PHYSIOLOGY AND FOOD: CRISES, DIETARY SHIFTS, AND PHYSICAL HEALTH IN FOURTEENTH CENTURY EUROPE

The first half of the fourteenth century completely altered Europe through a series of disasters, particularly the Great European Famine, the Great Bovine Pestilence, and the Black Death. These alterations included the daily diet and the physical health of the people of northern Europe. One disaster followed another in rapid succession, impacting the food supply and affecting northern European society to its core, quite literally to the very hearts of the survivors. With each new event, trends in eating habits shifted to accommodate the current circumstances. Famines, new food sources, and increased availability of food collided with medicine and magic cures to create new daily diets for the European people. Some of these newfound culinary trends persisted even after the circumstances in which they initially arose. Utilizing contemporary writings, archaeological evidence, and modern famine research, this paper examines these alterations in European diet and how they led to physiological outcomes in the survivors of the early fourteenth century disasters, some of which impacted people decades and even generations later.