Famine and rain in Europe

1005

A wet summer and a failed harvest triggered widespread starvation from England to Saxony. Chroniclers described villagers boiling grass and reports of cannibalism on lonely forest roads. The year marked the beginning of a harsh decade preceding the milder climate that would fuel later 11th-century European agricultural growth. Monastic granaries that had stockpiled grain became the only refuge for starving peasants across the countryside.