🌾Hunger Games: The Great Famine of 1315🌾

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The 14th century opened with a nightmare beginning a period called the Crisis of the Late Middle Ages, which lasted almost 200 years and was filled with famine, plague, religious schisms and wars, lots of wars. Sadly, it’s the beginning of the end for the medieval era.

After centuries of warmth, prosperity, and booming harvests, Europe plunged into a cold, wet catastrophe, the Great Famine of 1315. In this episode, you’ll learn about the end of the Medieval Warm Period and the disaster that began the Crisis of the Late Middle Ages.

The Great Famine of 1315–1317 was the beginning of the crisis and one of the most devastating in 14th century Medieval Europe, a harrowing event that killed millions and reshaped the fabric of society. From endless rain and rotting grain to livestock dying in the fields and desperate people turning to unthinkable acts, the famine reshaped Europe for generations.

We'll look at the medieval world before the famine, down the science, politics, and human stories behind one of medieval Europe's worst disasters. Learn how years of cold rain, crop failure, and desperation changed the course of European history. 

You'll hear firsthand accounts from chroniclers, discover the volcanic eruptions that may have triggered the cooling and ushered in the "Little Ice Age." Learn how years of relentless cold rain led to crop failures, the collapse of livestock populations, and mass starvation that reshaped Europe forever.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• 🌾 How centuries of agricultural success led to a fragile, overpopulated Europe.

• 🌧️ How the endless rains of 1315 destroyed crops and livestock across the continent.

• 🧂 Why salt, vital for preserving meat, suddenly vanished, worsening starvation.

• 🕊️ How famine fueled crime, cannibalism, and the collapse of faith in the Church.

• 🌋 How volcanic eruptions from Indonesia to Iceland may have triggered the cooling.

• 🧙‍♂️ The real famine folklore behind the Brothers Grimm’s Hansel and Gretel.

• 💀 How the Great Famine killed over 25% of Europe’s population and set the stage for the Black Death.

The Great Famine of 1315–1317 marked the first great crisis of the Late Middle Ages. For three years, unrelenting rain, crop failure, disease, and starvation devastated Europe. It was the end of the Medieval Warm Period and the dawn of the Little Ice Age, a chilling prelude to the horrors of the Black Death three decades later.

Get all the links and see the bibliography in the show notes on Medieval Archives!

Grab a free copy of A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchman

Other episodes to explore:
Ep. 42 - Medieval Diseases and “Cures”
Ep. 75 - Natural Disasters: Earthquakes that rocked the Middle Ages

• (00:17) - 14th Century or Bust!

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