Two decades of crisis: Famine and dearth during the 1480s and 1490s in Western and Central Europe

Abstract

During the 1480s and 1490s, parts of Western and Central Europe were hit by subsistence crises. This paper examines both crises by analysing narrative sources, sources derived from administrative processes, and grain price series. During both crises, the Low Countries were affected the most severely; the Holy Roman Empire and parts of modern Switzerland suffered less, even though the dearth was evident there as well. In both cases, the subsistence crises were followed by epidemic diseases. Several factors caused the crises, which can be attributed either to food availability decline (FAD) theories, such as back-to-back harvest failures, or food entitlement decline (FED) theories, amongst them market failures or the unequal distribution of goods within society. The crises of the 1480s and 1490s show characteristics that belong to both the FAD and the FED theories.