One prayer too many
Catalonia, like the rest of the Iberian Peninsula, had also suffered a series of natural disasters. During the winter of 1627-8, in the words of a diarist, 'the earth and sky seemed made of brass', and the clergy of Barcelona led no fewer than 34 processions to pray for rain. Their prayers were answered with storms that washed away another harvest. Geoffrey Parker: Global Crisis. War, Climate Change Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century