The Economy and the Black Death

Paper Summary:

In this paper, the writer argues that it was due to the squalor of the time period that the Black Death was as devastating as it was. The paper goes on to discuss how this squalor was brought on by an extreme hierarchal system that only changed after the Black Death. The paper explains how the shortage of workers due to the plague was a catalyst for wages to increase for the peasant class and transfer the control of the economy from the power elite to the peasant class.

Outline:
Economy & Politics of England Before and After the Black Death
Conclusion

From the Paper:

"The Black Death made its way to Europe in 1348 and came to London as the Great Plague in 1665 (Bean 423). It was in the late 1340s that the bubonic plague swept over Europe, creating calamitous loss of life. Initial mortality may have been a third of the populace, but successive recurrences of pestilence augmented losses. The devastation of the bubonic plague was such that victims were believed to have gone to bed salubrious and died before morning. However, the rise and fall of the plague may be seen throughout these centuries in Europe because after a spell of three to six months the plague would prosper and then vanish except in the case of larger cities. In urban areas it slowed in the winter time but because of the density of the town and the proneness the victim had to pneumonia and the spread of pneumonia, the plague persisted, and reappeared heartily in the spring to claim more victims."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Bean, J.M.W. "Plague, Population and Economic Decline in England in the Late Middle Ages." The Economic History Review. New Series, Vol, 15, No. 3. (1963). pp423-237.
• Bridbury, A.R "The Black Death." The Economic History Review. New Series, Vol.26, No. 4, (1973). pp. 577-592.
• Briggs, Asa. A Social History of England. (3rd Ed.) Penguin Books. Middlesex, England. 2000.
• Green, William A. History, Historians and the Dynamics of Change. Praeger. 1993.
• Hatcher, John. "England in the Aftermath of the Black Death." Past and Present, NO. 144. (August 1994). pp.3-35.

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