A new book in historical seismology published by the Observatory!

Earthquakes in Europe and Minor Asia from 284 to 1550

In 2024, the Royal Observatory of Belgium (ROB) published a new book in historical seismology, written by Pierre Alexandre and Dominique Alexandre-Lamotte. In this work 2,489 critical sources and a catalogue containing 1,507 earthquakes that took place in the Middle Age and Renaissance are presented. The book is free to download. Prints can be ordered.

This book, entitled in French ‘Les tremblements de Terre en Europe au Moyen Âge et à la Renaissance’ is a new critical catalogue of earthquakes in Europe from 284 to 1550, as known from the original written sources.

The first part of the book is a critical study of the written sources providing us with information on earthquakes. 2,489 sources have been listed. Most of them (2,117) are narrative sources (annals, chronicles, annotations, etc.), the others (372) are administrative documents, reporting damage caused by the earthquakes. Only two types of texts were preserved: those emanating from original authors, contemporary with the events, and those coming from original lost sources copied by later authors recognised as trustworthy by historical criticism. Other second-hand texts have been eliminated, either because they are duplicates or because they provide false data or affabulations. In total, 4,641 original texts are provided, of which 1,273 (27%) come from lost sources.

The second part of the book is the actual catalogue of 1,507 earthquakes, classified in chronological order. For each earthquake, the texts are given in their original language, except for those (12%) written in non-Latin characters and for which only translations by other authors are given. Together with the book, a table of 4,702 macroseismic datapoints (MDPs) is presented including all the localities where each of the 1,507 seismic events has been felt. Some examples of historical seismicity maps have been added, based on this list of MDPs.

The third and last part of the book is a catalogue of 1,585 false earthquakes, where the false earthquakes –  and false data on real earthquakes –  conveyed by the authors of ‘traditional’ catalogues of historical seismicity are listed.

It should be kept in mind that it is an illusion to believe that medieval chronicles allow the creation of continuous and homogeneous series; some regions and periods are not represented in the presented catalogue. Yet, the aim of this book is to provide the most reliable corpus of data possible from medieval and Renaissance sources for seismologists studying seismic hazard in Europe.

This book was edited by Koen Van Noten (ROB), typeset by Claudia Godinho (Royal Academie for Overseas Sciences), printed by the State Archives of Belgium and funded by the Royal Observatory of Belgium.

A printed copy can be ordered (€65 excl. shipping costs) by contacting Koen Van Noten at seismo.info[at]oma.be. The printed book is provided in four volumes.

The book (pdf) and the catalogue (xlsx) can be downloaded for free following the DOI URL in the reference.

Reference: Alexandre, P., Alexandre-Lamotte, D. 2024. Les tremblements de terre en Europe au Moyen Âge et à la Renaissance. Étude critique des sources et catalogue des tremblements de terre en Europe de 284 à 1550 (Koen Van Noten, Ed.). Observatoire royal de Belgique, Bruxelles, Belgique, p. 2074. doi: 10.24414/srvz-2k77