the black death the great mortality of 1348-1350dial smithing agent towards bacon flavored flagella

8/11/2019 The Black Death The Great Mortality of 1348-1350dial smithing agent towards bacon flavored flagella

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THE BEDFORD SERIES IN HISTORY

AND CULTURE

The Black Death

The Great Mortality of 1348 1350

A

BRIEF HISTORY WITH DOCUMENTS

John

berth

Castleton State College

BEDFORD/ST MARTIN S

Boston New York


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OCWrAL

ANIJ

ECONOMIC IMPACT

-

ro

Henry Knighton, a canon of Leicester Abbey

in

England who was writ

..c:

'iil

ing during the 1390s, testified that the excessive mortality created a

Q

.

Ul ro

evade the new laws and an equally determined effort by the English

G : ; ~

.

gentry, the dominant presence in the Commons and the local courts ,

5

to make the laws stick (provided those being prosecuted were not of

Q . i ~ ::

c:

their class). Collectively, these labor laws represent a conservative

~ ~

,0 :-=:

reaction

on

the part of Europe's ruling elite: a bold attempt

to

turn

. . . CC

back the economic clock

to

a time before the Black Death.

Europeans' response to the Black Death therefore had almost as

great an impact on late medieval society and economy as the deva

stating mortality of the plague itself. But the long-term social and


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,I H l

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[ ' i,.i ."i( l \ l

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' , \t '

economic

d leet:.; of the Black Death are contradictory and e

xtremely

complex. Schola rs hav t' focused much attention

on

the

plague's impact

UPOIl

family life throughout the

rest

of the Middle Ages, with att empts

to quantify changes in marriage and fertility rates.

Although

the mean

age

at Inarriagc

rose

in some parts of England in the

aftermath

of the

Black Death, indicating'

that women

deliberately delayed marrying

and having

children

in order to tak e advantage of

new

employment

opportunities

, this l1l easure behaves very differently in other places in

Europe, particularly in Mediterranean regions, where it drops, seem

ingly ill response to high mortality.

Th

e Black Death also inaugurated a revolution in the medieval

manorial economy. Th (' variety of peasants' experience with labor ser

vices

an

d laws created tensions in society that finally erupted in the

English Peasants' Revolt of 1381. The death knell of the medieval

manorial econorny. with a

complete

transition from serfdom to a rent

payillg class,

which

the English reb els demanded in 1381, finally came

to

pas

s in I he fifte enth

ce

ntury as the result of repeated

plague

strikes

that kept Europe's population in decline, or at least in stagnation, until

1450. Emancipation,

higher

wages and living standards, greater land

hold ings , and the labor-saving devices that

became

available as a

j( ",lI:; " I \he

economic

necessiti

es impos

ed by

the

Black De

ath

may

i

Iii

J