Wine, vacherin and volcanoes: impacts of the 17th century large volcanic eruptions

It is today undisputed that the volcanic eruption of Tambora in 1815 caused a year without summer in Central and Western Europe, which led to crop failures, inflation, disease and famine. However, little attention has been paid to the teleconnections of the great volcanic eruptions in the 17th century on agriculture and society in early modern Switzerland.

Using a regional example, the present study attempts to examine the climatological and socio-economic effects of those eruptions and the coping strategies that were developed as a result. For several centuries, the Hôpital des Bourgeois de Fribourg meticulously recorded every year all their harvests of crop, wine and dairy products - such as the famous Vacherin cheese - and the number of cattle slaughtered. These primary or secondary climate proxies can be examined for potential climatological effects.

As a public institution, the Hôpital des Bourgeois de Fribourg is strongly linked to the state of Fribourg itself. In addition to these account books, the state archive possesses an extended corpus of sources related to the history of this institution. Essential archive material, such as the Ratsmanuale (protocols) and the Mandatenbücher (regulations), allows us to draw conclusions about the socio-economic impact of the climate crises of the 17th century and the responses of the state and this important social and economic institution. These findings can then be compared with modern climate reconstruction data from the ModE-RA project – presented in a newly developed tool – to better assess the interrelation between the two. In other words, we will see how volcanoes affected Fribourg's viticulture and their Vacherin production as a result of this highly interdisciplinary approach.