ABSTRACT
The extreme drought of 1540 has been a topic of much discussion among scholars of different disciplines. In particular, dendrochronologists have questioned the extreme character of the drought of 1540. In this article, based on historical sources, an attempt is made to address the discrepancies between data based on historical and tree-ring data from the Polish and South Baltic territories. The beginning of the year 1540 was characterised by a rainy and snowy winter with many floods on the Vistula, Odra and other rivers. This fact presumably affected tree-ring growth in spring 1540, and it is for this reason that dendrochronological data do not reflect the subsequent drought. Historical information is quite sketchy, and much of it was garnered in towns, situated close to rivers where the consequences of the drought were probably less severe. Nevertheless, much ambiguity remains in descriptions of extreme drought in historical sources. The proliferation of many fires at this time lends further credence to the existence of an extreme drought in 1540. In conclusion, in the Polish and South Baltic territories, dendrochronological and historical data coherently reflect the course of the weather in the year 1540.
