Great Famine of 1315?1317
>
> In the spring of 1316, it continued to rain on a European
> population deprived of energy & reserves to sustain itself.
> All segments of society from nobles to peasants were
> affected but especially the peasants, who represented 95%
> of the population & who had no reserve food supplies. To
> provide some measure of relief, the future was mortgaged
> by slaughtering the draft animals, eating the seed grain,
> abandoning children to fend for themselves (see "Hansel &
> Gretel") &, among old people, voluntarily refusing food for
> the younger generation to survive. The chroniclers of the
> time noted many incidents of cannibalism, although, "one
> can never tell if such talk was not simply a matter of
> rumor-mongering".
>
> The height of the famine was in 1317, as the wet weather
> continued. Finally, in that summer, the weather returned to
> its normal patterns. By then, however, people were so
> weakened by diseases such as pneumonia, bronchitis, & tuber-
> culosis, & so much of the seed stock had been eaten, that
> it wasn't until 1325 that the food supply returned to
> relatively normal levels & the population began to increase
> again. Historians debate the toll, but it's estimated that
> 10?25% of the population of many cities & towns died. Though
> the Black Death (1347?1351) would kill more people, it
> often swept thru an area in a matter of months, whereas the
> Great Famine lingered for years, prolonging the suffering
> of the populace.
>
> Jean-Pierre Leguay noted the Great Famine "produced wholesale
> slaughter in a world that was already overcrowded, esp. in
> the towns, which were natural outlets for rural over-
> population." Estimates of death rates vary by place, but
> some examples include a loss of 10?15% in the south of
> England. Northern France lost about 10% of its population.
>
> Geography
> The Great Famine was restricted to Northern Europe, including
> the British Isles, Northern France, the Low Countries,
> Scandinavia, Germany, & western Poland. It also affected
> some of the Baltic states except for the far eastern Baltic,
> which was affected only indirectly. The famine was bounded
> to the south by the Alps & the Pyrenees.
>
> Consequences
> The Great Famine is noteworthy for the number of people who
> died, the vast geographic area that was affected, its length,
> & its lasting consequences.
>
> Church
> In a society whose final recourse for nearly all problems
> had been religion, & Roman Catholicism was the only tolerated
> Christian faith, no amount of prayer seemed effective against
> the root causes of the famine. This undermined the
> institutional authority of the Roman Catholic Church, &
> helped lay the foundations for later movements that were
> deemed heretical by the Church, as they opposed the papacy &
> blamed the perceived failure of prayer on corruption &
> doctrinal errors within the Roman Catholic Church.
>
> Cultural
> Medieval Europe in the 14th c. had already experienced
> widespread social violence, and even acts then punishable
> by death such as rape and murder were demonstrably far more
> common (esp. relative to the population size), compared with
> modern times.
>
> The famine led to a stark increase in crime, even among
> those not normally inclined to criminal activity, because
> people would resort to any means to feed themselves or their
> families. For the next several decades after the famine,
> Europe took on a tougher & more violent edge; it became an
> even less amicable place than during the 12th & the 13th c.
> This could be seen across all segments of society, perhaps
> most strikingly in the way warfare was conducted in the
> 14th c. during the Hundred Years' War, when chivalry ended,
> as opposed to the 12th & the 13th c. when nobles were more
> likely to die by accident in tournament games than on the
> field of battle.
>
> The famine also undermined confidence in medieval govts,
> due to their failure to deal with its resulting crises.
>
> Population
> The Great Famine marked a clear end to an unprecedented
> period of population growth that had started around 1050.
> Although some believe growth had already been slowing down
> for a few decades, the famine was undoubtedly a clear end
> of high population growth. The Great Famine would later
> have consequences for future events in the 14th c., such as
> the Black Death, when an already weakened population
> would be struck again.
>
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