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Middle Ages
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=== War, famine, and plague === {{Main|Crisis of the Late Middle Ages}} The first years of the 14th century were marked by famines, culminating in the [[Great Famine of 1315–1317]].<ref name=MAFamine>Loyn "Famine" ''Middle Ages'' p. 128</ref> The causes of the Great Famine included the slow transition from the [[Medieval Warm Period]] to the [[Little Ice Age]], which left the population vulnerable when bad weather caused crop failures.<ref name=Backman373>Backman ''Worlds of Medieval Europe'' pp. 373–374</ref> The years 1313–1314 and 1317–1321 were excessively rainy throughout Europe, resulting in widespread crop failures.<ref name=Epstein41>Epstein ''Economic and Social History'' p. 41</ref> The climate change—which resulted in a declining average annual temperature for Europe during the 14th century—was accompanied by an economic downturn.<ref name=Backman370>Backman ''Worlds of Medieval Europe'' p. 370</ref> [[File:Jacquerie Navarre.jpg|right|thumb|upright=0.8|Execution of some of the ringleaders of the ''[[jacquerie]]'', from a 14th-century manuscript of the ''Chroniques de France ou de St Denis'']] These troubles were followed in 1347 by the [[Black Death]], a [[pandemic]] that spread throughout Europe during the following three years.<ref name=MAPlague>Schove "Plague" ''Middle Ages'' p. 269</ref>{{efn-ua|The historical consensus for the last 100 years has been that the Black Death was a form of [[bubonic plague]], but some historians have [[Theories of the Black Death|begun to challenge this view]] in recent years.<ref name=Epstein171>Epstein ''Economic and Social History'' pp. 171–172</ref>}} The death toll was probably about 35 million people in Europe, about one-third of the population. Towns were especially hard-hit because of their crowded conditions.{{efn-ua|One town, [[Lübeck]] in Germany, lost 90 percent of its population to the Black Death.<ref name=Daily189>Singman ''Daily Life'' p. 189</ref>}} Large areas of land were left sparsely inhabited, and in some places fields were left unworked. Wages rose as landlords sought to entice fewer available workers to their fields. Further problems were lower rents and lower demand for food, which cut into agricultural income. Urban workers also felt they had a right to greater earnings, and [[Popular revolt in late-medieval Europe|popular uprisings]] broke out across Europe.<ref name=Backman374>Backman ''Worlds of Medieval Europe'' pp. 374–380</ref> Among the uprisings were the ''[[jacquerie]]'' in France, the [[Peasants' Revolt]] in England, and revolts in the cities of [[Florence]] in Italy and [[Ghent]] and [[Bruges]] in Flanders. The trauma of the plague led to an increased piety throughout Europe, manifested by the foundation of new charities, the self-mortification of the [[flagellant]]s, and the [[Black Death Jewish persecutions|scapegoating of Jews]].<ref name=Davies412>Davies ''Europe'' pp. 412–413</ref> Conditions were further unsettled by the return of the plague throughout the rest of the 14th century; it continued to strike Europe periodically during the rest of the Middle Ages.<ref name=MAPlague />
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