Western Civilization - History Of European Society

The information presented in this graph shows the rela-

tionship of agricultural prices, industrial wages and

prices, and population in the century and a half following

the Black Death. After dramatic rises during the crises of

1315–17 and in the decade of the 1360s, agricultural

prices remained fairly steady until the 1530s. The graph

is much simplified, and the index numbers are based on

prices, wages, and population in 1300.

Source: E. Perroy, “Les crises du XIVe siècle,” Annales,vol. 4 (1949):

pp. 167–82, as adapted in B. H. Slicher van Bath, The Agrarian History of

Western Europe, A.D. 500–1800,trans. Olive Ordish (London: Edward

Arnold, 1963), p. 139.

200

0

1300 1550

(1300 = 100)

1350 1400 1450 1500

Index numbers of agricultural prices

150

100

50

Index numbers of industrial prices and wages

Index numbers of English population figures

Plague, War, and Social Change in the “Long”Fourteenth Century 217

church on the theory that its increasing interest in secu-
lar affairs had provoked divine retribution. Some have
argued that the plague created a genuine and long-
lasting demand for spiritual renewal. However, other,
more sinister results were evident as well. In parts of
Germany whole communities of Jews were burned alive
because they were thought to have spread the disease
by poisoning wells.

The Economic Consequences of the Black Death

The psychological effects of the Black Death would
have a profound impact on religious belief, but its ma-
terial consequences were equally dramatic (see table
12.2). Demographic collapse relieved pressure on the
land. Food prices dropped immediately. Land values
and rents followed close behind, declining by 30 to 40
percent in most parts of Europe between 1350 and

1400. For landholders, both lay and religious, this was a
      serious loss; for ordinary men and women, it was a
      windfall. Stunned by the horror they had experienced,
      the survivors found not only that food was cheaper and
      land more abundant, but also that most of them had in-
      herited varying amounts of property from their dead
      relatives.
      The delicate ecological balance of the thirteenth
      century no longer existed. Acreage could be diverted to
      pursuits that were less efficient in purely nutritional
      terms, but more profitable and less labor intensive.
      Fields were converted to pasture for grazing sheep and
      cattle. Marginal lands in Germany and elsewhere re-
      verted to forest where hogs could root at will and where
      the next generation of peasants could presumably find

Illustration 12.1

The Burial of Plague Victims at

Tournai, 1349.Tournai is located in

what is now Belgium. Similar scenes of

mass burial were replayed throughout

Europe during the plague years. As the

death toll increased, attempts to provide

coffins and individual funerals had to be

abandoned. The overwhelmed survivors

could only dump the bodies in mass

graves.

TABLE 12.2

Population, Prices, and Wages in England,

1300–1500