Flashback Friday: St. Elizabeth’s Flood 1421

Posted on November 18, 2022

Six hundred & one year, ago, today…

The St. Elizabeth’s flood of 1421 was a flooding of the Grote Hollandse Waard, 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 19th]. It ranks 20th on the list of worst floods in history. During the night of [November 18th-19th] 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. A 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.

This flood separated the cities of Geertruidenberg and Dordrecht, which had previously fought against each other during the Hook and Cod (civil) wars. Most of the land remains flooded even since that day.

Most of the area remained flooded for several decades. Reclaimed parts are the island of Dordrecht, the Hoeksche Waard island and north-western North Brabant. Most of the Biesbosch area has been flooded since.

The cause of the flood was a powerful extratropical cyclone. Water from the storm in the North Sea surged up the rivers causing the dikes to overflow and break through. The flood reached a large sea arm between south Holland and Zeeland, destroying the Grote Hollandse Waard.

Wikipedia

I tried to find a video about this but, all I got was a creepy AI voice reading what I posted, above. As an interesting addendum, there was a St. Elizabeth’s flood of 1404, on or about November 19, also, affecting Holland, Zeeland and Flanders. History Calendar on Twitter posted about it, too. ~Vic

November 18, 1421 — A seawall at the Zuiderzee dike in the Netherlands breaks, flooding 72 villages and killing about 10,000 people. This event will be known as St Elizabeth's flood.

— History Calendar (@historycalendar) November 18, 2022

Additional:
♦ Zuiderzee Floods (Britannica/November 11, 2022)
♦ Elizabeth and the Flood (Codart/May 8, 2022)
♦ Katje the Windmill Cat (Atozmom’s BSF Blog/March 1, 2014)