In the period up to about 1000 A.D. Holland could hardly be called habitable; it consisted of marshes with small sluggish streams, separated from the sea by a belt of dunes, and the inhabitants had to hold their own mounds. It was only after 1000 A.D. that they succeeded in checking the water to a greater extent. In the raw climate prevailing in these parts they had to keep warm by burning dried peat and wood from the neighbouring forests. Their existence in those years must have been extremely rough and distressing indeed. In the period up to 1400 the centres which led to the rise of the towns were formed. The land was repeatedly ravaged by floods, when large tracts were swept away and disappeared into the sea; inland seas were formed (the Zuiderzee was formed thus about 1300), villages were destroyed, and great were the losses in goods and chattels and human lives. A notorious flood was the St. Elizabeth's Flood, from 18 to 19 November 1421, when in a single night 72 villages and hamlets were swallowed up by the water and thousands of men, women, and children with thousands of cattle met their death in the waves. (source: http://www.let.rug.nl/polders/boekje/history.htm)
The St. Elizabeth's flood of 1421 was a flooding of an area in what is now the Netherlands. It takes its name from the feast day of Saint Elisabeth of Hungary which was formerly November 19. It ranks 10th in the list of top ten (10) worst floods in history. During the night of November 18 to November 19, 1421 a heavy storm near the North Sea coast caused the dikes to break in a number of places and the lower lying polder land was flooded. 72 number of villages were swallowed by the flood and were lost, causing between 2,000 and 10,000 casualties. The dike breaks and floods caused widespread devastation in Zeeland and Holland. (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Elizabeth%27s_flood_%281421%29)
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| This is a painting that was painted when the flood was happening. |
