Economic And Social Consequences Of The Black Death Essay

Economic and Social Consequences of the Black Death
The Black Death was no modest disease it swept all over Europe during the dark ages , had immense and annihilating effects and is in fact one of the most disastrous and destructive pandemics in human history. It rapidly spread through Medieval Europe during 1347-1351 killing more than one third of the population. In the midst of Italy’s overpopulated cities 50 to 60 percent of the population died while villages were completely swept of their people in England and Germany (Spielvogel World History and Geography 248-249). The Black did not only bring the tragedy of killing millions but it also came with many consequences such as economic inflation and extreme social distinction ("Social and Economic Effects of the Plague").After the intense shock of the Black Death, Europe’s economically declined, its internal affair were instable and its social systems

The goods that were being imported after the Black Death were extremely overpriced but since the population size dropped the demand for food was lower therefore decreasing the prices of food (Spielvogel World History and Geography). It was challenging and unhygienic to exchange goods through trade or produce them thus the prices of imported goods shot up. To add more to the goods crisis, large amounts of farms and villages stopped producing goods simply because most of the people who lived there died. Since huge amounts of free land was left behind, people stopped paying their rent assuming that is was acceptable thus causing tax rates to decline. Financial businesses were deeply affected and destroyed because machines being used to build things were broken or abandoned and no one remained to fix them. Subsequently death and illness caused labor to be extremely rare to find so wages rose rapidly thus living standards were raised ("The Black Death - Economic