Randall Carlson

You had a reduction in infant mortality.

You had an increase in lifespans.

People were getting, because people were getting more to eat and it was a benign climate.

Well, after about 100 to 150 years of this, Europe had accumulated enough wealth that

You know, it was Bernard of Citeaux who came out with this idea that we're going to give praise to God for this benign climate.

And all over Europe, they begin to build these magnificent cathedrals.

Loaded with symbolism and literally, you know, if you've been there and you've seen the cathedrals and seen the intricate work, the stonework, the sculptures, the stained glass windows, we're looking at a project that was multi-generational.

Now, there's a whole conversation we could have about what ultimately was the inspiration behind the Gothic cathedral movement in Europe, but it perfectly coincided with

with what we call the medieval warm period.

And in the late 1200s and early 1300s, the climate began to shift from warm to cold.

And you had a series, just like almost like a repeat of what happened in the 500s.

You had a series of agricultural collapses

And then I think it was 542, I'm sorry, back up, 1340, right around there.

So it'd been like one generation where there had been repeated agricultural failures, people were getting hungry.

And again, you had weakened immune systems, opportunistic diseases, and that's precisely with the onset of the cold is when you had the bubonic plague.

that, again, wiped out a third to half the population of Europe.

That was the end of this magnificent Gothic cathedral building era right there.

And it took a couple of centuries for—

for civilization to kind of recoup from that.

And then we have a little break that coincided more or less with the Renaissance.