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Age in the late 15th century. Meanwhile, across the English Channel in France in just
6 months grain prices rose by more than 3-fold up to May 1316.
The climate also had military impacts. In France King Louis X's attempt to combat
Count Robert of Flanders came to a halt when Louis's army became bogged down
in mud: it was so bad that horses could not pull wagons. Meanwhile, for the aver-
age person matters were dire. People ate dogs and reports of cannibalism were not
uncommon; graves were robbed and criminals cut down from gibbets for food. Sim-
ilar reports exist from other Little Ice Age famines but those from the 1314-17 period
were particularly bad and this famine undoubtedly exceeded the others in terms of its
severity (Burroughs, 1997).
It is worth emphasising that the aforementioned human impacts experienced early
in the 14th century were not simplistically proportional to the poor climate. Their
severity was augmented by communities having grown during the preceding warmer
climatic anomaly and having expanded into lands that were ideal for the warm
anomaly but which became marginal during the Little Ice Age. Such demographic
pressures can exacerbate the impacts of climate change. This is a theme we will
return to again when looking at future climate change (Chapters 6 and 7) as currently
the early-21st-century global population is at a record-breaking high, at more than 7
billion and counting.
It is not known exactly how many people died in the 1314-17 famine but in Ypres
in Belgium (an advanced city of the time) records suggest a mortality of more than
10%. Because the Black Death (or the Great Mortality as it was known then) ravaged
England in 1348 and Scotland in 1349, 14th-century mortality from both plague and
various climate impacts reduced England's population by around a third. Looking at
the 14th century as a whole, much of Europe and Eurasia was similarly affected.
Climate (or in this case perhaps the weather) also affected the Black Death's
impact. While the Little Ice Age saw many cool years, there were also occasional
warm ones. One of the warmest was that of 1348 and this may account for the rapid
spread of plague throughout England in that year. But more typical of the Little
Ice Age was cold and wet, and this too, under certain circumstances, helped spread
plague: pathogens tend to thrive more in wet than arid conditions. Great floods in
China in 1332 not only killed several million people but disrupted large areas of
the country, causing a substantial movement of both people and wildlife. Regarding
emergent diseases, this was a recipe for disaster and so it is not unreasonable to
conclude that climate played its part in the way that the plague spread (Burroughs,
1997).
Although the 1314-17 famine was probably the worst in terms of human impact,
it was not the only one during the Little Ice Age. There were vagaries of the weather
but harvests were not usually so bad as to provoke sharp and major price rises
in grain, although there were some, such as in 1439, 1482, 1608, 1673 and 1678.
Another severe famine, particularly according to French records, took place in the
17th century due to the failed harvest of 1693. Millions of people in mid-Western
Europe - France and surrounding countries - died. This time was again one of poor
climate (see Figure 5.2) and the 1690s saw a number of very cold winters and cool,
wet summers affecting much of Western Europe. Indeed, 1693 saw one of the worst
famines since 1314-17, although the impact was worse in continental Europe than in
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