Labor Shortage After the Black Death

Name: Labor Shortage After the Black Death
Start: 1351
End: 1360

Type Event Region Europe Time 1351–1360

After the Black Death swept Europe in 1347–1352, the population fell by a third to a half, and severe shortages of agricultural and artisan labor app…

Timeline

1348–1353England · EnglandRepeated outbreaks of the Black Death caused England's population to plummet; much farmland went unworked, and manor lords were forced to lower rents or replace labor service with cash rents, loosening traditional feudal bonds.
1351–1358Western Europe · Western EuropeLabor scarcity drove sharp increases in daily wages and in-kind pay; serfs and hired workers moved between manors to choose employment, refusing pre-plague low wages and forced labor, and the nobility and landowners generally felt the economic order slipping from their control.
1355–1360France · FranceIn France and elsewhere manor lords gradually replaced personal dependence with cash tenancy, giving tenants greater freedom to migrate and bargain. The labor shortage became an important economic backdrop to social unrest such as the 1358 Jacquerie in France.

Sources

The Black Death: An Economic History — Philip Ziegler (2009)