The fourteenth-century recession

Intensified interest in the late medieval slump aroused by the first edition of this book has called forth not only sundry corroborations and supplements but also some objections concerning the causes and extent of the long-lasting depression (of which more later) and the date of its beginning (see Graus, 1969). ¹ Three or four starting-points quite far apart in time have been suggested: the end of the thirteenth century, the second decade of the fourteenth century, and the middle or the last quarter of the fourteenth century. Although these estimates may sound incompatible, the events they are based on were probably interconnected in at least two, perhaps even three, of the cases. During the last quarter of the fourteenth century there was a long-term decline in prices. In mid-century the Black Death, which was a distant if not the immediate cause of the decline, swept over Europe. In the second decade of the fourteenth century the west European lands were stricken by severe and persistent famine, leading to the fall in population that lay behind the agricultural decline of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.