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.<span> Around 1300, centuries of European prosperity and growth came to a halt. Famines such as </span>Great Famine of 1315–1317<span> 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 </span>Black Death<span> 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.</span>
