12. THE MEDIEVAL SYNTHESIS—AND ITS CRACKS, 1215

The Great Famine

While the Mongols stimulated the European economy, natural disasters coupled with human actions brought on a terrible period of famine in northern Europe. The Great Famine (1315–1322) left many hungry, sick, and weak while it fueled social antagonisms. An anonymous chronicler looking back on the events of 1315 wrote:

The floods of rain have rotted almost all the seed, . . . and in many places the hay lay so long under water that it could neither be mown nor gathered. Sheep generally died and other animals were killed in a sudden plague. . . . [In the next year, 1316,] the dearth of grain was much increased. Such a scarcity has not been seen in our time in England, nor heard of for a hundred years. For the measure of wheat sold in London and the neighboring places for forty pence [a very high price], and in other less thickly populated parts of the country thirty pence was a common price.

A Famine in Florence

Starvation did not end with the last year of the Great Famine. This miniature from a manuscript detailing grain prices shows the effects, and the artist’s interpretation, of a famine in 1329. The scene is the Orsanmichele, the Florentine grain market. The market was dominated by an image of the Virgin Mary, here depicted on the right-hand side. Extending beyond the margin on the far left, a mother with two children raises her hands and eyes to heaven in prayer. In the back, soldiers guard the market’s entrance. The market itself bustles with rich buyers, who hand over their money and pack their bags with grain. Above flies an angel with broken trumpets, while a demon takes center stage and says, among other things, “I will make you ache with hunger and high prices.” (Biblioteca Laurenziana, Florence, Italy / Scala / Art Resource, NY.)

Thus did the writer chronicle the causes and effects of the famine: uncommonly heavy rains, which washed up or drowned the crops; a disease that killed farm animals key to agricultural life not only for their meat and fleeces but also for their labor; and, finally, the economic effects, as scarcity drove up the prices of ordinary foods. All of these led to hunger, disease, and death.

Had the rains gone back to normal, Europeans might have recovered. But the rains continued, and the crops kept failing. In many regions, the crisis lasted for a full seven years. Hardest hit were the peasants and the poor. In rural areas, wealthy lords, churches, monasteries, and well-to-do peasants manipulated the market to profit from the newly high prices they could charge. (See “Taking Measure: Grain Prices During the Great Famine.”) In the cities, some merchants and ecclesiastical institutions benefited as well. But on the whole, even the well-to-do suffered: both rural and urban areas lost fully 5 to 10 percent of their population, and loss of population meant erosion of manpower and falling productivity.

To cope with and contain these disasters, the clergy offered up prayers and urged their congregations to do penance. In the countryside, charitable monasteries gave out food, conscientious kings tried to control high interest rates on loans, and hungry peasants migrated from west to east—to Poland, for example, where land was more plentiful. In the cities, where starving refugees from rural areas flocked for food, wealthy men and women sometimes opened their storehouses or distributed coins. Other rich townspeople founded hospitals for the poor. Town councils sold municipal bonds at high rates of interest, gaining some temporary solvency. These towns became the primary charitable institutions of the era, importing grain and selling it at or slightly below cost.

Contributing to the crop failure was population growth that challenged the productive capabilities of the age. The exponential leap in population from the tenth through most of the thirteenth century slowed to zero around the year 1300, but all the land that could be cultivated had been settled by this time. No new technology had been developed to increase crop yields. The swollen population demanded a lot from the productive capacities of the land. Just a small shortfall could dislocate the whole system of distribution.

The policies of rulers added to the problems of too many people and too little food. Wars between England and Scotland destroyed crops. So did wars between the kings of Norway, Denmark, and Sweden. These wars also diverted manpower and resources to arms and castles, and they disrupted normal markets and trade routes.

REVIEW QUESTION How did the search for harmony result in cooperation—and confrontation—between the secular rulers of the period 1215–1340 and other institutions, such as the church and the towns?

In order to wage wars, rulers imposed heavy taxes and, as the Great Famine became worse, requisitioned grain to support their troops. The effects of the famine grew worse, and in many regions people rose up in protest. In England, peasants resisted tax collectors. In a more violent reaction, poor French shepherds, outcasts, clerics, and artisans entered Paris to storm the prisons. They then marched southward, burning royal castles and attacking officials, Jews, and lepers. The king of France pursued them and succeeded in putting down the movement. But the limits of the politics of control were made clear in this confrontation, which exacerbated the misery of the famine while doing nothing to contain it.