5. Climate and Famines in the Czech Lands Prior to AD 1500: Possible Interconnections in a European Context

This paper addresses the three most disastrous famine episodes in the Czech Lands before AD 1500—the 1280s, 1310s and 1430s—and analyses them in both meteorological and socio-political terms. Adverse weather anomalies with harmful hydro-meteorological extremes and difficult socio-economic conditions were prerequisites for famine episodes, just as in the rest of Europe. Although times of famine occurrence and the states of the societies vary from country to country, a cascade of key phenomena are generally common to all: (a) complicated socio-political situations (including wars); (b) accumulation of adverse weather patterns influencing agricultural production; (c) severe-to-catastrophic failures of key agricultural crops (particularly grain) for at least two successive years; (d) direct consequences (dramatic increases in the prices of key foodstuffs; famine; consumption of poor-quality substitute diets and thus increases in vulnerability to illness; spread of disease; sharp rises in human mortality; villages abandoned; severe increases in crime).