220 – 1270: Written Record

            The first logical division is based in the earliest records of agriculture and climate of England.  These documents are compiled from legend (written and oral) and various anecdotal documents.  The yearly explanations are short and concise, mainly because they are extracted from other sources.  There are little agricultural catalogues in this first period.  This is the age from late antiquity to early medieval and the culture of England is primitive at best.  AD 220, England still has Roman Centurions occupying the land and after their expulsion, the area remains in contention for many years to follow. 

            The content analysis of this first period shows a focus on famine and other natural phenomenon (Figure 2.2).  Famine and plague are mentioned more in this period than the other phenomenon, which notably covers over two-thirds of the entire study period.  Famine is recorded 55 times in this first period of the 85 times it was recorded in the entire 1,500-year period.  Plague is listed 33 times in this period of the 57 times it was recorded in the whole study period.  The other categories that rank among the highest are frosts, storms and rain.  This is in no way to suggest that England was cold, wet, and rainy for over 1000 years, but that the people of this time appear to have preferred to record the climate whenever it was cold, wet, and rainy.

            The lack of detailed records or catalogues of agriculture and with most of the data coming from anecdotal sources, it is not surprising to find natural phenomenon and famine mentioned most frequently.  What is surprising is that even with these few records, cold, frosts, and storms manage to make the record with some frequency.  Further, this period holds the highest percentage of records of poor livestock and agricultural production.  This far exceeds the other periods, which usually balance the accounts between good and bad reports.  This period seems to address events that are beyond the ordinary.  Even though paleoclimatic evidence supports it, there is little evidence in the content analysis to support the Medieval Warm Period (~AD 800 – 1300), probably due to a warming in England would be a welcomed event and not considered outside the ordinary.