The Black Death

The first obstacle to gaining an accurate view of the consequences of the plague is historians’ inability to confirm the exact population of 14th century Europe. In England, for instance, estimates put the population at around 1.25 million in 1086, and 2.5 million in 1377, with a population peak in around 1300. This means that the population had already been declining for almost 50 years before the onset of the plague. Based on the best possible data, England’s population at the time of the plague was around 4.2 million.

The next problem is how to determine the exact number of deaths. Looking at the ecclesiastical records, the most accurate and reliable data of the time, “it is reasonable to assume that something close to 45% of all parish priests died during the plague” (182). A reasonable estimate—taking the 45% death toll of the clergy as the upper limit possible—suggests that one third of the total population died from the plague. This would put the approximate number of dead in England alone at 1.4 million. Mortality rates in the rest of Europe were likely similar.

The loss of one third of a country’s population within the span of less than three years would have been economically devastating. It’s clear that one “must expect to find conspicuous changes in the life of the English community in the years immediately following the Black Death” (187). One of these results was rising resentment between serf and landlord—one desiring higher wages and the other wishing to turn back the clock—that led to the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381. The great turnover in landholding and the organization of society was remarkable; while wages increased, the prices of agricultural products fell due to the great surplus.

In many places, if workers could not get the wages they demanded, they would simply leave to find employment elsewhere. Workers began to see their value, and the economic situation supported their mobility. The balance of power had tipped: Land was now plentiful, while labor was scarce. For landowners, it became far less profitable to work the land under the previous model, so many resorted simply to renting out their land directly. Eventually, the government imposed a freeze to try to check inflation rates rising in the wake of rising wages and prices. 

The Black Death took a particularly heavy toll on the educated classes; most academics were older than the average population. A number of universities simply closed for good. One indirect result of this decimation of the intellectual elite is the introduction of the vernacular into academic work and teaching—those who replaced dead faculty did not necessarily have the facility to teach in Latin. In concert with many other economic, political, and social factors, the improved access to knowledge that vernacular teaching brought contributed to the coming Reformation of the 15th and 16th centuries.

Land holdings were also greatly affected. Those who survived were often anxious to sell off tracts of land which they didn’t have the resources to farm; this land and the land of those who had died found its way into the hands of new owners. The famous hedged fields of the English countryside trace their origins back to the Black Death and the redistribution of the land to surviving village tenants. Another indirect effect of the plague was the growth in animal husbandry: Caring for sheep took far less manpower than farming, causing a natural shift in land use.

One of the least affected areas of culture was architecture. While no doubt many skilled and experience masons and artisans died, there is really no evidence that the plague led to a change in style or the ability of survivors to continue their craft.

“Any history of the Black Death which ignores its impact on the minds of its victims would be notably incomplete” (210). Before the Black Death, the influence of the Church was felt in every corner of medieval society. However, after the plague, many Europeans felt that the Church had failed in its ability to care for the community, proving weak and ineffective in a time where the faithful expected them to be persistent in the face of, suffering, and death. While the high mortality of priests was in some part directly due to their work with the infected, there were plenty of reasons to criticize the institutional Church for shirking its duties.

Additionally, many tenets of ecclesiastical law were abandoned or relaxed in the wake of the plague out of necessity—widowers were ordained past the typically allowed age, newly ordained priests were given responsibilities normally reserved for more experience members of the hierarchy, and so on. While almost 50% of vowed religious perished in the two years of the plague, the mendicant Friars, particularly the Dominicans and Franciscans, gained new respect as they traveled from town to town delivering seemingly miraculous spiritual intervention.

Another result of the plague’s effect on religion was the rise of lay spirituality: The Church’s institutional prestige suffered, but there was a sharp increase in chapels and lay-led movements that emphasized personal experience and responsibility. For years, society was characterized by “a neurotic and all-pervading gloom” (223). The artistic expression of the time provides a great window into the general psyche, focusing on themes of suffering, retribution, and the outpouring of divine wrath and judgment. There is no doubt that those who suffered the ravages of the Black Death and lived would feel the effects for the rest of their lives, while the mental and social toll changed the fabric of society for decades and centuries to come.