Great Famine: Northern Europe in the Early Fourteenth Century

The horrors of the Great Famine (1315-1322), one of the severest catastrophes ever to strike northern Europe, lived on for centuries in the minds of Europeans who recalled tales of widespread hunger, class warfare, epidemic disease, frighteningly high mortality, and unspeakable crimes. Until now, no one has offered a perspective of what daily life was actually like throughout the entire region devastated by this crisis, nor has anyone probed far into its causes. Here, the distinguished historian William Jordan provides the first comprehensive inquiry into the Famine from Ireland to western Poland, from Scandinavia to central France and western Germany. He produces a rich cultural history of medieval community life, drawing his evidence from such sources as meteorological and agricultural records, accounts kept by monasteries providing for the needy, and documentation of military campaigns."Anyone who takes up this book in hopes of finding a new Tuchman will find something better, though: a work of great depth written in a scholarly though engaging way."--Publishers Weekly"Pestilence and War have had their historians. Famine now has its own with this brilliantly written masterpiece of historical anthropology."--Jacques Le Goff"Superb detective work, as all good historical research should be, it is well organized, fast moving, and above all else, persuasive. Jordan spins a horrifying tale, dealing, in turn, with the nature of the calamity and how it affected the nobility, peasants, and townfolk--starvation, disease, displacement, and death.... Yes, this is true scholarship, but also a riveting tale as well."--The Virginia Quarterly ReviewThe horrors of the Great Famine (1315-1322), one ofthe severest catastrophes ever to strike northern Europe, lived on for centuries in the minds of Europeans who recalled tales of widespread hunger, class warfare, epidemic disease, frighteningly high mortality, and unspeakable crimes. Until now, no one has offered a perspective of what daily life was actually like throughout the entire region devastated by this crisis, nor has anyone probed far into its causes. Here, the distinguished historian William Jordan provides the first comprehensive inquiry into the Famine from Ireland to western Poland, from Scandinavia to central France and western Germany. He produces a rich cultural history of medieval community life, drawing his evidence from such sources as meteorological and agricultural records, accounts kept by monasteries providing for the needy, and documentation of military campaigns."Anyone who takes up this book in hopes of finding a new Tuchman will find something better, though: a work of great depth written in a scholarly though engaging way."--Publishers Weekly"Pestilence and War have had their historians. Famine now has its own with this brilliantly written masterpiece of historical anthropology."--Jacques Le Goff"Superb detective work, as all good historical research should be, it is well organized, fast moving, and above all else, persuasive. Jordan spins a horrifying tale, dealing, in turn, with the nature of the calamity and how it affected the nobility, peasants, and townfolk--starvation, disease, displacement, and death.... Yes, this is true scholarship, but also a riveting tale as well."--The Virginia Quarterly Review