<P> Most governments instituted measures that prohibited exports of foodstuffs, condemned black market speculators, set price controls on grain and outlawed 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 prohibition, 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 . </P> <P> Meanwhile, many of the largest countries, most notably England and Scotland, had been at war, using up much of their treasury and exacerbating 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 monarchs such as Edward III of England (r . 1327--1377) and Philip VI of France (r . 1328--1350), raised the fines and rents of their tenants out of a fear that their comparatively high standard of living would decline . </P> <P> The European economy entered a vicious circle in which hunger and chronic, low - level debilitating 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 . </P> <P> When a typhoid epidemic emerged, many thousands died in populated urban centres, most significantly Ypres (now in Belgium). In 1318 a pestilence 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 . </P>

In the centuries preceding the black death in 14th century europe