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Major setbacks occurred at the end of the thirteenth century and continued into the fourteenth, when population expansion and declining crop yields coincided with a devastating and widespread plague, the Black Death (1348-1349). This had a major impact on population numbers-which dramatically declined-and on both society and economy. Immediately following an economic crisis, a period of crop failure, and an intensification of criminal activity (which may, perhaps, have been linked to fluctuations in food prices), the plague was devastating in its effects, and forms a turning point in the history of medieval England. Nor was the Black Death an isolated event; further pestilence struck in the 1360s, accentuating the problems. Read more: Medieval Britain - Documentation, Norman Period, Feudal Period, Economic Recovery, Cathedrals, Churches, and Monasteries, Impact of Protestantism - England, Castles, Century, Period, Norman, and Built - JRank Articles http://www.jrank.org/history/pages/5958/Medieval-Britain.html#ixzz1Z3mRCdHa

The many thousands of surviving medieval manorial accounts (sometimes known as compotus rolls and in their enrolled form as Pipe Rolls) contain all the information necessary for the precise calculation of the yields of specified crops, on named demesne farms, in dated years. Each account enumerates the cash and stock received and expended on a single demesne farm managed by or on behalf of a manorial lord over the course of an agricultural year, usually from Michaelmas (29 September) to Michaelmas. Typically, each account records the amount of grain (both threshed and as yet un-threshed) received from the previous year's harvest and the quantity of seed sown in preparation for the next harvest (see 'Woodhay 1254-5 grange account'). The information is hand-written on parchment in abbreviated Latin using Roman numerals and the form of the entries is usually formulaic so that with a little practice they are not difficult to interpret. The following extract recording the amounts of barley (Ordeum) received and expended in 1378-9 on the Battle Abbey manor of Alciston in East Sussex (East Sussex Record Office, SAS/G44/34) is an example of one of the more enigmatic types of entry that can be encountered.

Medieval celebrations revolved around feast days that had pagan origins and were based on ancient agricultural celebrations that marked when certain crops should be planted or harvested.

"In his anger at the English barons, William commanded that all crops and herds, chattels and foods should be burned to ashes, so that the whole of the North be stripped of all means of survival. So terrible a famine fell upon the people, that more than 100,000 young and old starved to death. My writings have often praised William, but for this act I can only condemn him." Orderic Vitalis

In the time before Columbus sailed the ocean blue, a cooler central Pacific Ocean has been connected with drought conditions in Europe and North America that may be responsible for famines and the disappearance of cliff dwelling people in the American West.