I love History, I expect you do too.
Back in school, History was all dates and numbers. I hated it. Then I began to read Historical fiction, and I fell in love.
This is because History is three parts mystery and one part fantasy. This is especially true if you research centuries back. The truth becomes elusive because:
a) History is written by the winners. I once wrote a book about the two lost princes in the Tower of London (THE CRIMSON CROWN.) I ended up with twenty four books on my desk . (This was pre-internet.) They were in two even piles. Twelve said their uncle Richard Third done them in. Twelve said he didn't. Dealer's choice. (I used to be one of Josephine Tey's converts. But now I think Richard done it.)
and b) The earlier in history, the fewer people who could write about it. Myths and folk tales only give us glimpses of what was or might have been.
and c) Few people who could write took the time to describe the everyday commonplace facts of their lives. We still don't know for sure what kind of underwear females in the Regency era wore. So we are certainly in the dark about simpler facts earlier in history.
Historical details are hard to discover, and events of the slow moving kind are near impossible.
I bring this up because the weather is so dramatically weird this year, and everyone is saying it's Global Warming, caused by us. Warm here, cold there, and stormy where it oughtn't to be.
I don't doubt we're doing vast harm. I saw the movie, and think all those gasses we're releasing are certainly doing a number on our lives and our planet.
But the warming part?
I always wondered why the richest men in medieval Europe, kings of great realms, built huge stone houses for themselves. I am a castle louse: wind me up and I infest a castle. I love them. But castles are cold. Even in summer. No amount of tapestries on the walls can warm them. And they didn't have many fireplaces. Few people love comfort as much s Royals do. I never could understand why great kings spent a fortune happily building themselves vast igloos.
Ancient Kings in Scandinavia had long low wooden houses where many people lived and the hearths were roaring all winter. So why did the later kings of Europe lock themselves up in refrigerated castles while their serfs were comfy in their little thatched huts, huddled up next to their pigs?
It wasn't just for defense. There's evidence that it simply wasn't as cold back then.
I've read articles!
Carbon dated wood from the era shows the life of trees and hint that it wasn't always frigid in winter.
One article I read showed illustrations from early Books of Hours that depict nobles in front of a castle, cavorting in their shirt sleeves, as it were, filmy gowns and light tunics, tossing snow balls at each other, gleeful and amused by the snow.
Later books picture them swaddled in furs.
It has been postulated that there was a little ice age hundreds (not millions) of years past.
And so a little era of warming makes sense too.
The earth is a living thing, always changing. I worry that one day our beautiful planet will finally notice the itching from all the pestilent little creatures on it's skin and will wriggle and stretch and shake us off. We can help by stopping ourselves from poisoning it. We can save myriad creatures from extinction, including ourselves.
But History also implies that our planet is ever changing, no matter what we do.
So should we be terrified by our changing weather? Or has this, at least, happened before?
I wish I knew.
What do you think?