At the same time, the plague brought benefits as well: modern labor movements, improvements in medicine and a new approach to life. Indeed, much of the Italian Renaissance—even Shakespeare's drama to some extent—is an aftershock of the Black Death.
An end to feudalism, increased wages and innovation, the idea of separation of church and state, and an attention to hygiene and medicine are only some of the positive things that came after the plague. It could also be argued that the plague had a significant impact on the start of the Renaissance.
The effects of the Black Death were many and varied. Trade suffered for a time, and wars were temporarily abandoned. Many labourers died, which devastated families through lost means of survival and caused personal suffering; landowners who used labourers as tenant farmers were also affected.
Those who survived benefited from an extreme labor shortage, so serfs once tied to the land now had a choice of whom to work for. Lords had to make conditions better and more attractive or risk leaving their land untended, leading to wage increases across the board.
The consequences of this violent catastrophe were many. A cessation of wars and a sudden slump in trade immediately followed but were only of short duration. A more lasting and serious consequence was the drastic reduction of the amount of land under cultivation, due to the deaths of so many labourers.
Even though the Plague killed many, it had beneficial effects on medicine, especially in Europe. Doctors began to question Galenic medicine, they relied more on observation, and they paid more attention to anatomy. There were also improvements in medical ethics, public health, and hospitals.
Clinical Significance
The Black Death or bubonic plague killed more than 25 million people in fourteenth-century Europe. Yersinia pestis (the plague bacteria) can be easily weaponized as a bioterrorism agent. Early plague treatment is curative, but its symptomatology can be nonspecific.
Despite the dearth of workers, there was more land, more food, and more money for ordinary people. “You might see this as a benefit to the laboring classes,” she says. DeWitte's more recent studies explore the long-lasting biological impact.
The economy underwent abrupt and extreme inflation. Since it was so difficult (and dangerous) to procure goods through trade and to produce them, the prices of both goods produced locally and those imported from afar skyrocketed.
In the study, Barreiro and his colleagues found that Black Death survivors in London and Denmark had an edge in their genes – mutations that helped protect against the plague pathogen, Yersinia pestis. Survivors passed those mutations onto their descendants, and many Europeans still carry those mutations today.
1348 Europe suffered the most. By the end of 1348, Germany, France, England, Italy, and the low countries had all felt the plague. Norway was infected in 1349, and Eastern European countries began to fall victim during the early 1350s. Russia felt the effects later in 1351.
Estimated per capita GDP decreased from 1348 to 1349 by 6%. Similarly, in Spain, where the Black Death also arrived in 1348, real wages were 9% lower in 1350 and estimated per capita GDP decreased by 3.3%.
Today, modern antibiotics are effective in treating plague. Without prompt treatment, the disease can cause serious illness or death. Presently, human plague infections continue to occur in rural areas in the western United States, but significantly more cases occur in parts of Africa and Asia.
The great population loss wrought by the plague brought favorable results to the surviving peasants in England and Western Europe, such as wage increases and more access to land, and was one of the factors in the ending of the feudal system.
Due to the fact that 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. Many advanced to higher positions in society. Thus the Black Death was ultimately responsible for major shifts in the social structure.
The Black Death was a great tragedy. However, the decrease in population caused by the plague increased the wages of peasants. As a result, peasants began to enjoy a higher standard of living and greater freedom.
Daily life ground to a halt as the Black Death spread along medieval trade routes, claiming an estimated 20 million lives with ruthless efficiency. Now, a team of researchers is asserting that the plague had an unexpected impact: clearing the air of a toxic pollutant for the first time in over a thousand years.
Historians estimate that it reduced the total world population from 475 million to between 350 and 375 million. In most parts of Europe, it took nearly 80 years for population sizes to recover, and in some areas more than 150 years.
Furthermore, because of the severe shortage of labour, taxes went down and wages went up. The drastic decrease in population also meant there was also an oversupply of goods, and so the price of consumables dropped. Those who had survived the plague began to enjoy higher standards of living as a result.
The Black Death was the savior of the lower class, as it ended feudalism. Unlike before, the poor now had access to land and they were able to fend for themselves and live an independent life, rather than serving the upper class.
The Black Death brought about a decline in feudalism. The significant drop in population because of massive numbers of deaths caused a labor shortage that helped end serfdom. Towns and cities grew. The decline of the guild system and an expansion in manufacturing changed Europe's economy and society.
Today, scientists understand that the Black Death, now known as the plague, is spread by a bacillus called Yersinia pestis.
The effects of the Black Death were many and varied. Trade suffered for a time, and wars were temporarily abandoned. Many labourers died, which devastated families through lost means of survival and caused personal suffering; landowners who used labourers as tenant farmers were also affected.
It had to become high-tech. For good or evil, the plague years gave us crossbows, new medical ideas, guns, clocks, eyeglasses, and a new craving for general knowledge. And so the rainbow at the end of this terrible storm yielded its pot of gold. The last new technology of this ghastly 150 years was the printing press.