Abstract:
The 1430s were one of the coldest decades in Europe during the last millennium. This was due to the high frequency of extremely cold winters. In the second half of the decade summers turned wet, and in consequence harvests failed and famine ensued. Epidemic disease, mostly plague, took hold several times over the decade. This paper assembles the contemporary evidence for extreme weather from a wide variety of sources in England. The impacts of the hard winters and wet-cool summers on people, farming, economy, infrastructure and transport are considered. In particular with regards to the famine, it is possible to identify adaptive measures by the central and municipal authorities to secure a supply of grain for London and the royal household. Notwithstanding these efforts, the extreme weather and the harvest failures raised the death rate, a trend that must have been compounded by the plague waves and other epidemic disease.
Keywords:
Climate crisis; Famine; Late Medieval England