Experiencing famine in fourteenth-century Britain
By: by Philip Slavin
Series: Environmental histories of the North Atlantic world -- v. 4; Environmental histories of the North Atlantic world -- v. 4.
Publisher: Brepols
Published: 2019
Place of publication: Turnhout, Belgium
Language: eng
Number of pages: 440
ISBN-13: 9782503547800
Copyright date: 2019
Subjects: Famines; History; Social conditions
Other titles: Experiencing famine in 14th-century Britain
Description: The book is concerned with arguably the single harshest subsistence crisis in Europe in the last two millennia: the Great Famine of 1315-17.  The agrarian crisis of 1315-17, known to history as the Great Famine, was one of the most devastating environmental crises to hit Europe within the last two millennia. The almost biblical flooding of 1314-16 brought about a series of crop failures, triggering a widespread agricultural crisis that unfolded into a catastrophic famine, which hit both human and animal populations with unprecedented force. The impact of this crisis, and the major long-term environmental consequences that followed, thus mark a truly watershed moment in European history.  This volume provides an in-depth study of the Great Famine as it affected the British Isles, but through this focused approach, it also offers new insights into the late-medieval North European economy and society at a time of political, socio-economic, and biological shocks and crises. Close analysis of contemporary archival sources reveals that the Great Famine was a highly complex phenomenon made by both Nature and man; and this is reflected in a highly interdisciplinary approach that studies climate, economy, demography, and health, as well as the way in which human behaviour further exacerbated the impact of famine.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 399-428) and index.

Gift ; BOYER MED; 2021.