Life after the Black Death: The social and psychological shift.

What we have come to know of as ‘the Black death’ was a time of utter devastation to medieval Europe. It left the population vastly depleted and the survivors near hysterical in trying to make sense of what had happened and making sense of their place in the future. While it is for the most part true that the population decrease made a significant it cannot be negated that there where multiple other changes to the culture of Europe as a consequence of the Black Death. Some relating to the population reduction while others can be assessed as coming from a wider scope of changes to the very culture of the world that they lived in. From ideas of mortality; an advancement of knowledge and even recognisable changes to social structure and relationships in society there is certainly a plethora of impacts that came about in the aftermath of the Black Death. The world after the Black Death was not the hopeless waste and the contemporise may have feared nor should we think of it as such. From this period we see a flourishing of other aspects of life breaking out of the wounds of the epidemic, people’s lamenting and loss only fueled the changes that followed.

Ignoring the changed population structures across the whole continent when discussing the Black Death would be a dishonest way of assessing the state of the world after the epidemic. In terms of figures it is commonly deemed that around a third of Europe’s population was whipped out as well as causing a significant loss to both China and the Middle East. However there has been much debate on the true figures that we can credit to the illness, some argue a that it could be pushed up as far as a horrific 60% loss to Europe while others remind us that the figures that we have concerning to death tolls in the age cannot fully be put down to the Black Death itself, as Colin Platt mentions in his own analysis of the death tolls this is the significant problem in taking these figures at face value. Many factors make the estimate difficult such as the methods of record themselves; being that it is likely not all deaths in the peasant class could reliably be recorded particularly if they were young or otherwise not contributing to the community. Nor is it utterly certain that all of these recorded deaths can be blamed on the Great Plague. Other illnesses where ever present such as ‘sweating sickness’ and tuberculosis of which both shared symptoms with the Plague. All of which make the affair of putting a precise number on the death toll near impossible.

 Furthermore, on the subject of population, there is an evident excess of people throughout areas of Europe during the period prior as both birth rate and death rate where at a high. Having a swollen population led to many problems for society at large; famine was made all the more fatal to the vulnerable (Poor, young or Elderly), overcrowded settlement, a lower wage and saturated trading market. This overcrowding led to a faster mass spreading of the illness and thereby picked off waves of people by sheer chance that there was a surplus. Meaning that though the numbers where great it has to be used within the context of the population explosion before the event, which removes the notion that the world had become a deserted wasteland in the aftermath. In this sense the population change certainly changed the society for those who lived through the outbreak. It can be seen that the majority of those killed by the illness where the most vulnerable, as with any case of epidemic illness, the young and the elderly were most affected. This is significant to shaping the society and culture that would develop in the following century. The ratio of these age groups and deaths meant that for the first time the population of the coming decades would consist mainly of young adults and those already in a prime for working albeit in fewer overall numbers then beforehand. For the peasantry and workers this came with a great deal of benefits. Prices of rents, food and luxury goods where down whilst and overall wages where on the increase; particularly for the artisans. This labour shortage coupled with the fact those available could now claim more payment for their contribution raised a new importance for the formerly lower ranking persons in society. One chronicler, William Dene, elaborates on this labour shortage 'There was such a shortage of servants, craftsmen, and workmen, and of agricultural workers and labourers...[that] 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’  The landowners where facing a rough environment, the workers where more expensive and fewer. This meant that eventually we see many landowners resorting to letting more land out to rent for the means of others use. They could earn money though the rent but have little benefit in terms of the lands physical profit. As argued by Lawrence Poos, the jobs that they held was equally important in reflecting this social change. The growing number of those employed in specialist crafts and ‘labourers’ meant for greater freedoms from the yolk of another land owner, even able to become smallholders themselves in many cases with their own agricultural interests. He goes on to remind the reader that within this new social standing they still carried the means for managing an agricultural stability for themselves. Society had shifted and peasants certainly became more engaged in asserting their value, arguably laying the foundations for the various revolts that would take place in the later decades.

This new sense of worth in society lead to reasonable social changes in relationships between the public spheres. Communities and the roles people had in them began to see an individualistic shift, people began to have more choices based on the worth they were able to establish. This is particularly revealing when gender and marriage is taken into consideration which in turn can be related back to the cause for stagnation in population. The new opportunities that came about from the better job options the people had led to certain societies to delay marriage in favour of building their own independent economic standing instead of relying on alone marriage as a means of this. This change is significantly seen in English society. Cities where attracting increasing numbers of artisans who sought to cater to a wider trading market, therefore increasing their social and economic outreach from the constraints of the rural communities that would have previously limited them. Skilled jobs where becoming more professionalised and therefore more desirable to further themselves and assured a potentially not only a better economic status but also opening the doors for a better marriage prospect in terms of power and financial appeal. This is even more significant when we consider the case of Women in England.  As proposed by the historian Jeremy Goldberg women benefited from the increased employability opportunities outside the previous shackles of working within the family home or business. Increasingly there was a shift to women taking on the work of a domestic servant in the urban areas, a role that offered a new social opportunity and therefore a chance to climb the ladder of society. Working within a household for a higher class noble in particular was a position that became respectable and even coveted. This expanding world gave women a greater choice in their own marriage rather than a choice being made by family or community, they were increasingly putting off marriage as a whole, increasing their worth before committing to a more considered union. One such case is recorded when a young domestic servant ‘Alice Redyng’ took it upon herself to buy property (A suite) in order to fulfill her side of a marital contract to a fellow low ranking servant, having no help in doing so by parental finance, as noted in the contract. By extension contract seemed to be formed heavily by Alice’s influence. This social change is highly significant when we compere marriages before and after the black death. Birth rates would gradually rise again , bolstering a new generation that would grow up in a distinctly different world to their parents and grandparents which would cement this new world view, there would be no going back even when labor shortages where made up for in the future generations.

For those left alive there was an extremely macabre world view forming in near all forms of expression and ideology. Having lived through an event that forced them into an acute awareness of death and mortality it is unsurprising that they tried to explain, lament and even celebrate the ideas around death, mortality and what could potentially await them in the afterlife. This movement was so significant that it is considered a whole genre in its own right ‘Danse Macabre’ was the artistic expression of a philosophy that no matter what ones standing in life may be; death was indiscriminate and united all mankind. The typical image is death personified and leading the living to their inevitable fate. These images where plastered over the continent within religious texts and prayer books in addition to seeping into the very embellishment of both churches and burial grounds. It was therefore not just an artistic movement felt experienced as a phenomena of the educated few; its influence was well known and recognised in all walks of life from the use of the concept in churches in image and sermon there was not a soul who could claim ignorance. Although clearly linked to the mass loss of life during the epidemic of the Black Death it would be fairer to view it as a cultural shift in its own right. It demonstrated social aspects of death that sought to comfort, explain and remove part of the fear. The idea was an assessment of death being ever present and a fate all people would be subject to did not lament the numbers but met the subject of death with a humble acceptance.  Even the way they chose to frame the narrative showed death as satirically inviting and welcoming though the use of the figure of death leading the people to their fate in a procession of dance showed the level of dark humour. The image was typical of mass grave sites of the victims of the plague, as first recorded in France. But the images soon became adopted and elevated by noble individuals in turn, these being known as ‘Cadaver’ tombs’. These tombs commonly illustrated the body in a state of decomposition alongside or under a representation of the living form of the deceased. Famously we see such figures as Chaucer’s granddaughter and infamous ‘De la Pole’ family member, Alice, buried in such a tomb. The tombs served as expressions of the transients of death, the noble’s ability to show their piety and often came with a sum of money for the church that hosted them. The concern ones soul was evident by this highly evocative style.

Cadaver tomb of French doctor William of Harcigny, Laon Museum of Art and Archaeology,

( Image source: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/morbid-monday-cadaver-tombs )

In continuation to this dark and death focused culture we see a cultural change in literature and legends. Once again death plays a role in being a humbling force to the population in tales such as ‘The Three Living and The Three Dead’ in which three princes meet their own future cadavers while out on a hunting trip. Like the visual representations that accompanied them these stories where tales of morbid justification and a means of further communicating the philosophy of a the physical life as a fleeting state this particular tale was one that would become widely published and popularised in image and narrative. Doubtlessly crossing both oral and written communications as a method of it spreading which leads for the precise origins to be uncertain. Psychologically the impact is clear. The culture around death had shifted to the forefront of people’s minds and therefore evoked superstition and the birth of these new expressions around death.  It was laced with religious belief, as the art works and philosophy borrowed from the Christian ideas of what would become of man at the end of days. Being that all living and dead would face a judgment before God regardless of their social standing of earth. Their equality was far from a reality when alive but there chance for salvation was something that would gain them their ultimate divine fate was beyond that.

As a whole it is obvious that the decreased population of Europe was an undeniable blow to the world’s population and naturally it caused a great deal of change. Many of these changes affected the society and culture of the people across the broad as seen in art, literature and even a psychological sense. Some of these factors can be explained though the practical results of a diminished population, however it is also clear that many of these defining cultural shifts took on a body of their own that eclipsed the entail loss of life. Whilst one can lead into influencing the other it would be foolish to focus only on the root and not the outcome; population was high and hindering in many areas of the world.  The cultural change provoked by the loss of life and the overall opportunities to change their societies caused far more of an impact that would sway ideologies for centuries following. An instigator to some of the changes as it may have been; population decrease was a simple catalyst rather than the defining outcome.