Climate Change, Floods, Famine and the Great Death

Duinkerke-transgression (250 -950)

Since the end of the last Ice Age the sea level has risen some 130 meters. With the ongoing weather and climate fluctuations this meant that the boader lines between land and water showed large variations. It wasn’t until the 11th century before serious efforts were made to keep the water out and the land dry, that more defined boarders started to occur. From the Medieval Warm Period (see next) onwards we start to get a bit better picture of climatological developments and their effect on social and economic conditions of the people.

The situation in the preceding Roman and early Medieval period is far more unclear. However, it looks like that during Roman times some serious climate  changes started to occur. Varies theories have been developed and abandoned (Duinkerkse-transgressie) but the effects of what happened are reasonable well agreed upon. There now seems to be consensus that the sea did n0t transgress but that surges, storms and climatological conditions resulted in the inundation of the land above the major rivers in the Low Countries.

Archaeological evidence from decades of excavations on the natural boarder line between the low lands of the river Maas and the higher sand grounds near the town of Oss in Brabant, Netherlands show that the farms that were situated in the river flats remained largely water free for a period of 2,000 years. Suddenly this ended at the time that coincided with the departure of the Romans in this region around 250AC. While there is no clear evidence that the rising water levels were the reason for their departure, there was no significant war activity talking place at that time either. Perhaps in a rapidly depopulated area the Roman boarder protection became less relevant.

The retreat from the Germanic Limes (along the river Rhine) also coincided with the start of this high water period whereby large parts of the Low Countries became uninhabitable, this included most of the coastal area except the dunes and most of the Rhine delta, not to far east of Oss the higher situated river clay areas retained occupation (near Nijmegen on the map below).

It is not until the late Middle Ages that evidence of new populations are starting to occur again in Oss. It could well be that at least some farmers moved to the higher grounds just 7 kms further to the north and that the population centre of this community became concentrated here this might also be related to the existence of a Medieval chapel linked to a legend  of St Willibrord, however, there is no evidence to confirm this.

It is highly unlikely that the river flats were continuously inundated during all these centuries and names like ‘Frankenbeemd‘ could indicate that some of this land was used during that period by Franks. However, most likely this (fertile)  area remained wet enough to not attract permanent settlements.

The start of the Medieval Warm Period ended this situation, perhaps that resulted in better growth opportunities that allowed swaps to change into moors. Further assisted by this favourable conditions the population grew and they started to built the dykes allowing for a more secure environment. From the start significant land reclamation occurred. However, remodelling nature also led to devastating floods in the following centuries all the way to modern time (see below).

Justinian Plague

It has been suggested that there was  a cooling of temperature during the 530s, this could have been triggered by dust storms as a result of a volcanic eruption, some even suggest a comet instigated dust veil, whatever the source this might have led to the spread of pert infested fleas from the tropics into Europe.

It arrived from Alexandria in Constantinople in 542. It has been estimated that within 2 years the plague killed 4 million of the possible 26 million subjects of Emperor Justinian. By the end of that century the total population had further declined to approx. 17 million.

It reoccurred here in 558 and 573 and in total it  is estimated that 244,000 people out of a population of 508,000 perished. The main killer here was the pneumonic plague rather than the bubonic form.

The epidemic rapidly spread across Europe and in Clermont, France Bishop Gregory of Tours reported in 573 that on a Sunday alone 300 corpses were counted in its basilica . It even reached England and Ireland in the 7th century. Via Antioch it also spread into Persia and China.

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Medieval Warm Period (800 – 1300)

The Medieval Warm Period (MWP) was a time of warm weather around 800-1300 AD. They were the warmest centuries of the past 8,000 years. There was a short so called “little Optimum” between 750 and 800 and ‘Maximum Optimum’ around 1300. The MWP was followed by the Little Ice Age, a period of cooling that lasted until the 19th century.  A radiocarbon-dated box core in the Sargasso Sea (Raymond S. Bradley, Malcolm K. Hughes, Henry F. Diaz – 2003) shows that in comparison to today’s temperatures, the sea surface temperature was approximately 1°C cooler  approximately 400 years ago (the Little Ice Age) and also 1700 years ago and approximately 1°C warmer 1000 years ago (the Medieval Warm Period).

Average summer land temperatures were 0.7 – 1.0C above the averages of the 20th century and in Central Europe even 1.4C higher. There was little or no frost in May and long warm and dry weather settled in in June and lasted till  August.

With the melting of polar ice water levels increased and tribes along the coasts of north-western Europe struggled to survive and most likely this is one of the reasons why Saxons , Angles and to a lesser extend Frisians started to look for alternative places to live, which led to their migration to England.

A few centuries later the Vikings took advantage of ice-free seas to colonise Greenland. Wine grapes were grown as far north as southern Britain. Vineyards flourished 300-500 kms north of their 2oth century limits. But more importantly the warmer weather turned large tracks of marginal farmland into decent farmland, which supported the population explosion in Europe at that time. European farm yield were double of those as they stood at the end of the Roman period. Barren land such as mountainous areas such as in Scotland, Scandinavia and the Alps now became at least marginally productive.

Interestingly it was this warming of the planet that caused an economic and social boom that led to significant life style improvements and innovations. In many European regions life style conditions were higher during the Middle Ages than during the following 400 years, the next period of improvement didn’t start until after the Little Age Ice in the late 19^th century.

Slowly the climate started to get cooler again, there was cold spell in the first two decennia of the 13th century, but then again a prolonged period of warm weather between 1284 and 1311. However, soon after that the Little Ace Age started to set in in all seriousness.

Malthusian deadlock

As a result of these favourable climate conditions we see across Europe  a massive ‘internal’ colonisation of the forests, marshlands and other wilderness areas.

This also led to massive ecological disasters, land clearing and deforestation. While there is no hard scientific evidence for a link between these human activities and these environmental disasters, soon after the MWP peaked the climate changed again. What however, is certain is that deforestation and peat winning resulted in large floods which altered the northern part of the Low Countries forever.

It has been argued that by 1300 population levels in Europe had reached unsustainable levels.  Traditional population increases were followed by cutting down more forest land. By 1200 most arable land in Europe was now in use and only less fertile lands could be reclaimed by an ever expanding population.  A rapidly urbanising environment brought of course a whole new level of problems with it; most importantly an imbalance between population growth and food resources. Already by 1280 wheat yields started to drop and food prices started to rise.

Perhaps one of the most difficult to understand is the total lack of hygiene. Animals roamed through the unpaved streets defecating wherever the felt fit. Human refuse was also thrown on the street as long as one three times had shouted for people to watch out. Cloths were hardly ever changed and butchers slaughtered cattle in the streets where the people lived and blood flowed freely wherever that happened. Tanners and vollers created enormous water and air pollution (and were amongst the first to be regulated to the outskirts of the towns, mainly because even medieval people could not handle that stench). What has often been said is that for modern man the most striking element of the medieval town would have been its terrible smell.

In a far more ‘crowded’ Europe, leprosy was one of the first serious illnesses that evolved form these appalling conditions.

The period between 1350 and 1500 was a period of transition. While there was enormous poverty, death, illnesses and general misery on the one side at the same time we see the creation of enormous wealth and a large number of administrative, agriculture and commercial innovations.

Little Ice Age (1300- 1860)

The Little Ice Age was a period of cooling occurring after the medieval climate optimum. A shift in the North Atlantic Oscillator (NOA) has been mentioned as the major reason for the change. Climatologists and historians find it difficult to agree on either the start or end dates of this period and obviously also changes occurred within this period.  Some confine the Little Ice Age to approximately the 16th to the mid-19th centuries. It is generally agreed that there were three minima, beginning about 1650, about 1770, and 1800/1850, each separated by slight warming intervals.

However, the  climate started to change in the 13th century but it wasn’t until the 14th century before the change really started to settle in and had a devastated effect on Europe, it happened with earthquakes and devastating floods and as a result a ravaged population was by the mid 14^th century extremely vulnerable to the plague and a range of other diseases. People were also spooked by increased meteor and comet activity.

During prolonged cold snaps between 1315 and 1330 most European rivers were frozen year after year, as was the Baltic Sea. In the Baltic countries snow stayed on the ground all year long.

The period continued with irregular patterns; no long term patterns as during the Medieval Warmth. Another period of severe weather occurred during the 1430s.  This was followed by a period of a century of  rather mild weather, with a few exceptions such as the winters of 1527-29. This was also a period of low solar activity, known as the Spörer Minimum. Periods on increased and decreased solar activity correlate rather exactly with the periods of higher and lower temperatures both during the Medieval Warmth and the Little Ice Age.

Some scientist are seeing these early disasters as a prelude to the Little Ice Age proper. The famous winter paintings from Pieter Breughel were painted during one of the most severe winters most probably in 1565. The next winter was equally devastating and certainly also assisted in getting starving people in the Low Countries to revolt against the Spanish occupation and their catholic religion (known as the beeldenstorm - iconoclasm).

The heights of the Little Ice Age started to set in around 1590 and lasted until the 1850s. The glacial ‘high tide’ in the Alps lasted from around 1590 to around 1850. During the 2nd half of the 16th century storm activity increased by 85% , especially during the cold winters. The winters during the 1590s where the coldest of that century with severe famine in England between 1591 and 1597. The summer of 1600 was the coldest since the 1400s, this was a direct effect of the eruption of the Huanyaputina in Peru, ash fell as far as in Greenland, in Europe the sun was dimmed by a constant haze. More exceptionally cold winters were recorded between 1641-43, in 1675 and 1698/99.

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Low Countries prone to floods

By 3,000BC the ocean water levels had reach their current levels.  The low laying countries were of course since times immemorial prone to flooding and the southern part of the North Sea was not much more than a marshy plain. For reasons that still unknown to scientists, sea levels didn’t change much until 1,000AD, when the North Sea rose by 40 to 50 centimeters, to retreat to their previous levels some 200 years later, when temperatures started to drop again.

Increasingly however, with in increase of the population floods started to create more problems; especially as land reclamation started to create a far more vulnerable natural environment.  It was no longer simply a matter of moving the farm a few kilometres further; villages could not be moved that easily.

One of the first recorded natural disasters occurred on December 26, 836: A large part of the northwest of Frisia was flooded by a storm. Lack of good dikes was an important cause of this flood disaster. Bishop Prudentius of Troyes describes this flood; he said there were 2437 victims.

While statistics recorded in the Middle Ages are not always very reliable, they certainly provide a good indication of the scale of the events.

On September 28 1014 the, by that time again partially closed coast line of the Low Countries, was breached. In Zeeland the island of Walcheren suffered a particularly large amount of damage. It took years before people managed to get their lives back on track. The chronicle of the Quedlinburg abbey in Saxony reports that thousands of people died.

A decade later on November 2 1024 a flood was mentioned in Annales Blandiniensis (Ghent), this one probably only affecting the Flemish coast and in particular the region of the Yser mouth.

Again, also in the next century several other major floods caused havoc again. First in 1134; the Zwin opened up as a channel connecting Bruges with the North Sea, the side effect of this was an economic benefit for the city. Thirty years later in 1163 the area further north experienced several floods. This caused dike breaches along the Maas. As a result the mouth of the Old Rhine (Oude Rijn) at Katwijk, which was already almost entirely silted up, was entirely silted up by sediment carried around by the flood. This greatly affected the land reclamations that had started in the 11^th century. New dams were needed to stop further flooding and this in its turn than caused water problems elsewhere. This led to conflicts between the Bishop Godfried van Rhenen of Utrecht and Count Floris III of Holland. In 1165 the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa came to affected area and negotiated a regional agreement between Utrecht, Holland, Gelre, Cleve and Kuyc.  Landlords such as van Amstel and van Woerden  - situated in the middle of these new reclaimed lands – greatly profited from these new arrangements.

The  First All Saints’ flood (Allerheiligenvloed) took place in 1170. Large parts of the north of the Netherlands and what became the Zuiderzee region were inundated. A channel from the North Sea was opened into the fresh water Lake Flavo (Almere lake), and it became the salt water Zuiderzee. This flood marked the beginning and spread of the North Sea, Zuiderzee and Waddenzee. Two factors causing this sea enlargement are important to mention here: first the sea area itself increased and second the presence of large peat areas, which easily washed away.

The St. Nicholas’ Flood (Sint-Nicolaasvloed) in 1196, again inundated large parts of the same region. Where the storm flood of 1170 made a beginning, this storm worsened it, washing away large peat areas. The result of this storm was the destruction of peat areas in West Friesland and enlarging the Waddenzee and the Almere Lake now officially  becomes the Zuiderzee.

However, when the Little Ice Age started to set in, huge storm tides  saw natural disaster on a scale never seen before. They are characteristic of the unsettled and changeable weather patterns in northern Europe at the beginning of the Little Ice Age. Without any dykes more more damage was done to life and property as the region had become more and more populated.

These series of floods started in North-Holland,  this area suffered a large flood in 1212 which claimed approximately 60,000 victims. Two years later storm floods affected all parts of the Netherlands; again with lots of erosion in the peat areas.

The St. Marcellus’ Flood (Sint-Marcellusvloed) on the 16^th of January 1219 again inundated large parts of the north of the Netherlands and the Zuiderzee region, killing an estimated 36,000 people. This was the 4th large flood in 50 years.  It further shaped the Zuiderzee and Waddenzee.

Three major floods within 4 month created havoc in the coastal area of North Holland (with dune breaches most probably at Callantsoog). They took place on 20 November, 28 December 1248, and 4 February 1249. Also flooding occurred in Friesland and Groningen. Another flood hit this last province in 1277 and as in the previous one,  drowned several villages here.

In 1280 the north of the Low Countries t again a major flood, this one created the Lauwerzee. Two years later a storm broke through the coastal dunes around Texel and let more sea water flood into in the by now well established Waddenzee and Zuiderzee.

St. Lucia’s flood was one of the most destructive floods ever and took place on December 14^th 1287 (the day after St Lucia’s day) when the dunes of Texel were washed away during a storm, killing approximately 50,000 to 80,000 people. The salt sea swallowed sixty parishes in the Danish diocese of Schleswig as well as the town of Rungholt on the North Frisian island Strand.

It especially affected the north of the Netherlands, particularly Friesland. The island Griend disappeared almost completely under the waves. The name Zuiderzee – “Zuudzee” – dates from this event, as the water had merely been a shallow inland lake when the first dikes were being built, but rising North Sea levels created the “Southern Sea” when more floods including this one arrived.  After this event several new parishes and villages started to appear, replacing those communities that had been washed away.

During the extensive rain periods between 1315-1317 most of the Low Countries were flooded again with hardly any farming being possible.

The Grote Mandrenke Flood (Old Dutch: Great Drowning of Men) struck large parts of north-western Europe on January 16^th 1356, causing the  Hurricane-force winds drove enormous waves atop an incredible storm surge that greatly extended the huge inland sea.

The first St. Elizabeth’s flood of 1404 occurred on or around November 19, 1404, the namesake day of Saint Elisabeth of Hungary. The floods were especially catastrophic in Flanders, Zeeland and Holland. The area in Zeeland and Flanders had also been flooded twenty-nine years earlier, on October 8, 1375.

Some  areas untouched during a previous flood  in 1375, such as the small towns of IJzendijke and Hugevliet were now totally destroyed. In the county of Flanders all the coast islands in the mouth of the Westerschelde were washed away. After this calamity John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy (Jan zonder Vrees) gave the command to link all the dikes already existing into one large dike which ran from the north from the county to the south. This explains why the Belgian coast line is so straight. Since Jan zonder Vrees was also count of Flanders, this dike is still named Graaf Jansdijk (Duke John’s Dyke).

The 2^nd St. Elizabeth’s flood took place in 1421, during the night of November 18 and 19, a heavy storm in the North Sea surged up the rivers causing the dikes to overflow and break  in a number of places and the lower lying polder land was flooded. Again a number of villages were swallowed by the flood and were lost, causing either 2,000 or 10,000 casualties. These dike breaches  and floods caused widespread devastation in Zeeland and Holland. This flood also ended the ongoing fights between   the cities of Geertruidenberg en Dordrecht (during the Hooks and Cods wars) as they were now separated by a broad new body of water.

Most of the area remained flooded for several decades. Reclaimed parts are the Island of Dordrecht, the Hoeksewaard island, and north-western North Brabant. Most of the Biesbosch area has been flooded ever since.

Another All Saints flood in 1570, took the island of Bosch – situated in the Wadden sea, between Shiermonnikoog and Rottumeroog, it totally disappeared during the floods of 1717. By 2008 the island of Schiermonnikoog had moved westwards by 10 kms and medieval remnants from the old island a Bosch are now unearthed on Schiermonnikoog.

The Great Famine

In the Middle Ages, on average one in four harvests always failed. Famine was a reoccurring phenomenon in the Middle Ages, with struck the population of Europe on average one in every ten years – mostly in a rather localised way. Famine was mostly followed by plague and pestilence and they caused often more victims than famine. Famine often was also the result of poor farming techniques and difficulties with transportation and storage. The first recorded serious famines occurred in the 12^thcentury (1125, 1140, 1195 and 1196). In 1309 there was severe famine in Picardy (now northern France), the Low Countries and the Lowe Rhine region. However, while these certainly led to under nourishment they seldom led to large scale starvation.

The rather sudden change in climate started with  a period of severe rain between 1314 and 1318; this led to catastrophic crop failures and this in turn led to massive famine at a time when more and more people had moved away from rural areas to the new towns and cities. The Great Famine – the largest ever recorded in NW European history – struck Europe north of the Alps and the Pyrenees, from Russia to Ireland.

The scale and the severity of the Great Famine at a time when – with the increased population after a prolonged period of very favourable  climatological circumstances (MWP) there was little margin for failure and the results were devastating.  The famines from 1315-1317 however, were very different.

During the months of May, July and August in 1315 it more or less rained non stop in most of north-western Europe followed by an unusual cold August and September. Spring rains in 1316 prevented proper sowing, harvests failed again and the rain simply continued. That year was the worst for cereals crops throughout the entire Middle Ages, this was also a year of death with many people dying of starvations. . Rain continued in 1317 and 1318. Weather started to improve in some parts in that year. However, extensive flooding in the Low Countries continued in 1320 and 1322. The NOA cycle finally ended that year. but the recovery didn’t start until 1325. Lack of communication aggravated these calamities as it could well be that only one or two districts further there was enough food that could have helped out their neighbours.

The prolonged rain also caused a heavy death toll amongst cattle and sheep, pigs survived best as they eat anything and the rain didn’t affect them. Over time up to 75% of sheep and cattle perished, this also of course very severely hit the wool trade.

It is estimated that the Great Famine killed approx. 10-25% of the population in north-western Europe. Hardest hit were England with half a million deaths and Flanders and Germany were between 10% and 15% of the urban population perished. Casualties in rural Europe were 95% of the population lived were even higher.

This was fertile ground for chiliastic prophesies; the end time was near and soon better times would arrive. Long processions of naked penitents cried to God for mercy. After decades of good harvests the population surely believed that this was a punishment of God.

Poverty and hunger are also ideal ingredients for popular uprisings and around these time we see many of them occurring, initially in England, France and Flanders. Already during the 1309 famine,armies of the poor had attacked the fortress of the Duke of Brabant. However, he had little time for these starving people and he merciless drove them away at heavy losses to the poor ³.

There was already little room for error as in good years the agriculture yield in the Middle Ages was extremely low, with an archaic three field crop rotation system. Obviously the first lands that were cultivated where the most fertile areas, the rapid increase in population saw the need for more cultivation but this happened in far more marginally areas and was often not sufficient to feed the extra people.

As often happened in situations where the political rulers are confronted with (potential) social unrest they try to find ‘another enemy’. In order to deflect such situations kings proclaimed crusades which attracted large armies of the poor, as for example happened in 1320 when Philip V of France proclaimed the Shepard’s crusade.

Building up supplies for longer period of times was never possible, one could overcome one bad harvest but several in a row were simply unmanageable in these times. Storage in itself was a serious problem because of the large rat population in an age where hygiene hardly existed.

During the height of the killer famine grain prices in Hainault were between 25 to 30 times higher than during normal times, food prices in Paris rose by 800%, wheat prices increased by 320% in Lorraine, thus making it impossible for many of the common people to survive, rioting and theft became widespread. There was no social system in place to more equally distribute whatever food there was available.

The export of grain was also used as a political weapon. The French king used it as such in its struggle with the Flemish rebels.

The fairy tale Hansel and Gretel most probably has its origin in this period, where children were abandoned to fend for themselves. This in the fairy tale than gets linked to fantasies about food, especially cakes and sweets, to get the people’s mind away from hunger and deprivation.

The Great Famine killed fewer people than the Black Death 40 years later; however the last one was a rather quick killer while the Great Famine killed people of a prolonged period, also many people who lived during the period of the Black Death had gone through a period of malnutrition during their early childhood and might therefore have been more vulnerable to such  aggressive diseases.

A similar situation occurred in north-western Europe in  the 15th century. Cold weather started to appear in 1419. Northern France saw a severe famine in 1421. The winter of 1431/32 was particularly severe,  most of France’s vineyards suffered from severe frost and storm  damage. Storms also created havoc on the seas with many ships wrecked in Scandinavia, the Gulf of Biscay and in the Adriatic (Venice). The famine that occurred during the 1433-1438 period was almost as severe as the Great Famine from a century earlier. By 1440 most wine growing had disappeared from England, the last ones – in Ely – ceased operation in 1469.

Social, cultural and economic instability

The start of the 14th century brought  lots of pressure on the European society; which created widespread instability socially, culturally and economically.

Interestingly at the same time we see an enormous growth in wealth, especially in the cities of Flanders, Brabant and northern Italy. There was a phenomenal growth in international trade and a great demand for money. Unlike the previous 800 years this was rapidly becoming a currency based economy. Financial institution to handle this effectively were limited and those who did operate within this environment found it extremely difficult to cope with these massive economic changes; adding further tension to the already volatile situation in Europe.

In the impoverished cities, famine and decease were fertile grounds for other to be exploited for their own cause. Mercenaries, crusaders, zealots, rough characters of any sort used these situations to their own advantage; this led to pillage, persecution, murder, rape for whatever reason these characters instigated amongst the poor.

Linked to eschatology phantasies, in the eyes of the people of the Middle Ages, murder and massacre was allowed in order  to free the world of sin, and to pave the way for the arrival of the messiah.

See also: Popular Uprisings.

Black Death

The Plague broke out throughout Europe between 1347 and 1350.

Most probably this devastating epidemic arrived in western Europe (Genoa) from  the Crimea by mid or late 1347; caused by the bacteria Yersinia pestis (however, the cause has more recently been put up for debate), which is mainly carried by a flea hosted by the common rat. While it did reach the boarder of Brabant, in Doornik (Tournai) in the late summer of 1348, it did not ravage as bad though the Low Countries until 200 years later. One of the families covered in this publication – Henric Van Aemstel , canon at St Servaas in Maastricht -  died in 1348, most probably as a result of this outbreak.

It has also been argued that because of the Great Famine – which in particular hit the youngest (and oldest) – there were therefore less vulnerable people when the Black Death arrived in the Low Countries, thirty years later.

The range of natural disasters in Europe, as mentioned above, coincided with the outbreak with the plague. The theory goes that these disasters resulted in unusual movements of rodents, who carry the bacterium.  The bacteria causes bubonic plague in which black bumps develop (hence the name Black Death) an even more dangerous form of the plague was pneumonic in nature, spread by coughing and sneezing. In Medieval times it was thought that the plague was spread by foul air.

Some towns had mortality rates as high as between 50% and 80%.  On average it has been estimated that Europe lost over a third of its population during these few years.

Surprisingly the original epidemic did not have such a devastating effect on Flanders and Brabant where ‘only’ between 15% and 25% of the population became a victim of this epidemic. Some historians argue that because this region was far more severely hit by a series of famine between 1315 and 1317, where it lost a very large proportion of its children; there simply was a less vulnerable adult population by the time the pest arrived. In the highly urbanised Low Countries population levels were already at pre 1300 times within two hundred years. In other areas for example Tuscany this level was not reached until well into the 19^th century.

Over the next hundreds years so called ‘echo’ epidemics each saw a further 10-20% mortality rate in the regions it revenged. On a European scale the next wave of large scale epidemics occurred in 1366-67, 1373, 1374, 1390 and 1400. In the century following the Black Death another 30% to 40% of the total European population perished. In some the overall mortality during this century was a high as between 60% and 75%.

In the Netherlands there were epidemics in 1360-2, 1362-4 1368-9, 1371-2, 1382-4, 1409, 1420-1, 1438-9, 1450-4, 1456-9, 1466-72, 1481-2, 1487-90 and 1492-4. However, increasingly these outbreaks were smaller and less severe.

Brabant saw its populating decrease from 92,000 in 1438 to 75,000 in 1496; from here it increased again to 97,000 in 1526.

In Ootmarsum outbreaks of the Black Death were reported in 1468, 1483,1488 and specially severe ones in 1565/66 and 1606.

In France, the English invasion, civil wars, deadly epidemics, famines and marauding mercenary armies turned to banditry reduced-  between 1328 and 1470 –  the population by two-thirds. The district of Caux in Normandy lost over two thirds of its villages, in all France lost over 3,000 villages. The situation in France only started to approve after the end of the Hundred Year War in 1453. Interestingly in Avignon, where Pope Clements VI resided during the height of the Black Death, some 400 people a day died.  His court physician suggested they lit fires around the castle and indeed the pope survived.

At the same time a range of new epidemics started to cause havoc. In 1440 a major small pox (red plague) epidemic swept through Europe. In 1460 a flue epidemic swept through France, the Low Countries, Spain and eastern England. The sweating sickness (Picardy sweat) appeared six times between 1485 and 1551, mainly in the region around the English Channel, each time claiming around 10% of the effected population. Water pollution led to a range of other illnesses such as intestinal dysentery (bloody flux), infant diarrhoea. Added to this sorrow list were ‘modern’ diseases that arrived in the 15^th century such as typhus, syphilis, gonorrhoea (French pox). The venereal diseases created severe havoc in the various armies.

The Black Death devastated Venice in 1348 and once again between 1575 and 1577. In three years the plague killed some 50,000 people. In 1630, the plague killed a third of Venice’s 150,000 citizens.

In the archives of Wietmarschen a plague epidemic was mentioned around 1400 and in 1564, 1577 and in 1630, when 50 people died, another epidemic six years later. During the 30 year war (1618-1648) that killed a third of the German population.

There were a further nine major pan-epidemics between 1521 and 1683. Oss saw a particular devastating bout of this illness in 1599 which killed hundreds of people, perhaps as much as between a quarter or a third of the population at that time.

Infant mortality was around 50% during the Middle Ages.

Amazingly, very few people ever made a link between the appalling hygienic conditions and these epidemics.

These seemingly random ‘attacks’ had a profound effect on the population they were very heavily occupied with death; this is very noticeable in the way religion operated during these ages and in the art and literature of these times. Inevitable these disasters where blamed on God’s wrath on humans and their sinful behaviour.

More devastating wars

Ever since tribal Europe, wars have been the norm rather than the exception. War was an annual event amongst the Germanic and Celtic tribes to obtain booty. This secured the tribal leaders prestige and wealth and also allowed them to keep control over the other ‘nobility’ within the clans. Homage was an important element in order to secure piece between wars.

It was not until the early Middle Ages that wars were fought to obtain land, new territory, perhaps the ideas was seeded by the Romans who allowed tribes to settle in other areas and also to plunder these areas as a reward for services provided to the Roman Empire.

During the Carolingian period , war was still more along the lines of the tribal wars, and didn’t have a significant effect on the local population. After the collapse of the Carolingian Empire however, it became a battle whereby every single lord started to create its own little territory, complete with fortifications. This period was more or less completed by the year 1000.

More lords meant more war. Initially these wars were fought between nobles and their relative small armies, and while thousands could die they still had rather little effect on the local population. Their misery was more indirect. Increasingly however, mercenaries were hired in to fight with the waring nobilities and often in between jobs or otherwise roamed the land plundered the farms and ravaged relentless. The reality was that these war lords devastated farming lands and often forced local farmers to join in their battles.

Increasingly these wars also started to strengthen national feelings. During the Middle Ages very few people saw themselves as living in a state/country. Their lives evolved originally around their tribes and later their village or town.  Ceremonies such as ‘Blijde Inkomsten’, heraldic symbols and genealogical histories all assisted in creating a sense of nationality.

The importance of war also started to see a change in the organisation of the army. It had changed from seasonally campaigns to an all year round activity. In 1439 the French king Charles VII received the funds to establish a standing army. The funding also allowed for better weaponry and this decision proofed to be a desicive element one in the hundred year war against England, they shortly after this new development were definitely expulsed from France.

At the same time a more and more complex society also needed more stability in order to stimulate trade and economic prosperity which in turn delivered the taxes to the kings. This led also to more sophisticated peace arrangements, aimed at creating long-term solutions.

Hundred Years’ War

The Hundred Years’ War  was a conflict between France and England, lasting 116 years from 1337 to 1453,  it was more of a series of campaigns rather than an continuous war; it finally ended in the expulsion of the Plantagenets from France.

The war was fought primarily over rival claims to the French throne.  This situation had arrived in 1066 when William of Normandy conquered England, and as such forced England to accept overlord-ship of the king of France over its possessions in France. While the area under English control diminished over the following centuries, in the eyes of the French it remained unacceptable that England held possessions at all in France.

The Hundred Year war between the two countries started when the House of Valois claimed the title of King of France, while the Plantagenets from England ultimately claimed to be Kings of France and England. The Plantagenet Kings in England, also known as the House of Anjou, had their roots in the French regions of Anjou and Normandy. Many French soldiers fought on both sides, with Burgundy and Aquitaine providing notable support to the Plantagenet side.

Indirectly the war had also great consequences for the Low Countries. Count Willem II of Holland as well as the Flemish cities were instrumental at the start of the campaign when they supported the English king Edward III. Who than started the war against France. Holland and Flanders both depended on the wool trade with England. The first phase of the war lasted from 1337-1360, with the English winning battles in Sluis (1340), Crécy (1346) and Poitiers (1256). A cease fire followed and the peact treatu of Bretigny was signed in 1360 where England was given sovereignty over Gascony

For his brave behaviour Philip, the fourth son of the French King John II (born in 1342), received his nickname ‘the bold’ in the Anglo-French war during the battle of Poirtier, which France lost, but the 14 year old prince had shown great courage during this battle and as a reward received at the peace treaty in 1360 the fiefdom of the duchy of Touraine (Loire Valley), which in 1363 he swapped for the more prestigious Burgundy.

Philip married Margaret de Male, the only daughter of the Louis de Male, duke of Flanders. As a gift Charles ceded Walloon to Flanders. In 1419 Brabant also became a permanent part of Burgundy, Holland Zealand and Henegauwen followed suit.

When France invaded Gascony the 2nd phase of the war started in 1369, this was successfully concluded by France in 1396. The English could only just hang on to Calais and a small area around Bordeaux.

During the war the trade between Flanders and England was often severely disrupted. Piracy on both sides was used to disrupt the trade. The truth signed in 1396 did see a restorations of this trade, however, piracy was often not so easy to stop.

King Richard II tried to stop the war by marrying Isabella of Valois. However soon after his death the war started again in 1415, with the landing of British troops in Normandy. They had their famous victory later that year  at Azincourt, when they conquered nearly all of northern France. At the Treaty of Troyes, King Henry V of England was appointed the regent and heir of the  French King Charles VI. Soon after the England invaded southern France.

In 1422 Burgundy joined England in their war against France, however when they saw that the end was near they switched sides and joined the French  in 1444.

The final phase of the war started in 1428 when Jeanne d’Arc spurred on the French king to resist the English. The war finally came to en end, this first led to a truce followed by  the final defeat of the English in 1453. They were only able to keep Calais, which in 1558 they also lost.

The consequences of the Century of Death

The devastation of all of these events mentioned above was more severe in the country side than in the towns. While villages remained the backbone of the European countries, with the Great Death we started to see change towards urbanisation. After the Great Death large number of peasants started to move to the cities, as there simply where more jobs here than there were on the land.

The number of towns increased substantially during the 14^th and 15^th centuries. However, also here the effects of the Great Death had hit hard, the size of the population per town had decreased significantly. Florence had over 100,000 inhabitants in 1300 and 40,000 in 1500. Overall the European population dropped from around 75 million in 1300 to around 50 million by 1450.

At the heights of the medieval boom average life expectation was between 35 and 40 years, during the epidemics this dropped to under 20. However, we need to take into account that it was in particular the young (and the frail) who perished. A healthy, not by illnesses effected peasant boy, at the height of the boom could expect to live till the age of 54, this dropped to 48 during the century of death. Because of the high infant mortality the average age of the surviving population increased. This of course led to a decrease in a young workforce.

This in turn led to a decline in infrastructure maintenance; many farms and even whole villages fell in disuse and disrepair and simply were abandoned after its last survivors died. Large parts of cultivated lands became wastelands. In England large parts of agriculture land was turned into paddocks (enclosures) for sheep breeding. In all situations this led to a contraction of the agriculture labour force.

Many lords started to lay off staff and reduced their purchases only adding to the misery. The relative high proportion of death in certain regional areas has also been linked to a change in agriculture that started in the late 13^th century. In these areas (namely Britain) there had been a significant change from the more labour intensive crop farming to sheep grazing, this made many farmers less self-sufficient.

The serf system had also made many Lords rather lazy and they were outsourcing many of the agriculture activities and became himself a ’rentier’. This made them vulnerable to the massive changes that followed in the Century of Death and this in its turn was of great consequence to the following period of revival.

Survival of the fittest

Devastated Europe recovered remarkably well.  Not surprisingly there was great celebrations amongst the survivors after the initial epidemic disappeared and this led amongst other things to a significant increase in the birth-rate. The lifestyle of the survivors certainly was not the sort of reaction the church had wanted from their sinners.

Several observers in Europe noticed that women were conceiving more rapidly and that many twins and triplets were born.

The upturn that followed the century of death was also partly because of the fact that the survivor had more to share amongst each other.

The Malthusian deadlock was broken.

In most situations there was no way back to the old feudal system of serfdom. The following century saw a total collapse of the feudal manorial and monastic systems. North Germany and further east were the only lands were the old feudal system was able to survive more or less in its former glory.

Labour was scarce and that favoured peasants, artisans and tradespeople. Those who could adapt to this new system, where there was more room for individualism, did well and after the ‘500 years of the village’ we now started to arrive in the era of the city. Wealth no longer came from owning land but from business and trade. However, the period of transformation from the village to the city culture – between 1400 and 1500 – could be classified as the Golden Age of the Peasants. Certainly they had nowhere near the wealth neither of the old nobility nor of that of the new emerging city slickers, but in relative terms this was their age.

Revival

As cost of labour increased significantly, this of course favoured the peasants and the labourers and severely disadvantaged the land owners and the nobility. In most parts of Europe the already dying system of serfdom now disappeared all together.

Most peasants were able to buy themselves free, in other situations we saw whole villages or groups of peasants bargaining themselves out of the serfdom system.

With many farms abandoned farmers could again choose the more fertile lands and this of course increased the overall yield. During the boom period when the population grew farms had to be subdivided which led to extreme small plots of land.  Slowly larger farms could be established which led to more prosperous farms.  After the Great Famine food production increased and with fewer people food prices started to fall. This led to an increase of disposable income. The common people got better fed and better clad.

These new opportunities were also seized upon by the people in the cities; also here survivors had been able to increase their wealth often through inheriting money and assets from the victims. City folk and peasants joined in new agriculture ventures based on opportunities such as farm extensions and sharecropping.

However, some things never changed. It was still the king and the nobility who held the power. The ruling class didn’t wait long to issue laws to reign in the new powers that were flowing to the common people. In order to maintain the class system they passed laws that made it illegal to break (pre-plague) labour contracts, laws were even passed that forbid commoners to wear silk, silver buckles, fur-lined coats. The already hated poll tax was expanded. All indications of how fearful the ruling class was of the new social mobility that started to occur as a consequence to the upheaval of the previous century. But these suppressive laws caused tho opposite effect. Rulers started to saw the seeds for the many peasant revolutions. France led the revolt with uprises in 1358 (Jacquerie), 1381 and 1382. England saw its first peasants problems starting in 1381, as a result of taxation issues in relation to the 100 years war against France. Ghent had a serious peasant uprising in 1379. Many more revolts would follow over the next two hundred years.

The revival also allowed for more initiative from the individual, in large parts of Europe the serf system disappeared and the future of individualism was well and truly secured. With less emphasis on the common fields many of the governing foundations of the villages disappeared or were at least severely undermined. The ‘new money people’ became more powerful and rapidly started to take control away from the old nobility.

The ongoing reoccurrence of the various diseases as mentioned above however, stopped Europe from a more rapid recovery. Instead, it would take many centuries to get the population back to pre plague proportions.

The massive devastation between 1300 and 1450 led to significant social and economic changes. This in turn led to a prolonged period of expansion and innovations between 1450 and 1650. Less people to do the job also stimulated innovations in agriculture, shipping, printing and early forms of industrialisation. The windmill started to be use to drive other machinery for the production of timber and paper. Another invention was the salting and storage of fish, which allowed ships to stay longer at sea and thus increase their catch at lower (labour) costs. This led to the development of new ships which saw an increase of ship capacity while operating with fewer sailors.

New infrastructure projects were also undertaken; innovations in building techniques saw the arrival of stronger frames, masonry foundations and better fireplaces and chimneys. Houses were extended with second floors or extensions in the backyard.

The need for printing

Dutchman Uwe Neddermeyer has estimated that in the German Empire, including the Low Countries,  the annual production of handwritten books twice increased tenfold during the Middle Ages. First from 20,000 in 1370 to 200,000 by 1460. Further pressure was added by the rise in humanism, which emphasised the importance of the individual, the led to more people becoming interested in the written world that allowed them to interpret the world around them. The second increase occurred between 1460 and 1500 by that time in had reached to 2 million.

With an increase in demand and a decrease in population there was a significant shortage of scribes, this was an enormous stimulant for innovations and soon the printing presses started to arrive.

Interestingly there was also opposition to this new technology. Italian humanist Hieronimo Squarciafico argued that the easy availability of books would lead to intellectual laziness, making men ‘less studious’ and weakening their minds.

While there were some earlier starts, such as in Haarlem in the 1440s, it was goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg in Mainz, who perfected these early attempts and developed the printing press with ‘moveable type’ in the 1450s.

Depopulation also led to fewer soldiers which resulted in better pay for those who were available for military services, this made war more expensive and this in turn resulted in innovations in weaponry such as the musket and the canon.

The integrated European trading system remained intact and especially in Flanders and Brabant - despite the human and social devastation – the Golden Age continued. That is not to say that it all went smoothly. The cloth industry underwent significant changes. Before the plague Flanders produced most cloth for the common people and the high death rate resulted in less customers. After the initial devastation with the above mentioned increase in disposable income, people were looking for more fashionable products and Flanders was late in making the necessary changes.

Medical Science and Healthcare

Humorism – the Greek classical elements

Humorism, or the doctrine of the four temperaments, as a medical theory may have origins in ancient Egypt or Mesopotamia, though it was not systemized until ancient Greek thinkers around 400 BC who directly linked it with the popular theory of the four elements earth, fire, water and air.

Amazingly it retained its medical popularity for centuries largely through the influence of the writings of Galen (131–201 AD) and was decisively displaced only in 1858.

Classical element according to Aristotle:

• Air is primarily wet and secondarily hot.
• Fire is primarily hot and secondarily dry.
• Earth is primarily dry and secondarily cold.
• Water is primarily cold and secondarily wet.

According to Galen, these elements were used by Hippocrates in describing the human body with an association with the four humours: yellow bile (fire), black bile (earth), blood (air), and phlegm (water).

Galen thought believed that different foods had varying potential to be acted upon by the body to produce different humors. Warm foods, for example, tended to produce yellow bile, while cold foods tended to produce phlegm. Seasons of the year, periods of life, geographic regions and occupations also influenced the nature of the humors formed.

The imbalance of humors, or dyscrasia, was thought to be the direct cause of all diseases. Health was associated with a balance of humors, or eucrasia. The qualities of the humors, in turn, influenced the nature of the diseases they caused. Yellow bile caused warm diseases and phlegm caused cold diseases.

Galen further emphasized the importance of the qualities. An ideal temperament involved a balanced mixture of the four qualities. Galen identified four temperaments in which one of the qualities, warm, cold, moist or dry, predominated and four more in which a combination of two. These last four, named for the humors with which they were associated, eventually became better known than the others. They were also linked to human temperaments.

While the term temperament came to refer just to psychological dispositions, Galen used it to refer to bodily dispositions, which determined a person’s susceptibility to particular diseases as well as behavioural and emotional inclinations.

The balance of the body fluids was furthermore influenced by the condition of the parents, the moment of birth and age as well as external elements such as food, drinks, rain, wind, sun, sea, mountains, climate and the environment where one is born and lives.

It is not too difficult to see that at times this ‘science’ was also used to for moral conditions.  Causes of illnesses were often identified a s being a punishment for bad or immoral behaviour, a disputable life style, etc. It was used to condemn people, to justify discrimination or racism and to promote good breeding (and not just between people). The Church did not allow interference with the body, which stopped any serious developments in medicine. The only other way to treat illnesses was based on herbs and other century or even millennium old old methods.

Andreas Vasalius of Brabant

One of the first science innovators of the Middle Ages was Andreas van Wesel (Vasalius) born in Brussels in 1514, son (and grandson) of highly respected imperial court physicians. Andreas studied in Leuven. He – together with Leonardo da Vinci –  questioned the medicine studies of antiquity. He also questioned much of the content of  Galen. He was criticised for this by most of his contemporaries. He left for Italy where the Renaissance had created more openness for new ideas. Andreas is seen as the founder of modern human anatomy. However, despite this progress the new knowledge obtained was not used by him or anybody else to improve medical science.

Be it slowly but medical science started to change from one purely based on the Greek reasoning (theory), to one based on the observation of facts. This led to rigorous analyses which in turn started to lead to a much better understanding of the anatomy of the human body how it functions; or should function.

Hospitals

The hospital evolved from the Christian xenodochia, a room (or separate guest-house) in a monastery for the temporary accommodation of guests, pilgrims or the poor. They originated in Judaea during the late fourth century and spread through the late Roman Empire into Europe. Canstantionople in the 6th century had the largest  xenodochia which was built and staffed by St. John Chrysos-tom during his tenure as Bishop of the city.

However, the medical profession, like the church, saw its prestige damaged during periods of epidemics as they were unable to prevent the diseases or heal the patients.

The Black Death resulted in a new view on medial science and the use of hospitals. These had so far only been used to isolate the sick and often resembled more of a prison. After the plague the emphasis changed from trying to cure the ill. We visited in 2005 the impressive hospital of Beaune. This is a classic example of the high level of charity that did exist amongst the well-to-do in the Middle Ages. Of course this was strongly linked the Christianity and was in general seen as an obligation of this class.

The devastation of the society during the 15^th century also saw an enormous increase in poverty in the cities, often linked to unemployment. For most of the period a quarter to a third of the population was too poor to look after themselves and depended on the many religious and semi-religious (guilds) institutions as well on the city facilities for their wellbeing.

Hospice de Beaune

The newly emerging bureaucracy also allowed for the emergence of a range of university educated experts in financial, legal and administrative affairs, which resulted in great benefits to the Burgundisation process of centralisation. One of the rising stars here was the Burgundian (proper) Nicholas Rodin. He rose to the position of chancellor to Philip the Good, a function he held from 1422 to 1457; gathering a noble title and great wealth in the process.

Nicholas and his wife Guigone de Salins founded in 1443 the famous Hôtel Dieu, Hospice de Beaune. A city ravaged by the 100 year war with lots of poverty and famine. He was inspired by similar building he had seen in the great cities of Flanders. The Salle du Polyptyque hosts an altar polyptyque with the powerful paintings of the Last Judgment by Rogier van der Weyden. There is also the equally impressive 72 meters long Grand Salle des Pauvres with its 28 four-posted beds. The perfectly preserved Hospital was one of the most beautiful buildings we visited during our trip to Burgundy in 2006. It was still in use as a hospital until 1971.

Sanitation and a general understanding of public health also improved, with cities such as Florence, Venice and Ragusa (Dubrovnik) leading the charge here. This latter city established the first public quarantine station in Europe.

Despite its strong link with the Classical Periods, the medial instruments used during the Middle Ages were far less sophisticated than those by the Greek and Romans. This only started to change in the 19^th century.

The end of the Middle Ages

While the Middle Ages ‘officially end somewhere between 1453 and 1517, there are no sharp lines and as a matter of fact many of the devotional elements that were reborn in the late Middle Ages lingered on to well into modern times. I still vividly remember the last procession held in the parish I lived in  Oss somewhere in the late 1950s. The adoration of Mary is still very much alive in places such as Den Bosch. Guilds have recently going through of a rebirth and are still playing key social roles in many of the towns and villages in Brabant, Flanders as well as in other parts of Europe. The St Sebastian Guild in Oss is such an example abandoned by the church in the 19^th century it was reinaugurated more than a hundred years later.

Many social, political, hierarchical, economic and agrarian structures remained in place until the French Revolution and in rural areas even longer.

That’s not to say that nothing changed, to the contrary. Following the massive social and economic changes of the late Middle Ages we did see a prolonged period of expansion and innovations between 1450 and 1650.

Nevertheless Western Europe remained an agriculture based society; it certainly had not achieved a higher political, economic or cultural levels than others such as China, Japan or India.

After the death of Charles the Reckless, the Habsburg Empire started to take control of the Netherlands. The seat of power moved from Brussels to Vienna and Madrid. This of course had serious consequences for the importance of this region. After the Dutch Revolt the southern parts of the Low Countries became an outpost and border region of the Habsburg Empire and as a consequence its once powerful position in Europe was relegated to a military zone.

Holland, which has wrestled itself away from the Empire, started to emerge as a new global economic power. This development started after the fall of Antwerp (1586) the massive departure of business, artistic and intellectual resources that followed this event saw the centre of innovation moved northward to Amsterdam. The famous cloth industry in Flanders collapsed and Leyden became the new centre for the cloth trade. There was a great influx of refugees from the south and based on a more modern form of capitalism this allowed the rich merchants to exploit this oversupply of labour and in particular the rural industry was the victim of this exploitation.

The Age of Discoveries started to broaden the view of the Europeans and that led to a more rapid development. Also here Holland played a key role in these developments not just in relation to discoveries but also in relation to the knowledge that this brought with it. Travel stories and reported were printed and spread throughout Europe. The atlases of Ortelius, Mercator and Blauw are world renown.

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