From 1315 to 1322, Europe experiences the Great Famine, a catastrophic agricultural crisis caused by torrential rains, crop failures, and the onset of the Little Ice Age. The famine leads to widespread starvation, disease, social unrest, and a significant population decline, affecting millions from Ireland to the Baltic. It marks one of the most severe demographic crises of the medieval period, undermining faith in feudal and ecclesiastical structures.

The Great Famine pervades the poetry of the period, infusing it with themes of despair, death, and the fragility of human life. It finds direct expression in English alliterative verse and later in Langland's 'Piers Plowman,' which critiques social injustice and economic exploitation amidst hunger. The experience of mass suffering and divine punishment shapes religious poetry, reinforcing apocalyptic and penitential motifs that resonate through works like 'The Pearl'.