heath wrapped in mist. In the north and the west lay the moors and
the mountains, where the soil was thin. This was the land of pasture rather
than of crops, and the local farmers grew only as much corn as they needed for
themselves. The south and east were the lowlands, with gradual undulations in
the rich earth; this was ground as fit for corn as for cattle. It was the
territory of ‘mixed farming’.
In the history of England these patterns of climate are of
the utmost importance; if there is a drop in temperature of two degrees, as in
the period from 500 to 300 BC, the prospect of adequate harvests in the north
is noticeably curtailed. A difference of one degree made a failure of the
harvest seven times more likely. In this period, then, we see the abandonment
of upland farms and settlements. The southern land was warmer, and more stable;
it was the home of the plentiful harvest, and the general dampness meant that
crops could even be grown on lighter soils where sand and chalk prevailed. It is
a general truth, therefore, that in the south-east the land was devoted to
wheat whereas in the north it was given over to oats. But important regional
variations were still found. Oxfordshire and north-east Suffolk grew wheat,
whereas Norfolk grew more rye. Oats were the main crop in Lancashire, while rye
was dominant in Yorkshire. Wheat and barley shared the ascendancy in Wiltshire
whereas, in the rainier country west of that shire, barley predominated.
The people of the south were wealthier if not healthier than
their counterparts in the north. So the climate is active in human history. It
may also be that the drier east creates human communities different from those
of the rainier west; marked contrasts of social systems in the first millennium
BC are in fact evident, with small centres of lordly power in the west and more
scattered settlements in the east. The isolated farmhouse and the small hamlet
were characteristic of the north and west; the village and the manorial system
of common cultivation were more usual in the south and east.
At the time of the Roman occupation the weather was warmer
than at any period in subsequent history, but this was succeeded by colder and
wetter conditions by the end of the fourth century. For ten years, beginning in
AD 536, there was a very low level of sunlight; this would have been a time of
dearth and famine, hitherto unrecorded. It might also be noted that Alfred was
credited with the invention of a clock that allowed him to tell the time when
the prevailing fogs obscured the sun.
The climate of 1009 and 1010 was recorded by a Benedictine
monk, Byrhtferth, who dwelled in East Anglia; the winter lasted from 7 November
to 6 February, being cold and moist; the spring from 7 February to 8 May was
moist and hot; summer from 9 May to 6 August was hot and dry; autumn from 7
August to 6 November was dry and cold. He was only one of the clerics who kept
a detailed record of the conditions of the weather.
The eleventh and twelve centuries were in fact warmer than
those immediately preceding them, but a deterioration of climate took place in
the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; the annals of these later centuries
also mention the increasing incidence of floods and droughts, suggesting
greater instability. Hard frosts lasted into spring, and violent gales brought
down the trees of the forests. The Thames froze in the winter of 1309–10, and
the years 1315 and 1316 were marked by endless rain. The harvests failed, and
the dead were buried in common graves. It was a time of epidemic disease. Crime
rates rose proportionately.
The increase of rainfall, in the fourteenth century, is
marked by the construction of drainage ditches and house platforms; church
floors were raised, and the lower halves of some villages were deserted. The carpenter
in Chaucer’s ‘The Miller’s Tale’ reveals an obsessive fear of another Great
Flood covering the earth. The extraordinary wind of 14 January 1362 was widely
believed to be a harbinger of the Day of Judgment. In the medieval period the
weather is the lord of all. Outer weather creates inner weather. It would be
possible to write the history of England as the history of the English climate.
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