al-Farabi 2532001); S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, the Jewish
Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Docu-
ments of the Cairo Geniza: Vol. 3, The Family(Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1978); David Herlihy,
Medieval Households(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univer-
sity Press, 1985); Cathy Jorgensen Itnyre, ed., Medieval
Family Roles: A Book of Essays (New York: Garland,
1996).
family sagas, Icelandic SeeICELAND ANDICELANDIC
LITERATURE.
famine The curse of famine has always attended
human civilization, from the ancient to the contemporary
world. The lack of enough food or nourishment was a
constant throughout the Middle Ages, part of the “struc-
ture of everyday life.” It was well evidenced by both texts
and archaeological remains. In the medieval imagination,
there were numerous accounts of miracles of feeding and
references to lands of abundance such as the legendary
land of Cockayne. Feasting and revelry were common
settings in literature and images.
The first cause of famine was obviously insufficient
production and transport of foodstuffs. Poor harvests
would scarcely feed rural populations who had to hand
over much of their surplus as only too often demanded
by landlords to sell to feed the town dwellers. What
reserves were available were poorly protected, and
interim solutions were often problematic or pathetic. The
smallest problem could have dramatic consequences. A
climatic event, such as droughts or storms, led to a bad
harvest, a dearth, and an increase in the price of grain
from which the poorest suffered. Then people ate spoiled
foods, grass, or earth; epidemics fostered by malnutrition
soon ensued. The Romans had limited this sort of
destruction by their political infrastructure and sound
transport system. Medieval political fragmentation
removed or made this much more difficult.
Famine was naturally more devastating to the poor
parts of society. The demand for grain was constant, and
the market was very sensitive. The least variation in sup-
ply could entail wide increases in prices. Food was still
sold to those who could pay for it. The others begged or
paid with what they had. It was probable that during the
early Middle Ages a fair number of freeholders had to
trade their liberty for food in times of famine. While
some writers might present famine as “one of the results
of original sin,” people did not accept it as inevitable,
instead fighting back with such measures as augmenting
the cultivated area, thus increasing the overall quantity
produced. During the 12th and 13th centuries, land
clearances and some amount of collective and competent
administration further helped to diminish the intensity of
famines. This did not yield an abundance of food. But the
limit of viable and easily made productive land had been
reached. In northern Europe in 1315–17, as a result of an
unlucky succession of two years of bad harvests, famine,
and its companion diseases contributed to the catas-
trophic mortality rates of the late Middle Ages. Famines
plagued the Byzantine and Islamic worlds as commonly
as western Europe was struck by them.
See alsoFOOD, DRINK, AND NUTRITION; PLAGUES.
Further reading:William Chester Jordan, The Great
Famine: Northern Europe in the Early Fourteenth Century
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996); Peter
Garnsey, Famine and Food Supply in the Greco-Roman
World: Responses to Risk and Crisis (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1988); Christopher Dyer, Stan-
dards of Living in the Later Middle Ages: Social Change in
England, Century 1200–1500 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1980).al-Farabi (Abu Nasr Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn
Tarkhan ibn Awzalagh, Afarabius, Avennasar)(ca.
873–950)philosopher, scholar
Born about 873 at Othrar or Faral in ANATOLIAor Central
Asia, he was named Abu Nasr Muhammad ibn Tarkhaw,
but he was better known as Farabi, or al-Farabi, from the
town of his birth. Though he was of Turkish extraction and
knew Greek, he desired to learn perfect Arabic, so he went
to BAGHDAD, where at the same time he studied LOGIC,
MUSIC, and Greek philosophy. He then stayed for a time in
Haran, where he learned logic from a Christian physician,
among the numerous Christian scholars with whom he
worked and learned. He left Haran and passed through and
studied at CONSTANTINOPLEand EGYPT. During his wan-
derings he had contact with the learned Christian and
Muslim philosophers of his time. He wrote books on
philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, and other sciences,
besides acquiring proficiency in perhaps 70 languages.
His treatise on music, proving the connection of sound
with atmospheric vibrations and mocking the Pythagorean
theory of the music of the spheres, made him famous.
He eventually gained the goodwill and patronage
of the ruler of SYRIA in ALEPPO, Sayf al-Dawla Ali I
(r. 945–967). According to tradition while passing
through Syria he visited and entered the court in his
stained and dusty traveling attire. When the sultan told
him to be seated, he, either unaware of or indifferent to
the etiquette of court life, sat on a corner of the royal
sofa. The monarch spoke in an obscure language to a ser-
vant and asked him to remove the presumptuous al-
Farabi. However, al-Farabi later astonished the prince by
replying in the same language: “Sire, he who acts hastily,
in haste repents.” After some ensuing discussions of al-
Farabi’s accomplishment, the prince called for music.
Famous as a musician and music theorist, Al-Farabi then
joined the musicians on the lute and played with skill,
charming the entire court. The sultan then sought to
entice such an impressive philosopher to remain at his