Black Plague

Imagine something that killed off millions of people in the USA. If a third of Americans died, there would be huge changes to our society. People would have new bosses and employees. Families would lose one or both parents and new families would have to be formed. Whole towns would be full of empty houses with no new people to move into them. The plague in Europe had a huge affect on their society. The Mediterranean lost around 1/3 of its population and numerous villages were abandoned as the result of the plague. The high number of deaths caused a number of interesting things.

First who died? The first to go were people who lived anywhere the Romans once ruled. The time was 1347-1348, two of some of the most important cities on earth, Mecca and Rome suffered terrible losses as well. It is worth noting that in the west, where the Catholic Church had complete control, many of the Holy men were shining examples and cut memorable figures. You see, some good priest immediately went to the sick to comfort, bless, give final rights, and/or unhappily, officiate at their funerals. These priests,  in close in combat with the sickness, often died as examples of sanctity and stood out in the whole world. Some of the priests that survived did not give as good an example.

In Islam, between a fourth and a third died depending on where you lived. This was also a very serious thing affecting everybody. Though society kept more structure during this second end of the world (the first being the fall of imperial Rome), many of the major cities survived but were left badly damaged by the loss of life.

The dead were buried by the living and there was about one dead person for every two living. Some bodies were left without burial because there were so many dead and so much fear. Some people abandoned their families to get away and save their lives. In the Islamic world, people who moved dead bodies or read the Koran at funerals made a lot more money than other people to make up for the danger. To most people, the world seemed to be ending.

One effect was that the survivors of the plague inherited the victim’s land and belongings. The survivors lost family members but gained money, books, and property. The second effect was that the landowners had less and less of a workforce to serve them. Not only did they lose workers but the families of the workers often also died. The third effect was that once the people had more land because there were less people, the law of supply and demand meant that the value of land went down.

 The fourth effect was that because there were fewer workers, there were more job openings per worker. Because there were more job openings, the people could choose to work anywhere that had better pay. Because workers left for better pay, the landowners had to compete with higher prices for labor. Because the landowners competed for workers by having to pay higher salaries, the price of many things went up. Because the prices went up the landowners grew poorer. However, other survivors that were cut off from society who lived in very rough environments survived because there were almost no people to give them the plague. Some major cities, like Warsaw in Poland and Milan in the Italian alps, also were largely untouched by the plague. I was not able to find a good explanation why they were spared all the deaths, but these two cities become crucial in the next age.

It becomes plain who, of the survivors; got the short end of the stick, the landowners suffered because their land was worth less and they had to pay more for workers. Competition for workers was more relevant and this may be the basis for why feudalism started to decline after the plague. It was in this chaos of death and suffering that capitalism started to show up.  Europe’s future was not completely shaped by the Black Death but the black death did give birth to many interesting changes.