An English chronicler records harvest failure and hunger
About this date: The linked annal describes 1315 in detail; the range marks the commonly identified core famine years, not identical conditions in every region.
Heavy rain and food shortages produce hunger and sharply rising prices. A monastic chronicler records the difficulty of finding bread even when the king visits St Albans.
Historical context
The account connects harvest conditions, fodder shortages, and access to food. Scriptural language gives the catastrophe a theological interpretation alongside observations of material distress.
Key points
- Food scarcity reaches beyond grain alone.
- The poor suffer most severely.
- The chronicler reads the crisis through Jeremiah.
People
- Johannes de Trokelowe
- Edward II
Sources and further reading
- Annals: the famine of 1315
Contemporary monastic account of rain, prices, and hunger. - A quantitative hydroclimatic context for the European Great Famine of 1315–1317
Authors' institutional record links the peer-reviewed article; tree-ring reconstruction supports exceptional wet conditions, not every detail of the chronicler's narrative.