The Great Famine of 1315-7 is one of the key moments in the social and economic history of Northern Europe during the late Middle Ages. The adverse weather conditions of 1315-6 combined with high demographic pressures resulted in extreme poverty, famine and ultimately crisis mortality. In this paper we focus on the impact of these events in the Low Countries and the county of Flanders in particular. The aim of our paper is twofold. In the first part, we present new data about the effects of the adverse weather conditions of 1315 on agricultural output and food prices. Our data indicate that Flanders was particularly vulnerable to food shortages and famine due to its reliance on grain import from neighbouring regions. The second part focuses on the socially differentiated impact of the famine. Whereas large farms were able to secure enormous profits due to high food prices, smallholders were forced to sell their holdings to survive.
Ghent University, Belgium - ORCID: 0000-0001-7094-0231
Ghent University, Belgium - ORCID: 0000-0001-5587-5128
Titolo del capitolo
Social Inequalities and the Great Famine in the County of Flanders (1315-7)
Autori
Mathijs Speecke, Thijs Lambrecht
Lingua
English
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-0705-8.12
Opera sottoposta a peer review
Anno di pubblicazione
2025
Copyright
© 2025 Author(s)
Licenza d'uso
Licenza dei metadati
Titolo del libro
Socio-Economic Inequalities during the Conjuncture of the Fourteenth Century
Sottotitolo del libro
Sources and Methods, Dynamics and Representations (Italy and Europe, c. 1270 - c. 1350)
Curatori
Davide Cristoferi
Opera sottoposta a peer review
Numero di pagine
458
Anno di pubblicazione
2025
Copyright
© 2025 Author(s)
Licenza d'uso
Licenza dei metadati
Editore
Firenze University Press
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-0705-8
ISBN Print
979-12-215-0699-0
eISBN (pdf)
979-12-215-0705-8
eISBN (xml)
979-12-215-0707-2
Collana
Reti Medievali E-Book
ISSN della collana
2704-6362
e-ISSN della collana
2704-6079