the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
| 27 Jun 2025
The potential of taxation records as a data source for historical climatology
Abstract. The tax liability of peasants significantly influenced their lives and the total monetary income of the country. The damaging effects of weather extremes on crop yields were considered grounds for tax relief. Administrative documentation connected with requests for tax relief can serve as an important source of data for historical climatology, as demonstrated by the example of the Prácheň Region in southwestern Bohemia during the 17th–19th centuries. Based on the first land registry system, only hailstorm damage to crops and fires qualified peasants for tax relief from 1655 CE, while the subsequent land registry system from 1748 CE extended this to include water damage from 1775 CE. Taxation data made it possible to analyse the spatiotemporal variability of significant hailstorms, water torrents, and lightning-caused fires, together with their impacts on agriculture and the lives of peasants during the 1655–1707 and 1748–1827 CE periods in the Prácheň Region, for which summary data at governmental and regional levels were preserved. Data related to weather damage were further supplemented with other documentary sources to create a chronology of significant hailstorms, water torrents, and additional weather extremes for the analyzed region. This study and its results clearly demonstrate the potential of taxation records – available in the Czech Lands as well as in many other countries – for historical-climatological research into past damaging weather events and their human impacts.
- Preprint
(2267 KB) - Metadata XML
- BibTeX
- EndNote
Status: final response (author comments only)
-
RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2025-2942', Anonymous Referee #1, 04 Aug 2025
- AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Rudolf Brazdil, 03 Sep 2025
-
RC2: 'Comment on egusphere-2025-2942', Nicolas Maughan, 31 Aug 2025
First, I would like to thank the editors of Climate of the Past for asking me to review this very interesting article, which uses previously unpublished documentary archives as a source for historical climatology in Europe. The authors are highly qualified climate historians, and the subject of the article is very much in line with some of the themes explored by the journal. This article is the third analysis of historical-climatological orientation from southwestern Bohemia (Czech Republic) published by the same authors in CfP in recent years.
General comments:
- Paragraph “2.4 Climatic data”: this section could perhaps be expanded with a few sentences to provide a more detailed description of the climatic context during the period studied in Central Europe. The same comment applies to Figure 10 and text from line 353 to 359.
In this section, the authors could have used the powerful new tool called ClimeApp (https://mode-ra.unibe.ch/climeapp/) to produce an additional figure, map or time series to show precipitation or temperature anomalies during this period. It is a web-based tool for processing paleoclimate data, presenting temperature, precipitation, and pressure reconstructions from 1422 to 2008 CE (based on ModE-RA & ModE-RAclim global climate reanalysis). This tool is very easy to use.
- The use of administrative documentation connected with requests for tax relief from peasants in southwestern Bohemia during the 17th–19th centuries (to identify extreme weather events and establish a chronology) is a very good idea. Indeed, these documentary archives can serve as an important source of data for historical climatology ate regional level.
- The method used (part 3) enabled a total of 2,134 records to be collected from the period 1655 to 1827 CE and, even after eliminating data relating to fires (unrelated to weather), this remains a substantial dataset (posted online by the authors). The 1,107 individual taxation records related to weather damage (this dataset was further complemented by another dataset from documentary sources) were classified into four categories and analyzed individually, followed by a comprehensive analysis of damaging weather events over the period 1655–1827 CE. This methodology is rigorous and allows the data to be presented in a clear and highly visual manner.
- It is a real shame that due to the lack of data during certain periods, 1708–1747 and 1806–1813 CE (5.1 Data uncertainty, lines 363 to 365) “This also applies to institutional evidence represented in this study by taxation records, which is particularly reflected in data gaps between 1708 and 1747 CE and further in the years 1806–1813 CE”, the consequences of extreme climatic events such as the famous winters of 1709 and 1740 could not be analyzed in the Prácheň Region.
- Paragraph 5.1 concerning data uncertainty in the use of documentary evidence in historical-climatological research is important and very welcome, as it highlights the obstacles to the use of documentary archives. The description of these problems associated with the use of documentary archives, which are well known to historians but less so to other academic disciplines, is important because it allows the advantages and disadvantages of the extracted data to be identified. This facilitates communication between history, geography and geosciences in the broad sense, making it possible to correct and supplement incomplete data (such as early meteorological records) with the help of other disciplines and to build solid interdisciplinary studies in climate history.
- The article is well structured, organized in a traditional manner around six sections. It is written in good quality English. The figures and maps are clear and very well presented. The bibliography is exhaustive and very recent, drawing on the most relevant works on the subject, with many of the articles cited relating to similar case studies from other countries around the world.
Specific questions about the documentary archives used:
- In the abstract, and then in the text, the same information is given about the type of event, the damages, taken into account in the registers and when they began to be taken into account:
(abstract, line 12-14) : “based on the first land registry system, only hailstorm damage to crops and fires qualified peasants for tax relief from 1655 CE, while the subsequent land registry system from 1748 CE extended this to include water damage from 1775 CE.”
(2.2 Taxation system and data, line 119-120) : “From 1775 CE, the reporting of key events for tax alleviation was extended from fire and hailstorm to also include water damage.”
If I understand correctly, a new registry system was created in 1748 but did not begin recording water damages until 1775. Do the authors know why it was decided to record this damage only from 1775 onwards and not from 1748? Perhaps because a more turbulent climate period (increased rainfall) in southwestern Bohemia would have considerably increased damage to crops and made it necessary to take this into account in order to help the population? This is not specified and would benefit from some clarification for readers.
- The information provided about the damage assessment process (2.2 Taxation system and data, lines 84–91, and figure 2) is particularly interesting because it presents a mechanism that was almost identical to one that existed during the same period in the ‘States of Provence’ (South-eastern France) in the 17th and 18th centuries. After a natural disaster, rural communities (peasants) would submit requests, known as “requests for assistance from rural communities”, to the central administration of Provence.
These requests for tax relief were assessed on the same principle as that described in the Czech Republic and also represent a very rich source of data (a huge corpus of documentary archives) for climate history in South-eastern France, which is currently being studied. The authors accurately refer to these tax exemptions, sometimes temporary, for certain regions of France ("5.2.2 International context. lines 417 to 421), but their scope was much greater and the requests were very regular, especially in the mountainous areas of the south-east of the country (southern part of the French Alps), which are prone to extreme climatic events and intense soil erosion (it is a pity that French data are never taken into account in European studies...). Overall, this section is very well constructed and provides many examples of systems of tax reduction or exemption that have been used around the world to infer precipitation levels or document the economic impacts of droughts.
- I assume that there are two main types of documents (according to Figure 2): the request from the community affected by damage, the "report", and a ‘control’ document specifically from the regional administration's inspection, in which it is also possible to find information on the actual extent of the damage?
In the case of South-eastern France, where a similar process existed, the information in these "inspection" documents is very interesting because analysing it allows us to identify certain communities that had a bad habit of regularly overestimating the damage or even requesting tax exemptions for disasters that had not occurred... (like false insurance claims today...). These communities eventually became known to the authorities... Of course, this was not the case for the majority of claims made after a disaster.
Thus, it is possible to eliminate or downplay some specific weather events and thus obtain a more reliable data set. Could the authors have carried out similar work with the documents available in the Prácheň Region?
- The periods of the major volcanic eruptions of Laki (1783) and Tambora (1815) are covered by the available archives, but they are not mentioned at all in the article (just as an example in Sweden). Is this because it is not possible to highlight their local climatic consequences based on the information provided by the documents analysed?
- It is a pleasure to read a well-structured article such as this one. The methodology used could certainly serve as a model applicable in other countries in Europe (such as France) or Asia where similar documentary archives exist. I therefore recommend its publication in CfP after a few minor revisions.
Comments for minor revisions:
- Section “2.4 Climatic data” needs to be expanded slightly.
- A few sentences should be added to the conclusion “perspectives”, for example regarding similar documents available in other regions of the Czech Republic that could be studied for historical climatology in the future.
- It would be useful to add some geographical details to the maps in Figure 9 and in the legend, such as the name of the Prácheň Region.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-2942-RC2 - AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Rudolf Brazdil, 03 Sep 2025
Viewed
| HTML | XML | Total | BibTeX | EndNote | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 464 | 66 | 16 | 546 | 14 | 20 |
- HTML: 464
- PDF: 66
- XML: 16
- Total: 546
- BibTeX: 14
- EndNote: 20
Viewed (geographical distribution)
| Country | # | Views | % |
|---|
| Total: | 0 |
| HTML: | 0 |
| PDF: | 0 |
| XML: | 0 |
- 1
This manuscript evaluates historical records of tax relief to reconstruct weather events and their impacts, using a region of the Czech lands during the 18th century as a case study. As discussed in the manuscript (section 5.2), similar records have been evaluated for other parts of the world. However, this study represents their most detailed and consistent application in European historical climatology. The article therefore makes a substantial contribution to both the climate history of a particular regional and the methods of historical climatology. It is well written, clearly organized, and nearly ready for publication in its current form. I suggest only that the authors address the following minor issues:
The term “rustical” (line 103 and elsewhere) is not familiar. Please explain it or use “rural”.
Based on the reconstruction in figure 10b, it seems that the frequency of reported hailstorms fell after 1780, while the frequency of other damaging events increased. Should we interpret this as an actual decrease in the frequency of hailstorms? Or is this apparent change more likely to reflect changes in the way that damage was assessed and compensated?
In section 5.1 or 5.2.1, I would like to see a little discussion of how these records might be compared or combined with other sources to help reconstruct past weather and its impacts. After all, we do not know how consistent these sources were. That is, when we have a report of damage then we can probably infer that some damage really occurred. However, when we don’t have a report of damage, we don’t necessarily know what that means. Maybe there wasn’t any extreme weather or damage, or maybe we just don’t have a record of damage and tax relief. Do we have any other descriptions or proxies of extreme weather (e.g. hailstorms) in this region and period that we could use to test the consistency of these damage reports? Could we use these damage reports to help understand changing exposure or vulnerability to extreme weather that we have reconstructed from other sources? And how does the frequency of hailstorms and damage in this period compare to the frequency of modern hailstorm in the region?
In section 5.2: Similar tax support was also used in the event of natural disasters in the Ottoman Empire. See Sam White, Climate of Rebellion (Oxford UP, 2011), p.79-85.