The Saint Elizabeth's Day Flood

Master of the St Elizabeth Panels (active late 15th century, Northern Netherlands)
Outer right wing of an altarpiece with the St Elizabeth’s Day flood, 18-19 November 1421, with the broken dike at Wieldrecht

With the exception of the flood of 1953, no natural disaster is so embedded in the historical memory of the Dutch as is the St. Elizabeth’s Day flood. During the night of November 18 to November 19, 1421 (the medieval feast day of St. Elizabeth of Hungary), a heavy storm on the North Sea generated a high tide that surged up the rivers of the delta region, tearing wide gaps in dikes that were weakened because of age - many were more than a century old - and that were badly maintained due to poor economic conditions and the unstable political environment caused by Cod-Hook factional infighting then prevalent in the area. The floodwaters poured into a large sea arm between southern Holland and northern Zeeland, devastating the islands of South and North Beveland and destroying an area called the Groot Zuidhollandse Waard (the extreme southwestern sections of the present-day province of South Holland). The waters swallowed an estimated 72 villages and caused between 2,000 and 10,000 casualties (no exact records were kept). Most of the region remained flooded for decades. The island of Dordrecht and northwestern areas of the present-day province of North Brabant were reclaimed, but approximately 193 square miles (500 sq. km) of polderlands in the Groot Waard were never drained, and they remain submerged today. Over decades, a network of interlacing small rivers and creeks emerged, mottled with mudflats and islands on which willow forests, grasslands, and reedbeds appeared. At first called the Bergse Veld and now known as the Biesbosch (“forest of sedges”), the area is one of the largest national parks in the Netherlands and one of the last freshwater tidal locales in Europe.