ABSTRACT
The fourteenth century in Europe witnessed the impact of power, violence and mass death in particularly acute ways, so much so, that this period has entered folk memory as one of extreme devastation. The catastrophes of this time were the product of non-human causes; the interaction of these with human agency; and human actions. The European population had doubled, supported by internal colonization with the clearing of forests, draining of fields and bringing of marginal lands under cultivation. Human action was however paramount in producing the third scourge afflicting fourteenth-century Europe: war. As always, it was mainly civilians who suffered most, often in conditions of total war. Overall, the fourteenth century does provide much evidence of mass death resulting from famine, disease and war. The immediate effects of the calamities were, of course, huge loss of life and immense human suffering—a great mass of individual tragedies.
