In the year 1346, one of the most desolating plagues recorded in history, commenced its ravages in China, and swept over all Asia and nearly all Europe. The disease is recorded in the ancient annals under the name of Black Death. Thirteen millions of the population were, in the course of a few months, swept into the grave. Entire cities were depopulated, and the dead by thousands lay unburied. The pestilence swept with terrible fury the encampments of the Tartars, and weakened that despotic power beyond all recovery. But one third of the population of the principalities of Pskof and of Novgorod were left living. At London fifty thousand were interred in a single cemetery. The disease commenced with swellings on the fleshy parts of the body, a violent spitting of blood ensued, which was followed by death the second or third day.

It is impossible, according to the ancient annalists, to imagine a spectacle so terrible. Young and old, fathers and children, were buried in the same grave. Entire families disappeared in a day. Each curate found, every morning, thirty dead bodies, often more, in his church. Greedy men at first offered their services to the dying, hoping to obtain their estates, but when it was found that the disease was communicated by touch, even the most wealthy could obtain no aid. The son fled from the father. The brother avoided the brother. Still there were not a few examples of the most generous and self-sacrificing devotion. Medical skill was of no avail whatever, and the churches were thronged with the multitudes who, in the midst of the dying and the dead, were crying to God for aid. Multitudes in their terror bequeathed all their property to the church, and sought refuge in the monasteries. It truth, it appeared as if Heaven had pronounced the sentence of immediate death upon the whole human family.

The Black Death had a huge impact on society. Fields went unploughed as the men who usually did this were victims of the disease. Harvests would not have been brought in as the manpower did not exist. Animals would have been lost as the people in a village would not have been around to tend them.

Therefore whole villages would have faced starvation. Towns and cities would have faced food shortages as the villages that surrounded them could not provide them with enough food. Those lords who lost their manpower to the disease, turned to sheep farming as this required less people to work on the land. Grain farming became less popular – this, again, kept towns and cities short of such basics as bread. One consequence of the Black Death was inflation – the price of food went up creating more hardship for the poor. In some parts of England, food prices went up by four times.

How did peasants respond?

Those who survived the Black Death believed that there was something special about them – almost as if God had protected them. Therefore, they took the opportunity offered by the disease to improve their lifestyle.

Feudal law stated that peasants could only leave their village if they had their lord’s permission. Now many lords were short of desperately needed labour for the land that they owned. After the Black Death, lords actively encouraged peasants to leave the village where they lived to come to work for them. When peasants did this, the lord refused to return them to their original village.

Peasants could demand higher wages as they knew that a lord was desperate to get in his harvest.

So the government faced the prospect of peasants leaving their villages to find a better ‘deal’ from a lord thus upsetting the whole idea of the Feudal System which had been introduced to tie peasants to the land. Ironically, this movement by the peasants was encouraged by the lords who were meant to benefit from the Feudal System.

To curb peasants roaming around the countryside looking for better pay, the government introduced the Statute of Labourers in 1351 that stated:

No peasants could be paid more than the wages paid in 1346. No lord or master should offer more wages than paid in 1346. No peasants could leave the village they belonged to.

Though some peasants decided to ignore the statute, many knew that disobedience would lead to serious punishment. This created great anger amongst the peasants which was to boil over in 1381 with the Peasants Revolt. Hence, it can be argued that the Black Death was to lead to the Peasants Revolt.