In Titania’s Act II Scene I monologue in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, she believes that it is her and her fairy husband Oberon’s “brawls” that have led “the winds…as in revenge” (II.i.456) to create terrible storms which result in floods and ruined crops. On the other hand, she says that since “no night is now with hymn or carol blest,” (II.i.471) this has allowed for the severity of the bad weather, as well for the seasons to alter. This suggests that mortals are failing to do something to stop the storms, implying that they have some power over the weather. The questions this raises are: how does Shakespeare account for bad weather? More broadly, what accounts of bad weather existed during the time the play was written? To answer these questions I will analyze ten texts relating to European weather and its consequences during the Renaissance. These texts point to four general causes for bad weather: witchcraft, punishment for humans’ bad behavior, political choices, and scientific explanations.
A quick note on context: the European Renaissance occurred within a period called the Little Ice Age, which affected the continent from the 14th-19th centuries. This ecological era was categorized by intense storms, freezing winters, wet summers, and a number of other weather occurrences that resulted in crop failure, mass famine, disease and death. The shadow of the Little Ice Age can be observed - either directly or indirectly - in all primary accounts in this bibliography, as well as the secondary sources that understand it as an important factor when analyzing the agrarian societies of pre-modern Europe. The exact processes of this are outlined in Brian M. Fagan’s The Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History, with descriptions of the different pressure systems and winds that caused catastrophic weather events including the Fire of London, flooded fields, and villages decimated by sandstorms. This text clearly explains the patterns of weather and the public’s reactions that serve as the basis for this bibliography.
Christian Pfister’s Climatic Variability in Sixteenth-Century Europe and Wofgang Behringer’s Witchcraft in Continental Europe give a thorough overview of how trends of witch-hunts corresponded with the increasingly harmful weather events of the Little Ice Age. As severe storms and frosts ruined harvests and livelihoods, commonors needed a scapegoat to account for their misfortunes. Stemming from Pagen traditions, witches had “traditionally been seen as one of the major causes for hailstorms.” (Pfister) When hail and other violent storms struck communities, those communities would call for witch-hunts, following what Behringer refers to as a “common characteristic…the public demand for persecutions from a community whose harvest…their very existence… had been destroyed by inclement weather.” Despite the public’s pleas for justice, the Christian authorities of the time were reluctant to accept witches as the cause for bad weather; perhaps because it would undermine the belief that “only god was in a position to influence the weather.” (Behringer) The persistence of the bad weather and the commoners’ need for a scapegoat led to witch-hunts being allowed on a case-by-case basis until witchcraft eventually became an acceptable account for storms by the 1600’s. The idea of “natural” and “unnatural” was important when distinguishing weather caused by witches. King James’ Daemonlologie, he explains that a witch’s storm can be identified by how suddenly it appears and how violent it is. This leaves many questions of how that scale of sudden violence was determined.
