Black Death in England
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The Black Death was a bubonic plague pandemic, which reached
England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
in June 1348. It was the first and most severe manifestation of the second pandemic, caused by ''
Yersinia pestis ''Yersinia pestis'' (''Y. pestis''; formerly '' Pasteurella pestis'') is a gram-negative, non-motile, coccobacillus bacterium without spores that is related to both ''Yersinia pseudotuberculosis'' and ''Yersinia enterocolitica''. It is a facult ...
''
bacteria Bacteria (; singular: bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one Cell (biology), biological cell. They constitute a large domain (biology), domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometr ...
. The term ''Black Death'' was not used until the late 17th century. Originating in Asia, it spread west along the trade routes across Europe and arrived on the British Isles from the English province of Gascony. The plague was spread by flea-infected rats, as well as individuals who had been infected on the continent. Rats were the reservoir hosts of the ''Y. pestis'' bacteria and the
Oriental rat flea The Oriental rat flea (''Xenopsylla cheopis''), also known as the tropical rat flea or the rat flea, is a parasite of rodents, primarily of the genus ''Rattus'', and is a primary vector for bubonic plague and murine typhus. This occurs when a fl ...
was the primary vector. The first-known case in England was a seaman who arrived at Weymouth, Dorset, from Gascony in June 1348. By autumn, the plague had reached London, and by summer 1349 it covered the entire country, before dying down by December. Low estimates of mortality in the early twentieth century have been revised upwards due to re-examination of data and new information, and a figure of 40–60 percent of the population is widely accepted. The most immediate consequence was a halt to the campaigns of the Hundred Years' War. In the long term, the decrease in population caused a shortage of labour, with subsequent rise in wages, resisted by the landowners, which caused deep resentment among the lower classes. The
Peasants' Revolt The Peasants' Revolt, also named Wat Tyler's Rebellion or the Great Rising, was a major uprising across large parts of England in 1381. The revolt had various causes, including the socio-economic and political tensions generated by the Blac ...
of 1381 was largely a result of this resentment, and even though the rebellion was suppressed, in the long term
serfdom Serfdom was the status of many peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to manorialism, and similar systems. It was a condition of debt bondage and indentured servitude with similarities to and differences from slavery, which deve ...
was ended in England. The Black Death also affected artistic and cultural efforts, and may have helped advance the use of the vernacular. In 1361–62 the plague returned to England, this time causing the death of around 20 per cent of the population. After this the plague continued to return intermittently throughout the 14th and 15th centuries, in local or national outbreaks. From this point on its effect became less severe, and one of the last outbreaks of the plague in England was the
Great Plague of London The Great Plague of London, lasting from 1665 to 1666, was the last major epidemic of the bubonic plague to occur in England. It happened within the centuries-long Second Pandemic, a period of intermittent bubonic plague epidemics that origi ...
in 1665–1666.


Background


England in the mid-14th century

It is impossible to establish with any certainty the exact number of inhabitants in England at the eve of the Black Death, and estimates range from 3 to 7 million. The number is probably in the higher end, and an estimate of around 6 million inhabitants seems likely. Earlier demographic crises—in particular the
Great Famine of 1315–1317 The Great Famine of 1315–1317 (occasionally dated 1315–1322) was the first of a series of large-scale crises that struck Europe early in the 14th century. Most of Europe (extending east to Russia and south to Italy) was affected. The famine ...
—had resulted in great numbers of deaths, but there is no evidence of any significant decrease in the population prior to 1348. England was still a predominantly rural and agrarian society; close to 90 per cent of the population lived in the countryside. Of the major cities,
London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
was in a class of its own, with perhaps as many as 70,000 inhabitants. Further down the scale were
Norwich Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the See of Norwich, with ...
, with around 12,000 people, and
York York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a ...
with around 10,000. The main export, and the source of the nation's wealth, was wool. Until the middle of the century the export had consisted primarily of raw wool to cloth makers in
Flanders Flanders (, ; Dutch: ''Vlaanderen'' ) is the Flemish-speaking northern portion of Belgium and one of the communities, regions and language areas of Belgium. However, there are several overlapping definitions, including ones related to cultu ...
. Gradually though, the technology for cloth making used on the Continent was appropriated by English manufacturers, who started an export of cloths around mid-century that would boom over the following decades. Politically, the kingdom was evolving into a major European power, through the youthful and energetic kingship of Edward III. In 1346, the English had won a decisive battle over the Scots at the
Battle of Neville's Cross The Battle of Neville's Cross took place during the Second War of Scottish Independence on 17 October 1346, half a mile (800 m) to the west of Durham, England. An invading Scottish army of 12,000 led by King David II was defeated with heavy los ...
, and it seemed that Edward III would realise his grandfather Edward I's ambition of bringing the Scots under the suzerainty of the English crown. The English were also experiencing military success on the continent. Less than two months before the Battle of Neville's Cross, a numerically inferior English army led by the king himself won a spectacular victory over the French royal forces at the
Battle of Crécy The Battle of Crécy took place on 26 August 1346 in northern France between a French army commanded by King PhilipVI and an English army led by King EdwardIII. The French attacked the English while they were traversing northern France du ...
. The victory was immediately followed by Edward laying siege to the port city of Calais. When the city fell the next year, this provided the English with a strategically important enclave that would remain in their possession for over two centuries.


The Black Death

The term "Black Death"—which refers to the first and most serious outbreak of the second pandemic—was not used by contemporaries, who preferred such names as the "Great Pestilence" or the "Great Mortality". It was not until the 17th century that the term under which we know the outbreak today became common, probably derived from Scandinavian languages. It is generally agreed today that the disease in question was
plague Plague or The Plague may refer to: Agriculture, fauna, and medicine *Plague (disease), a disease caused by ''Yersinia pestis'' * An epidemic of infectious disease (medical or agricultural) * A pandemic caused by such a disease * A swarm of pe ...
, caused by ''
Yersinia pestis ''Yersinia pestis'' (''Y. pestis''; formerly '' Pasteurella pestis'') is a gram-negative, non-motile, coccobacillus bacterium without spores that is related to both ''Yersinia pseudotuberculosis'' and ''Yersinia enterocolitica''. It is a facult ...
''
bacteria Bacteria (; singular: bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one Cell (biology), biological cell. They constitute a large domain (biology), domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometr ...
. These bacteria are carried by
flea Flea, the common name for the order Siphonaptera, includes 2,500 species of small flightless insects that live as external parasites of mammals and birds. Fleas live by ingesting the blood of their hosts. Adult fleas grow to about long, a ...
s, which can be transferred to humans through contact with rats. Flea bites carry the disease into the lymphatic system, through which it makes its way to the lymph nodes. Here the bacteria multiply and form swellings called
bubo A bubo (Greek βουβών, ''boubṓn'', 'groin') is adenitis or inflammation of the lymph nodes and is an example of reactive lymphadenopathy. Classification Buboes are a symptom of bubonic plague and occur as painful swellings in the thigh ...
es, from which the term bubonic plague is derived. After three or four days the bacteria enter the bloodstream, and infect organs such as the
spleen The spleen is an organ found in almost all vertebrates. Similar in structure to a large lymph node, it acts primarily as a blood filter. The word spleen comes .
and the lungs. The patient will then normally die after a few days. A different strain of the disease is
pneumonic plague Pneumonic plague is a severe lung infection caused by the bacterium ''Yersinia pestis''. Symptoms include fever, headache, shortness of breath, chest pain, and coughing. They typically start about three to seven days after exposure. It is one ...
, where the bacteria become airborne and enter directly into the patient's lungs. This strain is far more virulent, as it spreads directly from person to person. These types of infection probably both played a significant part in the Black Death, while a third strain was more rare. This is the septicaemic plague, where the flea bite carries the bacteria directly into the blood stream, and death occurs very rapidly. A study reported in 2011 of skeletons exhumed from the Black Death cemetery in
East Smithfield East Smithfield is a small locality in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, east London, and also a short street, a part of the A1203 road. Once broader in scope, the name came to apply to the part of the ancient parish of St Botolph without ...
,
London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
, found ''Yersinia pestis'' DNA. An archaeological dig in the vicinity of
Thornton Abbey Thornton Abbey was a medieval abbey located close to the small North Lincolnshire village of Thornton Curtis, near Ulceby, and directly south of Hull on the other side of the Humber estuary. Its ruins are a Grade I listed building, including not ...
in Lincolnshire was reported in the science section of The Guardian for 30 November 2016, not only confirming evidence of the ''Y. pestis'' DNA in the human remains exhumed there but also dating the remains to mid-1349.
Genotyping Genotyping is the process of determining differences in the genetic make-up (genotype) of an individual by examining the individual's DNA sequence using biological assays and comparing it to another individual's sequence or a reference sequence. ...
showed that it was
t that time T, or t, is the twentieth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''tee'' (pronounced ), plural ''tees''. It is der ...
a newly evolved strain, ancestor of all modern strains and proved the Black Death was bubonic plague. Modern medical knowledge suggests that because it was a new strain, the human immune system would have had little or no defence against it, helping to explain the plague's virulence and high death rates. The Black Death seems to have originated in
Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes t ...
, where the ''Y. pestis'' bacterium is endemic in the
rodent Rodents (from Latin , 'to gnaw') are mammals of the order Rodentia (), which are characterized by a single pair of continuously growing incisors in each of the upper and lower jaws. About 40% of all mammal species are rodents. They are n ...
population. It is unknown exactly what caused the outbreak, but a series of natural occurrences likely brought humans into contact with the infected rodents. The epidemic reached
Constantinople la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه , alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya ( Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis ( ...
in the late spring of 1347, through Genoese merchants trading in the
Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Rom ...
. From here it reached
Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...
in October that same year, and by early 1348 it had spread over the entire Italian mainland. It spread rapidly through France, and had reached as far north as Paris by June 1348. Moving simultaneously westward, it arrived in the English province of Gascony around the same time.


Progress of the plague

According to the chronicle of the
grey friars The Franciscans are a group of related Mendicant orders, mendicant Christianity, Christian Catholic religious order, religious orders within the Catholic Church. Founded in 1209 by Italian Catholic friar Francis of Assisi, these orders include t ...
at King's Lynn, the plague arrived by ship from Gascony to Melcombe in Dorset—today normally referred to as Weymouth—shortly before the Feast of St. John the Baptist on 24 June 1348. Other sources mention different points of arrival, including
Bristol Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...
and
Southampton Southampton () is a port city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. It is located approximately south-west of London and west of Portsmouth. The city forms part of the South Hampshire built-up area, which also covers Po ...
. Though the plague might have arrived independently at Bristol at a later point, the ''Grey Friars' Chronicle'' is considered the most authoritative account. If it is assumed that the chronicle reports the first ''outbreak'' of the plague, rather than its actual ''arrival'', then the arrival most likely happened around 8 May. From Weymouth the disease spread rapidly across the south-west. The first major city to be struck was Bristol. The disease reached London in the autumn of 1348, before most of the surrounding countryside. This had certainly happened by November, though according to some accounts as early as 29 September. Arrival in London happened by three principal roads: overland from Weymouth—through
Salisbury Salisbury ( ) is a cathedral city in Wiltshire, England with a population of 41,820, at the confluence of the rivers Avon, Nadder and Bourne. The city is approximately from Southampton and from Bath. Salisbury is in the southeast of ...
and Winchester—overland from
Gloucester Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the west, east of Monmouth and east ...
, and along the coast by ship. The full effect of the plague was felt in the capital early the next year. Conditions in London were ideal for the plague: the streets were narrow and flowing with sewage, and houses were overcrowded and poorly ventilated. By March 1349 the disease was spreading haphazardly across all of southern England. During the first half of 1349 the Black Death spread northwards. A second front opened up when the plague arrived by ship at the
Humber The Humber is a large tidal estuary on the east coast of Northern England. It is formed at Trent Falls, Faxfleet, by the confluence of the tidal rivers Ouse and Trent. From there to the North Sea, it forms part of the boundary between t ...
, after which it spread both south and north. In May it reached
York York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a ...
, and during the summer months of June, July and August, it ravaged the north. Certain northern counties, like
Durham Durham most commonly refers to: *Durham, England, a cathedral city and the county town of County Durham *County Durham, an English county * Durham County, North Carolina, a county in North Carolina, United States *Durham, North Carolina, a city in N ...
and Cumberland, had been the victim of violent incursions from the Scots, and were therefore left particularly vulnerable to the devastations of the plague. Pestilence is less virulent during the winter months, and spreads less rapidly. The Black Death in England had survived the winter of 1348–49, but during the following winter it gave in, and by December 1349 conditions were returning to relative normality. It had taken the disease approximately 500 days to traverse the entire country.


Medical practice

Various methods were used including sweating,
bloodletting Bloodletting (or blood-letting) is the withdrawal of blood from a patient to prevent or cure illness and disease. Bloodletting, whether by a physician or by leeches, was based on an ancient system of medicine in which blood and other bodily flu ...
, forced vomiting and urinating to treat patients infected with the plague. Several symptoms of the illness included blotches, hardening of the glands under the groin and underarms, and dementia. Within the initial phase of the disease, bloodletting was performed on the same side of where the physical manifestations of the buboes or ''risings'' appeared. For instance, if a rising appeared on the right side of the groin the physician would bleed a vein in the ankle on the same side. In the case of sweating, it was achieved with such medicines as ''Mithridate'', ''Venice-Treacle'', ''Matthiolus'', ''Bezoar-Water'', ''Serpentary Roots'' and ''Electuarium de Ovo''. Sweating was used when measures were desperate; if a patient had ''tokens'', a severe version of ''risings'', the physician would wrap the naked patient in a blanket drenched in cold water. This measure was only performed while the patient still had natural heat in his system. The desired effect was to make the patient sweat violently and thus purge all corruption from the blood which was caused by the disease. Another practice was the use of pigeons when treating swellings. Swellings which were white in appearance and deep were unlikely to break and were anointed with ''Oil of Lillies'' or ''Camomil''. Once the swelling rose to a head and was red in appearance and not deep in the flesh, it was broken with the use of a feather from a young pigeon's tail. The feather's fundament was held to the swelling and would draw out the venom. However, if the swelling dropped and became black in appearance, the physician had to be cautious when drawing the cold from the swelling. If it was too late to prevent, the physician would take the young pigeon, cut it open from breast to back, break it open and apply the pigeon (while still alive) over the cold swelling. The
cupping therapy Cupping therapy is a form of alternative medicine in which a local suction is created on the skin with the application of heated cups. Its practice mainly occurs in Asia but also in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America. Cupping has ...
was an alternative method which was heated and then placed over the swellings. Once the sore was broken, the physician would apply ''Mellilot Plaister'' with ''Linimentum Arcei'' and heal the sore with digence.


Victims


Death toll

Although historical records for England were more extensive than those of any other European country, it is still extremely difficult to establish the death toll with any degree of certainty. Difficulties involve uncertainty about the size of the total population, as described above, but also issues regarding the proportion of the population that died from the plague. Contemporary accounts are often grossly inflated, stating numbers as high as 90 per cent. Modern historians give estimates of death rates ranging from around 25 per cent to more than 60 per cent of the total population. The pioneering work in the field was made by Josiah William Russell in his 1948 ''British Medieval Population''. Russell looked at inquisitions ''post mortem'' (IPMs)—taken by the crown to assess the wealth of the greatest landowners after their death—to assess the mortality caused by the Black Death, and from this arrived at an estimate of 23.6 per cent of the entire population. He also looked at episcopal registers for the death toll among the clergy, where the result was between 30 and 40 per cent. Russell believed the clergy was at particular risk of contagion, and eventually concluded with a low mortality level of only 20 per cent. Several of Russell's assumptions have been challenged, and the tendency since has been to adjust the assessment upwards.
Philip Ziegler Philip Sandeman Ziegler (born 24 December 1929) is a British biographer and historian. Background Born in Ringwood, Hampshire, Ziegler was educated at St Cyprian's School, Eastbourne, and went with the school when it merged with Summer Field ...
, in 1969, estimated the death rate to be at around one third of the population. Jeremy Goldberg, in 1996, believed a number closer to 45 per cent would be more realistic. A 2004 study by
Ole Jørgen Benedictow Ole Jørgen Benedictow (born 22 July 1941) is a Norwegian historian. Having spent his entire professional career at the University of Oslo, he is especially known for his work on plagues, especially the Black Death. Career He was born in Oslo. ...
suggests the exceptionally high mortality level of 62.5 per cent. Assuming a population of 6 million, this estimate would correspond to 3,750,000 deaths. Such a high percentage would place England above the average that Benedictow estimates for Western Europe as a whole, of 60 per cent. A death rate at such a high level has not been universally accepted in the historical community. In 2016, Carenza Lewis reported the results of a new method of assessing the death toll. She argued that pottery before and after the Black Death is datable because there was a change at that time from the high medieval to the late medieval style, and that counts of pottery of each type therefore provide a useful proxy for long term changes in population. She and her colleagues analysed pottery sherds from test pits in more than 50 continuously occupied rural settlements in eastern England, and found a decline in the number of pottery producing pits of 45 per cent. Norfolk had the greatest drop of 65 per cent, while there was no drop in 10 per cent of settlements, mostly commercial centres.


Impact of the Black Death: 1349

Archbishop Zouche of York issued a warning throughout the diocese in July 1348 (when the epidemic was raging further south) of "great mortalities, pestilences and infections of the air". The Great Mortality, as it was then known, entered Yorkshire around February 1349 and quickly spread through the diocese. The clergy were on the front line of the disease, bringing comfort to the dying, hearing final confessions and organising burials. This, almost by necessity, put them at a greater risk of infection. Estimates suggest that the death rate of clergy in some parts of the archdiocese could have been as high as 48 per cent. This is reflected in the Ordination Register, which shows a massive rise in ordained clergy over the period—some being recruited before the arrival of plague in a clerical recruitment drive, but many once plague had arrived, replacing those who had been killed. In 1346, 111 priests and 337 acolytes were recruited. In 1349, 299 priests and 683 acolytes are named, with 166 priests being ordained in one session alone in February 1350."


Social distribution

Russell had trusted the IPMs to give a true picture of the national average, because he assumed death rates to be relatively equal across the social spectrum. This assumption has been proven wrong, and studies of peasant plague mortality from manor rolls have returned much higher rates. This could be a consequence of the elite's ability to avoid infection by escaping plague-infected areas. It could also result from lower post-infection mortality among those more affluent, due to better access to care and nursing. If so, this would also mean that the mortality rates for the clergy—who were normally better off than the general population—were no higher than the average. The manorial records offer a good opportunity to study the geographical distribution of the plague. Its effect seems to have been about the same all over England, though a place like East Anglia, which had frequent contact with the Continent, was severely affected. On a local level, however, there were great variations. A study of the Bishop of Worcester's estates reveal that, while his manors of Hartlebury and Hanbury had a mortality of only 19 per cent, the manor of Aston lost as much as 80 per cent of its population. The manor rolls are less useful for studying the demographic distribution of the mortality, since the rolls only record the heads of households, normally an adult male. Here the IPMs show us that the most vulnerable to the disease were infants and the elderly. There seem to have been relatively few deaths from the Black Death at higher levels of society. The only member of the royal family who can be said with any certainty to have died from the Black Death was in France at the time of her infection. Edward III's daughter
Joan Joan may refer to: People and fictional characters * Joan (given name), including a list of women, men and fictional characters *:Joan of Arc, a French military heroine * Joan (surname) Weather events *Tropical Storm Joan (disambiguation), multip ...
was residing in
Bordeaux Bordeaux ( , ; Gascon oc, Bordèu ; eu, Bordele; it, Bordò; es, Burdeos) is a port city on the river Garonne in the Gironde department, Southwestern France. It is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the prefect ...
on her way to marry Pedro of Castile in the summer of 1348. When the plague broke out in her household she was moved to a small village nearby, but she could not avoid infection, and died there on 2 September. It is possible that the popular religious author
Richard Rolle Richard Rolle ( – 30 September 1349) was an English hermit, mystic, and religious writer. He is also known as Richard Rolle of Hampole or de Hampole, since at the end of his life he lived near a Cistercian nunnery in Hampole, now in Sou ...
, who died on 30 September 1349, was another victim of the Black Death. The English philosopher
William of Ockham William of Ockham, OFM (; also Occam, from la, Gulielmus Occamus; 1287 – 10 April 1347) was an English Franciscan friar, scholastic philosopher, apologist, and Catholic theologian, who is believed to have been born in Ockham, a small vil ...
has been mentioned as a plague victim. This, however, is an impossibility. Ockham was living in
Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...
at the time of his death, on 10 April 1347, two years before the Black Death reached that city.


Consequences


Economic, social and political effects

Among the most immediate consequences of the Black Death in England was a shortage of farm labour, and a corresponding rise in wages. The medieval world-view was unable to interpret these changes in terms of socio-economic development, and it became common to blame degrading morals instead. The landowning classes saw the rise in wage levels as a sign of social upheaval and insubordination, and reacted with coercion. In 1349, King Edward III passed the
Ordinance of Labourers The Ordinance of Labourers 1349 (23 Edw. 3) is often considered to be the start of English labour law.''Employment Law: Cases and Materials''. Rothstein, Liebman. Sixth Edition, Foundation Press. p. 20. Specifically, it fixed wages and impose ...
, fixing wages at pre-plague levels. The ordinance was reinforced by Parliament's passing of the
Statute of Labourers The Statute of Labourers was a law created by the English parliament under King Edward III in 1351 in response to a labour shortage, which aimed at regulating the labour force by prohibiting requesting or offering a wage higher than pre-Plague st ...
in 1351. The labour laws were enforced with ruthless determination over the following decades. These legislative measures proved largely inefficient at regulating the market, but the government's repressive measures to enforce them caused public resentment. These conditions were contributing factors to the
Peasants' Revolt The Peasants' Revolt, also named Wat Tyler's Rebellion or the Great Rising, was a major uprising across large parts of England in 1381. The revolt had various causes, including the socio-economic and political tensions generated by the Blac ...
in 1381. The revolt started in Kent and Essex in late May, and once the rebels reached London they burnt down John of Gaunt's
Savoy Palace The Savoy Palace, considered the grandest nobleman's townhouse of medieval London, was the residence of prince John of Gaunt until it was destroyed during rioting in the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. The palace was on the site of an estate given to ...
, and killed both the Chancellor and the
Treasurer A treasurer is the person responsible for running the treasury of an organization. The significant core functions of a corporate treasurer include cash and liquidity management, risk management, and corporate finance. Government The treasury ...
. They then demanded the complete abolition of
serfdom Serfdom was the status of many peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to manorialism, and similar systems. It was a condition of debt bondage and indentured servitude with similarities to and differences from slavery, which deve ...
, and were not pacified until the young King Richard II personally intervened. The rebellion was eventually suppressed, but the social changes it promoted were already irreversible. By around 1400 serfdom was virtually extinct in England, replaced by the form of tenure called
copyhold Copyhold was a form of customary land ownership common from the Late Middle Ages into modern times in England. The name for this type of land tenure is derived from the act of giving a copy of the relevant title deed that is recorded in the ma ...
. It is conspicuous how well the English government handled the crisis of the mid-fourteenth century, without descending into chaos and total collapse in the manner of the Valois government of France. To a large extent this was the accomplishment of administrators such as
Treasurer A treasurer is the person responsible for running the treasury of an organization. The significant core functions of a corporate treasurer include cash and liquidity management, risk management, and corporate finance. Government The treasury ...
William de Shareshull Sir William de Shareshull KB (1289/1290–1370) was an English lawyer and Chief Justice of the King's Bench from 26 October 1350 to 5 July 1361. He achieved prominence under the administration of Edward III of England. He was responsible fo ...
and Chief Justice
William Edington William Edington (died 6 or 7 October 1366) was an English bishop and administrator. He served as Bishop of Winchester from 1346 until his death, Keeper of the wardrobe from 1341 to 1344, treasurer from 1344 to 1356, and finally as chancellor fr ...
, whose highly competent leadership guided the governance of the nation through the crisis. The plague's greatest effect on the government was probably in the field of war, where no major campaigns were launched in France until 1355. Another notable consequence of the Black Death was the raising of the real wage of England (due to the shortage of labour as a result of the reduction in population), a trait shared across Western Europe, which in general led to a real wage in 1450 that was unmatched in most countries until the 19th or 20th century. The higher wages for workers combined with sinking prices on grain products led to a problematic economic situation for the
gentry Gentry (from Old French ''genterie'', from ''gentil'', "high-born, noble") are "well-born, genteel and well-bred people" of high social class, especially in the past. Word similar to gentle imple and decentfamilies ''Gentry'', in its widest c ...
. As a result, they started to show an increased interest for offices like justice of the peace, sheriff and
member of parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members o ...
. The gentry took advantage of their new positions and a more systematic corruption than before spread. A result of this was that the gentry as a group became highly disliked by commoners.


Religious and cultural consequences

The omnipresence of death also inspired greater piety in the upper classes, which can be seen in the fact that three
Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a College town, university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cam ...
colleges were founded during or shortly after the Black Death. England did not experience the same trend of roving bands of flagellants, common on the continent. Neither were there any
pogrom A pogrom () is a violent riot incited with the aim of massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe 19th- and 20th-century attacks on Jews in the Russia ...
s against the
Jew Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""T ...
s, since the Jews had been expelled by Edward I in 1290. In the long run, however, the increase in public participation may have served to challenge the absolute authority of the church hierarchy, and thus possibly helped pave the way for the
Protestant Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and ...
. The high rate of mortality among the clergy naturally led to a shortage of priests in many parts of the country. The clergy were seen to have an elevated status among ordinary people and this was partly due to their purported closeness with God, being his envoys on earth. However, as the church itself had given the cause of the Black Death to be the impropriety of the behaviour of men, the higher death rate among the clergy led the people to lose faith in the Church as an institution—it had proved as ineffectual against the horror of ''Y. pestis'' as every other medieval institution. The corruption within the Catholic priesthood also angered the English people. Many priests abandoned the terrified people. Others sought benefits from the rich families who needed burials. The dissatisfaction led to anti-clericalism and the rise of
John Wycliffe John Wycliffe (; also spelled Wyclif, Wickliffe, and other variants; 1328 – 31 December 1384) was an English scholastic philosopher, theologian, biblical translator, reformer, Catholic priest, and a seminary professor at the University of ...
, an English priest. His ideas paved a path for the Christian reformation in England. Some people didn't lose their Christian faith, if anything it was renewed; they began to long for a more personal relationship with God—around the time after the Black Death many chantries (private chapels) began to spread in use from not just the nobility, but to among the well-to-do. This change in the power of the papacy in England is demonstrated by the statutes of Praemunire. The Black Death also affected arts and culture significantly. It was inevitable that a catastrophe of such proportions would affect some of the greater building projects, as the amount of available labour fell sharply. The building of the cathedrals of Ely and Exeter was temporarily halted in the years immediately following the first outbreak of the plague. The shortage of labour also helped advance the transition from the
Decorated style English Gothic is an architectural style that flourished from the late 12th until the mid-17th century. The style was most prominently used in the construction of cathedrals and churches. Gothic architecture's defining features are pointed a ...
of building to the less elaborate
Perpendicular style Perpendicular Gothic (also Perpendicular, Rectilinear, or Third Pointed) architecture was the third and final style of English Gothic architecture developed in the Kingdom of England during the Late Middle Ages, typified by large windows, four-ce ...
. The Black Death may also have promoted the use of vernacular English, as the number of teachers proficient in French dwindled, contributing to the late-14th-century flowering of English literature, represented by writers such as Geoffrey Chaucer and
John Gower John Gower (; c. 1330 – October 1408) was an English poet, a contemporary of William Langland and the Pearl Poet, and a personal friend of Geoffrey Chaucer. He is remembered primarily for three major works, the '' Mirour de l'Omme'', '' Vo ...
.


Recurrences

The Black Death was the first occurrence of the second pandemic, which continued to strike England and the rest of Europe more or less regularly until the 18th century. The first serious recurrence in England came in the years 1361−62. Little is known about the death rates caused by these later outbreaks, but the so-called ''pestis secunda'' may have had a mortality of around 20 per cent. Genetic analysis performed on remains recovered from the abbey of St. Mary's Graces dating between 1353 and 1364 found the pPCP1 plasmid, a plasmid only found in ''Yersinia pestis'' and not the related environmental agent ''Yersinia pseudotuberculosis'', revealing that this outbreak was also caused by ''Yersinia pestis'' just as the initial outbreak had been. This epidemic was also particularly devastating for the population's ability to recover, since it disproportionately affected infants and young men. This was also the case with the next occurrence, in 1369, where the death rate was around 10−15 per cent. Over the following decades the plague would return—on a national or a regional level—at intervals of five to 12 years, with gradually dwindling death tolls. Then, in the decades from 1430 to 1480, the disease returned in force. An outbreak in 1471 took as much as 10–15 per cent of the population, while the death rate of the plague of 1479–80 could have been as high as 20 per cent. From that point outbreaks became fewer and more manageable, due largely to conscious efforts by central and local governments—from the late 15th century onward—to curtail the disease. This included quarantines on people and goods coming from infected places, bans on public gatherings (such as fairs), enforced household quarantine for the infected (known as 'locking up') and quarantines on ships and crews coming from ports where Plague outbreaks had occurred. From the early seventeenth century there was also greater use of quarantine facilities, called pesthouses, in preference to household quarantine. Some of these, such as the Forlorn Hope Pesthouse established by Bristol in 1665–6, appear to have been proper quarantine hospitals, staffed by doctors. The establishment of such a hospital may help to explain why the death rate in Bristol in the 1665–66 outbreak was "only" c.0.6 percent. This was much lower than the mortality rate of 10–20 percent witnessed in Bristol's Plague epidemics of 1565, 1575, 1603–04 and 1645. The Great Plague of 1665–66 was the last major outbreak in England. It is best known for the famous
Great Plague of London The Great Plague of London, lasting from 1665 to 1666, was the last major epidemic of the bubonic plague to occur in England. It happened within the centuries-long Second Pandemic, a period of intermittent bubonic plague epidemics that origi ...
, which killed 100,000 people (20 per cent of the population) in the capital. Other places hit hard included
Eyam Eyam () is an English village and civil parish in the Derbyshire Dales that lies within the Peak District National Park. There is evidence of early occupation by Ancient Britons on the surrounding moors and lead was mined in the area by the R ...
in Derbyshire,
Derby Derby ( ) is a city and unitary authority area in Derbyshire, England. It lies on the banks of the River Derwent in the south of Derbyshire, which is in the East Midlands Region. It was traditionally the county town of Derbyshire. Derby g ...
itself and
Norwich Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the See of Norwich, with ...
."Fighting the Plague in Tudor Norwich", 1 August 2020 (Norwich Record Office)
/ref>


See also

*
Globalization and disease Globalization, the flow of information, goods, capital, and people across political and geographic boundaries, allows infectious diseases to rapidly spread around the world, while also allowing the alleviation of factors such as hunger and poverty ...
*
Abandoned village An abandoned village is a village that has, for some reason, been deserted. In many countries, and throughout history, thousands of villages have been deserted for a variety of causes. Abandonment of villages is often related to epidemic, f ...
* Population decline *
Medieval demography Medieval demography is the study of human demography in Europe and the Mediterranean during the Middle Ages. It estimates and seeks to explain the number of people who were alive during the Medieval period, population trends, life expectancy, fam ...
*
Crisis of the Late Middle Ages The Crisis of the Late Middle Ages was a series of events in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries that ended centuries of European stability during the Late Middle Ages. Three major crises led to radical changes in all areas of society: demog ...
*
Popular revolts in late-medieval Europe Popular revolts in late medieval Europe were uprisings and rebellions by (typically) peasants in the countryside, or the bourgeois in towns, against nobles, abbots and kings during the upheavals of the 14th through early 16th centuries, part of a ...
* List of epidemics


References


Sources

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


Further reading

* * ''Doomsday Book'' by
Connie Willis Constance Elaine Trimmer Willis (born December 31, 1945), commonly known as Connie Willis, is an American science fiction and fantasy writer. She has won eleven Hugo Awards and seven Nebula Awards for particular works—more major SF awards tha ...
, a science fiction novel, where the protagonist by accident travels back in time to the year 1348 and is confronted with the progress of the Black Death in southern England. {{DEFAULTSORT:Black Death in England 14th-century health disasters 14th century in England
England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
Death in England Disease outbreaks in England Edward III of England