In a sense, the Black Death changed
everything. The population of Europe fell sharply, and did not recover fully
until the Industrial Revolution in the eighteenth century. In itself, this demographic change had all
kinds of effects, notably giving more power to the working people (most of whom
lived in rural areas working for the landowners or farming their own small
plots, or both) since demand for their labour outstripped supply. The late
fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries saw the richer peasants taking advantage of their opportunities and forming what was eventually seen as a
new economic class, somewhere between the upper class of nobles and knights and
the lower class of tenants. They were known as yeomen, and as more land became
available freehold they bought it and farmed it with the help of paid labour,
like the lords, yet did not posses or seek to possess multiple estates on which
tenants paid rents. Thus the economic system of landholding of the late fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries bore less and less resemblance to that pertaining
before the Black Death.
Economic changes brought social changes in
their wake. The old system of land use, based on common fields for the tenants
and customary obligations (for the unfree among those tenants) to till the lord’s
fields for a certain number of days each year, was gradually replaced by the
enclosure of land by the lords, who worked their fields using paid employee
labour, while tenants paid rent and tilled their own plots. Wages rose steeply
and the feudal system that had kept tenants tied to their own manors eventually
became obsolete. The commutation of labour services, in loosening the economic bonds
between landlord and tenant, also widened the social and personal distance
between them. Lords became less involved with the lives of their tenants and
also less inclined to dole out charity and benefits. Over the next two
centuries, although philanthropic lords still existed, they became more interested
in grand public initiatives such as founding schools, and the burden of caring
for the social inadequates and unfortunates fell more and more upon charitable
enterprises such as the monasteries. This caused the latter to put less
emphasis on their original raison d’ĂȘtre of prayer, and more on their
secondary purpose of social welfare. So much did the country come to depend on
this aspect of monastic life that when Henry VIII decided to close religious houses
and plunder their assets, it became necessary to set up a system of poor relief
to replace it.
Greater wealth and independence for free
tenants led to a blurring of social status. Statutes in 1349 and later that
tried to keep the ‘lower orders’ in their place were ignored and over time
could not be enforced, as the economic power of the landlords withered. Although
the social and political power of the lordly class remained, society became
more mobile. At the same time, the peasants became less content with the social
and economic status quo. The Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 was, in part, a symptom
of this – among the rebels’ demands was the end of serfdom.
As well as the social and economic effects
of the Black Death, it seems (not surprisingly) that there were psychological
effects. Even in an era when death from infectious diseases was common, and
infant and child mortality high, the shock of the massive death toll – perhaps 50%
of the English population, varying from one place to another so that in some a
mere 25% may have perished, in others whole villages were abandoned, and there was another serious outbreak in 1361 which killed many children and young people who had not yet been born in 1349 – had a
profound effect on popular religiosity, and on the emotional lives of those who
survived. The cult of the Virgin Mary, already in decline by this period, was
replaced by a cult of death – famous images such as ‘the Three Dead and the
Three Living’ owed their power to this emotional trauma, which may have been
related to what we would call today ‘survivor guilt’. On the other extreme, a
kind of hedonism prevailed among those who prospered after the first and most
devastating waves of the plague had passed . Fine clothes and extravagant fashions became popular among the upper
echelons of society, and the wealthier peasants aped these, much to displeasure
of the ruling class.
The changes went deeper: far from making
society more moral in an attempt to ward off more divine wrath, the general
failure of the Church and its rituals to protect those who had relied on them
seems to have led to more lawlessness, as though ordinary folk were no longer fully
convinced that their actions would meet with divine vengeance either in this
world or the next. Proto-Protestant movements such as the Lollards in England,
who followed and developed the teachings of John Wyclif (who was a young
student at Oxford at the time of the Black Death), were in part a reaction to
the perceived failure of the old teachings and in part an attempt to make better
theological sense of the world. These movements, though suppressed at the time,
were part of wider questioning of the old ways which eventually led to the
Reformation.
All these changes took time, and were in
some respects already happening before the Black Death. For example, over the
half-century before 1348 many peasants had become free in all but name as customary
work obligations were replaced by money rents, and on many manors this suited
both parties. Similarly, social mobility had always existed via the Church,
which educated poor boys to become priests and clerks, giving them
opportunities they would otherwise have lacked. But other changes in social
relationships made this fluidity easier. The Black Death’s demographic impact
merely accelerated the change. But the faster the change, the less likely it is
to be assimilated easily, and the more likely it is to cause other changes that
are less easy to predict.
It remains to be seen what social and
economic changes the pandemic of 2020/21 will bring. We have not and probably
will not face a death toll above 1% if as much (as I write this it is well
below that figure, around 0.15%), as medical science has gone into overdrive,
thanks to the dedicated work of researchers and practitioners. Vaccines and
improved treatments are already lowering death rates, though viruses (unlike Y
pestis, whose form remains relatively stable over centuries) can mutate and
challenge those medical developments further. But in an age where death tolls as
well as birth rates are much lower than they were in the medieval period, the
death toll (and the media coverage of the pandemic) seems just as horrific. The
idea that 1 in every 1000 people in the United States has died this year of Covid-19
is shocking – as it should be. Emotional and mental trauma has clearly resulted
for many people, and some will not recover easily from it, particularly where
loved ones have been among those who died.
Socially, people have learned to look after
each other in communities and to be aware of each other’s needs in a new or at
least radically different way, and this may (though it is not certain) change
the way communities work in the future. There is greater appreciation (again, at
least in the short term) for those termed ‘key workers’, not only the obvious
categories of NHS and care workers operating in the front line of the pandemic,
but also the delivery drivers, local shopkeepers, posties, and many others who
have kept the country going. So far this has not translated into higher wages
for many of the low-paid employees in these industries, perhaps because, in the
UK at least, the economic strain of the pandemic, with furlough and other
support for business and the after-effects of Brexit threaten to leave a
deep recession that will not allow for anyone to be paid more and will probably
mean many people’s livelihoods will be reduced or lost altogether. But there is nevertheless a greater awareness of the importance of such key workers.
On the commercial front, we have seen
enormous increases in the amount of online shopping, a much safer option than
braving the shopping malls even when the latter have been open for business.
Even quite small retailers have found ways to sell over the internet, and many
people will prefer to do business this way even when Covid-19 is a crisis of
the past. Many people have had to give up commuting and a large proportion of employees have enjoyed it and do not want to return to previous ways of
working. At the same time, working from home has meant local everyday shopping
has become more important. Our big town and city centres may therefore no
longer be the hub of economic activity they once were, and it is possible –
some commentators would say preferable - that at least part of the unused
capacity will be turned over to residential housing, reviving local businesses
in a different way. We have also learned to use - and value - other internet services such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams, for both social and business purposes. Many of those who are 'shielding' would have been infinitely more isolated without, and working from home would not have been such a readily feasible option.
Lastly, but perhaps most importantly, lockdowns
(particularly in the first wave) have convinced many people that the
environment not only should be protected and rescued from human depredations,
but that it can be – there is still time to reduce all kinds of pollution and increase
the number of trees, for example. Reports that people in northern India could
see the Himalayas for the first time in decades suggest tangible
experiences that have the potential to inform public opinion and priorities. In
countries such as the UK where lockdowns have forced individuals to focus on
the natural world (outside) as their only form of escape from the tedium of
restricted social contact and activity (inside), appreciation of the parks and open
spaces of our towns and cities, and the access to open countryside enjoyed by
many rural dwellers has soared. Pressure on the housing market in rural areas
has indicated that many people – at least those who are able to – have decided
to opt for working from home in a much less urban situation than before, though
this may turn out to be a mixed blessing for the rural environment!
The comparisons I’ve been making between
the Black Death and the Covid-19 pandemic are real, but should not be pushed
too far. There are many contrasts, too, and as yet we have no way of knowing which
of the possible social, economic and environmental changes will actually emerge
from it. The survivors of 1348/49 had only the vaguest imaginings of the vast transformation
that moved societies from the medieval into the early modern period. These
things are only seen clearly with the benefit of historical hindsight. Their
changes came about mainly as a result of demographic catastrophe, and ours will
not. But changes there will be. Watch this space.