托福阅读背景知识：14世纪欧洲经济危机

　　托福阅读真题再现：

　　版本一：

　　14世纪欧洲城市的发展(原谅我的记忆力全部沉浸在听力的悲伤中)!有几个原因，climate改变，人口激增不能满足食物的供应，政治因素导致农民失去土地，最后是说农民的居民都跑到城市来找工作了导致城市变大版本二：

　　欧洲19世纪经济锐减的原因。气候变冷，新上位的政府切断了本来和亚洲贸易的路线，还有一点好像是很多租地的农民因为气温下降没有更多的钱付租金 然后负债，然后说很多国家当时都负债累累，举了英国两大银行为例。其他记不清了版本三：

　　欧洲14世纪的经济危机(由于气候变化对农业有很大影响倒是对经济的adverse effect)新东方谢真真老师解析：

　　本文涉及到14世纪欧洲经济危机，疑似重复20121019NA题，主要内容涉及到欧洲经济危机产生的原因，是因果型文章，在阅读时重点关注原因是什么以及如何发挥作用的。

　　托福阅读背景知识：

　　Some scholars contend that at the beginning of the 14th century, Europe had become overpopulated. By the 14th century frontiers had ceased to expand and internal colonization¹ was coming to an end, but population levels remained high.

　　The Medieval Warm Period ended sometime towards the end of the 13th century, bringing the "Little Ice Age" and harsher winters with reduced harvests. In Northern Europe, new technological² innovations such as the heavy plough and the three-field system were not as effective in clearing new fields for harvest as they were in the Mediterranean³ because the north had poor, clay-like soil.[8] Food shortages and rapidly inflating⁴ prices were a fact of life for as much as a century before the plague. Wheat, oats, hay and consequently livestock⁵, were all in short supply. Their scarcity⁶ resulted in malnutrition⁷, which increases susceptibility to infections due to weakened immunity⁸. In the autumn of 1314, heavy rains began to fall, which were the start of several years of cold and wet winters.[8] The already weak harvests of the north suffered and the seven-year famine ensued. In the years 1315 to 1317 a catastrophic famine, known as the Great Famine, struck much of North West Europe. It was arguably the worst in European history, perhaps reducing the population by more than 10%.

　　Most governments instituted measures that prohibited exports of foodstuffs⁹, condemned¹⁰ black market speculators, set price controls on grain and outlawed¹¹ large-scale fishing. At best, they proved mostly unenforceable and at worst they contributed to a continent-wide downward spiral. The hardest hit lands, like England, were unable to buy grain abroad: from France because of the prohibition¹², and from most of the rest of the grain producers because of crop failures from shortage of labour. Any grain that could be shipped was eventually taken by pirates or looters to be sold on the black market. Meanwhile, many of the largest countries, most notably¹³ England and Scotland, had been at war, using up much of their treasury¹⁴ and exacerbating¹⁵ inflation. In 1337, on the eve of the first wave of the Black Death, England and France went to war in what became known as the Hundred Years' War. This situation was worsened when landowners and monarchs¹⁶ such as Edward III of England (r. 1327–1377) and Philip VI of France (r. 1328–1350), raised the fines and rents of their tenants¹⁷ out of a fear that their comparatively high standard of living would decline.

　　The European economy entered a vicious circle in which hunger and chronic¹⁸, low-level debilitating¹⁹ disease reduced the productivity of labourers, and so the grain output was reduced, causing grain prices to increase. Standards of living fell drastically, diets grew more limited, and Europeans as a whole experienced more health problems.

　　When a typhoid epidemic²⁰ emerged, many thousands died in populated urban centres, most significantly Ypres (now in Belgium). In 1318 a pestilence²¹ of unknown origin, sometimes identified as anthrax, targeted the animals of Europe, notably sheep and cattle, further reducing the food supply and income of the peasantry.

 

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