The Medieval Climate Anomaly, the Oort Minimum and Socio-Political Dynamics in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Byzantine Empire, 10th to 12th Century

TL;DR

This paper investigates how climate variability during the Medieval Climate Anomaly and the Oort Minimum influenced socio-political developments in the Byzantine Empire and Eastern Mediterranean between the 10th and 12th centuries.

Contribution

It provides a comparative analysis of climate impacts on socio-economic dynamics using historical sources and palaeoclimatic data, highlighting the complex interplay between environment and society.

Findings

Climatic factors correlated with socio-political changes.

Both economic boom and collapse scenarios are supported by evidence.

Archives of society and nature offer complementary insights.

Abstract

The study examines the palaeoclimatic background and the regional manifestations of the Medieval Climate Anomaly in the Eastern Mediterranean, with a focus on the Byzantine Empire, but also including neighbouring polities. It explores the interplay between climatic factors and the socioeconomic dynamics between the 10th and 12th centuries, concentrating on the late 10th and 11th centuries, also overlapping with the Oort Solar Minimum. In particular it contrasts scenarios of an economic boom and of an collapse of the Eastern Mediterranean created in recent scholarship for this period and evaluates these notions based on a close reading and citation of historiographical and other written sources. Thereby, both potentials as well as problems of a combination of archives of society and archives of nature become evident.