Weather and Its Perceptions in Fourteenth-Century England

Join us for a GHIL Lecture by Maximilian Schuh (FU Berlin) as part of our summer series on environmental history.

Demesne Accounts, Court Rolls, and Prognostic Treatises: Weather and Its Perceptions in Fourteenth-Century England

This lecture examines how changing weather conditions in fourteenth-century England were perceived and interpreted by contemporaries. While the consequences of environmental change in the later Middle Ages have long remained underexplored, the focus here is on how weather was observed, recorded, and made meaningful. Drawing on a wide range of sources—from demesne accounts and court rolls to learned prognostic treatises—it considers both the presence and absence of references to weather phenomena. Particular attention is paid to the communicative contexts in which such observations were documented. By situating perceptions of weather within their political, social, and economic frameworks, the lecture offers a historically grounded perspective on how societies respond to environmental change.

Maximilian Schuh studied history and German studies in Munich and Edinburgh and received his PhD in medieval history from the University of Münster in 2013. He subsequently held research and teaching positions at several German universities and is currently a lecturer at Freie Universität Berlin. He has been awarded fellowships by the Historisches Kolleg in Munich and at the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague. Among his publications are the monograph Aneignungen des Humanismus (2013), the handbook on sources for medieval and early modern university history Universitäre Gelehrtenkultur (2018) as well as several articles and book chapters on the environmental history of late medieval England.

About the series

Environments of Knowledge: Climate, Risk, and Governance from the Middle Ages to the Anthropocene

This year’s summer lecture series examines how societies have understood, managed, and monetized environmental change. Drawing on approaches from environmental history, historical climatology, and science and technology studies, the series spans a wide chronological range, from the Middle Ages to the late twentieth century. Fourteenth-century English weather records feature alongside early modern flood politics, Cold War hydrology, and the valuation of monsoon risk. Taken together, these perspectives highlight the diverse ways in which environmental knowledge has shaped—and been shaped by—political, economic, and scientific practices.