Great Famine of 1665

The Great Famine of 1665 is the most famous and widespread famine in Pantocratorian history. There had been a number of failings in Pantocratorian agriculture for years prior to the Great Famine which had seen multiple regional famines throughout the first half of the 17th Century. The establishing of a permanent, large-scale landed aristocracy throughout the 16th century is typically cited as the cause, although this is no doubt an over-simplification. According to this theory, by granting most of the Empire's best farmland in fief as rewards for military service, consecutive emperors had removed the most productive farmland from competent civilian administration (with administrators being appointed by the state on the basis of ability) and placed it under the haphazard administration of various pseudo-feudal lords of varying competency. This new land holding class had not yet developed systems of agricultural production which produced consistent results.

It is because of the famine that the co-emperor Demetrius VIII's extravagance attracted the attention and disapproval of the (then starving) Pantocratorian people, who came to hate the ruler soon to be dubbed Demetrius the Fat. The onset of the First War of Insolence compounded the misery of the people, who were required to pay the same level of tax as the year before despite the much poorer crops in order to pay for the war.