Dear Dr. Camenisch and co-authors,
Thank you for your constructive responses to the various Referee Comments and Short Comments. They look promising for improving the manuscript to a level that may diffuse the referees' concerns. Accordingly, please revised your manuscript as you have indicated.
Kind regards
Thorsten Kiefer

Dear Dr. Camenisch and co-authors

Thank you for the revisions and for the point-by-point replies to the comments of the referees. I now read through all of it. I still share the opinion of all referees that this is a interesting approach and will be an interesting article when published. However, I find that several points made by the referees were not taken into account well enough. I am less concerned here about the correctness of the science given that the paper is mostly a discussion contribution on the impact of climate on society rather than a firm validation or falsification of a hypothesis. But I feel that the paper still lacks clarity in the messages and in presentation, therefore I am returning it to you with the ask for further revision.

I think that you have received very engaged and constructive reviews and thank the referees for their big effort. At this point I am mostly trying to insist that the referees’ good comments are implemented where they have not sufficiently or well enough yet.

TITLE
The new title “The 1430s: A period of extraordinary internal climate variability during the early Spörer Minimum and its impacts in Northwestern and Central Europe” does not work gramatically. It would work, for example, if “and its” was replaced with “with”. Also, the “impacts” should be qualified in oder to reflect the special aspect of this paper. “Societal impacts” or “socioeconomic impacts” or “impacts on societies” or something like that. Could otherwise be anything, such as impacts on ecosystems, erosion, or endless other things readers of Climate of the Past might think of.

ABSTRACT
The abstract is not well organised but jumping back an forth between different aspects of the paper, i.e. the climatic and the impacts analysis. Also, the Spörer minimum is first referred to, then later explained. And it falls short of making the main points of the paper. Please improve. This is particularly important if the article is proposed for highlighting, which might be an option, given the interesting climate-society connection.
After revision of the manuscript the abstract content will probably need to be adapted accordingly

LANGUAGE
As mentioned by the reviewers, the language is often imprecise and a little awkward. A revised version that is acceptable needs to be improved in that aspect. I put some edits into the manuscript, partly to demonstrate the kind of issues meant. The entire manuscript should be combed through, please. I am sure there is enough capacity for that in the author team.

TEXT ORGANISATION
The text organisation should be improved, as also pointed out by a reviewer, but then mostly disregarded in the revision. The text deficiencies are also surprising given the prominent list of co-authors and cumulative publishing experience.

The text still reads as three separate parts of different character. I appreciate that it might be challenging to homogenise texts of researchers with different cultures, but am asking nevertheless for some further, moderate improvements:
- The introduction chapter lacks clarity what the purpose of the paper is. Moreover, from about page 3 line 29 a lot reads like preempting the results/discussion already. Please check to make a clear distinction between introduction/framing etc, and presentation of the results.
- Chapters 2 and 3 provide information that goes significantly beyond the key aspect of the paper (according to the new title), i.e. the 1430’s. We can accept that as background information, but I am asking for a summary paragraph at the end of the data and modelling chapters that highlight the most relevant conclusions for the key storyline.
- Chapter 4 (as mentioned by a reviewer) is simply disproportionately long - too long to be read by CP readers in its current form. I suggest to cut where possible (some suggestion in my annotated text, but please check for further potential for condensing) AND to move climate information to chapter 2 even if from historical sources AND add sub-chapter structure to chapter 4. Sub-chapters could logically follow the scheme in figure 7.
- One referee also suggested to highlight adaptation measures and to separate out the more societal/political from the religious ones. I think this would also be a great way of presenting the adaptation topic better, given that we have major adaptation challenges in frond of us today also.

Please check the use of the term weather. In several places, it seems to be used inappropriately when climate is actually meant.

A major finding highlighted from the paleoclimate analysis is the attribution of the high-seasonality period to internal variability, not external forcing. It would be good to explain (probably mostly in chapter 3) why this is relevant for this paper, as opposed to just detecting the seasonality and then looking at the impacts on societies.

The paper falls short of translating the results to what we can conclude for our modern society and current situation about things like vulnerability and adaptation responses. It would be great of the authors could expand a bit on that, if they dare. Could be in the conclusions or as a short (sub-)chapter before.

CONCLUSIONS
As asked by referees, the conclusions should be better substantiated (see also some annotations I made into the text).

FIGURES
Fig. 2 has turned out very nicely. Other figures were criticised by referees to be less important, and I agree with them. On the other hand, as you seem to feel strongly to keep them, I am fine to keep them in the paper, even if they might illustrate non-central points.
Please note a few remarks in the annotated manuscript.

I hope you can work among the co-authors to turn this promising manuscript into a great paper.

Kind regards
Thorsten

Dear Dr. Camenisch and co-authors,

This latest revision has improved the paper substantially. It is now an exemplary and accessible study of an extreme climate phase and a chain of impacts and interconnections. I happily accept the paper in its present form, with only one small technical suggestion to consider:

It appears to me that the sub-chapter "Fourth order impact: cultural responses" should end on page 14 after the paragraph about the granaries. What follows does not qualify as cultural responses, but is more an analysis of vulnerability and resilience. Accordingly, I suggest to give it a respective sub-chapter heading. Please add as you deem appropriate.

Congratulations to the authors for a putting together this cross-disciplinary study and for the perseverance during the review and revision process. And thanks to the referees for most thoughtful and helpful reviews.

Yours sincerely
Thorsten Kiefer