this video is brought to you by squarespace from websites and online stores to marketing tools and
analytics squarespaces the all-in-one platform to build a beautiful online presence and run your
business check out squarespace through the link in the description below more about them in a bit
somewhere in europe early 14th century a.d the skies are permanently overcast
and a grey shroud extends from the pyrenees to the danube the land below is barren sodden in
a rotten pulp of decomposed wheat stalks in between heaven and earth once thriving
cities towns and villages are now drained of all life hope and compassion parents and children
are sitting in front of an empty table their dishes were empty yesterday
and the days before yesterday it doesn't take much only one crop to fail for starvation to set in
when the body starves rationality enters into a slumber and the sleep of reason
produces monsters parents and children are staring at each other across an empty table someone's hand
grips a knife perhaps tomorrow their plates will be filled with something or someone
elsewhere someone else incapable of slaying their kin is frantically digging opening up a freshly
closed grave this is the great european famine of the 14th century food is nowhere to be found
and what remains of humanity is slowly fading away even the corpses will do to survive until tomorrow
medieval europe was no strange the raids of the four horsemen described in the book of revelations
pestilence war famine and death but the 14th century was especially prolific the continent
was ravaged by large-scale conflicts such as the hundred years war it was annihilated by the plague
pandemics known as the black death and the plague of children but the first great catastrophe of
the century was the great famine of 1315-1322 a cataclysm of traumatic proportions which starved
millions of inhabitants especially in northern europe and set the stage for the later crises of
the era and to think that at the start of the 14th century europeans were doing pretty good there had
been a revival of commerce and trade amongst european kingdoms and even with lands beyond
europe as a consequence living conditions had improved for most families with better quality of
life access to more food and higher income couples tended to have more children who could enjoy
a longer life expectancy compared to previous generations populations started to grow which
rulers saw as a positive sign the more people that were around meant that more taxes could be
levied and more soldiers could be recruited but this positive development carried the seed of
future destruction trade was thriving certainly but not enough to keep up with the exponential
growth of the population imports of grains and other foodstuffs from the bread baskets of north
africa and southern italy were not consistent and reliable enough to cater for all these new mouths
to feed both merchants and individual families had not yet perfected the art of storing and stocking
certain provisions for longer than a season by the 1310s most lands in europe were dangerously
approaching their maximum sustainable population levels the most accurate demographic records of
that time were kept in england and france in 1315 these kingdoms had 4.7 million and 16.7 million
subjects respectively their maximum sustainable population at that time had been estimated at
5 million and 20 million with these conditions it would have just taken one abnormal event to
unsettle the balance and create a perfect storm of high demand and extremely low food supply
that abnormal event materialized in the spring of 1315 when a season of incessant reigns of biblical
proportions fell upon the heads of oblivious europeans when bob dylan sung about a hard rain
that was going to fall he mentioned how he had stumbled on the sides of 12 misty mountains but
it may have taken only one misty mountain to alter climate patterns in western europe the mountain
located on the other side of the world according to dr michael puma of the center for climate
systems research at columbia university the 1315 floods may have been linked to the 1314 eruption
of mount tarawera in new zealand the enormous clouds of smoke and ash is released into the
atmosphere may have created the anomalous conditions for the torrential downpours
historical records first mentioned heavy rains falling over france in april 1315. the following
month it started raining in england and it didn't stop until autumn the counties of yorkshire and
nottinghamshire were entirely flooded and the royal manor of milton near kingston upon hull
was described as being completely covered in water by september 1315 the floods moved westward into
germany we know this thanks to the description of the battle in augsburg cavalry actions were
hindered by the torrential waters which had reached the saddles of the war horses
at the same time a church near leipzig was entirely swept away by an overflowing river
resulting in many deaths as bad as it sounds no one had it worse than the low countries i.e
modern-day belgium and the netherlands to give us an idea here is another military account on
the 6th of september 1315 king louis x of france led an invading force against count robert of
flanders the king and his allies had devised the perfect plan cutting off robert from accessing
the sea to the north and his allies to the south but after one week the invasion force melted away
and withdrew to france the reason again incessant rain which turned the low countries into an
endless swampy bog in which men and horses alike slowly drowned in mud think artax
in the swamp of sadness these historical descriptions of perpetually cloudy weeping skies
has been corroborated by the old world drought atlas a database which estimates soil moisture
conditions based on analysis of tree rings the alas shows that the climate was unnaturally wet
over much of europe as early as 1314. the wettest areas recorded included the british isles western
and central europe the baltic countries denmark and poland according to the atlas the suburbs
of 1315 and 1316 ranked among the five wettest summers of a period between 1300 and 2012. such
a climate had an obvious impact on agriculture the rains absolutely devastated the production
of wine a major export of both france and the german territories moreover the lack of sun
crippled the production of salt by evaporation florid industry in western france and the main
use of salt at the time was as a meat preservative therefore hindering all efforts to build reserves
of protein-rich food okay we'll get back to today's video in just a second but first a
quick word from today's sponsor squarespace this is the age of creation think about it everyone's
out there on the internet making something you've either got a great idea yourself or you probably
know someone who does and when it's time to move that brilliant idea from your brain to the screen
well that's where squarespace comes in it's the perfect web tool to help you fashion the internet
into whatever you want it to be maybe the hands-on type lots of opinions and ideas about
what exactly your website should look like if so very cool squarespace gives you all of the
customization options you could ever want with no updates no patches no technical nonsense to
worry about or maybe you just need something functional something that works with minimal
thought well just use one of their quick beautiful templates to make a website that's both fresh and
simple and for you and once you're done setting up your website locking in the name maybe playing
with the design a little bit well there are so many extra features that squarespace provides
so that your website can thrive email campaigns patronage portals social integrations member only
areas analytics commercial options 24 7 customer support deep breath everything you need is in one
place so when you're ready to get started on the next project of yours big or small if it involves
a website you got to do it with squarespace right now you can go to squarespace.com for a
free trial and when you're ready to launch your new site go to squarespace.com forward slash
geographics to save 10 off your first purchase of a website or a domain and let's get back into it
to recap the cold wet summer of 1315 destroyed the production of wine
and salty ham so far it sounds as though only rich merchants heading to the town square for
tapas would be impacted but the wet climate was also disastrous for grain crops a staple
that most people relied on the summer wheat crop failed completely as a direct consequence of
the weather the lack of sun also prevented spelt and rye seeds from reaching maturity
and they could not be sown in autumn the following spring the soil was too wet to allow for effective
sowing memorial and monastic accounts in england demonstrate that the wheat yields were 30 lower
than average in 1315 40 lower than average in 1316 and 10 percent lower than average in 1317. rye
yields suffered a similar fate down by one-fifth in 1315 and by more than a third in 1316 and 1317.
as is often the case the scarcity of food led to hoarding by those who could afford it records of
the wealthy norwich cathedral priory show that the local authorities managed to secure steady
imports of grains from other counties or even from abroad as a result wealthy locals barely suffered
the effects of the famine these buying patterns naturally generated inflation to give you an
example in 1313 a measure of wheat in england cost five shillings by june of 1315 it sold
for 40 shillings similar price hikes were reported in france the low countries and other territories
indicating a quasi-universal crop failure which excluded only the iberian peninsula
and southern italy as you might have guessed the two-pronged attack of insufficient food
production and rising prices led to further starvation amongst the poorer rungs of society
english benedictine monk john of troccolo left a vivid account of the great famine in england he
tells of how the poorest families had to feed off roots leaves dogs cats and even the dung of doves
in some areas hunger bit so hard on sanity that families resorted to eating their own children
these children were the ultimate sacrifice to ensure the survival of the few cannibalism
may have been an exception amongst households in english towns but it became a common occurrence in
prisons hardened criminals were often neglected and left to die of hunger in their cells
when new prisoners were thrown into the jail they were at serious risk of being devoured alive by
the other occupants stories of cannibalism were also widespread in the baltic area
in livonia modern-day latvia and estonia starving mothers had to eat their own
babies men reduced to walking skeletons took to desecrating graveyards and exhuming corpses
so they could eat their flesh only to die from exhaustion upon the open tombs starvation took
its toll florentine historian giovanni villani writing in the 1320s estimated that in 1316 a
third of the population had died in the areas affected by the famine certain areas may have
suffered a death rate as high as 50 percent take for example the memorial stone at the church of
shidmusted near earth modern-day germany the engraving commemorates the terrible losses
suffered by a single community in the year of the lord 1316 here were buried 100 by 60 33 by
60 and five humans who have died in the years of dearness god have mercy on them that makes
7985 casualties in a town that countered fifteen to eighteen thousand inhabitants throughout most
of the middle ages but thankfully earfoot may have been an outlier historical records agree
that the floods and hunger were nowhere worse than in the low countries a rare surviving record from
the town of ipre modern day belgium calculates the local death toll to be at least 2794 from may to
november 1316. that's approximately a tenth of the inhabitants so 10 is definitely a more realistic
mortality rate than 33 or 50 percent but even so we're talking about millions of children women
and men slowly fading into skeletal forms over just a few months chronicle is in england france
and the low countries and during year consistently describe how city streets were strewn with corpses
felled by malnourishment and how cemeteries were not large enough to accommodate all the dead city
authorities dug large mass graves outside towns horrific trenches that nobody bothered to close as
new bodies would be dumped in there every day this made for unsanitary conditions which naturally
contributed to the spread of dysentery and other infectious diseases leading to further death
panic spread throughout europe the rudimentary scientific knowledge of the time certainly
couldn't help so god-fearing people responded by clinging to religion the archbishop of canterbury
ordered for barefoot processions to be staged every friday carrying sacred relics to the
church of the holy trinity similar spectacles were recorded in france and likely took place all over
europe the not-so-god-fearing subjects resorted to crime instead the most widespread crime was
food adulteration in paris for example some ingenious bakers were found guilty of mixing bread
with hog dung due to the lack of grain instead of rewarding the improvisational skills of these poor
sods authorities had them banished other honest individuals devoured by their own empty stomachs
turned to violence robbery and murder to steal what little food they could lay their hands on
many of these impoverished criminals became rather organized with time even resorting to
piracy pirates were a scourge especially in the english channel these medieval rap scallions did
not target merchant ships to fill their booties with florins but simply to fill their bellies with
flour you see since december of 1315 king edward had arranged for genoese merchants to import
grains from their lands geophysicist neville brown argued that the famine did not affect italy
despite branding the climate crises as dantian anomaly in honour of the florentine poet dante
alighieri nonetheless in yorvilani reported how in 1315 reigns had spoiled the grain and wine harvest
season in northern italy malani also mentions an unidentified pestilence spreading from florence to
the adriatic coast but genoa despite being located in northern italy was not as badly hit in fact its
business abbey merchant fleet was able to profit from the whole situation genuine's traders became
the lifeline between the still florid fields and granaries of sicily and apulia and the starving
populations of northern europe all to profit of course the genoese vessels became a coveted
target for hungry improvised pirates this prompted king edward to raise a special coast guard for the
protection of his imports or in his words for the repulsive certain mouth actors who have committed
manslaughter and other enormities on the sea this was not edward's only military concern at the time
in the summer of 1316 the monarch was preparing a campaign against the scots already hammered by his
dad in 1316 edward ordered for large amounts of grains to be hoarded for his garrison in berwick
without which he could not carry out an invasion in february of 1317 he was still waiting for that
cereal to arrive the irony is that august of 1316 had yielded a good enough harvest in england and
western europe but poor edward later discovered the provisions that could have been retrieved
from northern england had been hogged by con men posing as military procurers eastern europe on the
other hand did not experience any relief heavy rains especially around the danube continued
to pound at the sodden earth until 1317. the danube overflowed that year destroying much
of the grain crops the same pattern repeated a cycle of poor weather followed by food scarcity
hyperinflation and desperation the swiss chronicler john of winterthur gives us an idea
of how hopeless the situation had become he tells a story of how mass of starving people boarded a
ferry to cross the danube hoping to find fertile lands in hungary but the captain of the ship
knew that the hungarian planes could not offer any sustenance to those migrants reasoning that their
presence would only have heightened the misery of hungarians the captain had his passengers
thrown overboard to drown in the sweltering danube further north in the lands of poland and silesia
the great starvation persisted until 1319. in these areas too chroniclers recorded tales of
parents driven by desperation to kill their children and even the opposite could happen
young children killing their weakened parents so they could feast on their flesh amongst a backdrop
of families cannibalizing themselves the execution of criminals was a happy occurrence as soon as
they were left hanging from the noose citizens would rush to the gallows to snatch their bodies
by the end of 1319 it appears as though the famine due to the scarcity of grain had been left behind
across most of europe but to misappropriate the gospel of matthew man shall not live on
bread alone medieval communities did not sustain themselves simply on bread and grain products
but relied on cattle as a source of protein sure eating meat was a luxury for aristocrats
rich merchants and high-ranking clergy but dairy products were more affordable in a parallel to the
great floods and the great famine northern europe was ravaged by a cattle plague from 1315-1321 this
was described in chronicles as moraine which more or less means just well death in scientific terms
the livestock disease was rinderpest a viral disease affecting bovine which was eradicated
in 2011. the origins of the pestilence are unclear but it is likely that its unstoppable spread was
facilitated by the destruction of hay and straw by the endless downpours as a result the bovine
populations grew malnourished and their immune systems could not cope with the moraine those
animals who did not die immediately grew up weak sterile and prone to miscarriages recorded figures
for england and wales show that 63 of cattle died from april 13 19 to september 1320. if you combine
this mortality with the one of cattle herders and farmers it's clear that it took until the
late 1330s to replenish the shortages of cattle to pre-flood levels the immediate impact was that at
least one generation of europeans were deprived of dairy products one of the main sources of
protein and minerals in their diet and one of the most worrying consequences of malnutrition
and reduced protein intake is a weakening of the immune system europe was no stranger to
infectious diseases and even during the famine communities had to cope with their fair share of
unspecified pestilences but the generation which painfully emerged from the great starvation
would soon have to face the fiercest pandemic yet the black death of the 1340s and that friends
is for another video i really hope you enjoyed today's video though if you did please do hit
that thumbs up button below don't forget to subscribe and as always thank you for watching