Although the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) revised their theoretical model of food security for over two decades ago, historians have been slow in adopting these new insights to study pre-modern societies. Showcasing the potential of the holistic approach proposed by the FAO, this paper analyses the evolution of food security in the calamitous fourteenth century in Ghent, one the most populated cities at that time. In the long-term, access to food seem to have bettered during the second half of the century thanks to increased wages, wealth and investments into farmland. While these gains can partly be linked to demographic evolutions, we found no evidence of an often-hypothesized Malthusian ceiling before the Black Death.
University of Antwerp, Belgium - ORCID: 0000-0002-8082-7715
University of Antwerp, Belgium - ORCID: 0000-0001-9758-3182
Chapter Title
Feeding inequalities: the role of economic inequalities and the urban market in late medieval food security. The case of fourteenth-century Ghent
Authors
Stef Espeel, Sam Geens
Language
English
DOI
10.36253/978-88-5518-053-5.25
Peer Reviewed
Publication Year
2020
Copyright Information
© 2020 Author(s)
Content License
Metadata License
Book Title
Disuguaglianza economica nelle società preindustriali: cause ed effetti / Economic inequality in pre-industrial societies: causes and effect
Editors
Giampiero Nigro
Peer Reviewed
Number of Pages
488
Publication Year
2020
Copyright Information
© 2020 Author(s)
Content License
Metadata License
Publisher Name
Firenze University Press
DOI
10.36253/978-88-5518-053-5
ISBN Print
978-88-5518-052-8
eISBN (pdf)
978-88-5518-053-5
eISBN (xml)
978-88-5518-054-2
Series Title
Datini Studies in Economic History
Series ISSN
2975-1241
Series E-ISSN
2975-1195