The Black Death 1346-1353: The Complete History

The roots of the early modern period, which included the Italian and Northern Renaissances, are grounded in the High Middle Ages. The Black Death played an important role in this transition.

For example, the changes the Black Death wrought “were reflected in the rise of a capitalist class of proto-industrial entrepreneurs, of the proto-industrial proletariat and of the salaried classes of clerks and office workers […] the ‘birth’ of class society in its Early Modern form” (388). This transition began long before the 1300s. It is rooted in the High Middle Ages and continued into the late medieval period with the development of new universities and primary and secondary institutions of learning that were needed to create an educated class of workers for emerging states.

Massive population decline due to the Black Death caused a fall in the cost of living; for example, grain prices that previously soared now dropped. Commoners who had been unable to find work now had choice and demanded higher wages. Elites competed for their labor. Those who survived the pandemic enjoyed some social mobility, and the post-plague years were a “golden age” for laborers. Wages for those who worked in the building trade, for example, were the same in 15th-century England as they were at the time of World War I.