A 17th century illustration of celebrations at a winter carnival. Within a century Europe was enduring the Great Frost
Most genealogists will have read about the almost countless famines that occurred during the late Middle Ages. Stories of the experiences of ancestors and how they coped may have been incorporated into a few family histories, at least in terms of the times and places in which they happened. But is there a clear understanding of how such events came to occur? Or why they appear to have been more common during that time-period? Or how such events were so impactful?