This book gathers and interprets the data known about the earthquakes that occurred in Catalonia in the 14th and 15th centuries.
It is an interdisciplinary work combining data and precisions on chronology, characteristics, intensity, earthquake epicentres and the interpretation of social reactions and those of the powers that be in the face of phenomena that affected coexistence and the social cohesion of the system. This is applied to the context of crisis, demographic and economic decline, and social upheaval symptomatic of these centuries subsequent to an overwhelming sequence of events combining por harvests, famine, plagues and social disasters.
The book deals in minute technical and historical detail with the earthquake of 3rd March 1373, with epicentre in the county of Ribagorça, and with the earthquake series of 1427, particularly the earthquake of 19th March, with epicentre in Amer, and that of 15th May, with epicentre in Olot and the Vall d'en Bas. It also deals with the earthquake of 2nd February 1428, with epicentre between Camprodon and Puigcerdà but with a huge radius and devastating effects, killing over a thousand people. The last earthquake to be examined is that of 25th May 1448, with epicentre in the Vallès Occidental.
With a very accurate and well-detailed bibliographical section based on a variety of documentary and interpretative appendices, we now have in the hands the study that, in the view of specialists, clears up uncertainties to a large extent and lays down the characteristics of the ground motion to the point where, from all the known accounts, it sorts out the true and undisputable cases from the false, duplicate or erroneously interpreted ones.
The book contains a shortened version in English language.