It rained so much during the grand solar minimum of the 1300’s that crops rotted in the fields and farmers could not plant.

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Excess rain during solar minimums leads to famine

Jimmy Walter

Rain is our biggest enemy going into the current ice age. While this solar minimum and the grand solar minimum that follows it will reduce solar energy, it is the increase in cosmic rays caused by the reduction in the Sun’s magnetism blocking them that will reduce the temperature more than just the reduced solar radiation.

The Great Famine of 1300’s was caused by the grand solar minimum of the time, which not only brought much colder winters caused by increased cloudiness, but caused so much rain that crops rotted in the fields, that farmers could not plant.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_of_1315–1317

Great Famine

In the spring of 1315, unusually heavy rain began in much of Europe. Throughout the spring and the summer it continued to rain and the temperature remained cool. Under such conditions, grain could not ripen, leading to widespread crop failures. Grain was brought indoors in urns and pots to keep dry. The straw and hay for the animals could not be cured, so there was no fodder for the livestock.

Food prices doubled, even tripled

The price of food began to rise; prices in England doubled between spring and midsummer. Salt, the only way to cure and preserve meat, was difficult to obtain because brine could not be effectively evaporated in wet weather; its price increased from 30 shillings to 40 shillings. In Lorraine, wheat prices grew by 320%, making bread unaffordable to peasants.

Stores of grain for long-term emergencies were limited to royalty, lords, nobles, wealthy merchants, and the Church. Because of the general increased population pressures, even lower-than-average harvests meant some people would go hungry; there was little margin for failure. People began to harvest wild edible roots, plants, grasses, nuts, and bark in the forests.

A number of documented incidents show the extent of the famine. Edward II of England stopped at St Albans on 10 August 1315 and had difficulty finding bread for himself and his entourage; it was a rare occasion in which the King of England was unable to eat. The French, under Louis X, tried to invade Flanders, but in the low country of the Netherlands, the fields were soaked and the army became so bogged down that they were forced to retreat, burning their provisions where they left them, unable to carry them away.

In the spring of 1316, it continued to rain on a European population deprived of energy and reserves to sustain itself. All segments of society from nobles to peasants were affected but especially the peasants, who represented 95% of the population and who had no reserve food supplies.

Cannibalism

To provide some measure of relief, the future was mortgaged by slaughtering the draft animals, eating the seed grain, abandoning children to fend for themselves (see “Hansel and Gretel”) and, among old people, voluntarily refusing food for the younger generation to survive. The chroniclers of the time noted many incidents of cannibalism, although, self-admittedly, “one can never tell if such talk was not simply a matter of rumor-mongering”.

The height of the famine was in 1317, as the wet weather continued. Finally, in that summer, the weather returned to its normal patterns. By then, however, people were so weakened by diseases such as pneumonia, bronchitis, and tuberculosis, and so much of the seed stock had been eaten, that it was not until 1325 that the food supply returned to relatively normal levels and the population began to increase again.

10–25% of the population died

Historians debate the toll, but it is estimated that 10–25% of the population of many cities and towns died. Though the Black Death (1347–1351) would kill more people, it often swept through an area in a matter of months, whereas the Great Famine lingered for years, prolonging the suffering of the populace.

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September 20, 2019 at 07:57AM