There were episodes of widespread famines, and also of deadly epidemics. Soil exhaustion, overpopulation, wars, diseases and climate change cause hundreds of famines in medieval Europe. Around 1300, centuries of European prosperity and growth came to a halt. Famines such as Great Famine of 1315–1317 slowly weakened the populace. Few people died of starvation because the weakest had already succumbed to a routine disease they otherwise would have survived. A plague like the Black Death killed its victims in one locality in a matter of days or even hours, reducing the population of some areas by half as many survivors fled.
