158 : The Atlantic 



Death that swept over Europe in the middle of the fourteenth cen- 

 tury. It hit England in the years 1348 and 1349 and the records of the 

 effects and results of the plague are reasonably clear. It is estimated 

 that the city of London alone lost as many as 100,000 people. The loss 

 over the whole of England is estimated by some authorities to have 

 been as little as one-third of the population but others feel that it 

 might have been as high as one-half. 



Naturally this produced extraordinary changes in the economy of 

 the country. At first the landholders and lords of the manors seemed 

 to benefit. They collected certain sums on the deaths of their tenants 

 and other sums accrued to them from the new tenants and also land 

 reverted to them where whole families were wiped out; but these 

 were temporary effects. It soon became apparent that the lands were 

 less valuable because there were fewer people to utilize them. Also 

 the revenues from the operation of mills for the grinding of grain, 

 the payments of rents and so forth, rapidly fell off. In many cases 

 stewards reported that tracts of land had little or no value because 

 the tenants were all dead. 



One of the most far-reaching results was to change the economic 

 condition of tenants and laborers. The land had not been affected — 

 only the population. There was the same demand for labor and a 

 greatly diminished supply. The laborers and the poorer classes were 

 not slow to recognize this situation and began demanding higher 

 wages and a better return on what they produced. In the next cen- 

 tury, on at least fourteen occasions, statutes were passed designed to 

 prevent workmen from making what were regarded as exorbitant 

 demands for wages. Thus, one of the results of the plague was un- 

 doubtedly to improve the living and economic condition of the sur- 

 vivors, particularly of the poorer section of the community. In addi- 

 tion to this there was per capita more land to cultivate, better hous- 

 ing and other accommodations and a better supply of food all around. 



What happened in England was repeated or even exceeded in other 

 parts of Europe: Venice lost 100,000 people, Florence, 60,000, Paris, 

 50,000. Authorities seem to agree that in such cities the losses in only 

 three or four months ran as high as one-half of the previous popu' 

 lation. It is supposed that Italy lost at least one-half of its population 

 and France about one-third. Some areas did not suffer so severely 

 but the total loss for Europe ran to no less than 25,000,000 people in 

 a few months which represented approximately one-fourth of the 

 people of the entire continent. It took several centuries for Europe to 

 regain the population that it had in the middle of the fourteenth 



