The Black Death and what followed
History · Key Stage 3 · The School
What happened
Plague reached England in 1348 and killed perhaps a third to a half of the population within two years. It spread along trade routes, striking towns hardest. Whole villages were abandoned. Contemporary accounts describe a scale of death that overwhelmed the ability to bury people, and the figures, though uncertain, are accepted as enormous by every serious estimate.
How it was explained
Nobody knew what caused it. Explanations offered at the time included divine punishment, bad air, planetary alignment, and — with terrible consequences — accusations against Jewish communities, who were massacred in several European towns despite dying of the plague themselves. Understanding what people believed is part of the history; repeating those accusations as fact is not.
Why survivors gained
So many workers died that those left could demand higher wages and better terms, and landowners competed for them. Parliament tried to freeze wages by law and largely failed. The result was a long weakening of serfdom in England and, in 1381, a major revolt. A catastrophe for individuals reshaped the bargaining position of an entire class.
Before 1348 an English labourer earned around 2d a day. After the plague killed perhaps a third to a half of the population, survivors could demand 4d or more — so many that Parliament passed the Statute of Labourers in 1351 to force wages back to pre-plague levels. It largely failed. That failure, and the resentment it created, runs straight into the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. A wage figure is evidence about power.