what were some of the larger and long term political economic and social consequences of the black death

What were the long term effects of the Black Death?

A cessation of wars and a sudden slump in trade immediately followed but were only of short duration. A more lasting and serious consequence was the drastic reduction of the amount of land under cultivation, due to the deaths of so many labourers. This proved to be the ruin of many landowners.

What were the economic impacts of the Black Death?

In the aftermath of the plague, the richest 10% of the population lost their grip on between 15% and 20% of overall wealth. This decline in inequality was long-lasting, as the richest 10% did not reach again the pre-Black Death level of control on overall wealth before the second half of the seventeenth century.

What were the short and long term social and economic effects of the Black Death in Europe?

While the Black Death resulted in short term economic damage, the longer-term consequences were less obvious. Before the plague erupted, several centuries of population growth had produced a labour surplus, which was abruptly replaced with a labour shortage when many serfs and free peasants died.

How did the Black Death change people's social and political status?

The Black Death caused most government officials and political figures to become infected, and they locked themselves away in their homes until they died. As more government heads succumbed to the plague, instability ruled because the government was helpless and had no strategy to deal with the plague's results.

What political social and economic impact did the plague have on Europe?

The plague had an important effect on the relationship between the lords who owned much of the land in Europe and the peasants who worked for the lords. As people died, it became harder and harder to find people to plow fields, harvest crops, and produce other goods and services. Peasants began to demand higher wages.

What were the social effects of the Black Death quizlet?

Terms in this set (2) Many Jews were killed. Millions died and Europe faced a labor shortage, production declined and food shortages were common. Feudalism and manorialism began to break down. The faithful began to have doubts, turmoil in religion.

What are some short term effects of the Black Death?

Famine was a major short term consequence from The Black Plague. The expansion of the middle ages had reached its limit by 1300. The good farmland was overwork and the new farmland was unproductive.

What was one of the economic impacts of the Black Death quizlet?

The economic consequences of the Black Death are trade declination and a rise in the price of labor because of the lack of workers. With less people, the demand food went down, lowering prices. Landlords paid more for labor but their income for rent declined. This freed peasants from serfdom.

How did the Black Death affect social classes?

The Black Death was the savior of the lower class, as it ended feudalism. Unlike before, the poor now had access to land and they were able to fend for themselves and live an independent life, rather than serving the upper class. As the plague spread rapidly, many people began to have a new perspective of religion.

How did society change after the plague?

It was not only the higher wages demanded by the peasant class, nor a preoccupation with death that affected post-plague architecture, however, but the vast reduction in agricultural production and demand due to depopulation which led to an economic recession.

How did life change after the Black Death?

With as much as half of the population dead, survivors in the post-plague era had more resources available to them. Historical documentation records an improvement in diet, especially among the poor, DeWitte said. "They were eating more meat and fish and better-quality bread, and in greater quantities," she said.

How did the Black Death affect Europe?

People who caught the disease, abandoned their family and friends, travelled far and wide to escape from the environment they were living in and also stopped believing in Religion.

Why was it so difficult to fill in for the sick with the plague?

The request for people to fill in for the people who were sick with the Plague became really difficult because there was such a large amount of people who couldn’t work due to the Black Death. In summary, wages out took the prices and the standard of living was raised.

How did the Black Death affect Europe?

The Black Death hit the culture of towns and cities disproportionately hard, although rural areas (where most of the population lived at the time) were also significantly affected.

What were the laws that restricted wages before the Black Death?

These governmental controls sought to freeze wages at the old levels before the Black Death. Within England, for example, the Ordinance of Labourers, enacted in 1349, and the Statute of Labourers, enacted in 1351 , restricted both wage increases and the relocation of workers.

How many people died in 1348?

The 1348 outbreak in Gaza left an estimated 10,000 people dead, while Aleppo recorded a death rate of 500 per day during the same year. In Damascus, at the disease's peak in September and October 1348, a thousand deaths were recorded every day, with overall mortality estimated at between 25 and 38 percent.

What was the most severe plague in China?

The most severe outbreak of plague, in the Chinese province of Hubei in 1334, claimed up to 80 percent of the population. China had several epidemics and famines from 1200 to the 1350s and its population decreased from an estimated 125 million to 65 million in the late 14th century.

Why did the plague happen?

Because 14th-century healers were at a loss to explain the cause of the Black Death, many Europeans ascribed supernatural forces, earthquakes and malicious conspiracies, among other things, as possible reasons for the plague's emergence. No one in the 14th century considered rat control a way to ward off the plague, and people began to believe only God's anger could produce such horrific displays of suffering and death. Giovanni Boccaccio, an Italian writer and poet of the era, questioned whether it was sent by God for their correction, or that it came through the influence of the heavenly bodies. Christians accused Jews of poisoning public water supplies, alleging Jews of an effort to ruin European civilization. The spreading of this rumor led to complete destruction of entire Jewish towns. In February 1349, 2,000 Jews were murdered in Strasbourg. In August of the same year, the Jewish communities of Mainz and Cologne were murdered.

How many people died in Florence in 1351?

The population of the city of Florence was reduced from 110,000–120,000 inhabitants in 1338 to 50,000 in 1351. In the cities of Hamburg and Bremen, 60–70% of the inhabitants died. In Provence, Dauphiné, and Normandy, historians observe a decrease of 60% of fiscal hearths.

What did Cohn's laws reflect?

Cohn continues, that the laws reflect the anxiety that followed the Black Death's new horrors of mass mortality and destruction, and from elite anxiety about manifestations, such as the flagellant movement and the persecution of Jews, Catalans (in Sicily), and beggars.

What were the social and economic effects of the Black Death?

Social and Economic Effects of the Black Death. Some social changes caused by the Black Death were positive. Before the plague, peasant serfs were confined to their lord’s estate and received little or no payment for their work . Overpopulation and shortage of resources led to malnutrition and extreme poverty for many peasants.

How did the Black Death affect the lives of people?

The Black Death disrupted the customs of daily life. There were few physicians to treat the ill or clergymen to deliver the dead’s last rites or comfort the sick. And for those who passed away, few lawyers were available to draw up wills.

What did the becchini do to the plague victims?

The becchini would ride into town ready to drink, carouse and ransack plague victims' homes, then charge fat fees to cart away the many corpses littering the streets. Other groups of people called flagellants believed the plague was a direct punishment from God.

What were the effects of the plague on the people?

The major short-term effect of the plague was shock. Losing half your family, seeing your neighbors healthy one day then dead the next morning created an atmosphere of fear, grief and hopelessness. Many people, overcome by depression, isolated themselves in their homes. Others mocked death, choosing to sing, drink and dance in the streets. Apathy followed shock. With so many dead, plague survivors lost interest in their appearance and neglected doing daily chores such as feeding their animals or tilling the land.

Why did the entire family disappear?

Entire family lines disappeared because the plague had left them with no heir. Their estates, which had taken generations to build, were swallowed up by another distantly related family. Other attempts were made to maintain division between the social classes. In 1363, England’s legislative arm, Parliament,passed “sumptuary laws”, ...

What was the law that forbidding non-aristocrats from wearing certain types of clothing?

In 1363, England’s legislative arm, Parliament,passed “sumptuary laws”, forbidding non-aristocrats from wearing certain types of clothing. For example, well-off commoners were restricted to wearing lambskin and laborers were only allowed to wear cat or rabbit fur. Sable could only be worn by Europe’s noble class.

What were the effects of the Black Death?

The incurable disease swept through towns and villages with frightening speed,killing its victims within a few weeks.

What were the most significant consequences of the Black Death?

To what extent can it be argued that economic factors was the most significant consequence of the Black Death? The Black Death was devastating and was one of the most significant events in Medieval Britain. The Black Death was also known the plague and bubonic plague it describes the spread of disease that caused mass deaths throughout Britain. The disease itself was carried by fleas and spread across Europe between 1346-1353 leaving towns and city such as Siena Italy with 85% of the population

How did the Black Death affect Europe?

This point marked the arrival of the Black Death in Europe. The Black Death quickly and uncontrollably started to travel its way through Europe and had a great impact on Europe. It’s undeniable that the Black Death created many upheavals in Europe, but it also led to a few positive

What were the symptoms of the Black Death?

Symptoms of the Black Death included a fever, large swollen glands called buboes and general weakness [Brittanica, 2016] . Animals such as rats and fleas spread the disease. Read More.

What are some of the most important events that have affected the Middle Ages?

One such event that has affected the politics of the Middle Ages and now was the signing of the Magna Carta. Secondly, was the Black Death (also known as the Bubonic Plague that affected the religious, social, and economic aspects. An event that affected the religious and economic aspects were the Crusades. There was also the rise of the Ottoman Empire which affected the social, political

Why did people abandon towns?

Towns, being crowded and infested by rats, were more susceptible to the plague than rural areas. Thus, people abandoned many towns for the safety of the countryside. This heavily stunted trade, as now towns were abandoned, and there was no central location for people to meet and trade.

What was the cause of the Black Death?

The Black Death Essay The Black Death (1347-1451,14th-15th century), is a plague which is the largest, most disastrous disease in human history, which killed millions of people, caused by a kind of bacteria named “Yersina pestis”.

How many people died in the plague?

This fatal plague led to huge loss of between 17 million and 28 million lives in whole Europe. It took place from 1345 to 1353 and the death arrived by sea during the time when twelve Genoese trading ships had actually docked at the Sicilian port after travelling through the Black Sea.

What was the impact of the Black Death on the agricultural economy?

The Black Death and the Agrarian Economy. The lion’s share of the Black Death’s effect was felt in the economy’s agricultural sector, unsurprising in a society in which, except in the most urbanized regions, nine of ten people eked out a living from the soil.

What were the factors that led to the Black Death?

These factors — climate, imperfect institutions, monetary imbalances, overpopulation — diminish the Black Death’s role as a transformative socioeconomic event.

What was the Black Death?

David Routt, University of Richmond. The Black Death was the largest demographic disaster in European history. From its arrival in Italy in late 1347 through its clockwise movement across the continent to its petering out in the Russian hinterlands in 1353, the magna pestilencia (great pestilence) killed between seventeen ...

Which disease was more contagious, the Black Death or the Bubonic Plague?

Aware that fourteenth—century eyewitnesses described a disease more contagious and deadlier than bubonic plague ( Yersinia pestis ), the bacillus traditionally associated with the Black Death, dissident scholars in the 1970s and 1980s proposed typhus or anthrax or mixes of typhus, anthrax, or bubonic plague as the culprit.

What were the challenges of the Black Plague?

The new millennium brought other challenges to the Black Death—bubonic plague link, such as an unknown and probably unidentifiable bacillus, an Ebola—like haemor rhagic fever or, at the pseudoscientific fringes of academia, a disease of interstellar origin. Proponents of Black Death as bubonic plague have minimized differences between modern bubonic ...

How many plagues did England have?

When both national and local epidemics are taken into account, England endured thirty plague years between 1351 and 1485, a pattern mirrored on the continent, where Perugia was struck nineteen times and Hamburg, Cologne, and Nuremburg at least ten times each in the fifteenth century.

What was the outbreak of rebellion in the first half of the fourteenth century?

The outbreak of rebellion in the first half of the fourteenth century ( e.g., in urban [1302] and maritime [1325—28] Flanders and in English monastic towns [1326—27]) indicates the existence of socioeconomic and political disgruntlement well before the Black Death.

How did the Black Death affect the Catholic Church?

The psychological effects of the Black Death were reflected north of the Alps (not in Italy) by a preoccupation with death and the afterlife evinced in poetry, sculpture, and painting; the Roman Catholic Church lost some of its monopoly over the salvation of souls as people turned to mysticism and sometimes to excesses.

What did the flagellants believe during the Black Death?

Flagellants belonging to the Brothers of the Cross scourging themselves during the Black Death, which they believed was punishment from God for people's sins. Photos.com/Getty Images.

What was the effect of the 1349 plague on England?

In England the immediate effects of the epidemic of 1349 seem to have been of short duration, and the economic decline which reached its nadir in the mid-15th century should probably be attributed rather to the pandemic recurrence of the plague.

When did the population of western Europe reach its pre-1348 level?

The population of western Europe did not again reach its pre-1348 level until the beginning of the 16th century. Black Death. A town crier calling for the families of victims of the Black Death to “bring out your dead” for mass burial. Courtesy of the National Library of Medicine. The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica.

What were the long term effects of the Black Death?

The long term effects of the Black Death were devastating and far reaching. Agriculture, religion, economics and even social class were affected. Contemporary accounts shed light on how medieval Britain was irreversibly changed.

What happened after the plague?

Some elements of legislation indicate a measure of panic. Within a year of the onset of plague, during 1349, an Ordinance of Labourers was issued and this became the Statute of Labourers in 1351. This law sought to prevent labourers from obtaining higher wages. Despite the shortage in the workforce caused by the plague, workers were ordered to take wages at the levels achieved pre-plague. Landlords gained in the short term from payments on the deaths of their tenants (heriots), but 'rents dwindled, land fell waste for want of tenants who used to cultivate it' (Higden) and '...many villages and hamlets were deserted...and never inhabited again' . Consequently, landed incomes fell. The bulging piles of manorial accounts which survive for the period of the Black Death testify to the active land-market and the additional administration caused by the onset of plague. But all too often the administration consists of noting defaults of rent because of plague (defectus causa pestilencie).

What was the worst demographic disaster in the history of the world?

We know, as fourteenth-century people suspected, that the mortality caused by the bubonic plague of the Black Death was the worst demographic disaster in the history of the world.

What was the hardest hit part of society in the sixteenth century?

However, there is no doubt that proportionately the hardest-hit part of society was the most numerous: the peasantry, labourers and artisans. Top.

How long did the plague last?

The sustained onslaught of plague on English population and society over a period of more than 300 years inevitably affected society and the economy. Evidence of the effects can be measured and responses traced not only in social and economic, political and religious terms, but also in changes in art and architecture.

When did the plague return?

We also know that the plague returned regularly, first in 1361 and then in the 1370s and 1380s and, as an increasingly urban disease, right through until the Great Plague of 1665 in London. But by around 1670 it disappeared from England for over two centuries until a number of outbreaks occurred either side of 1900.

How did landlords gain in the short term?

Landlords gained in the short term from payments on the deaths of their tenants (heriots), but 'rents dwindled, land fell waste for want of tenants who used to cultivate it' (Higden) and '...many villages and hamlets were deserted...and never inhabited again'. Consequently, landed incomes fell.

Introduction

Although Covid-19 is still spreading quickly in many world areas, across Europe, where a progressive re-opening is taking place, the attention is shifting towards the aftermath of the crisis and the possible long-lasting economic damage that it will have caused.

The economic consequences of the Black Death and other plagues

Two out of the three pandemics in human history characterized by the largest number of victims were caused by plague: Justinian’s Plague of 540-41 AD, which seems to have killed 25-50 million people in Europe and the Mediterranean, and the Black Death of 1347-52, which had up to 50 million victims in those same areas plus unquantified numbers in the Middle East, central Asia, parts of China and possibly elsewhere.

Plagues as the cause of long-run economic divergence

The fourteenth-century Black Death is usually considered the best example of a pandemic having positive economic consequences in the long run. This general story, however, is not true for each and every affected area.

Conclusions

The history of plagues confirms the ability of large-scale pandemics to have deep and long-lasting economic consequences. Sometimes these consequences were overall positive. The best example, somewhat surprisingly given its deserved reputation for epochal tragedy in the short-term, is the Black Death in western Europe.

Overview

Death toll

Social, environmental, and economic effects

Cultural effect

See also

External links