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Great Famine Of The 14th Century Essay

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Informal Essay 12 The late middle ages is the name given to the time period of European history at about 1300 to 1500 AD. During this time period there were many challenges that the people of Europe faced. One major challenge was The Great Famine of the early 14th century. The cause of this famine was because the population had grown to such a huge number there was no margin for crop failures or harvest shortcomings. In other words if someone was expected to produce 1500 pounds of corn they had to produce at least 1500 pounds or else they would be contributing to the problem. The only way the population could be supported was under ideal conditions; otherwise the land couldn’t produce enough food and resources to sustain the population. This caused a huge problem because during this time Western Europe underwent a climate change, the summers were cooler and wetter. This made it much more difficult to produce …show more content…

The final characteristic, the black boils, is where the name Black Death came from. At final count the black plague killed about one third of the entire European population, or about 20 million. What is believe to be some of the major ways that the disease was spread was through rats and fleas, as well as through the air. The people of the time believed that the only way the disease was spread was through touching a person who had the Black Death. We now know through modern technology of the other ways the disease was spread. It makes since that the rats and fleas communicated the disease from person to person because they weren’t very sanitary during the Middle Ages. There were fleas and rats in each and every persons dwelling but they were particularly prevalent on ships of all kinds, which caused the disease to spread throughout the entire

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