Session details
Organizer(s)
Koichi Watanabe (National Institute of Japanese Literature), Lorenza Gianfrancesco (University of Chichester) and Mina Ishizu (The London School of Economics and Political Science)
Keywords
Perceptions, Natural Disasters, Early Modern Cities
Abstract
The early modern period saw unprecedented urban growth – both in Asia and Europe. Important cities and towns became trading and economic centres that witnessed mass migration and population explosion. In order to accommodate people and communities, some cities created new quarters which were often crammed and unsafe. Hence, congested urban areas became increasingly exposed to fires or even epidemics. Moreover, urban areas located by rivers and the sea were exposed to flooding, seaquakes and, in some cases, earthquakes. Furthermore, some important urban areas such as Naples or at the foot of Mount Asama were hit by volcanic eruptions that caused urban and environmental catastrophes. Additionally, natural disasters forced communities and their authorities to deal with fear, casualties, states of emergency, refugees, and food provisioning.
Through a comparative approach between the western world and Asia in the early modern period, this panel intends to explore the variety of responses that disasters generated across different communities and social groups: from ordinary people to state and religious authorities. Hence, natural disasters should be located within contemporary civic, religious, political and scholarly dimensions. Indeed, the ways in which the populace viewed life, death and nature shaped their perception of natural disasters.
In light of its interdisciplinary and transnational dimension, this panel looks at the different forms through which the idea of natural disasters took shape in geographically distant and culturally different societies throughout the early modern period. In the Western Christian world, for example, catastrophes were believed to be a manifestation of divine anger against human sins. Conversely, in Japan disasters were interpreted as the celestial punishment on incapable administrators. Such contrasting and yet overlooked differences constitute one of the central themes that this panel seeks to explore. Moreover, this panel welcomes contributions that focus on perceptions of disasters in other geographical areas including, but not limited to, China, east Asia and the Islamic world.
Papers
Beijing Floods in 1801 and the Theory of Devine Admonition
Author(s)
Akira Horichi (The University of Kitakyushu Fukuoka)
Keywords
Beijing, Floods in 1801, Theory of Devine Admonition
Abstract
In May in 1801, severe rain in Beijing broke embankments within the city and caused large-scale flooding. The Forbidden City , where the emperor was based, was flooded with 40cm flood water inside it. Many houses in the Beijing City collapsed, whilst houses and building in the neighbouring villages were swept away and cultivated land was submerged. Peasants took refuge in Beijing City . The emperor immediately undertook disaster relief measures. From June 1801 to March 1802, the government set up camps for flood victims and provided them with food for free. These measures were successful, and the flood victims returned to their villages in the spring of 1802 and got back to their farming life. The emperor carried out these thorough relief measures because he believed that natural disasters were warnings from Heaven. In China, Heaven was believed to be the supreme existence in the world. Heaven chose someone of the highest virtue and delegated the person to rule the people. This person of the highest virtue, delegated to rule the people, was the emperor. The emperor therefore had a duty to respond to Heaven’s command and to be a just, benevolent ruler. It was believed that Heaven watched the emperor’s rule and his highest virtue was maintained. The emperor regarded natural disasters as a sign of a grave failure by his government. To him, natural disasters were therefore Heaven’s severe reprimand for his misgovernment. This is so-called the theory of divine admonition. Accounts and records of the 1801 Beijing flooding show that the emperor thought of the flooding as Heaven’s severe reprimand. He believed that the flooding was his grave sin against Heaven and disaster relief measures were his apology to Heaven. This paper analyses the emperor’s words in the flood records and discusses how the emperors’ understanding of flooding in the Qing dynasty was closely related to the theory of divine admonition.
Adoption and ‘vernaculisation’ of Chinese epistemology in Tokugawa Japan
Author(s)
Koichi Watanabe (National Institute of Japanese Literature)
Keywords
Perceptions, Natural Disasters, Early Modern Cities
Abstract
This presentation first explains how the theory of the divine admonition is different between China and Japan. The Japanese rulers did not have to rely on the Chinese emperors to communicate with the deities and therefore were probably able to perceive the theory of divine admonition as their own matter. After that, I will state that this disaster awareness of the ruler group gradually declines. The subject of the divine admonition changed from the ruler to the luxury of the common people.
On the other hand, the Maitreya Bodhisattva religion from India has entered Japan and undergoes a unique transformation, forming an ambiguous eschatology. In the Buddhist Maitreya Bodhisattva belief, the salvation would come in five billion sixty seven million years, but these astronomical figures would not meet people’s desire for salvation, so the “world of Miroku” was believed to be an extension of the current world. “Miroku” was a localised, Japanese expression of Maitreya. In this sense, it could be broadly defined as eschatology. I will state that it is linked to the theory of the divine admonition. The material is literary works, disaster reportage, and even primitive newspapers.
Memories and Traditions of Flooding in the Early Modern Japanese Town
Author(s)
Reiji Iwabuchi (Gakushuin Women's College)
Keywords
Flood, Records and Traditions, Utilisation of flood experiences
Abstract
This paper examines records and traditions about flooding in the early modern Japanese town by taking into account people’s knowledge and awareness based on their experience and also how traditions about flooding were utilised by posterity.
Since the Japanese islands are located in the eastern edge of the Asian monsoon climate zone, the country was hit by a number of typhoons every year. Many early-modern towns in Japan was built in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and many of them were located near the sea or large rivers because of their ease of distribution. Towns like these required large-scale land reclamation and engineering works to change the course of rivers and, as a result, they were often flooded by typhoons and severe rain.
This paper looks at an early-modern town Tottori which was in an alluvial plain facing the Sea of Japan in the West of Japan as a case study. Tottori’s construction started around the mid-sixteenth century and finished after significant improvement in the seventeenth century. At that time, large-scale engineering works to manage the Chiyokawa River were carried out so the city could expand. As a result, however, the city started to be flooded repeatedly. Interestingly, two books which privately compiled records of flooding were published in the early modern age. One of them is Gosuiki, which contains records of five large floods between 1593 and 1795 (published in 1796). The other, Initsumonogatari, is a collection of records of a large flood in 1796. The former is a very rare example of published books about natural disasters in provincial towns.This paper examines how these two books were written, experiences of disasters which the authors wanted to pass on to readers, their awareness about natural disasters and lessons based on experiences by referring to the official records of floods. It also discusses problems caused by how experiences were utilised by posterity, such as measures and actions based on previous experiences that made the situation worse and the utilisation of flood experiences to justify constructing dams in the present day.
Remembering Natural Disasters in the Early Modern Town in Japan: Case Studies of Monuments of Natural Disasters
Author(s)
Hiroyuki Ishigami (Kyoto University of arts)
Keywords
Natural Disaster, Monuments, Resilience
Abstract
This paper examines “natural disaster monuments”. It is clear that passing down the ancestral knowledge or the stories of experiences with natural disasters to posterities help to reduce the extent of the damage when another disaster occurs, and that was also seen in the case of the Great East Japan Earthquake.
In other words, monuments with memories inscribed are indeed textbooks to learn the past, inducing our Disaster preparedness. Thus, regardless of where and when such monuments were built, the studies on how people dealt with natural disasters in the past would help to increase the resilience of human society.
This paper focuses on natural disasters that occurred in early modern Japanese cities such as Edo, Osaka and castle-towns in Japan and examines monuments related to these disasters. For example, early modern cities and towns in Japan were affected by tsunami caused by Megathrust earthquakes (the Genroku earthquake in 1703 and the Ansei Tokai earthquake in 1854), storm surges caused by typhoons (the Ansei Edo typhoon in 1865) and pyroclastic flow caused by volcanic eruptions (the Mount Asama eruption in 1783).
“Natural disaster monuments” include ones dedicated to the victims of natural disasters and also ones that describe the extent of damage and how recovery was achieved. This paper looks into how people in the past dealt with these disasters by analysing inscriptions on natural disaster monuments. Moreover, it discusses religious and cultural awareness behind erecting these monuments. There are numerous natural disaster monuments in the world that are not recognised by the society. In order to prepare for future natural disasters, it is vital to pay close attention to “memories” left on these stones by people in the past. To do this is historians’ important responsibility.
Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 1631, Italy, Southern Europe
Author(s)
Lorenza Gianfrancesco (University of Chichester)
Keywords
Volcanic Eruptions, Natural Disaster, Naples
Abstract
On the 16th of December 1631 Mount Vesuvius erupted after a long period of inactivity. First of a series of volcanic eruptions that hit Campania throughout the seventeenth century, the 1631 eruption of Mount Vesuvius was unquestionably the worst natural disaster in seventeenth-century Europe. With a heavy death toll, the destruction of entire villages around Naples, a number of earthquakes and a tsunami that modified the shape of the local coastline, the 1631 eruption of Vesuvius had a big impact on the political, religious and economic life of Naples and its vicinities. By looking at a core of primary sources, this paper analyses how Neapolitans and their authorities dealt with fear, air pollution, sudden climate change, casualties, hospital emergency, refugees, and food provisioning in the city. This paper also examines the role of the 1631 eruption in changing the image of Naples whilst generating a debate that located disasters within a civic, religious and political dimension.
Experiencing the Great European Shipworm Infestation in Urban and Rural Coastal Flanders (1733-1752)
Author(s)
Michael-W. Serruys (Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Royal Belgian Marine Society)
Keywords
Flood, Shipworm, Panic
Abstract
Natural disasters can take many shapes. The shipworm epidemic (1730s) had a profound impact on the population of Ostend and Bruges. Quite unknown in Europe, the shipworm left much room for interpretation, for both civil and religious authorities, as for the population. It was even harder to find ways to deal with it. The way these two cities coped with this disaster also changed their urban roles.
Like many other European harbours, the ports of Ostend and Bruges (Belgium) faced the devastating effects of the shipworm epidemic of the 1730s. Shipworms, despite their name, are actually not worms, but voracious wood scavenging molluscs. These animals, up to 60 cm long, use their shells to dig holes and eat their way into submerged wood. Although shipworms were known by the Europeans since Antiquity, they only appeared occasionally in North Western European waters.
But due to changing environmental conditions (temperature, salinity, …) the shipworm population exploded along the West-European coast in the 1730s. Within a few years numerous harbour infrastructure (quays, docks, bridges, locks), but also dikes were damaged beyond repair. The impact of the shipworm’s destruction was wide-ranged and the Low Countries (both the Dutch Republic and the Southern Netherlands) were particularly hard hit by this natural disaster, as the shipworm attacked the wooden dikes and locks that protected these low-lying lands from flooding. In recent years, the shipworm epidemic has been well covered in Dutch literature, but little information has been given on how port cities dealt with this crisis. In this paper we propose to look how two medium-sized port cities along the North Sea, coped with this yet unknown natural disaster.
In the proposed paper we will first focus on the shipworm, that is the cause of this natural disaster, and then the outlook of Ostend and Bruges and their respective urban communities. This will allow us a better understanding how the people reacted and responded to the imminent danger of flooding. Unsurprisingly, the shipworm epidemic was seen as a divine punishment, but unlike in the Dutch Republic it did not result in mass executions of homosexuals or other excesses. And although the civic authorities in Flanders reacted more or less similarly as in the Dutch Republic, that is, they first tried to remedy, and later to counter further shipworm infestations, the final political and water management results were quite different. In doing so, many changes were implemented that had a profound impact on both Ostend and Bruges.