There is always something with humans. There are too many of us, or too few; they do not like us there and we are not keen on them here; they see us as poor here, but elsewhere we would be considered rich. In the past, we have struggled with scarcity while today we struggle with excess. Until recently, coal was good – now, it is bad. Winters used to be too cold – today, they are too warm.

Let us stop there. All serious studies have confirmed that the Earth’s climate is changing. Since the start of the 19th century, the average annual temperature has increased by 0.8 degrees Celsius. This may not seem like a lot, especially over a period of two centuries, but the changes we see today have become noticeable within one generation. Although such changes have accompanied us for millennia, this is the first time we have attributed them to human actions. Or at least, some of us have – many still believe that we humans have little influence on the current state of the world and its climate and that all responsibility for the current state of the planet lies with the forces of nature   ^1  1   There is a consensus among scientists that current climate change is caused by human activity, see e.g. M. Lynas, B. Z. Houlton, S. Perry, Greater than 99% consensus on human caused climate change in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, “Environmental Research Letters”, No. 11/2021, iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac2966, accessed 6.06.2024 (editor’s note).  ↩︎.

Indeed, climate change has always been the result of the links between the Earth’s surface and its gaseous layer, the atmosphere. Its composition is important, as are the vortex and circulation motion of our planet, changes in the inclination of the ecliptic (the rotation of the ecliptic or the Milankovitch cycles), the position of continents and oceans, the alignment of sea water, and even – less often and to a lesser extent – seismic disasters and volcanic eruptions. Occasionally, the climate is also affected by collisions with astronomical objects – one such occurrence, approx. 70 million years ago, led to the extinction of the dinosaurs. However, the most important factor shaping Earth’s climate over long periods is the flow of energy from the Sun. The history of the Earth has seen several significant periods of cooling and glacial growth. The last such epoch, the Quaternary Period, began approximately three million years ago and continues to this day. We owe to it the glaciers near both poles and in the high layers of mountains. It is also accompanied by 100–300,000-year periods of cooling (glacial cycles), alternating with phases of warming (interglacial cycles). In his book Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century, Vol. I: The Structure of Everyday Life, Fernand Braudel draws attention to the “rhythms” of climate, which at different times have influenced human lives in different ways   ^2  2   F. Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century, Vol. I: The Structure of Everyday Life, p. 49, available: https://books.google.pl/books?id=rPgVp3vMOjcC&printsec=frontcover&hl=pl#v=onepage&q=rhythm&f=false,accessed: 24 June 2022.  ↩︎.

 Although about 12,000 years ago the Earth’s climate warmed enough to significantly contribute to the evolution of human civilization, it was still subject to shorter or longer fluctuations, one of which turned out to be rather important for the modern era. It is known as the Little Ice Age (LIA), a period of climate change lasting from the end of the 16th to the beginning of the 18th century, observed primarily in the northern hemisphere, but whose effects were experienced all over the world   ^3  3   The term “Little Ice Age” was introduced in 1949 by David J. Schove in an article entitled Discussion: Post-glacial Climatic Change published in the “Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society”, no. 324(75)/1949, p. 175–181.  ↩︎.

The Little Ice Age followed the Medieval Climate Optimum, which between the 9th and 15th century shaped optimal conditions for the development of European economy, culture, and art. The term “optimum” is very important here. Climate change, and especially colder periods, have always been accompanied by energy crises. Although the name for these crises was invented much later, they were experienced back then and are recognised today by historians. Warmer periods were beneficial to culture. Perhaps Romanesque, Gothic and Renaissance art would never have been created if all human efforts were focused exclusively on survival. Of course, energy shortages were not only related to the climate. In the early Middle Ages, a very serious crisis was caused by the abolition of slavery, at least for Christians. Before Europeans began to obtain labour force in the form of slaves from Africa and the Middle East, deficits forced them to create new structures and tools to bridge this gap. The city, with its organisation of labour and the slogan “Stadtluft macht frei” [City air makes you free], unleashed ambitions and possibilities in the feudal society of that period. Horseshoes and harnesses, introduced in the 10th and 11th century, quadrupled the pulling power of horses, leading to the development of agriculture and trade. A network of roads covered the whole of Europe, with cities being established at their intersections. In the 12th century, the plough was introduced, significantly improving the yield of tillage, especially on the heavy soils of northern Europe. Also in the 12th century, windmills appeared, supplementing the demand for energy hitherto obtained from water wheels. The fireplace replaced the open hearth, allowing the former common space to be divided into smaller, better heated interiors of castles and houses. Window glass improved people’s living and working conditions, and eyeglasses prolonged their professional activity   ^4  4   In his book Technics and Civilization (1934), Lewis Mumford argues that glass contributed to the shaping of a European mentality. It enabled an objective, dispassionate observation of the celestial bodies, which hitherto were considered sacred, as well as the terrestrial world (seen in vitro). See: L. Mumford, Technics and Civilization, Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd, London 1934, https://books.google.pl/books?redir_esc=y&hl=pl&id=PU7PktesGUoC&q=Europe#v=onepage&q&f=false, https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.232322/2015.232322.Technics-And_djvu.txt, https://monoskop.org/images/f/fa/Mumford_Lewis_Technics_and_Civilization.pdf, accessed: 24 June 2022.  ↩︎.

 Tinted glass was an important innovation that supported the construction of Gothic cathedrals. In rural areas, textile production began to emerge, allowing the rural population to escape serfdom. Towards the end of the Middle Ages, firearms were gradually replacing traditional weapons, and artillery was calling into question the sense of erecting defensive walls and the existence of long-standing social structures (e.g. knighthood). One of the most important inventions of the Middle Ages was the mechanical clock, which separated the division of time from the length of day and night that changes throughout the year. The invention of print transformed access to knowledge and education. The compass and improvements in sailing and steering methods increased ship manoeuvrability and sailing capabilities. At the end of the 15th century, Europeans discovered the sea routes to India and America.

Change

All this civilisational progress, however, did not protect people from the challenge of the cooling climate. This process began with a decrease in solar activity in the 14th century, which led to the expansion of glaciers, especially in the polar regions, but also in the high-mountain areas, which in turn led to a gradual decrease in temperatures, especially in the northern hemisphere. Although the effects of this decline in temperatures was first observed and described only at the turn of the 16th and 17th century, the consequences of this wave of cooling temperatures turned out to have much more far-reaching and long-lasting consequences.

Historians consider the 17th century to be one of the most dramatic in the history of Europe (and beyond), and today some claim that this was due to the dawn of the Little Ice Age. It undoubtedly impacted both political decisions and the economy, as well as social relations, conflicts, hunger, disease and wars during that period. However, the 17th century was also an era of flourishing culture and art, scientific and agrarian revolution, geographical discoveries and progress in technology and production methods, as well as population growth. All these factors were intertwined, but the cooling of the climate affected the processes taking place, and sometimes even initiated them. Therefore, the Little Ice Age cannot be assessed unequivocally. Until recently, however, and even today, some scholars still do not consider it one of the decisive factors influencing the course of history. Although there are many surviving accounts that confirm the natural disasters of that period – dropping temperatures, the freezing of large rivers, lakes and even large areas of the seas – these were not, for a long time, considered as phenomena that directly affected politics, economy or culture.

So what was the Little Ice Age? What do we know about it? Analyses by geologists and biologists confirm the accounts of a decrease in temperatures from the late 16th to the mid-18th century in Europe, Asia and America   ^5  5   Contrary to what we thought until very recently, these changes were not global in nature. They were influenced by ocean currents, volcanic activity and seasonal winds, especially monsoons.  ↩︎.

 This is indicated by the analysis of glaciers, rocks and sediments, as well as the thickness and composition of rings and carbon (c14) in trees growing during that period. It is estimated today that the average annual temperature fell by about 1 degree Celsius, and in areas located more than 300 metres above sea level even by 2 degrees.

In 1614, Reneward Cysat, a Swiss botanist and archivist, wrote: “(…) For some time now, the years have shown themselves to be more rigorous and severe in the recent past, and we have seen deterioration among living things, not only among mankind and the animal world but also in the earth’s crops and produce.”   ^6  6   G. Parker, War, Climate Change and Catastrophe in the 17th Century, Yale University Press, New Haven, London 2013, p. 81, https://www.scribd.com/read/472061609/Global-Crisis-War-Climate-Change-Catastrophe-in-the-17th-Century#__search-menu_733380, accessed: 24 June 2022.  ↩︎

 Temperatures have dropped before, but the coldest period described by the British astronomer Edward W. Maunder fell in the years 1645-1717. The cold painfully affected all social strata, even the rich aristocracy. In 1675, referred to as “the year without summer,” the Paris socialite Madame de Sévigné complained to her daughter, in Provence, that it was “horribly cold: we have the fires lit, just like you, which is very remarkable.”   ^7  7   Ibid., p. 90–91.  ↩︎

 This cooling, known as the “Maunder minimum,” was related to the number of sunspots, which decreased significantly and “although astronomers around the world made observations on over 8,000 days between 1645 and 1715, they saw virtually no sunspots: the grand total of sunspots observed in those 70 years scarcely reached 100, fewer than currently appear in a single year.”   ^8  8   Ibid., p. 100.  ↩︎

 Contrary to what it may seem, dark spots on the Sun do not indicate a decrease, but an increase in activity, which is accompanied by a clear increase in both the brightness of its light and the intensity of its magnetic field. This is indicated, among other things, by the northern lights disappearing from the Arctic during that period.

Following 1609, the development of telescopes as astronomical instruments enabled astronomers, including Galileo in Italy, Jean Picard in France, John Flamsteed and Isaac Newton in England, and John Hevelius in Poland to observe the changes on the surface of the Sun. In the 19th century, Maunder collected and analysed their relations. The Little Ice Age lasted until the mid-18th century, but its climatic effects could be felt for much longer. Glaciers in the Alps, Scandinavia and North America did not reach their maximum range until about 1850, when the climate warming period that continues to this day began. Could it have been caused by industrialisation? There is no consensus among scholars.

Change for the worse

The first direct consequences of the long-term period of cooling affected the economy, and agriculture in particular. In Europe, the Little Ice Age began at the turn of the 17th century, following an increase in population to approximately 100 million. In the 16th century, the mild climate favoured population growth, causing “(…) the human population in most parts of Europe and Asia to increase and in some areas to double (…) In some areas, the number of inhabitants increased so fast that local resources no longer sufficed to feed them because of another cruel calculus: population increases geometrically while agricultural output grows only arithmetically.”   ^9  9   Ibid., p. 119.  ↩︎

Therefore, the diminishing crops could not be compensated by stocks accumulated earlier, especially in the face of crop failures in subsequent years. “In latitudes north of the ‘temperate zone’, each fall by 0.5°C in mean summer temperatures decreases the number of days during which crops ripen by 10 per cent, doubling the risk of a single harvest failure and increasing the risk of a double failure six-fold.”   ^10  10   Ibid., p. 112.  ↩︎

Food shortages led to an increase in food prices and to famines, which primarily affected the poorer population, all the more so because the population of Europe, despite wars and a lack of food, had increased by the end of the 17th century. Even the growing imports of products from the Americas and Asia did not help the situation, especially since most imports consisted of luxury goods. For over a century, potatoes – imported in the 16th century from Peru and Chile – were considered ornamental and medicinal plants and grown in gardens. It was only at the end of the 18th century that the spread of cultivation would bring an end to regular famines in Europe.

The consequences of these seemingly small changes in temperature manifested themselves in many ways. On the European continent in the 17th century, only three years (1610, 1670 and 1682) were free from interstate wars. Some historians believe that the Little Ice Age contributed significantly to the political destabilisation of the time, while others argue that the global cooling did not cause it, but at most amplified its effects. Having begun in the previous century, European dynastic disputes and religious wars continued until the Peace of Westphalia (1648). Armed conflicts, however, did not stop then. The accompanying diseases and famine led to enormous destruction and a decline in the population of Europe, especially in the first half of the 17th century. The wars were also accompanied by a huge decline in the sphere of culture – e.g. in Germany, the number of printed books fell from 1780 titles in 1613 to only 350 in 1635. Many intellectuals were forced to emigrate. The Thirty Years’ War (1618-48) caused the death of hundreds of thousands of people. “In Germany, about 40 per cent of the rural population fell victim to the war and epidemics [while] in the cities, the losses may be estimated at about 33% between 1618 and 1648,” writes Parker   ^11  11   Ibid., p. 123.  ↩︎.

 Despite the impressive adoption of the peace treaty, the wars that originated from this conflict continued in Europe until the beginning of the 18th century and brought further losses. France fought with the Netherlands and Spain; the Austrian Empire with Turkey; Portugal with Spain; England with the Netherlands; Sweden with Poland; and Denmark with Russia, not to mention internal conflicts such as Fronda in France or civil wars in Great Britain and the Iberian Peninsula. In Poland, this was accompanied by numerous peasant revolts, as well as wars with Russia and Turkey. Certainly, not all of these wars were caused exclusively by the cooling of the climate, but the harsh living conditions brought on by the Little Ice Age certainly contributed to this, with devastating results.

In the 17th century, the energy crisis triggered by the Little Ice Age directly affected the whole of north-western Europe. Slow-flowing rivers froze in winter, making it impossible to use water wheels – an important source of mechanical energy in many regions. The productivity of mills decreased, and with it the manufacture of many important products, such as felt fabrics, paper, gunpowder and lye obtained from ashes (used, among other things, for soap production and food preservation). Rivers served an important role as waterways, so their freezing made it impossible to transport goods, sometimes for several months at a time. During particularly cold winters, large swathes of the North Sea and the Baltic Sea would freeze over   ^12  12   There are unconfirmed accounts that it was possible to travel from Poland to Sweden by sleigh in the mid-17th century. Halfway (near Bornholm), there was an inn where one could stop for the night.  ↩︎.

 There were shortages of basic fuel, i.e. wood.

Not unlike many other natural disasters experienced by humanity, however, the Little Ice Age also revealed the challenges that needed to be addressed. In western and northern Europe, deforestation left some countries in a very difficult situation. Wood has always been an important building material, but even in countries that primarily used bricks, such as Great Britain or the Netherlands, the lack of wood also threatened the shipbuilding industry, the foundation of their power and wealth in the 16th and 17th centuries. At that time, the relatively small Netherlands had 12,000 large and small vessels (including fishing boats) guaranteeing its prosperity and safety, both in economic and military terms. Everywhere in Europe, wood also served as a basic fuel, because fireplaces were not adapted to the use of coal, which was also not suitable for iron production and steel production that required the use of charcoal   ^13  13   Iron, steel, and cast iron are alloys of chemical iron with carbon. Ordinary iron, smelted for millennia, contains 1-1,3% carbon, steel – up to 2,11%, and cast iron – up to 6,67%.  ↩︎.

 Deforestation also caused water drainage in areas that were designated for agriculture. Their degradation did not allow the expected yields to be obtained and contributed to the duration of famines.

Another challenge, indirectly related to the Little Ice Age, was the energy crisis resulting from the exploitation of European colonies in the Americas, offering products that were in great demand on our continent. People quickly realised that the cultivation of sugar cane, exotic fruits and tobacco, but also the felling of trees and the extraction of precious metals, along with the export of these goods to Europe could bring them enormous profit. However, this required cheap labour force. And so, a few centuries later, large-scale slavery returned to the Western world. Likewise, the slave trade itself also became a lucrative enterprise. Most of the slaves were black Africans (it was sufficient that they were not Christians), but in Great Britain prisoners – both criminal, religious and political – were also enslaved   ^14  14   In 1788 Great Britain began to exile its convicts to Australia. They became the first group of white colonizers of this continent. Today, their descendants consider themselves the elite.  ↩︎. 

At that time, human labour force could not be replaced by any other means, making it an important factor in supplementing the energy deficit. “Around 1640, an official with extensive experience estimated that the slave population of Spanish America stood at about 325,000 and that just over 9,000 new slaves were required each year to maintain this level. (…) Adding these totals together, Europeans enslaved some two million Africans during the 17th century, half of them from west-central Africa and most of the rest from the states along the Gold Coast and the Bights of Benin and Biafra,”   ^15  15   G. Parker, op. cit., p. 129.  ↩︎ Parker writes.

Change for the better

Positive solutions emerged in the second half of the 17th and early 18th centuries. In the Netherlands, it is said that the number of patents granted to heating equipment (hearths, stoves, fireplaces, etc.) peaked between 1660–1679. Later, they were adapted to the use of hard coal. Fireplaces had to be extended and their dimensions limited, which contributed to the design of much smaller interiors. At the beginning of the 18th century, the new, fashionable rococo style fully embraced these changes, with boudoirs and offices becoming symbols of intimate, friendly and warm interiors. The landscape also changed. Windmills, known in Europe since the Middle Ages, were recognised as an important source of energy, for they were able to operate at low temperatures. While they were initially used primarily for grinding grain, through the course of the 17th century they were adapted to fulfil new tasks, such as pumping water and drying polders, producing paper pulp and gunpowder, grinding aggregates and pigments, pressing oil, ventilating shafts in mines, etc. However, the demand for human labour continued to grow. Freeing up part of the population employed in agriculture required a sufficiently large increase in productivity in this sector to fill the gaps created by the transition to work in the production of material goods and to provide the growing number of people with adequate food. Drainage ditches appeared on the fields, inspired by Dutch solutions, along with new types of crops, resulting in an increase in yields. In the breeding of slaughter animals, the focus shifted onto species that provided more meat.

Deforestation also had an impact on other areas of life. A growing interest in wild nature – hitherto perceived as useless, unfriendly or even hostile – emerged as an important artistic and cultural side effect of these economic processes   ^16  16   In 1812-15, the brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm published a collection of folk tales in which forests were described as dangerous and inhabited by hostile creatures.  ↩︎.

Designed at the start of the 18th century in England, “picturesque” (and later “romantic”) gardens attempted to recreate the beauty of an uncontaminated landscape that was rapidly disappearing from view. Soon, such gardens would appear throughout Europe. Naturally, when we start to lose something, our desire for it increases.

The severe cooling of the climate also raised questions about its character and the causes of it. However, since the Copernican Revolution, religious explanations no longer proved sufficient, so the answer had to be provided by science. From Galileo’s early 17th-century work to Isaac Newton a century later, research and discoveries in the fields of astronomy, mathematics, physics, chemistry and the natural sciences led to a radical change in our vision of the world and equipped scientists with knowledge necessary to conduct research based on experimentation and supported by theoretical knowledge. The 17th-century scientific revolution also introduced new research instruments, which in the following century would help kickstart another revolution – the industrial revolution. Invented – or, according to some, only improved – in 1608 by Hans Lipperhey in the Netherlands, the telescope was used by researchers throughout Europe to observe the universe and provide a correct portrayal of the structure of the world. It all began with astronomy, which had only just separated from astrology at this point. Although around 1660 Johannes Kepler still saw the creation of the universe as an act of God, he also considered God’s plan to be rational, and therefore comprehensible through reason. Thanks to telescopes, carrying out his task was finally achievable. In 1610, Galileo discovered three moons of Jupiter and the rings of Saturn, and throughout the 17th century astronomers made further discoveries that culminated in the work of Isaac Newton.

Climate change also initiated the study of natural processes occurring on Earth. In 1607, Galileo constructed a thermometer (called a thermoscope), albeit one that was not very precise and lacked a scale. The first scale was used in 1625 by the Italian physicist and physician Santorio Santorii, and 40 years later the Englishman Robert Hooke perfected the thermometer by adding dyed alcohol. In 1700, Isaac Newton proposed his own scale – but it was not accepted. In 1724, the thermometer obtained its modern shape and use thanks to Daniel Fahrenheit, who was the first to use mercury and proposed a scale that in some countries (e.g. in the United States) is still used to this day. Several years later, in 1742, based on Newton’s research, the Swedish astronomer and physicist Anders Celsius introduced his own scale   ^17  17   Importantly for modern physics, the Kelvin scale was created in the mid-19th century. On this scale, 0 (absolute zero) corresponds to -273.15 degrees Celsius.  ↩︎.

Other measuring and research devices invented during that period also turned out to be very important for the observation of changes in nature brought on by the Little Ice Age. In 1643, the Italian physicist Evangelista Torricelli introduced the mercury barometer for measuring air pressure, and five years later Blaise Pascal, a French mathematician, physicist and philosopher, used it to determine the height of terrain above sea level. The barometer, and later the pressure gauge, also became one of the basic measuring devices used in meteorology. In the field of biology, the microscope, which had been known since the end of the previous century, was improved in the 17th century by the Dutchman Antoine van Leeuwenhoek, leading to Marcello Malpighi, an Italian physician and biologist, being the first to use a microscope to observe and describe live tissues in 1662. Other scientific research also required new, precise measuring devices. In 1631, the French mathematician Pierre Vernier invented the calliper, and in 1641, the Englishman William Gascoigne, an astronomer, introduced the micrometre. At the time, both of these measuring devices served primarily scientists, and their use in production had to wait until the industrial revolution. In 1642, Blaise Pascal constructed a mechanical calculator, the first counting machine, that was refined a quarter of a century later by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz.

The 17th-century scientific revolution also brought about the development of theoretical thought. In 1616, the Scottish aristocrat John Napier introduced the concept of the logarithm into mathematics, and in 1642 Henry Briggs was the first to publish logarithmic tables. Around the same time, Descartes’ La Géométrie appeared in 1637 as an appendix to his famous Discourse on Method and Pierre de Fermat and Blaise Pascal laid the foundation for probability. The most important achievement of mathematics during that period, however, turned out to be calculus, created – independently – by Leibnitz and Newton. Both scientists were also eminent physicists, and Newton’s law of universal gravitation was developed and extended only in the 20th century by Albert Einstein. In 1650, Otto von Guericke laid the foundations of thermodynamics and built the first vacuum pump, and a decade later Richard Boyle introduced the modern notion of elements, finally severing the relationship between chemistry and alchemy.

The 17th-century scientists’ interest in nature also influenced philosophical thought, in particular among those philosophers who, without distancing themselves from religious issues, no longer represented Catholic or Protestant scholasticism. Władysław Tatarkiewicz wrote: “New currents were created outside the school and the clergy; they were initiated by lay people and those with a private interest in science. (…) Among them, we can distinguish two groups: philosophers-systematists and scholars-methodologists. (…) Among the systematists, Descartes was the starting point, and his successors were: Pascal, Malebranche, Hobbes, Spinoza, Leibniz. And for the scientists working in the field of philosophy, Galileo was the starting point, and Newton was the point of arrival.”   ^18  18   W Tatarkiewicz, Historia filozofii, vol. II, Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, Warszawa 1981, p. 41–42.  ↩︎ Although in the 17th century metaphysics was still an important area of contemplation, in the years that followed the empirical philosophy of John Locke, George Berkeley and David Hume proved, even prior to the Enlightenment, to be another important factor in the development of European thought.

However, neither the scientific revolution nor philosophical inquiries have explained the reasons behind the changes caused by the Little Ice Age. (Initial explanations would appear almost two centuries later.) Of course, this was not the main goal of the revolution and the research abilities of that time did not allow it – scientists simply tried to describe what they saw and felt as objectively as possible and strived to draw scientific conclusions that would allow us to seek suitable answers to challenges and find solutions to existing problems.

The cooling climate undoubtedly contributed to advances in technology and entrepreneurship, as well as changes in lifestyle and customs. In fact, it enforced them, because the available energy resources obtained from natural, animal and human forces turned out to be insufficient. This energy crisis became a challenge for the entire economy and it was the entrepreneurs, manufacturers and traders, rather than scientists, who decisively influenced change. It turned out that the existing production methods based on traditional craftsmanship were insufficient to meet the growing demand for material goods. While it is true that manufactories, offering a higher efficiency for a lower price, were already established in the Middle Ages, initially they did not produce attractive goods. These were generally simple fabrics, gunpowder, paper, metals, tar, glass and other semi-finished products. In the 16th and 17th centuries, factories began to offer much more sophisticated goods, such as weapons, decorative and utility fabrics – tapestries and arrases, sophisticated ceramics and glass and crystal products. In Italy and France, factories produced faience; in France and Flanders – woollen and silk fabrics as well as tapestries and arrases; in Germany – glass and mirrors. But in manufactories, and especially those producing goods of a luxury nature, the division of labour force brought on the rise of specialists responsible for the form of these products. In order to effectively compete with artistic craftsmanship, well-known artists were often employed in these positions. For example, in the Manufacture des Gobelins in Paris, cardboard templates for tapestries were designed by renowned French painters. In today’s understanding of their activity, they were designers, although this profession was not formally emancipated at that time. The employment of such outstanding artists was also associated with the high rank of these manufactories (they were royal manufactories) and with the variety of products – artistic fabrics that imitated works of art.

The drop in temperatures also affected the kinds of clothes people were wearing. In 17th-century paintings we can see how warmly the people were dressed – not only outside, but also inside. In Dutch paintings men wear jackets and hats, women wear caps (although this was also part of the customs). In Polish portraits of nobles, we can see thick, woollen clothes, fur coats and warm headgear.

In the colder climate of Europe, the production of strong alcohol has become an important field of production. This technology has been known for centuries, but until the beginning of the 16th century it was limited to the distillation of wine (spiritus vini, aqua vitae). These alcohols were rarely treated as liquors – the single distillation was not conducive to this, so they were used mainly in medicine, alchemy and in the production of perfume. At the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries, the distillation of grain spirit and vodka spread throughout northern Europe on a large scale. These products quickly became everyday commodities. Alcohols produced from grains became an important element of the culture of that time, celebrated holidays, customs, but also everyday life   ^19  19   Jędrzej Kitowicz in his book Opis obyczajów za panowania Augusta III, written in the second half of the 18th century and published for the first time in 1840 described alcohol drinking in Poland in four chapters: On liquors, On liquors and drunkards, On famous drunkards and On offering alcohol and Sejm drunkenness. See: J. Kitowicz, Opis obyczajów za panowania Augusta III, Poznań 1840.  ↩︎.

 They were cheap to produce and their calorific value was soon noticed, leading to them being introduced as a mandatory addition to food rations in the army. In war conditions, alcohol gave soldiers not only a sense of warmth – especially in winter, but also more self-confidence during combat   ^20  20   For example, in Russia, “[…] in the 18th century, military consumption was normalised by Tsar Peter the Great, and the tradition survived until the 20th century. Army regulations stipulated that during the war, every soldier had the right to three bowls of vodka known as ‘bread wine’ per week. One bowl equalled 160 grams of alcohol. During peacetime, vodka was dispensed on the occasion of holidays, no less than 15 times a year.” [in:] Historia frontowych 100 gramów.Jak piła rosyjska armia, “Rzeczpospolita”, https://www.rp.pl/Historia/309109930-Historia-frontowych-100-gramow-Jak-pila-rosyjska-armia.html, accessed: 24 June 2022.  ↩︎.

The worsening navigation conditions in the 17th century influenced the search for better solutions in shipbuilding. In his book Technics and Civilization (1934), Lewis Mumford divided human civilisation into three epochs related to the development of the technology. He recognised that its peak achievement prior the Industrial Revolution was the 18th-century warship, equipped with excellent sails, navigation devices and precise maps, powerful weapons and supplies allowing for many months of voyage   ^21  21   Eotechnic epoch (pre-industrial, up to 17/18th century), paleotechnic epoch (industrial, 19th/mid-20th century) and the neotechnic era (post-industrial, from the mid-20th century).  ↩︎.

The first such ship was the three-deck English Sovereign of the Seas, launched in 1637 – the solutions introduced on her were advanced over the next century. Similarly equipped merchant and transport ships facilitated trade – and especially imports from the Americas and Asia – helping it to flourish.

A serious factor inhibiting the development of industry at the end of the 17th century, however, turned out to be the weaknesses of the financial markets, such as the general shortage of money and the associated hoarding and deteriorating purchasing power of bullion money. In the 16th century, this issue was temporarily solved by the influx of gold and silver from South America, but a century later it reappeared. The capital required to set up a manufactory (and later a factory) or build a large ship far exceeded the costs of opening a craft workshop. In turn, the banks that existed in Europe since the Middle Ages were ill-equipped to finance such investments. These problems were addressed gradually, starting at the beginning of the 18th century, with the emergence of paper money, state central banks, new types of companies, investment loans and insurance   ^22  22   For more on this subject, see: D. S. Landes, The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some are So Rich and Some So Poor, Little, Brown, 1995.  ↩︎

All the issues discussed above, which were also affected by the Little Ice Age, meant that, despite the improvement of the climate in the mid-18th century, the previous ways of using energy from natural sources turned out to be insufficient. The eotechnic era was coming to an end. It was followed by the paleotechnic era – a period of man’s independence from the vagaries of climate.

Other changes

Europe and America were not the only areas to experience the effects of the Little Ice Age. In the 17th century, it affected various civilizations, though only Western civilization recognised its challenges and endeavoured to counteract them   ^23  23   [see:] G. Parker, op.cit.  ↩︎.

The scientific revolution, although it did not define the reasons for climate change, re-evaluated the ways of seeing the world, introducing new research paradigms and methods. It would come to influence the Industrial Revolution, resulting from the hermetic nature of the academic environment and the common use of Latin in the 17th century in publications, a language generally inaccessible to the middle class involved in production   ^24  24   [see:] T. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1992, https://books.google.pl/books/about/The_Structure_of_Scientific_Revolutions.html?id=3eP5Y_OOuzwC&redir_esc=y, accessed: 24 June 2022.  ↩︎

 The initial ideas emerging about universal education (Jan Ámos Komenský) and the establishment of vocational schools for young people from lower social strata (Gerrard Winstanley, William Petty) along with the changes in banking described above also turned out to be important. Known in Great Britain since the 14th century, the insurance of merchant ships was extended to losses in construction (especially fires), and later to human life. This has reduced investment costs and enabled rapid economic growth. “This was the age of the ‘great rebuilding’,” writes Fernand Braudel about the situation in England at the time. “As rural dwellings were restored, improved and enlarged, as upper storeys replaced attics, windows were glazed, chimneys were built for burning domestic coal. Inventories compiled after death tell us of a new-found affluence reflected in furniture, linen, hangings, pewter vessels. This domestic demand undoubtedly stimulated industry, trade, and imports.”  ^25  25  F. Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century, Vol. III: The Perspective of the World, translated from the French by Siân Reynolds, University of California Press, 1992, p. 55, available: https://books.google.pl/books?id=xMZI2QEer9QC&dq=braudel+The+Perspective+of+the+World&hl=pl&source=gbs_navlinks_s, accessed: 24 June 2022.  ↩︎