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Portents, Disaster, and Adaptation in Sixteenth Century Germany

Philip M. Soergel is in Department of History, University of Maryland. E-mail: psoergel{at}umd.edu

Historians have long noted an upswell in early-modern Germany in portents, signs worked in nature that pointed to future ills, and have interpreted this increase as an indicator of rising anxiety and fears, fears that were the result, either of a new ‘guilt culture’, or which were conditioned by the generally dismal relationship that sixteenth- and seventeenth-century people had to their environment. This article argues for a new interpretation. It relies on recent studies in the psychology of well-being which have shown that natural disasters and a dismal environment do not condition human beings to long-term fear and anxiety. Instead, the mind's ability to adapt to such trials is evidence of an evolutionary process of ‘hedonic adaptation’. The subsequent investigation draws upon the works of Martin Luther, one sixteenth-century moralist generally judged to be among the bleakest critics of the time, to show that his attitude towards the environment was complex and multifaceted, and was not characterised by an unrelieved pessimism towards nature. The conclusions thus call upon scholars of natural disaster to distinguish carefully between long-standing theological commonplaces concerning sin and its effects upon nature and the genuine reactions of human beings to historical disasters.

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