Strasbourg 1518 came after a great drought and two years of dear bread

Tested 25 October 2026. Weather: the summer of 1516 was dry, and March to June 1517 is tied for the 3rd driest spring in 400 years of written records (only 1540 and 1893 drier); tree rings put 1517 among the 4 driest years at Strasbourg in 900. Prices: rye in Strasbourg cost about double the normal in 1516 and 1.4 times normal in 1517 (wheat 1.7 and 1.6).

Correction to our first reading: by 1518 grain was back to normal or cheap (wheat 0.75 of normal), and July and August 1517 were wet, so the 1517 harvest was probably not a failure. The dancing in July 1518 came about a year after the worst of the hunger, not at its peak. That still fits a stress explanation (people worn down by two hard years, and the disease that often follows famine) but it is not a simple 'hungry month' trigger. Across the other dances there is no price signal, so hunger is not a general rule for them. I found no paper that ties the 1518 dancing to the 1516 to 1517 drought. Still to check: the daily weather diaries of Johannes Indagines (Rheingau, 1517 to 1519) and Johannes Stoeffler (Tubingen).

Diaries parked 25 October 2026: tambora.org was unreachable (for us and for Ken), and the Euro-Climhist database (echdb.unibe.ch, University of Bern) needs a free account. The daily diaries of Kilian Leib (Rebdorf, 1513 to 1531), Johannes Stoeffler (Tuebingen, 1507 to 1530) and Johannes Indagines (Rheingau, 1517 to 1519) would only add detail; the drought already rests on two independent sources.