Review of Historical Earthquakes in the Lower Middle Ages: Earthquakes of the XIV and XV Centuries in Catalonia (NE Spain) - Historical Seismology: Interdisciplinary Studies of Past and Recent Earthquakes - page 141

initiated. Nevertheless, the work of Fontsere and Iglesies (1971) constitutes the first
reliable compilation of seismic activity in Catalonia. Their painstaking task provides
the basis for any study of historical seismicity in Catalonia.
Using the studies of Fontsere and Iglesies some authors focused their attention
on specific earthquakes. This is the case of Cadiot (1979) and Banda and Correig
(1984) concerning the earthquake of 2 February 1428.
In 1985 the Geological Survey of Catalonia contacted the Department of Me-
dieval History at the University of Barcelona to compile a comprehensive catalogue
of seismic activity in Catalonia in order to provide a correct evaluation of seismic
hazard. The possibility of finding errors in the existing seismic catalogues prompted
us to make a collection of contemporary accounts in order to obtain new data or
complete our information on the effects of the earthquakes of the XIV and XV
centuries. A critical and in-depth analysis of the contemporary sources of the most
significant earthquakes was undertaken.
As parts of France had also been affected by the earthquakes, collaboration was
also established with the Bureau de Recherches Geologiques et Minieres (BRGM)
in order to carry out a joint analysis and evaluation of all the data. In recent years
a macroseismic databank - SISFRANCE (www.sisfrance.net) - has been set up in
France in an attempt to better understand historical seismicity.
This interdisciplinary collaboration has yielded partial results since 1987 that
have been presented in several national and international journals and topics. This
research formed part of the projects funded by the European Economic Commu-
nity (RHISE: Review of Historical Seismicity in Europe (1989-1993) and BEECD:
Basic European Earthquake Catalogue and a Database (1995-1998)), according to
which collaborations are established with research workers in different countries in
Europe.
The findings of these studies were regarded as incomplete given that the inter-
pretation of each earthquake had been made without considering the other earth-
quakes of the period. Thus, a monograph (Olivera et al. 2006) compiling all the
available information and presenting a joint evaluation of all events in XIV and
XV centuries has been published. Thus, a revised catalogue for this period is now
available.
Chronologically, the first important event (I 0

VIII-IX) is that of 1373,
occurred in the Central Pyrenees (Fig. 1). Next, a long sequence of earthquakes
with epicentral intensities up to VIII occurred in the north eastern region in 1427
following a NW - SE oriented band that corresponds to a known fault system. The
2nd of February, 1428, an earthquake of epicentral intensity IX, the largest event
ever known in the region in historical times, occurred in the Eastern Pyrenees; a few
documents mention that in July-August 1428 some aftershocks still took place but
their vague descriptions do not allow to individualize or to quantify none of these
aftershocks. Twenty years later, a smaller earthquake (I 0

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VII-VIII) occurred in
1448 at a distance of about 34 km away (N-NE) from the town of Barcelona.
In this paper we present the main results obtained and discuss some methodolog-
ical aspects, in particular the approaches followed to solve some of the problems
encountered.

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