The blood-rain in the Middle Ages. Cultural perspectives on a cosmological experience

Abstract

Observed here through the lenses of the history of mentalities and the environmental history, the meteorological phenomenon of red rain appears to have been discerned from several points of view by the medieval man.Due to its reddish colour, this peculiar rain was most often perceived as real blood.Although generally associated with a range of rather negative emotions or events, the shower of blood meant an experience felt differently by various communities: predicting death and war, blood rain could also signify the injures of the combatants, the bodily suffering of Christ, the end of the world, God's anger and his divine punishment, or simply a natural phenomenon caused by material and physical factors.If, for the Early Middle Ages, only brief passages from chronicles inform us about these phenomena, beginning with the 12 th -13 th centuries a scientific discourse concerning the blood rain is formulated in Europe.In some illuminated religious manuscripts, biblical episodes depicting showers of blood and fire were represented at least since the 11 th century.From the 15 th century on, the iconography of the blood rain diversifies and, at the same epoch, the motif of the rain of blood appears in some private devotional books.The 16 th century amplifies the means of expression on the rains of blood, through brochures and flyers, a rich compendia of prodigy, or through scientific and popular works devoted to this phenomenon.In the Renaissance, the blood rain turns into an artistic and literary motif.By looking at some biblical accounts that echoed in the medieval culture, at the discourses articulated by several chroniclers, or by trying to grasp the evolution of the learned discourse addressing the blood rain, this article aims to assess the medieval perspectives touching the phenomenon of red rain.

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