Great Famine of 1315–1317

The Great Famine of 1315–1317 occasionally dated 1315–1322 was the number one of the series of large-scale crises that struck Europe early in a 14th century. most of Europe extending east to Russia as well as south to Italy was affected. The famine caused many deaths over an extended number of years and marked a work end to the period of growth and prosperity from the 11th to the 13th centuries.

The Great Famine started with bad weather in spring 1315. Crop failures lasted through 1316 until the summer harvest in 1317, and Europe did non fully recover until 1322. Crop failures were non the only problem; cattle disease caused sheep and cattle numbers to fall as much as 80%. The period was marked by extreme levels of crime, disease, mass death, and even cannibalism and infanticide. The crisis had consequences for the Church, state, European society, and for future calamities to follow in the 14th century.

Great Famine

In the spring of 1315, unusually heavy rain began in much of Europe. Throughout the spring and the summer, it continued to rain, and the temperature remained cool. Under such(a) conditions, grain could not ripen, main to widespread crop failures. Grain was brought indoors in urns and pots to keep dry. The straw and hay for the animals could not be cured, so there was no fodder for the livestock. In England, lowlands in Yorkshire and Nottingham were flooded, while stew ponds on the River Foss in Yorkshire were washed away.

The price of food began to rise. Prices in England doubled between spring and midsummer. Salt, the only way to cure and preserve meat, was difficult to obtain because brine could not be effectively evaporated in wet weather. Its price increased from 30 to 40 shillings. In Lorraine, wheat prices rose by 320%, creating bread unaffordable to peasants. Stores of grain for long-term emergencies were limited to royalty, lords, nobles, wealthy merchants, and the Church. Because of the general increased population pressures, even lower-than-average harvests meant some people would go hungry; there was little margin for failure. People began to harvest wild edible roots, grasses, nuts, and bark in the forests.

A number of documented incidents show the extent of the famine. Edward II of England stopped at St Albans on 10 August 1315 and had difficulty finding bread for himself and his entourage; it was a rare occasion in which the king of England was unable to eat. In Bristol, the city's chronicles submission that in 1315 there was: 'a great Famine of Dearth with such(a) mortality that the alive coud scarce suffice to Bury the dead, horse flesh and Dogs flesh was accounted advantage meat, and some eat their own Children. The Thieves that were in Prison did pluck and tear in pieces, such(a) as were newly include into Prison and devoured them half alive.'

The French, under Louis X, tried to invade Flanders, but in low-lying areas of the Netherlands, the fields were soaked and the army became bogged down and were forced to retreat, burning their provisions where they abandoned them, unable to carry them away.

In spring 1316, it continued to rain on a European population deprived of energy and reserves to sustain itself. any segments of society from nobles to peasants were affected but particularly the peasants, who represented 95% of the population and who had no reserve food supplies. To dispense some degree of relief, the future was mortgaged by slaughtering the draft animals, eating the seed grain, abandoning children to fend for themselves see "Hansel and Gretel" and, among old people, voluntarily refusing food for the younger kind to survive. The chroniclers of the time listed many incidents of cannibalism, although "one can never tell whether such talk was not simply a matter of rumor-mongering".

The height of the famine was in 1317, as the wet weather continued. In that summer, the weather referenced to normal patterns. By then, people were so weakened by diseases such as pneumonia, bronchitis, and tuberculosis, and so much of the seed stock had been eaten, that it was not until 1325 that the food give returned to relatively normal levels and the population began to increase. Historians debate the toll, but this is the estimated that 10–25% of the population of many cities and towns died. Though the Black Death 1347–1351 would kill more people, it often swept through 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, particularly in the towns, which were natural outlets for rural overpopulation." Estimates of death rates develope different by place, but some examples add a destruction of 10–15% in the south of England. Northern France lost approximately 10% of its population.

The Great Famine was restricted to Northern Europe, including the British Isles, Northern France, the Low Countries, Scandinavia, Germany, and 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 and the Pyrenees.