Abstract
This article compares dearth policies developing in three regions in northwestern Europe in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries: East Anglia, coastal Picardy and Upper Normandy, and Holland. Based on a survey of existing research, it examines the reactions of authorities to food crises and the factors shaping these reactions. Two elements of dearth policy are investigated: restrictions on the grain trade on the one hand, and public grain stocks on the other. The article shows how social, political and economic characteristics of each region affected the way in which the authorities attempted to manage food crises, but also demonstrates that the exigencies of dearth were strong enough to partly overcome differences.
Highlights
In the transition between the Middle Ages and the early modern era, northwestern Europe experienced an increased occurrence of food crises and even outright famines, marked by excess mortality due to hunger or hunger-induced diseases.[1]
In Holland export restrictions were loosened in the course of the sixteenth century while in East Anglia and in coastal Picardy and Upper Normandy they were tightened; in Holland urban governments had elbow room to restrict the movement of grain out of their jurisdiction in times of dearth, an option that the towns in the other two regions, at least in theory, did not have
Policies regarding public grain stocks do not display the same degree of variation: towns in all three regions made emergency grain purchases
Summary
In the transition between the Middle Ages and the early modern era, northwestern Europe experienced an increased occurrence of food crises and even outright famines, marked by excess mortality due to hunger or hunger-induced diseases.[1] Academic analyses of the backgrounds of this development reflect the two sides of the debate on the causes of famine.[2] They emphasize either demographic growth in combination with deteriorating climatic conditions,[3] or problems with the system of food distribution related
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