Famine Weakened Europe Before Plague

Roughly three decades before the Black Death, Northern Europe endured the Great Famine of 1315 to 1317. Relentless cold rain prevented grain from ripening, flooded fields, and ruined livestock fodder, while disease eventually reduced sheep and cattle numbers by as much as 80 percent. Starvation grew so bad that contemporary chroniclers wrote of infanticide, grave robbing and cannibalism. Many of the affected cities and towns lost an estimated 10 to 25 percent of their populations, and Europe did not recover until 1322.

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