Winter Water and Mobility in Early Modern Amsterdam

During the Little Ice Age’s many harsh winters, frozen waterways posed challenges and opportunities in Holland, in the west of the Dutch Republic. Focusing on Amsterdam, this contribution considers how harsh winters transformed mobility. The frozen waterways disrupted infrastructure—for instance, by complicating the import of clean drinking water on barges. Simultaneously, the ice allowed for other types of mobility, as a “slipping and sliding society” appeared seasonally.