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Between Famine and Death. Physiological Stress and Dairy Deficiency in England on the Eve of the Black Death (1315-50): New Evidence from Paleoepidemiology and Manorial Accounts

Slavin, Philip, DeWitte, Sharon (2013) Between Famine and Death. Physiological Stress and Dairy Deficiency in England on the Eve of the Black Death (1315-50): New Evidence from Paleoepidemiology and Manorial Accounts. Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 44 (1). pp. 37-60. ISSN 0022-1953. E-ISSN 1530-9169. (doi:10.1162/JINH_a_00500) (The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided) (KAR id:54125)

The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided.
Official URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/JINH_a_00500

Abstract

Archaeological findings, in conjunction with contemporary quantitative data from manorial records, demonstrate that most of the English population before the onset of the Black Death (1348–1350) suffered from a chronic shortage of protein, calcium, and Vitamin B12 for at least one generation—much longer than the three years of bad harvests and grain famine typically attributed to the Great Famine (1315–1317). The skeletal evidence suggests that after the Great Famine had thinned the population of its frailest individuals, the Great Bovine Pestilence (1319–1320), which caused a prolonged dearth of dairy products, created a generation of people who were less healthy than those who had survived the famine and who therefore were particularly susceptible to the ravages associated with the Black Death.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1162/JINH_a_00500
Subjects: D History General and Old World
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Arts and Humanities > School of History
Depositing User: M.R.L. Hurst
Date Deposited: 10 Feb 2016 14:55 UTC
Last Modified: 16 Nov 2021 10:22 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/54125 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

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