The European cycle of epidemic mortality and famine of 1093-1095: anatomy of a turning-point crisis

Abstract

Between 1093 and 1095, Western Europe suffered a devastating epidemic mortality crisis. Additionally, between April and November 1095, several regions of France and the Low Countries were affected by a great famine. Mortality and famine pushed many peasants and poor to follow the preacher Peter the Hermit and undertake the exodus to the East at the end of 1095. During the years 1093-1095, Catalan counties, which were immersed in a different political dynamic, experienced the effects of a long famine, as a consequence of the military campaigns driven by the counts of Barcelona and Urgell against the border kingdoms of al-Andalus, and a great crisis of mortality caused by the spread of the continental pandemic.