How did the Black Death change society? It ended serfdom and slavery, improved worker conditions, brought a recession, harmed religion, increased antisemitism, improved medical practice, improved women’s rights, and changed the world of art and fashion.
There were three major plagues, but let’s look at the middle one, the one that is most famous. It started in central Asia in the 1330s and reached Europe by 1347. It stormed through Europe and wiped out approximately half of the population, about 200 million people.
So, how did the Black Death change society? Possibly one of the biggest changes is that it brought an end to feudalism. The feudal system had been around for a few centuries and was a hierarchical way of dividing society. The king was at the top, but he needed the help of his nobles to stay there. He did that through fear and giving them pieces of his land. The nobles would repay the king with parts of the profits from the land and military help. The nobles would quite often sublet pieces of their land to other, less wealthy people, which created a hierarchy. At the bottom of the hierarchy were serfs. These were the people who lived on the land and worked it. They were unpaid, but they were given lodging and were allowed to use a small percentage of the fields to produce their own food. They were tied to their land and their lord, and they worked there generation after generation. Europe had a high population, and the serfs had no choice because there were no other jobs for them. The nobles could very easily find more serfs to replace them. The Black Death was the beginning of the end for this system.
When the plague tore through Europe, it killed more poor people than wealthy people, and serfs were decimated. The sudden shortage of people to work the land suddenly meant that it was a seller’s market. The workers were able to demand better conditions and even pay. The nobles had no choice but to acquiesce because they needed people to work their land. For the first time ever, the serfs could move to a different land for a better wage. This wasn’t the only reason the feudal system ended, but it was probably the biggest.
The second change is religion. Before the plague, the church was everything to people. It was the center of the community, and it was necessary to go to church to receive communion and confess. Without that, you could not go to heaven. However, once the Black Death started, people could not get to church. On top of that, nuns, monks, and priests died just as quickly as everyone else, and people started to question the church. Was it necessary? Were the things the church preached true? Different religious sects began to appear during the Black Death, and it is safe to say that Martin Luther and the protestant reformation wouldn’t have happened if the Black Death hadn’t weakened the Catholic Church’s grip on society.
The third and terrible effect of the Black Death was an increase in antisemitic violence. People wanted someone to blame for what was happening to them and the Jewish people were an easy scapegoat. Many communities of Jewish people were wiped out during the 14th century. Thousands of Jews were burned.
A fourth change was an improvement in medical practice. Doctors still used texts that were written in Latin to learn about medicine, and they based their medical knowledge on books that were a thousand years old or more. When the Black Death struck, doctors were hit hard. The doctors that were left realized that they needed to adapt their way of thinking to this situation, and they started to look for new solutions. Medical books written in local languages began to be produced, which increased the number of people who could study medicine. An interest in the body also appeared because the university doctors were unable to help and people turned to surgeons.
A fifth change was the rights of women. The lack of people to farm or do anything meant that women could do work that was previously forbidden to them and own land. They could take over the businesses that their husbands had run and there are accounts of very successful women merchants. These rights were nothing compared to today, but they were better than before the plague.
A sixth change was art and fashion. As the peasants gained more power and more money than ever before, they were able to start buying nicer clothes. To differentiate themselves from the poor, the wealthy started to wear more outrageous fashions. This would continue to an extreme probably at the end of the 16th century. Art changed as well. It became darker and much more focused on death. Architecture also became simpler and more austere.
So, how did the Black Death change society? In many different ways, some good and some bad. Without the Black Death, our modern society might be very different from what it is. And this is what I learned today.
https://www.livescience.com/2497-black-death-changed-world.html
https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1543/effects-of-the-black-death-on-europe/
https://www.theweek.co.uk/106205/how-the-black-death-changed-the-world
https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/protestant-reformation