In the early and high Middle Ages there was a considerable expansion of population, settlement and production not only in Scandinavia but all over Europe. By the early decades of the fourteenth century it appears that this expansion had begun to slow down in western and northern Europe and that a decline even occurred in places. Clearing of the land had advanced into areas of poorer soil or less favourable climate, or had led to the establishment of farms that were too small to be viable. Population sizes may thus have been approaching the limits of subsistence. It should be noted, however, that this ‘marginal land theory’ and the assumption that a decline in population had, for example, already set in around 1320 in England have also been criticised as insufficiently evidenced. Another factor was that serious epidemics were beginning to break out by that time. Moreover, the climate started to turn colder towards the end of the thirteenth century and the period from approximately 1330 to 1390 appears to have been a cold interval in Scandinavia.

In 1931 the historian C. A. Christensen showed that land prices in Sjælland dropped dramatically from about 1330, reflecting a corresponding fall in land rents. From this it has generally been assumed that an agrarian crisis was in evidence in Denmark by the first half of the fourteenth century, with deserted farms being referred to around 1315 and abandoned churches in the diocese of Ribe by the beginning of the fourteenth century. More recently, however, it has been argued that the latter signs of crisis have not been sufficiently documented.