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The European Mortality Crises of 1346–52 and Advent of the Little Ice Age

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Famines During the ʻLittle Ice Ageʼ (1300-1800)

Abstract

Between 1315 and 1352 populations in first northern, then southern and finally the whole of Europe succumbed to a succession of devastating mortality crises. These derived from a common episode of climatic instability generated by global processes of climate reorganisation. From the 1330s, climate forcing grew in strength until between 1342 and 1353 all parts of Eurasia were experiencing exceptional levels of environmental stress. This was the context for the poor harvest of 1346 in northern Europe and failed harvest of that same year in southern Europe, plus concurrent arrival of plague in the Crimea following is long westward migration from its reservoir region in the Tibetan-Qinghai Plateau of western China. In Europe the human impact of this conjuncture of climatic and biological extremes was amplified by escalating warfare and onset of a severe commercial recession. The notorious mortality crises of 1346–52 thus emerge as a multi-causal and multi-dimensional disaster.

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  1. The Queen’s University of Belfast, Belfast, UK

    Bruce M. S. Campbell

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  1. Heidelberg Center for the Environment, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany

    Dominik Collet

  2. Heidelberg Center for the Environment, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany

    Maximilian Schuh

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Campbell, B.M.S. (2018). The European Mortality Crises of 1346–52 and Advent of the Little Ice Age. In: Collet, D., Schuh, M. (eds) Famines During the ʻLittle Ice Ageʼ (1300-1800). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54337-6_2

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