Integrating palaeoclimatological proxies and historical records, which is necessary to achieve a more complete understanding of climate impacts on past societies, is a challenging task, often leading to unsatisfactory and even contradictory conclusions. This has until recently been the case for Italy, the heart of the Roman Empire, during the transition between Antiquity and the Middle Ages. In this paper, we present new high-resolution speleothem data from the Apuan Alps (Central Italy). The data document a period of very wet conditions in the sixth c. AD, probably related to synoptic atmospheric conditions similar to a negative phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation. For this century, there also exist a significant number of historical records of extreme hydroclimatic events, previously discarded as anecdotal. We show that this varied evidence reflects the increased frequency of floods and extreme rainfall events in Central and Northern Italy at the time. Moreover, we also show that these unusual hydroclimatic conditions overlapped with the increased presence of “water miracles” in Italian hagiographical accounts and social imagination. The miracles, performed by local Church leaders, strengthened the already growing authority of holy bishops and monks in Italian society during the crucial centuries that followed the “Fall of the Roman Empire”. Thus, the combination of natural and historical data allows us to show the degree to which the impact of climate variability on historical societies is determined not by the nature of the climatic phenomena per se, but by the culture and the structure of the society that experienced it.

整合古气候代理和历史记录是更全面地了解气候对过去社会的影响所必需的，这是一项具有挑战性的任务，通常会导致令人不满意甚至相互矛盾的结论。直到最近，在古代和中世纪之间的过渡时期，罗马帝国的心脏意大利也是如此。在本文中，我们展示了来自 Apuan 阿尔卑斯山（意大利中部）的新的高分辨率 speleothem 数据。数据记录了第六世纪一段非常潮湿的条件。AD，可能与类似于北大西洋涛动负相位的天气大气条件有关。在本世纪，还存在大量关于极端水文气候事件的历史记录，以前被当作轶事丢弃。我们表明，这些不同的证据反映了当时意大利中部和北部地区洪水和极端降雨事件的频率增加。此外，我们还表明，这些不寻常的水文气候条件与意大利圣徒传记和社会想象中“水奇迹”的增加存在重叠。在“罗马帝国灭亡”之后的关键世纪里，当地教会领袖所行的奇迹加强了意大利社会中圣主教和僧侣本已日益增长的权威。因此，自然和历史数据的结合使我们能够表明气候变率对历史社会的影响在多大程度上不是由气候现象本身的性质决定的，而是由经历过的社会的文化和结构决定的。它。