Black Death, Western Europe: The Economic and Social Changes that Arose

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DATE \@ "d MMMM yyyy" 1 March 2013
Black Death, Western Europe: The Economic and Social Changes that Arose
In late 1347 to 1353 Europe experienced the worst demographic disaster in history. It has become widely referred and known by historians as The Black Death. The disease started out in Italy and spread like a whirl wind across Europe to the Scandinavian region to what is currently Russia. The plague, as most historians have come to refer it as, killed more between 18 million and 28 million people, and returned several times during the century leaving the anxious populations in confusion and despair for many years. The gruesome symptoms of this disease have for years left scientists and historians alike in a fixture of imagination. Even though there`s growing understanding of the effects of The Black Death plague, several scholars are still striving to uncover the disease`s, social, cultural, and economic as a watershed in history still remain a work in progress.
This disaster affected all aspects of life at the time. With the populace rapidly decreasing and shortage of labor already looming therefore already affecting the lives of the rural communities in a very disastrous way since, there would no longer be a steady supply of resources as a result of lowered wages and output in local industries. The arts and religions also affected by psychological morbidity. It is said that in Churches, there was a shortage of personnel who were educated to take the position of clergymen. This greatly reduced the vigor of intellectualism of the religious institutions.
In just 4 years the plague had carved a death path across Italy, France, Asia, Spain, North Africa, and Normandy then making its way to the Swiss Alps and proceeding to into Hungary. After a short period of hibernation the plague came back full-throttle sweeping its way into Norway, Iceland, Denmark, and Sweden and going farther north into Greenland. This is to mean, in other words, that this plague touched the entire world as it was known then.
Due to so much death in such a short time, the economic situation was ripped apart since there were no laborers in the farms and the cost of production went up therefor sending wages soaring. The land value plummeted as a ripple effect and, interestingly, landlords and tenants, in a rare historical situation could bargain at the same table. The scales were tilted against we...