The black death was imported via the Middle East from China and its spread rapidly through Europe by the travels of the crusaders. It first appeared in Europe at Constantinople and spread along the trade routes.
The disease appeared in Britain at Weymouth in Dorset. It next appeared in Bristol then London, East Anglia Lancashire and Scotland. It reappeared in 1361 and 1369.
It is thought that black death may have destroyed between one third and half of the population of England.
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| | | Some two hundred victims of the plague were buried a week in Charterhouse Yard in London in 1348-49. |
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The elderly tended to escape infection better than the young. Great numbers of the young, labourers and clergy died. Parishes were depopulated and, in some cases, disappeared and some districts fell out of cultivation.
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The seventh year after it began, it came to England and first began in the towns and ports joining on the seacoasts, in Dorsetshire, where, as in other counties, it made the country quite void of inhabitants so that there were almost none left alive. From there it passed into Devonshire and Somersetshire, even unto Bristol, and raged in such sort that the Gloucestershire men would not suffer the Bristol men to have access to them by any means. But at length it came to Gloucester, yea even to Oxford and to London, and finally it spread over all England and so wasted the people that scarce the tenth person of any sort was left alive.
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- Chronicon Angliae, Geoffrey the Baker
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Some landlords commuted the fuedal services their tennants formerly rendered for money payments (rents) but when labourers, taking advantage of the scarcity of labour caused by the black death, demanded higher wages, tried to extract the old services from their tenants and limit thier wages.
The Statutes of Labourers, 1349 & 1351
Landlords were compelled to pay and labourers to accept the rates of wages which had been current before the black death.
Labourers were prohibited from changing their residence or breaking contracts with their landlords.
Prohibited a rise in the price of goods.
It was thought in the middle ages that prices and wages could be properly controlled by legislation - the Statutes of Labourers were an attempt to maintain stability rather than simply tyrany against the labourers in favour of the landlords as attempts because of the attempt to alleviate hardship by fixing prices.
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| | | Although the statutes were not generally enforced but, where they were, the attempts to enforce them engendered bitterness between landlords and labourers.
Despite the legislation, labourers often secured higher wages. |
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Gradually the relationship between landlord and tenenat replaced feudal tenure.
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| | | The social differences between landlord and tenant which arose was one of the contributing causes of the Peasant's Revolt of 1381. |
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The landlords suffered from the changes and ecclesiastical landlords who were heavily taxed in particular.
The monasteries were greatly impoverished due to the fall of their rents and never really recovered their previous position.
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| | | It was during this period that arable lands started to be converted to more profitable sheep grazing. |
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The diminuation in numbers of the clergy led to demands for higher payments.
Non-residence and neglect of cures followed the black death and newly ordained clergy were frequently poorly educated. In simialr fashion to the Statutes of Labourers, the bishops ordered the clergy to be content with the levels payments prevailing beofre the black death.
New religious houses (such as Charterhouse, established by Sir Walter Manny) and several colleges were established at Oxford and Cambridge to train secular priests to meet the demand for more clergy.
It became difficult for the crown to raise taxes from the landowners because of their losses while the mortality of sheep cut royal revenues because of the Crown's dependence from the revenues on the wool trade.
| Results of the Black Death |
The black death undoubtedly had a profound impact on the economic and social system of England but, although it accelerated changes which had already started, it did not initialise them.
The black death spread throughout Europe but it was only in England where it coincided with great social and economic change.
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The Black Death
, ed. Rosemary Horrox, publisher Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1994
Chronicon Angliae
by Geoffrey the Baker
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