1.6: The Black Death

The deadliest epidemic in medieval and early-modern history began in the Mongol khanates and spread west. The Black Death (1346 – 1352), or simply “the plague,” devastated the areas it affected. Europe was especially vulnerable due to poor harvests and the lack of practical medical knowledge.

Figure 2.3.1: A later depiction of a doctor in the midst of a plague epidemic.

Historians still debate as to exactly which disease or diseases caused the Black Death. It was most likely the bubonic plague, which is transmitted by fleas. In the incredibly unsanitary conditions of medieval Europe, there were both rats and fleas everywhere. In turn, many human victims developed the “pneumonic” form of the disease, spread by coughing, creating an incredibly virulent and lethal version (about 90% of those who developed pneumonic plague died).

The plague exploded across Europe starting at the end of the 1340s. All of Southern Europe was affected in 1348; Central Europe and England by 1349; and Eastern Europe and Scandinavia by 1350. Social scientists estimate that the Black Death killed about one-third of the population of Europe in just three years. (That is a conservative estimate - some present-day historians have calculated that it was closer to half!) This enormous demographic shift had lasting consequences for European society, thanks mostly to the labor shortage that it introduced.

Figure 2.3.2: The plague’s spread, from south to north, over the course of just a few years. The section marked in grey is incorrectly labeled “minor outbreak”. In fact, while data is difficult to come by for that region, it seems clear that the plague hit just as hard there as elsewhere in Europe.

Consequences

Ironically, the plague contributed to largely positive economic effects.

• Lords tried to keep their peasants from fleeing the land and to keep wages at low levels. This action sparked various peasant uprisings. Even though those uprisings were generally put down, the overall trend was that laborers had to be paid more. Labor was simply more valuable. In the decades that followed, many peasants benefited from higher prices for their labor and their crops.
• For roughly a century after the plague, women had more legal rights in terms of property ownership, the right to participate in commerce, and land ownership. Women were even able to join certain craft guilds for a time, something that was unheard of earlier. The reason for this temporary improvement was precisely the same as that of peasants: the labor shortage.
• Europeans became so used to death that they often depicted it graphically in art. Paintings, stories, and theatrical performances emerged having to do with the “Dance of Death,” a depiction of the futility of worldly possessions and status vis-à-vis the inevitability of death. Likewise, graves and mausoleums came to be decorated with statues of grotesque skeletons and writhing bodies. When people were dying, their families and friends were supposed to come and view them, inoculating everyone present against the temptation to enjoy life too much and encouraging them to greater focus on preparing their souls for the afterlife.

Figure 2.4.1: The Dance of Death, with this image produced decades after the Black Death had already run its course.