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Use The Plague (Black Death) to create a flowchart showing the plague bacteria, the infection of a person and their symptoms, and modern-day treatments.

https://artsandculture.google.com/story/ngWxC1b1XA0vJg

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In this expedition we explore the causes and consequences of the plague in order to establish the foundations of infectious diseases.

This story was created for the Google Expeditions project by Vida Systems, now available on Google Arts & Culture

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The Plague (Black Death) - Google Arts & Culture

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In this expedition we explore the causes and consequences of the plague in order to establish the foundations of infectious diseases. This story was created for the Google Expeditions project by Vida Systems, now available on Google Arts & Culture

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WHP1200 244 Read  Trade Networks and The Black Death  1080L

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The History of the Plague: Every Major Epidemic

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Two other diseases, smallpox and measles caused a great deal of suffering. The number of people dying from measles and smallpox gradually declined during the Middle Ages. People developed an immunity to these infections and by the 14th century, it was mainly children who died from measles and smallpox. (3)
Black Death in Europe
It was a new disease, against which people had no immunity, that led to what has been described as the "worst disaster in the history of the world." This disease, which was later to become known as the Black Death, probably first broke out in Mongolia and then was carried to the less mobile societies in China, India and the Middle East. (4)

In October, 1347, a ship, returning from China, sailed into Messina harbour in Sicily. Most of its crew were dead and the survivors talked about a mysterious disease that had killed them on the journey. The harbour master ordered the men and the ship quarantined. The rest of the crew died over the next couple of days. So did people living in Messina. "It was not men but rats that spread the disease and they had scurried ashore as the first ropes were tied to the docks." (5)

According to one eyewitness account: "The sailors brought in their bones a disease so violent that whoever spoke a word to them was infected and could in no way save himself from death... Those to whom the disease was transmitted by infection of the breath were stricken with pains all over the body and felt a terrible lassitude. There then appeared, on a thigh or an arm, a pustule like a lentil. From this the infection penentrated the body and violent bloody vomiting began. It lasted for a period of three days and there was no way of preventing its ending in death." (6)

Arrives in England
The disease quickly spread across Europe and reached England on 1st August 1348. The first case was at the port of Melcombe Regis in August, 1348. From Dorset it spread west to Devon, Cornwall and Somerset. The port of Bristol, England second largest town, was very badly hit. It has been estimated that approximately 40% of the town's population died from the disease. It then started moving east. Hampshire, Sussex, Surrey and by the end of September it was in London. (7)

The first symptoms of the Black Death included a high temperature, tiredness, shivering and pains all over the body. The next stage was the appearance of small red boils on the neck, in the armpit or groin. These lumps, called buboes, grew larger and darker in colour. Eyewitness accounts talk of these buboes growing to the size of apples. (8) The final stage of the illness was the appearance of small, red spots on the stomach and other parts of the
body. This was caused by internal bleeding, and death followed soon after. (9)
Matthias Grünewald, detail from The Temptation of St Anthony (c. 1512)

When the disease hit an area there was a strong temptation for people to flee. This created hostility from people living in other towns and villages who feared that the new arrivals would bring the disease with them. Henry Knighton pointed out: "Many villages and hamlets became deserted... Sheep and cattle went wandering over fields and through crops and there was no one to go and look after them... In the following autumn no one could get a reaper for less than 8d. with his food, a mower for less than 12d. with his food. Therefore, many crops perished in the fields for want of someone to gather them." (10)

The Black Death is, in fact, not one but two related diseases. The most common form is bubonic plague. This disease is spread when infected fleas that normally live on black rats land on people and bite them. A person suffering from bubonic plague in the Middle Ages had a 60% chance of dying within two to five days of being infected.

In some cases bubonic plague becomes concentrated in the lungs and causes symptoms similar to pneumonia. This pneumonic version is even worse than bubonic plague. People with pneumonic plague usually die within a couple of hours of catching the disease. It is also highly infectious, as people can catch it by breathing in bacilli coughed out by the person suffering from the disease. (11)

Doctors could do little to help those suffering from the Black Death. The most common form of treatment was to lance the buboes, expelling a foulsmelling, blackish liquid. Other methods involved bleeding and washing the body with vinegar. In a book published about the Black Death the following medicine was recommended: "Take an egg that is newly laid, and make a hole in either end, and blow out all that is within. And lay it to the fire and let it roast till it may be ground to powder, but do not burn it. Then take a quantity of good treacle, and mix it with chives and good ale. And then make the sick drink it for three evenings and three mornings." (12)

Preventive Measures
People also took preventive measures. As they believed that God was all powerful, they assumed that praying would help. They also looked very carefully at their behaviour to see if they could discover why God was so angry with them. The priests gave several reasons for the Black Death. They claimed that peasants did not show enough respect for the clergy, drank and swore too much, and did not spend enough time praying. Some priests even put the Black Death down to too much dancing and having long hair. (13)

It was believed that one way of avoiding the plague was to punish yourself for your sins before you caught the disease. People took part in what became known as "flagellant processions". This involved people whipping each other in public. "Encouraged by a papal statement, bands of men up to 500 strong, dressed in identical robes and singing hymns, would march to a town, where they would form a circle and set about beating their own backs rhythmically with iron spikes embedded in leather belts until they were covered with bleeding wounds." (14)
Woodcut of man being treated in a hospital (c. 1400)

Robert of Avesbury recorded: "In 1349 over six hundred men came to London from Flanders... Each wore a cap marked with a red cross in front and behind. Each had in his right hand a scourge with three nails. Each tail had a knot and through the middle of it there were sometimes sharp nails fixed. They marched naked in a file one behind the other and whipped themselves with these scourges on their naked bleeding bodies." (15)

Some priests claimed that the Black Death was a sign from God that the world was coming to an end. It was therefore people's last chance to change their behaviour if they wanted to obtain a place in heaven. Other people took the opposite view. If death was likely to occur soon, why not enjoy yourself while you were still alive? The moral behaviour of people who took this view declined rather than improved during this period.

Consequences of the Black Death
The first outbreak of the Black Death lasted from 1348 to 1350. John Fordun, the author of Chronicle of the Scottish Nation (c. 1380) claims that "nearly a third of mankind died... By God's will, this evil led to a strange kind of death, insomuch that the flesh of the sick was somehow puffed out and swollen... Now this attacked everywhere, especially the common people - seldom the magnates". (16)

Historians have found it difficult to calculate the number of people who died from the disease because of a lack of documentary sources. The Church was the main institution that kept accurate records. John F. Harrison has pointed out that those studying these figures have "produced death rates of beneficed clergy for the year of the plague of about 40 per cent; and other figures for monastic clergy are as high as 45 per cent." (17)

John Hatcher, the author of Plague, Population and the English Economy, 1348-1530 (1977) argues that the death-rate of the clergy was lower than that of those who had to endure bad living conditions. Hatcher studied the payment of death duties (heriots) during this period. From these records it has been calculated that two-thirds of the customary tenants on four manors in Hampshire, Wiltshire and Oxfordshire died; and between 50 and 60 per cent on seven manors in Cambridgeshire, Essex and Cornwall. (18)

Henry Knighton, a canon of St Mary's Abbey, during the 14th century, wrote: "This cruel death spread on all sides, following the course of the sun. And there died at Leicester, in the small parish of St. Leonard's more than 300 persons, in the parish of Holy Cross, 400, in the parish of St. Margaret's Leicester, 700; and so in every parish, in the great multitude. Then the bishop of Lincoln sent notice throughout his whole diocese giving general power to all priests, both regulars and seculars, to hear confessions and give absolution with full episcopal authority to all persons, except only in case of debt." Knighton calculated that over 50 per cent of the people living in Leicester died of the disease. (19)
Woodcut (c. 1480)

Traditionally, historians have tended to believe that about one-third of the population died during this period. (20) However, recent research suggest that this was a low-estimate. It has been claimed that the Domesday Survey in 1086 shows a population of about 1.5 to 1.8 million. This was followed by a rapid growth and that by 1348 it had reached about 5 million. Yet by 1377, when returns for the Poll-Tax was made, the population had fallen to about 2 million. (21)

George M. Trevelyan has pointed out that in the early years of the 14th century there had been a surplus of labour and this enabled the lord's bailiff's to treat the peasants more harshly. The Black Death dramatically changed this situation: "Obviously the survvors among the peasantry had the whip-hand of the lord and his bailiff. Instead of the recent hunger for land there was a sortage of men to till it.... The lord of the manor could no longer cultivate his demesne land with the reduced number of serfs, while many of the strip-holdings in the open fields were thrown back on his hands, because the families that farmed them had died of plague." (22)

This dramatic fall in population led to great changes taking place in England. Fields were left unsown and unreaped. Those who had not died of the plague were in danger of dying from starvation. Food shortages also resulted in much higher prices. The peasants, needing the money to feed their families, demanded higher wages. The landowners, desperately short of labour, often agreed to these wage demands. If the landlord refused, the peasant was likely to search out another employer. (23)

John Gower, a farmer from Kent, wrote about the problems caused by the shortage of labour: "The shepherd and the cowherd demand more wages now than the master-bailiff... labourers are now such a price that, when we must use them, where we were wont to spend two shillings we must now spend five or six... They work little, dress and feed like their betters, and ruin stares us in the face." (24)

Edward III became concerned about the increase in wages and the peasants roaming the country searching for better job opportunities. In 1350 he decided to pass the Statute of Labourers' Act. This law made it illegal for employers to pay wages above the level offered in 1346. It states: "That every man and woman of our kingdom of England... who is able bodied and below the age of sixty years, not living by trade nor carrying on a fixed craft or land of his own... shall be bound to take only the wages... that were paid in the twentieth year of our reign of King Edward III". (25)

However, both the employers and the peasants tended to ignore the law, and although Parliament increased the penalties for the offence people continued to disregard the act. (26) Villeins became bitter as they watched the wages of freemen go higher and higher. Although the punishments were severe, more and more villeins became willing to run away from their lords. In the past, landowners would have returned these villeins to their masters. However, because they needed labour so badly, they did not ask any awkward questions and instead treated them as freemen. This upset local villeins who saw "immigrants" given higher wages without "no questions asked as to whence they came". (27)

Even when villeins who ran away from their masters were caught, it was difficult to punish them too harshly. Execution, imprisonment or mutilation only made the labour shortage worse. Therefore the courts tended to punish the villeins by branding the letter 'F' on their forehead when they were caught. William Langland, a poor man living in England during this period wrote: "Nowadays the labourer is angry unless he gets high wages, and he curses the day that he was ever born a workman... he blames God, and murmurs against reason, and curses the king and his Council for making Statutes on purpose to plague the workman." (28)

In some areas labourers began to organise themselves into groups and there were examples of strikes for higher wages took place. For hundreds of years peasants had accepted the way they were treated by their lords as being natural and unchangeable. They now knew that if they were willing to take risks, either by running away or by joining up with others to demand better treatment, they could improve their situation. This change in consciousness meant that the lords' power over their peasants was not as strong as it was before the outbreak of the Black Death.

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Two other diseases, smallpox and measles caused a great deal of suffering. The number of people dying from measles and smallpox gradually declined during the Middle Ages. People developed an immunity to these infections and by the 14th century, it was mainly children who died from measles and smallpox.

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How did people try to ‘cure’ the Plague? (Flagellants)

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A Fascinating Map of Medieval Trade Routes

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A Fascinating Map of Medieval Trade Routes

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HISTORY CRUNCH - History Articles, Biographies, Infographics, Resources and More

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"Tedious were it to recount, how citizen avoided citizen, how among neighbors was scarce found any that showed fellow-feeling for another, how kinsfolk held aloof, and never met, or but rarely; enough that this sore affliction entered so deep into the minds of men a women, that in the horror thereof brother was forsaken by brother nephew by uncle, brother by sister, and oftentimes husband by wife: nay, what is more, and scarcely to be believed, fathers and mothers were found to abandon their own children, untended, unvisited, to their fate, as if they had been strangers."

The third major impact of the Black Death was political. The nature of the plague meant that it impacted everyone equally. It did not matter if people were wealthy or poor, the plague spread to all people of all classes. As well, the massive death tolls put massive amounts of pressure on the monarchs across Europe to deal with the crisis. This strained the political structures of many countries and kingdoms and led to political crisis.

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Impacts of the Black Death - The Black Death occurred during the 14th century and ravaged human populations throughout Asia and Europe as it spread along trade routes and through trading ports. Throughout history it has also been referred to as the 'Grea

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The outbreak of plague in Europe between 1347-1352 - known as the Black Death - completely changed the world of medieval Europe. Severe depopulation upset the socio-economic feudal system of the time but the experience of the plague itself affected every aspect of people's lives.

Disease on an epidemic scale was simply part of life in the Middle Ages but a pandemic of the severity of the Black Death had never been experienced before and, afterwards, there was no way for the people to resume life as they had previously known it. The Black Death altered the fundamental paradigm of European life in the following areas:

Socio-Economic

Medical Knowledge and Practice

Religious Belief and Practice

Persecution and Migration

Women's Rights

Art & Architecture

Before the plague, the feudal system rigidly divided the population in a caste system of the king at the top, followed by nobles and wealthy merchants, with the peasants (serfs) at the bottom. Medical knowledge was received without question from doctors who relied on physicians of the past and the Catholic Church was considered an even higher authority on spiritual matters. Women were largely regarded as second-class citizens and the art and architecture of the time reflected the people's belief in a benevolent God who responded to prayer and supplication. The bacterium Yersinia pestis, carried by fleas on rodents, and the actual cause of the plague, was unknown to the people of the time and so did not factor into this world view.

Life at this time was by no means easy, or even sometimes pleasant, but people knew - or thought they knew - how the world worked and how to live in it; the plague would change all that and usher in a new understanding which found expression in movements such as the Protestant Reformation and the Renaissance.

Arrival, Spread, & Effect of the Plague

The death toll rose so quickly that the people of Europe had no time to grasp what was happening & what they should do about the situation.

The plague came to Europe from the East, most probably via the trade routes known as the Silk Road overland, and certainly by ship oversea. The Black Death - a combination of bubonic, septicemic, and pneumonic plague (and also possibly a strain of murrain) - had been gaining momentum in the East since at least 1322 and, by c. 1343, had infected the troops of the Mongol Golden Horde under the command of the Khan Djanibek (r. 1342-1357) who was besieging the Italian-held city of Caffa (modern-day Feodosia in Crimea) on the Black Sea.

As Djanibek's troops died of the plague, he had their corpses catapulted over the city's walls, infecting the people of Caffa through their contact with the decomposing corpses. Eventually, a number of the city's inhabitants fled the city by ship, first arriving at Sicilian ports and then at Marseilles and others from whence the plague spread inland. Those infected usually died within three days of showing symptoms and the death toll rose so quickly that the people of Europe had no time to grasp what was happening, why, or what they should do about the situation. Scholar Norman F. Cantor comments:

The plague was much more severe in the cities than in the countryside, but its psychological impact penetrated all areas of society. No one - peasant or aristocrat - was safe from the disease, and once it was contracted, a horrible and painful death was almost a certainty. The dead and dying lay in the streets, abandoned by frightened friends and relatives. (Civilization, 482)

As the plague raged on, and all efforts to stop its spread or cure those infected failed, people began to lose faith in the institutions they had relied on previously while the social system of feudalism began to crumble due to the widespread death of the serfs, those who were most susceptible as their living conditions placed them in closer contact with each other on a daily basis than those of the upper classes.

The plague ran rampant among the lower class who sought shelter and assistance from friaries, churches, and monasteries, spreading the plague to the clergy, and from the clergy it spread to the nobility. By the time the disease had run its course in 1352, millions were dead and the social structure of Europe was as unrecognizable as much of the landscape since, as Cantor notes, "many flourishing cities became virtual ghost towns for a time" ( Civilization, 482) and crops lay rotting in the fields with no one to harvest them.

Socio-Economic Effects

Before the plague, the king was thought to own all the land which he allocated to his nobles. The nobles had serfs work the land which turned a profit for the lord who paid a percentage to the king. The serfs themselves earned nothing for their labor except lodging and food they grew themselves. Since all land was the king's, he felt free to give it as gifts to friends, relatives, and other nobility who had been of service to him and so every available piece of land by c. 1347 was being cultivated by serfs under one of these lords.

Europe was severely overpopulated at this time and so there was no shortage of serfs to work the land and these peasants had no choice but to continue this labor - which was in essence a kind of slavery - from the time they could walk until their death. There was no upward mobility in the feudal system and a serf was tied to the land he and his family worked from generation to generation.

Once the plague had passed, the improved lot of the serf was challenged by the upper class who were concerned that the lower classes were forgetting their place. Fashion changed dramatically as the elite demanded more extravagant clothing and accessories to distance themselves from the poor who could now afford to dress more finely than in their previous rags and blankets. Efforts of the wealthy to return the serf to his previous condition resulted in uprisings such as the peasant revolt in France in 1358, the guild revolts of 1378, the famous Peasants' Revolt of London in 1381. There was no turning back, however, and the efforts of the elite were futile. Class struggle would continue but the authority of the feudal system was broken.

Effect on Medical Knowledge & Practice

The challenge to authority also affected received medical knowledge and practice. Doctors based their medical knowledge primarily on the work of the Roman physician Galen (l. 130-210) as well as on Hippocrates (l. c. 460 - c. 370 BCE) and Aristotle (l. 384-322 BCE), but many of these works were only available in translations from Arabic copies and, often, poor ones. Even so, the works they had were put to the best use they possibly could be. Scholar Jeffrey Singman comments:

Medieval science was far from primitive; in fact, it was a highly sophisticated system based on the accumulated writings of theorists since the first millennium BCE. The weakness of medieval science was its theoretical and bookish orientation, which emphasized the authority of accepted authors. The duty of the scholar [and doctor] was to interpret and reconcile these ancient authorities, rather than to test their theories against observed realities. (62)

Doctors and other caregivers were seen dying at an alarming rate as they tried to cure plague victims using their traditional understanding and, further, nothing they prescribed did anything for their patients. It became clear, by as early as 1349, that people recovered from the plague or died from it for seemingly no reason at all. A cure that had restored one patient to health would fail to work on the next.

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After the plague, doctors began to question their former practice of accepting the knowledge of the past without adapting it to present circumstances. Scholar Joseph A. Legan writes:

Medicine slowly began changing during the generation after the initial outbreak of Plague. Many leading medical theoreticians perished in the Plague, which opened the discipline to new ideas. A second cause for change was while university-based medicine failed, people began turning to the more practical surgeons...With the rise of surgery, more attention was given to the direct study of the human body, both in sickness and in health. Anatomical investigations and dissections, seldom performed in pre-plague Europe, were pursued more urgently with more support from public authorities. (53)

The death of so many scribes and theoreticians, who formerly wrote or translated medical treatises in Latin, resulted in new works being written in the vernacular languages. This allowed common people to read medical texts which broadened the base of medical knowledge. Further, hospitals developed into institutions more closely resembling those in the modern-day. Previously, hospitals were used only to isolate sick people; after the plague, they became centers for treatment with a much higher degree of cleanliness and attention to patient care.

Change in Religious Attitude

the extravagant lifestyle of the clergy & the mounting deaths from the plague generated widespread distrust of the Church's vision & authority.

Doctors and theoreticians were not the only ones whose authority was challenged by the plague, however, as the clergy came under the same kind of scrutiny and inspired the same - or far greater - doubt in their abilities to perform the services they claimed to be able to. Friars, monks, priests, and nuns died just as easily as anyone else - in some towns, religious services simply stopped because there were no authorities to lead them - and, further, the charms and amulets people purchased for protection, the services they did attend, the processions they took part in, the prayer and the fasting, all did nothing to stop the spread of the plague and, in some instances, encouraged it.

The Flagellant Movement, in which groups of penitents would travel town to town whipping themselves to atone for their sins, began in Austria and gained momentum in Germany and France. These groups, led by a self-proclaimed Master with little or no religious training, not only helped spread the plague but also disrupted communities by their insistence on attacking marginalized groups such as the Jews.

Increased Persecution & Migration

The frustration people felt at their helplessness in the face of the plague gave rise to violent outbursts of persecution across Europe. The Flagellant Movement was not the only source of persecution; otherwise peaceful citizens could be whipped into a frenzy to attack communities of Jews, Romani (gypsies), lepers, or others. Women were also abused in the belief that they encouraged sin because of their association with the biblical Eve and the fall of man.

The most common targets, however, were the Jews who had long been singled out for Christian hostility. The Christian concept of the Jew as "Christ Killer" encouraged a large body of superstition which included the claim that Jews killed Christian children and used their blood in unholy rituals, that this blood was often spread by Jews on the fields around a town to cause plague, and that the Jews regularly poisoned wells in the hopes of killing as many Christians as possible.

Jewish communities were completely destroyed in Germany, Austria, and France - in spite of a bull issued by Pope Clement VI (l. 1291-1352) exonerating the Jews and condemning Christian attacks on them. Large migrations of Jewish communities fled the scenes of these massacres, many of them finally settling in Poland and Eastern Europe.

Women's Rights

Women, on the other hand, gained higher status following the plague. Prior to the outbreak, women had few rights. Scholar Eileen Power writes:

In considering the characteristic medieval ideas about women, it is important to know not only what the ideas themselves were but also what were the sources from which they spring...In the early Middle Ages, what passed for contemporary opinion [on women] came from two sources - the Church and the aristocracy. (9)

Neither the medieval Church nor the aristocracy held women in very high regard. Women of the lower classes could work as bakers, milkmaids, barmaids, weavers, and, of course, as laborers with their family on the estate of the lord but had no say in directing their own fate. The lord would decide who a girl would marry, not her father, and a woman would go from being under the direct control of her father, who was subject to the lord, to the control of her husband who was equally subordinate.

Women's status had improved somewhat through the popularity of the Cult of the Virgin Mary which associated women with the mother of Jesus Christ but the Church continually emphasized women's inherent sinfulness as daughters of Eve who had brought sin into the world.

After the plague, with so many men dead, women were allowed to own their own land, cultivate the businesses formerly run by their husband or son, and had greater liberty in choosing a mate. Women joined guilds, ran shipping and textile businesses, and could own taverns and farmlands. Although many of these rights would be diminished later as the aristocracy and the Church tried to assert its former control, women would still be better off after the plague than they were beforehand.

Art & Architecture

The plague also dramatically affected medieval art and architecture. Artistic pieces (paintings, wood-block prints, sculptures, and others) tended to be more realistic than before and, almost uniformly, focused on death. Scholar Anna Louise DesOrmeaux comments:

Some plague art contains gruesome imagery that was directly influenced by the mortality of the plague or by the medieval fascination with the macabre and awareness of death that were augmented by the plague. Some plague art documents psychosocial responses to the fear that plague aroused in its victims. Other plague art is of a subject that directly responds to people's reliance on religion to give them hope. (29)

The most famous motif was the Dance of Death (also known as Danse Macabre) an allegorical representation of death claiming people from all walks of life to come with him. As DesOrmeaux notes, post-plague art did not reference the plague directly but anyone viewing a piece would understand the symbolism. This is not to say there were no allusions to death before the plague, only that such became far more pronounced afterwards.

Architecture was similarly influenced, as noted by Cantor:

In England, there was a parallel increased austerity in architectural style which can be attributed to the Black Death - a shift from the Decorated version of French Gothic, which featured elaborate sculptures and glass, to a more spare style called Perpendicular, with sharper profiles of buildings and corners, less opulent, rounded, and effete than Decorated...The cause may have been economic - less capital to spend on decoration because of heavy war taxation and reduction of estate incomes because of labor shortage and higher peasants' wages. (Wake, 209)

Since peasants could now demand a higher wage, the kinds of elaborate building projects which were commissioned before the plague were no longer as easily affordable, resulting in more austere and cost-effective structures. Scholars have noted, however, that post-plague architecture also clearly resonated with the pervasive pessimism of the time and a preoccupation with sin and death.

Conclusion

It was not only the higher wages demanded by the peasant class, nor a preoccupation with death that affected post-plague architecture, however, but the vast reduction in agricultural production and demand due to depopulation which led to an economic recession. Fields were left uncultivated and crops were allowed to rot while, at the same time, nations severely limited imports in an effort to control the spread of the plague which only worsened their economies as well as those of their former trading partners.

The widespread fear of a death one had not earned, could not see coming, and could not escape, stunned the population of Europe at the time and, once they had somewhat recovered, inspired them to rethink the way they were living previously and the kinds of values they had held. Although little changed initially, by the middle of the 15th century radical changes - unimaginable only one hundred years before - were taking place throughout Europe, notably the Protestant Reformation, the agricultural shift from large-scale grain-farming to animal husbandry, the wage increase for urban and rural laborers, and the many other advances associated with the Renaissance.

Plague outbreaks would continue long after the Black Death pandemic of the 14th century but none would have the same psychological impact resulting in a complete reevaluation of the existing paradigm of received knowledge. Europe - as well as other regions - based its reactions to the Black Death on traditional conventions - whether religious or secular - and, when these failed, new models for understanding the world had to be created.

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The outbreak of plague in Europe between 1347-1352 - known as the Black Death - completely changed the world of medieval Europe. Severe depopulation upset the socio-economic feudal system of the time...

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The Black Death had a catastrophic impact as it swept across Europe in the 1340s, and it remains the deadliest pandemic in human history. Between 30-50% of the population in Europe was killed: England was not excluded from a high death toll and the devastating impacts of such a pandemic.

The death toll

The pestilence arrived in England in 1348: the first recorded case was from a seamen in the south west, who had recently arrived from France. The plague hit Bristol - a dense population centre - shortly afterwards, and had reached London by the autumn.

Cities proved the perfect breeding ground for disease: slum-like conditions and poor hygiene practices made for a perfect breeding ground for the bacteria, and over the next two years the disease spread like wild fire. Whole towns and villages were laid waste.

For the people of the time this must have felt like the coming of Armageddon. If you caught the plague, you were almost certain to die: untreated, bubonic plague has an 80% mortality rate. By the time the plague moved on, Britain's population had reduced by between 30% and 40%. Up to 2 million people are thought to have died in England alone.

Clergy were particularly susceptible to the disease as they were out and about in their community, bringing what aid and comfort they could. Notably, it seems many of the higher levels of society were less affected: there are few reports of individuals being struck down, and very few individuals who are known to have died directly from the Black Death.

Population recovery

Many historians consider Europe - and England - to have been overpopulated in relation to its time. Repeated attacks of plague, including a particular devastating wave in 1361 which proved especially fatal to apparently healthy young men, continued to savage the population.

Not only was England's population being decimated, but so too was its capability to recover afterwards. In the years after the 1361 outbreak, reproduction rates were low and so the population was slow to recover.

However, the dramatic population reduction had a number of different side effects. The first was to dramatically decrease the working population, which put those who survived in a strong bargaining position.

The economic consequences

The economic effects of the Black Death were huge. Unlike before, labour was in huge demand which meant peasants could go where the pay and conditions were best. For the first time, the balance of power was shifting in the direction of the poorest in society. In the immediate aftermath, the cost of labour increased.

The reaction of the elites was to use the law. In 1349 the Ordinance of Labour was published which limited the freedom of movement for peasants around the country. However, even the power of the law was no match against the power of the market, and it did little to stop the lot of peasants improving. It meant that peasants were able to improve their station in life and become 'yeoman farmers'.

The Black Death also brought about a halt in the Hundred Years War - England did not fight any battles between 1349 and 1355. The shortage of labour meant men could not be spared for war, and less available labour also meant less profit, and therefore less tax. War was not economically or demographically viable.

Political awakening

Unlike other countries in Europe, England coped with this change in circumstance: the administration proved itself to be relatively effective at managing difficult times. However, the rise in wages was met with immense resistance by the gentry.

This new found independence encouraged the peasantry to become more vociferous in standing up for their rights. They were helped by a radical preacher John Wycliffe who believed the only religious authority was the Bible over and above either a King or a Pope. His followers, known as the Lollards became ever more vocal in demanding greater rights. Wider social unrest was also apparent as the elites grew more and more resentful of the increasing power of the working classes.

In 1381 the introduction of a poll tax sparked all out rebellion. Led by Watt Tyler the peasants marched on London and rampaged through the city. Although this rebellion was eventually quelled and Watt Tyler killed, it was a landmark point in English history.

For the first time the ordinary people of England had risen up against their overlords and demanded greater rights: the memory of the Peasants Revolt loomed large for those who lived through it. Serfdom was abolished shortly afterwards. It would not be the last revolution in England. The effects of the Black Death and the change in the relationship between workers and their overlords effected politics for several subsequent centuries.

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What Was the Effect of the Black Death in England?

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The Black Death had a catastrophic impact as it swept across Europe in the 1340s, and it remains the deadliest pandemic in human history. Between 30-50% of the population in Europe was killed: England was not excluded from a high death toll and the devastating impacts of such a pandemic.