Famines often plagued European communities throughout the 14th Century with many consequences. The precise impact that famines had on Europe, on its economic development and on the culture and mentality of its economic agents (especially farmers) is inconclusive at this point. Nonetheless, this paper seeks to define the character of European famines during the 14th Century, the general causes of such famines and the consequential effects and implications of these on the state of Europe’s economic development. Famines occurred frequently during the 14th Century, the most infamous of which occurred between 1315 and 1318 as a consequence of heavy rain that drowned crops in Western Europe.[1] Such famines occurred so frequently in Europe that no discussion of Western economic development would be complete without mention of their role. Famines also exacerbate grave health problems that, in turn, deepen economic and fertility troubles that European societies encountered during the 14th Century.
This paper will argue that a set of central economic factors was shaped by the consequences of European famines. Firstly, famines did not occur erratically or unaccompanied—the frequency of their occurrence inherently ingrains them into the European economic and political cycles; the causes of famines are varied—political, economic, demographic or natural. While famines affected economic and political circumstances, they were often touched off by economic and political circumstances; the famine is part of a cycle. Secondly, famines, by assisting malnutrition, wrought death and destruction for many Europeans, while simultaneously thinning the ranks of European populations and consequently easing the economic burden on European food producers and the farmland. Finally, the cycle of famines and their effects worked to the economic benefit of survivors and their European posterity to the extent that they benefited from subsequent economic expansion, stability and reorganization of capital. Famines facilitated severe, short-run hardship for the benefit of western European economies in the long-run.
Famines in Europe were caused by economic, political, demographic and ecological developments and, in turn, shaped subsequent economic, political, demographic and ecological episodes. In The Economy of Early Renaissance Europe, 1300-1460, Harry A. Miskimin notes Helen Robbins’s documentation of the frequent incidents of famine during the 14th Century, “[f]or France, she lists the years 1304, 1305, 1310, 1315, 1330-34, 1344, 1349-51, 1358-60, 1371, 1374-75, and 1390…”[2] The 100 Years War between Britain and France raged from 1337 until 1453 and the conflicts themselves caused famines that affected France into the 15th Century. Miskimin, himself, notes, “the periods of English invasion, when agriculture was disrupted and fields burned…” ought to be considered in an examination of the European agrarian economy even in food shortages that cannot be considered famines.[3]
It is probable that the British destruction of French farms was not isolated in several respects; English military tacticians in the 100 Years War did not invent the tactic of food supply destruction. The farmers’ capital—plows, hoes, tools, animals and stored goods—was probably destroyed along with the crops and farmland itself. Beyond military destruction of farmland, troop movements were often responsible for the spread of crop and livestock diseases that inflicted ever more stress on the economy. These movements caused more famines as invasions, offensives and retreats occurred.[4] Yet, troop movements and military actions, by themselves, did not make the French population vulnerable to an attack on their food supplies; this vulnerability lay in the geography of French cities, far away from farm lands. Accordingly, Miskimin argues that the tendency of medieval towns, as non-agricultural population centers, to depend upon “an ever expanding and distant range of agricultural resources,” to supply towns with food “entailed certain dangers.”[5] ‘Certain dangers,’ of course, being the higher potential for food supply disruption:
The more efficiently and broadly the towns exploited the surrounding and distant regions, the more danger there was that a slight crisis, political or agricultural, would disturb the balance of the food supply. A city which had sought its food in every corner that reasonably could be reached by ship or wagon had made itself vulnerable to famine, since, as Malthus later observed, the population tended, under normal conditions, to increase in proportion to the food supply.[6]
And so the tenuous balance of food affected the tendency of the population to increase or shrink. Whereas the major political cause of famine is war, the central agricultural cause was a low yield. Indeed, Jones notes several factors that affect yields—climatic disasters such as floods, droughts, crop diseases—and population pressure, that is a heightened demand for food, often caused farmers to over-exploit their land and reap lower yields of food than desirable. Jones notes that his “sources tend unfortunately to note no more than the bare fact of famine in many cases.”[7] This reality leaves scholars only to speculate as to whether a drought was to blame for one famine, or frost to blame for another. In this way, historians can only speculate on the primary causes of the balance of famines in France, Britain, Flanders, Italy, and German principalities, especially during peacetime. Ultimately, the effects of famine and the knowledge that it was a recurring reality of European (economic) life is what must be acknowledged by scholars of early market development in Europe.
Malnutrition and epidemics inflamed by famines wrought death and destruction for many Europeans, causing a contraction in the European populations, which lessened the economic burden on Europe’s farmers and farmland. Harry Miskimin correctly points out:
The consequences of frequent and widespread hunger are more complex than the initial discomfort or death. An extended period of substandard diet may weaken the population as a whole, rendering it more vulnerable to contagious disease… It will certainly affect infant mortality, and hence have considerable impact upon the age structure of the population and consequently upon the overall productivity of the society.[8]
While Miskimin’s point is granted, he also argues that population pressure held down productivity, measured in yield returns, in the first half of the 14th Century. The overall productivity of 14th Century societies and their ability to sustain large populations is hardly impressive, as evidenced by the frequency of famines in times of peace. It is likely that Europe’s economy was barely sustaining its population in the absence of famines and wars and that whenever famines occurred and thousands of Europeans died, the European population could be supported easier than before. Sustained economic growth does not occur in Europe before the 16th Century.[9] It is likely that the population pressure in Europe would have stunted growth in productivity had infant mortality risen or remained the same given that overpopulation and the resulting population pressure on farmers and farmland to produce more food is one cause the 14th Century famines. Furthermore, after the Plague of 1347-50 between 50% and 70% of Europeans had perished in many areas of the continent and vast amounts of capital were left behind by the masses of people who had succumbed to the plague. While famines probably did, as Miskimin says, render the European population more susceptible to disease (especially the plague), and the interplay of wars and disasters possibly exacerbated this, famines did not necessarily shock the productivity of European society in the long run.
The cycle of famines and their effects often worked to the economic benefit of survivors and their European posterity to the extent that they benefited from subsequent economic expansion, stability and reorganization of capital.
Equipment, know-how and organisation all survived the Black Death. To that extent, there was a ratchet effect in European development. The fall in population as a result of the bubonic plague has been described as a kind of Marshall Plan…[10]
Essentially, the knowledge and technology that had slowly accumulated in Western Europe was neither destroyed nor deferred by the plague. The technological bases were not destroyed, and famines and epidemics persisted throughout the rest of the 14th and 15th Centuries. It seems almost as if the case of the plague in Western Europe and the consequential accumulation of capital and commodities—especially the resulting increases in productivity in agriculture—represents a textbook example of the Malthusian cycle. Yet, this view is complicated by the probability that skilled, urban, industrial laborers—merchants and artisans—were harder to come by in periods in which Europeans suffered higher mortality rates than normal.[11] So while it is probable that such skilled laborers may have had an easier time feeding themselves, their lack of productivity as a consequence of their inexperience in their fields may have hurt the quality of life and economic growth of Europe, at least in the short run.
The continuation of famines and the 100 Years War also drained capital that could have been spent toward investment, for surely, economic growth cannot be sustained for decades and centuries when capital and commodities are being funneled to war efforts and consumption. Jones contends that European agricultural productivity rose, in part, because the plague allowed for greater consumption of protein rich products, especially meat, among European men.[12] But this claim seems merely speculative and perhaps it would be just as valid to claim that the reduction in population pressure on farmers and farmland, just as well, ensured healthier crop harvests and higher yields in spite of the conflicts between France and England. It seems most plausible to claim that rather than triggering a wholly unexpected amount of success and economic opportunity for Europeans, the famines and consequential malnutrition, bad harvests and epidemics (especially the Plague of 1347-50) that beleaguered the continent for the first half of the 15th Century prevented a continuation of more of the same—the population reduction possibly prevented the hunger, malnutrition, destitution or deaths of thousands more Europeans.
Harry Miskimin argues that “Pestilence destroyed large numbers of people but it did not, in its initial phases, destroy wealth…it would appear that the number of wealthy citizens in a position to buy costly luxuries grew as the total population declined.”[13] So it would seem that wealth was expanded in the period after the so-called population crisis in the middle of the 15th Century. As wealth increased and more Europeans entered the market for luxury goods, it is highly probable that the expansion of these markets, catapulted in the form of increased demand, may have fueled the European missions for trade routes to Asia and Africa, the sources of fine, luxury commodities such as silk, spices and precious metals. Of course, to make a clear assertion would require more evidence than is available to this writer at the present time. Nonetheless, it seems that the phenomena causing and resulting from famines conspired, rather tragically, to help Europe avoid an economic disaster and get on track to a future more prosperous and healthy, at least cosmetically.
Famines had long terrorized Europe, specifically Western Europe, the focus of this paper, and affected the economic development of the continent. Famines are themselves manifestations of economic stagnation and agricultural insufficiency with regards to the ability of farmers and farmland to produce enough food for a population. Western Europe had been overpopulated during the first half of the 14th Century, and the demand for agricultural goods spread the economy thin. Cities and towns developed long “supply lines” that led from the agricultural countryside producers of food to the population centers in which industrial workers, chiefly artisans and merchants, produced commodities for use and for trade by the general population. The vulnerability of the cities to famine and malnutrition was exposed and exacerbated whenever political or economic crisis arose—the English invasion of France and their burning of French farmland is a key example of this in the 14th Century. Traveling armies also spread infections that harmed livestock, human beings and crops across the continent. Biological factors related to weather and climate also caused famine—crop diseases, cattle infections, the spread of epidemics, occurrences of floods and droughts all contributed to the many famines that plagued Europe during the 14th Century. Indeed, famines caused malnutrition, higher rates of infant mortality and often weakened the population for epidemics that ran rampant in the late medieval world. No example of an epidemic following on the heels of famine is more stark or deadly than that of the Bubonic Plague of 1347-50, also known as the Pestilence, the Black Death, or the Great Mortality. Massive portions of entire principalities were infected and killed as a consequence of the pandemic. The subsequent half century of economic development was mixed, but relatively exciting, for Europe was no longer condemned to feed more mouths than it could. Yet the deaths slowed economic development in urban, high skill industries. All in all, the developments of the 14th Century provided the basis for a rerouting of Europe’s economic direction and Europe, perhaps, was deterred from the damning cycle of famine, epidemic and starvation that had plagued it in the first half of the 14th Century.
Works Cited
E.L. Jones. The European Miracle: Environments, Economies and Geopolitics in the History of Europe and Asia Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.
Harry A. Miskimin. The Economy of Early Renaissance Europe, 1300-1460 Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975.
[1] Harry A. Miskimin, The Economy of Early Renaissance Europe, 1300-1460 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), 25.
[4] E.L. Jones, The European Miracle: Environments, Economies and Geopolitics in the History of Europe and Asia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 31.
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Kalonji Malik Perry 