Late Middle Ages · 1315-1322

The Great Famine of 1315-1317

In 1315 the rain will not stop. For three years harvests rot in the fields across northern Europe, and then a cattle plague follows. Students link weather, food and power, and ask how a society copes when the harvest fails.

Teach it live New Open on the map
Length
45 minutes
Ages
12–15
On the map
3 steps, AD 1315
Live lesson
7 rounds, 3 on the map
Worksheet
Two A4 pages, with Classroom
You need
A projector; phones for live

Live lesson · new in Classroom

Teach it live. The class answers on their phones.

Put the board on the projector. Students join with a six-digit code, no account needed, and tap the map: where was the frontier, where did the grain come from. Their pins drop in together when you reveal, and the closest student takes the round.

€19 per month: every lesson live, every worksheet, cancel anytime. Rome at its height runs live for free.

A live lesson on the projector: the class's pins on the map around Alexandria, the closest students listed beside it A student's phone: the question and a map to tap
7 rounds
3 places to find on the map, quiz questions, a class vote and a one-line answer.
About 15 minutes
Run it as the map step, or to open the discussion. You move on with the space bar.
A report
Every answer, per student and per round, to read back or print after the lesson.
1

Introduction

5 min

Read aloud

In 1315 the rain will not stop. For three years harvests rot in the fields across northern Europe, and then a cattle plague follows. Students link weather, food and power, and ask how a society copes when the harvest fails.

By the end of the lesson, students can

  • Explain how bad weather between 1315 and 1317 led to famine across northern Europe.
  • Describe the effects of the famine on peasants, towns and rulers.
  • Connect the famine to the cooling climate shown in the Weather of History layer.
2

Explore the map

12 min

Project the map, or let students follow on their own devices. Each step opens the map at the right year and place.

a

AD 1315

A disaster marker

Open the map in 1315 and turn on Historical Events (Natural Disasters). Find the Great European Famine. Which kingdoms lie around it?

Open this view on the map
b

AD 1315

A colder age

Turn on Weather of History and read the card on the Little Ice Age. When does it begin, and how might colder, wetter years affect farmers who had no reserves?

Open this view on the map
c

AD 1315

Hungry cities

Turn on Cities and zoom in on Flanders and northern France. Big towns could not grow their own food. Why were town dwellers often hit hardest when grain ran short?

Open this view on the map
3

Class discussion

14 min

Pick two or three. They run from what happened to why it mattered.

  1. Europe's population had grown for 200 years before 1315. Why did that make the famine worse?
  2. Many families ate their seed grain and their plow animals. Why did that make the next year even harder?
  3. Grain prices rose steeply. Who might have profited, and who suffered most?
  4. Rulers tried to fix the price of food. Why might such laws fail in a real shortage?
  5. Some historians think the famine left people weaker before the Black Death of 1347. How could we test that idea?
4

Game round

9 min

Play Rule History as Mansa Musa, who ruled Mali in the same years. Afterwards, compare: what could a ruler of 1315 do when harvests failed, and what did the rulers of northern Europe actually do?

Open Rule History
5

Worksheet

5 min

This worksheet comes with Classroom

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