The Nature of Weather in Reformation Germany

My research project refines and revises my 2019 dissertation, “Weathering Early Modern Germany: Vernacular Meteorology, Pastoral Theology, and Communal Life in the Long Sixteenth Century.” The project examines common ideas about the weather across German-speaking lands in the sixteenth century with special attention to Lutheran communities after 1520. The study identifies a widespread form of naturalism that permeated society and was disseminated through ephemeral vernacular printed texts which explicated an Aristotelian conception of the weather. This natural understanding of the weather was advanced by learned Lutheran scholars and pastors but also occasionally came into conflict with the theological significance they attributed to the weather—especially in the aftermath of notable weather events. A recognition of this popular naturalism has significance for narratives about the cultural impact of the Little Ice Age and our understanding of early modern practices of natural observation and who participated in the production of knowledge about nature.