Tuesday, October 9, 2012

The Famine of 1315

The theme of this reading was hunger. The poor were not the only ones who were starving; even the king, when he came to visit, could not feed his entire party.
The text says that the weather was changing in a way that had never occurred before, and this caused the rains to come for long periods of time. When the weather altered the normal patterns that people were used to, it ended up causing the grains and other crops to rot. This weather continued and caused a famine.
I think it is interesting that people were so hungry that they are said to have secretly eaten their own children. I can't even imagine that intense of a famine that you are okay with that idea. We have poverty today, and even a lack of food. But I can't think of anyone in their right mind who would consider something of that magnitude. However, these people, judging by the fact that they have absolutely no food, were probably not thinking right and made the choice to stay alive by whatever means necessary.
It's hard to imagine life being any different than it is now. Even looking back to when I was 10, the internet was still a fairly new idea and cell phones were miles away from where they are now. To think, 697 years ago people were starving and depending on what they had been taught from previous farmers on when to grow crops. I can't imagine how hard it must've been to sit by and watch this all happen.
In America today you do not see any famine. Poverty, yes, but there has always been food to buy. While there may be recalls on some food items, we are always fully stocked with groceries. In other countries where they still depend solely on their crops, they may be more apt to have famines. With the weather changes our world has been going through, we may be headed straight for another famine.

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