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marauding armies came along.
    But things did go horribly wrong at times, and there were marauding armies. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the end of the eleventh century is a list of things going awry:
    AD 1077
    This year was the dry summer; and wildfire came upon many shires, and burned many towns; and also many cities were ruined thereby.
    AD 1082
    . . . and this year also was a great famine.
    AD 1086
    And the same year there was a very heavy season, and a swinkful and sorrowful year in England, in murrain of cattle, and corn and fruits were at a stand, and so much untowardness in the weather, as a man may not easily think; so tremendous was the thunder and lightning, that it killed many men; and it continually grew worse and worse with men.
    AD 1087
    In the one and twentieth year after William began to govern and direct England, as God granted him, was a very heavy and pestilent season in this land. Such a sickness came on men, that full nigh every other man was in the worst disorder, that is, in the diarrhoea; and that so dreadfully, that many men died in the disorder. Afterwards came, through the badness of the weather as before mentioned, so great a famine over all England, that many hundreds of men died a miserable death through hunger. Alas! how wretched and how rueful a time was there! When the poor wretches lay full nigh driven to death prematurely, and afterwards came sharp hunger, and dispatched them withal! Who will not be penetrated with grief at such a season? or who is so hardhearted as not to weep at such misfortune? Yet such things happen for folk’s sins, that they will not love God and righteousness.
    AD 1098
    Before Michaelmas the heaven was of such an hue, as if it were burning, nearly all the night. This was a very troublesome year through manifold impositions; and from the abundant rains, that ceased not all the year, nearly all the tilth in the marshlands perished.
    Things would have been even worse without the strip system, which at least meant that a peasant’s lands were scattered and he did not have to put all his eggs in one basket. There was also a system of food-sharing in bad times. This was one beneficial result of tithes – the great tithe-barns of the Church could become charity food stores in times of need. It looks as though there was virtually no chance of starvation for a peasant farming more than 20 acres. *2 Unless, of course, there was widespread famine.
    At the start of a famine people would eat bad bread, often made with rye that had developed a fungus (ergot) that produced a burning sensation in the body and LSD-type hallucinations. Then came starvation.
    Starvation kills a healthy human in six to ten weeks. To begin with, a person can lose up to 10 per cent of their body weight without losing much strength or energy. At this stage they can still work and do other normal activities. Then they begin to weaken. When they have lost 15 to 20 per cent of their normal body weight they become depressed and apathetic, and can no longer participate in day-to-day life. As a person continues to lose weight the stomach accumulates abnormal amounts of watery fluids, and balloons outwards. Flesh wastes from the face and the eyes also appear to balloon outwards. The flesh increasingly sags away from the bones and permanent dark splotches from glandular disturbances may appear all over the body. Racked by the pain caused by these changes, a starving person becomes more susceptible to diarrhoea, cholera and dysentery.
    The victim can see and feel their body withering away, and becomes obsessed with food. Indifference and apathy replace compassion for their starving neighbours, friends and family. Mothers have been known to snatch food from the hands of their children. Cannibalism is not uncommon. Eventually, when a person has lost about 40 per cent of their body mass, death is inevitable. *3
    THINGS GET BETTER
    The manorial system developed during a period when England was getting warmer