List of Maps Pt. I A Calamity "Unheard-of Among Living Men" The Bringers of Famine in 1315: Rain, War, God 2 The Harvest Failures and Animal Murrains Pt. II The Economics and Demography of the Famine in Rural Society Prices and Wages 4 The Cost-of-Living Crisis: Lords 5 The Cost-of-Living Crisis: Rustics 6 The Struggle for Survival Pt. III Towns and Principalities Urban Demography and Economy 8 Coping in Towns 9 The Policies of Princes Epilogue Notes Bibliography Index
Pestilence and War have had their historians. Famine now has its own with this brilliantly written masterpiece of historical anthropology. -- "Jacques Le Goff" Superb detective work, as all good historical research should be, it is well organized, fast moving, and above all else, persuasive. Jordan spins a horrifying tale, dealing, in turn, with the nature of the calamity and how it affected the nobility, peasants, and townfolk--starvation, disease, displacement, and death... Yes, this is true scholarship, but also a riveting tale as well. -- "The Virginia Quarterly Review"
William Chester Jordan is Professor of History and Director of the Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies at Princeton University. Among his books are Louis IX and the Challenge of the Crusade: A Study in Rulership (Princeton), Women and Credit in Pre-Industrial and Develpoing Societies, and The French Monarchy and the Jews from Philip Augustus to the Last Capetians. He is the editor-in-chief of The Middle Ages: An Encyclopedia for Students.
In this important new synthesis of the causes, course, and consequences of the Great Famine, Jordan offers a corrective to the view that after its initial crippling effects, famine continued to afflict Europe until the ultimate devastation of the Black Death... A richly detailed cultural history that considers significant regional variations and stresses the event's human dimension, including its manifold and different effects in rural and urban contexts and on people of differing age, status, and power... This will become the standard work on the subject. Choice Ever since the publication of Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror, many readers have had a sneaking suspicion that the 14th century is uncannily similar to our own. Anyone who takes up this book in hopes of finding a new Tuchman will find something better, though: a work of great depth written in a scholarly though engaging way... [T]he impressive scholarship ... deserves to be appreciated for its own merits. Among the many virtues of this readable work are the corrections of many common misperceptions of the Middle Ages and a bibliography that is extensive and impressive... Publishers Weekly A richly detailed cultural history... This will become the standard work on the subject. Choice Anyone who takes up this book in hopes of finding a new Tuchman will find something better, though: a work of great depth written in a scholarly though engaging way. Publishers Weekly
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