Those who had survived the plague began to enjoy higher standards of living as a result. The drastic decrease in population also meant there was also an oversupply of goods, and so the price of consumables dropped. In order to address the shortage of labour, many nobles started offering better working conditions and higher wages, and peasants could – for the first time – negotiate their conditions and be paid more fairly for the work they did.įurthermore, because of the severe shortage of labour, taxes went down and wages went up. This prompted new ideas about equality and a new found self-respect. The Black Death had tested their faith in the feudal system: God had struck down people of all classes with the pestilence. However not all was lost for the peasants who survived. Some villages never recovered, and with no workers to plough and gather in the harvest, they fell into disrepair and disappeared. The huge loss of life after the Black Death altered this. Peasants had to ask the permission of their lord to leave the village, to ground their corn in the lord’s mill or even for their daughters to marry. They were effectively slaves, and were treated as such. The peasants however were tied to the land, forced to work in order to pay their lord for their land through their servitude. The feudal system served the needs of the rich perfectly. The reward of land to the richer nobles also assured their loyalty. By sharing out land to his barons who in turn passed it on to their knights and peasants, William made sure that he was paid taxes and provided with an army bound to serve him each year. What he needed however was money, food and a standing army. The feudal system, created after the Conquest in 1066 by William I as a method of consolidating his power, had resulted in the subordination of the peasants and the solidification of the position of the nobility in England.Īt the head of the system, the king owned vast amounts of land. It is estimated that London’s population reduced from 100,000 to 20,000 in a single generation. In total 30-40% of the English population perished and in some villages, the death toll reached 80-90%. As the disease developed into another strain called pneumatic plague and became airborne, the survival rate evaporated: now 100% of those contracting the pneumatic plague died. These black markings gave the disease its dramatic name.Īt the time, it was thought that should the buboes burst on the fourth day, you may have a slim chance of survival, but historians now believe that 70% of victims died within five days. Black bruising under the skin and black pus filled buboes (large swellings) developed in the groin or under the arms. What they did care about was that when the disease, carried in the bowels of trading ships from Europe, made port at Dorset in 1348, it ripped through England with terrifying ferocity.Įarly symptoms of the disease included sweats and vomiting, but this soon gave way to uncontrollable spasms as the body lost its ability to control muscle function. Whatever the truth, the average peasant cared not. Some put forward the theory that the Black Death was a punishment from God for man’s failure to meet biblical expectations. Some suggested it started with the Jews polluting drinking water in the growing cities of Europe. Some people proposed that the germs of this virulent disease hovered above pools of stagnant water in the swampy marshlands of Asia. There were many theories at the time as to the origins of the Black Death. So was the Black Death really such a disaster? Taxes went down, wages went up and they felt significant for the first time in history. But for those peasants who survived, there was a new positivity about life. The feudal system – brought into existence nearly 300 years earlier under William I – was damaged, and the unquestioned belief in the supremacy of the Catholic Church was destroyed. One third of the English population was wiped out. The brutality of the Black Death was matched only by the speed of its rampage across medieval Europe. Was the Black Death really such a disaster?
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