North Holland, 1st-10th century St. Lucia's flood (Sint-Luciavloed) was a

storm tide A storm surge, storm flood, tidal surge, or storm tide is a coastal flood or tsunami-like phenomenon of rising water commonly associated with low-pressure weather systems, such as cyclones. It is measured as the rise in water level above the n ...

that affected the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

and Northern Germany on 13/14 December 1287 ( OS), St. Lucia Day and the day after, killing approximately 50,000 to 80,000 people in one of the largest floods in recorded history. This disaster was similar to the North Sea flood of 1953, when an intense European windstorm coinciding with a high tide caused a huge storm surge. The St. Lucia flood had a major influence on the subsequent history of the Netherlands.

Creation of Zuiderzee

The name

Zuiderzee The Zuiderzee or Zuider Zee (; old spelling ''Zuyderzee'' or ''Zuyder Zee'') was a shallow bay of the North Sea in the northwest of the Netherlands, extending about 100 km (60 miles) inland and at most 50 km (30 miles) wide, with an o ...

("Southern Sea", from the Frisian perspective) dates from after this event, as the water had before been a freshwater

lake A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much large ...

that was only directly connected to the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea, epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the ...

by the former river

Vlie The Vlie or Vliestroom is the seaway between the Dutch islands of Vlieland, to its southwest, and Terschelling, to its northeast. The Vlie was the estuary of the river IJssel in medieval times. In 1666 the English Admiral Robert Holmes burnt a ...

. The St. Lucia's flood removed the last of a series of natural sandy

dunes A dune is a landform composed of wind- or water-driven sand. It typically takes the form of a mound, ridge, or hill. An area with dunes is called a dune system or a dune complex. A large dune complex is called a dune field, while broad, fl ...

and

boulder clay Boulder clay is an unsorted agglomeration of clastic sediment that is unstratified and structureless and contains gravel of various sizes, shapes, and compositions distributed at random in a fine-grained matrix. The fine-grained matrix consists o ...

barriers, after which the new, now salty Zuiderzee came into existence and grew rapidly, since the

peatlands A mire, peatland, or quagmire is a wetland area dominated by living peat-forming plants. Mires arise because of incomplete decomposition of organic matter, usually litter from vegetation, due to water-logging and subsequent anoxia. All types ...

behind the former barriers were now mostly unprotected against erosion from the sea. The coming into existence of the Zuiderzee was the undoing of the powerful medieval trading city of Stavoren on the right bank of the now disappearing river Vlie, and the making of first the

IJssel The IJssel (; nds-nl, Iessel(t) ) is a Dutch distributary of the river Rhine that flows northward and ultimately discharges into the IJsselmeer (before the 1932 completion of the Afsluitdijk known as the Zuiderzee), a North Sea natural harbour. ...

Hanse The Hanseatic League (; gml, Hanse, , ; german: label= Modern German, Deutsche Hanse) was a medieval commercial and defensive confederation of merchant guilds and market towns in Central and Northern Europe. Growing from a few North German ...

-cities of Kampen,

Zwolle Zwolle () is a city and municipality in the Northeastern Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of Overijssel and the province's second-largest municipality after Enschede with a population of 130,592 as of 1 December 2021. Zwolle is on ...

, Deventer,

Zutphen Zutphen () is a city and municipality located in the province of Gelderland, Netherlands. It lies some 30 km northeast of Arnhem, on the eastern bank of the river Ijssel at the point where it is joined by the Berkel. First mentioned in th ...

, and

Doesburg Doesburg () is a municipality and a city in the eastern Netherlands in the province of Gelderland. Doesburg received city rights in 1237 and had a population of in . The city is situated on the right bank of river IJssel, at the confluence of ...

, and later the anti-Hanseatic city of

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...

, which began its rise from nothing almost immediately after the St. Lucia's flood.

Netherlands (West-Frisia and Frisia proper)

Much land was permanently flooded in what is now the

Waddenzee The Wadden Sea ( nl, Waddenzee ; german: Wattenmeer; nds, Wattensee or ; da, Vadehavet; fy, Waadsee, longname=yes; frr, di Heef) is an intertidal zone in the southeastern part of the North Sea. It lies between the coast of northwestern conti ...

and IJsselmeer. It especially affected the north and northwestern part of the Netherlands, particularly the current provinces of North Holland and

Friesland Friesland (, ; official fry, Fryslân ), historically and traditionally known as Frisia, is a province of the Netherlands located in the country's northern part. It is situated west of Groningen, northwest of Drenthe and Overijssel, north of ...

. The island of Griend in the current

saw serious destruction, with only ten houses left standing. After the flood, Harlingen, about 25 kilometres southeast of Griend and formerly landlocked, came into existence as the new

seaport A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as H ...

of Friesland, a role it kept for seven centuries. The only part of the current northwestern Netherlands, apart from the western Dunes area (the old Dutch heartland) and the

Frisian Islands The Frisian Islands, also known as the Wadden Islands or the Wadden Sea Islands, form an archipelago at the eastern edge of the North Sea in northwestern Europe, stretching from the northwest of the Netherlands through Germany to the west of Denma ...

that escaped annihilation was

West-Friesland West Frisia ( la, Frisia Occidentalis) is a term that, when used in an international context, refers to the traditionally Frisian areas that are located west of the Dollart (i.e. in the present-day Netherlands). Along with East Frisia and North ...

, since this area was already protected by a ringdike that mostly held and where not, could be repaired after the floods receded. Shortly after the St. Lucia Day disaster, the West-Frisia, now separated from the rest of Friesland by a strait of around 15 kilometres at its narrowest, was annexed by the

county of Holland The County of Holland was a State of the Holy Roman Empire and from 1433 part of the Burgundian Netherlands, from 1482 part of the Habsburg Netherlands and from 1581 onward the leading province of the Dutch Republic, of which it remained a par ...

, expanding this county northwards. The flood also brought the Friso-Hollandic Wars, which had lasted around 200 years, to an end. Shortly after this annexation, the West-Frisian cities of Hoorn and

Enkhuizen Enkhuizen () is a municipality and a city in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland and the region of West-Frisia. History Enkhuizen, like Hoorn and Amsterdam, was one of the harbor-towns of the VOC, from where overseas trade w ...

began a rise to prominence that would last until the 17th century.

In Germany (mostly East Frisia)

The Chronicles speak of 50,000 killed and total destruction. Many villages disappeared forever. In the current district of

East-Frisia East Frisia or East Friesland (german: Ostfriesland; ; stq, Aastfräislound) is a historic region in the northwest of Lower Saxony, Germany. It is primarily located on the western half of the East Frisian peninsula, to the east of West Frisia ...

alone thirty villages disappeared in the North Sea. Also a first stage of the

Dollart The Dollart (German name) or Dollard (Dutch name) is a bay in the Wadden Sea between the northern Netherlands and Germany, on the west side of the estuary of the Ems river. Most of it dries at low tide. Many water birds feed there. Gaining ...

came into existence. Because of the large loss of land and the relative insecurity of living in the now far more unprotected peatlands, since natural barriers had been removed by the flood, many survivors gave up their ways of living in the fertile peatlands and moved to the

Geest Geest is a type of landform, slightly raised above the surrounding countryside, that occurs on the plains of Northern Germany, the Northern Netherlands and Denmark. It is a landscape of sandy and gravelly soils formed as a glacial outwash pla ...

In England

Although not known by the name of St. Lucia, the same storm also had devastating effects on the other side of the North Sea in England. It killed hundreds of people in England, e.g. in the village of Hickling, Norfolk, where 180 died and the water rose a foot above the high altar in the Priory Church. The storm is one of two in 1287 sometimes referred to as a "Great Storm". The other was the

South England flood of February 1287 In February 1287 a storm hit the southern coast of England with such ferocity that whole areas of coastline were redrawn. Silting up and cliff collapses led to towns that had stood by the sea finding themselves landlocked, while others that had be ...

. Together with a surge in January 1286, they seem to have prompted the decline of one of England's then leading ports,

Dunwich Dunwich is a village and civil parish in Suffolk, England. It is in the Suffolk Coast and Heaths AONB around north-east of London, south of Southwold and north of Leiston, on the North Sea coast. In the Anglo-Saxon period, Dunwich was ...

in Suffolk.

References

# Gevaar van water, water in gevaar uit 2001 # Buisman, Jan, ''Duizend jaar weer, wind en water in de Lage Landen (Deel 1: tot 1300)'',

Notes