Covers all aspects of the disease: epidemiology, geographic spread, demographic impact, medical responses, environmental impact, religious responses, the flagellant movement, Jewish pogroms, social and economic impact, and artistic responses.As a result, churchmen, knights and other worthies have been forced to thresh their corn, plough the land and perform every other unskilled task if they are to make their own bread. Instead, because of the doles handed out at funerals, those who once had to work now began to have time for idleness, thieving and other outrages, and thus the poor and servile have been enriched and the rich impoverished. Alas, this mortality devoured such a multitude of both sexes that no one could be found to carry the bodies of the dead to burial, but men and women carried the bodies of their own little ones to church on their shoulders and threw them into mass graves, from which arose such a stink that it was barely possible for anyone to go past a churchyard.Īs remarked above, such a shortage of workers ensued that the humble turned up their noses at employment, and could scarcely be persuaded to serve the eminent unless for triple wages. As a result, there was such a shortage of servants, craftsmen, and workmen, and of agricultural workers and labourers, that a great many lords and people, although well-endowed with goods and possessions, were yet without service and attendance. destroyed more than a third of the men, women and children. churchmen, knights and other worthies have been forced to thresh their corn, plough the land and perform every other unskilled task if they are to make their own bread.'Ī great mortality. This chronicle, written at the cathedral priory of Rochester between 13, includes a firsthand account of the Black Death, describing the changes in the everyday lives of people across the social scale: 'there was such a shortage of servants, craftsmen, and workmen, and of agricultural workers and labourers. Many advanced to higher positions in society.

Because so many had died, there were far fewer people to work the land: peasants were therefore able to demand better conditions and higher wages from their landlords. These huge death tolls sparked off a chain of events that would change the position of the peasant in England forever. It would eventually kill between a third and half of the population. The catastrophic plague known as the Black Death hit Europe in 1348 and swept through the continent rapidly.

The great mortality book