Middle Ages Environment for Kids - what was the weather like? Was it hotter or colder than now? What kind of animals and plants were there?

Middle Ages Environment

duck tapestry
Some people say that the cause of the fall of the Roman empire in the West around 400 AD was a change in the climate, which caused famines and plagues and made people unhappy with their government. It is true that there was a cold period around this time in Western Europe, but it probably came a little later, in the 500's and 600's AD, too late to be the cause of the fall of Roman government. But around 500 the climate did get colder. In the south, like in Spain, this may have been good: more rain, maybe. In the north, in France, Germany, and England, it was bad. There was a lot of flooding in the river valleys, and many Roman villages in the valleys had to be abandoned as people moved up onto the hills. You couldn't grow olives or wine so far north as before. One result was a general shift to eating butter rather than olive oil and using tallow or beeswax candles for lighting instead of oil lamps.

By about 800, in the time of Charlemagne, the weather began to improve again, and around 1000 AD was probably a very good time in Europe, when it was easy to grow wheat and barley and even wine again. The same weather patterns that made for good weather in north-western Europe, however, may have made southern Spain hotter and drier than people liked.

Again toward the end of the Middle Ages, around 1400 AD, there was another "Little Ice Age," with much the same effects as before. There was a lot of flooding, and in England especially there were many years where the crops were ruined and people went hungry. Although changes in government do have important effects on ordinary people's lives, the weather also plays a very important role.


See how medieval warming and cooling trends affected the Inuit in northern North America
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